4 lies about porn (I believed) until my wife discovered my secret and I learned the truth

What I’m about to share is very uncomfortable to talk about, but I’m stepping way outside my comfort zone to do it so that I can help as many people and strengthen as many marriages as possible.

I’ve read that as many as 95% of all teens will view explicit pornography (either accidentally or on purpose) at least once before they graduate from high school. I fit into those statistics.  As a teenager, I looked at porn and felt guilty about it.  I’d go through a vicious cycle of secretly looking at it and then feeling guilty and hating myself and staying away by sheer will power for as long as I could but then returning to it again. This continued through college. Sometimes there were long stints in between my “relapses” which gave me the false sense of security in believing I had overcome it, but I learned over and over again that I had not overcome it.

Eventually, I bought into the myth that once I got married, it would cure itself, because having a beautiful wife (which I do) would automatically remove the temptation of wanting to look at anyone else, but the secret and shameful cycle continued even after I married the love of my life the week after graduating college. She found the evidence on our home computer and she was heartbroken. I had shattered her trust and I felt hopelessly ashamed.

As painful as it was to have my secret out in the open, it was what had to happen to start the healing process. I only wish I would have had the courage to confess before getting caught. Regardless, getting caught was a gift from God because once the lies are dragged out into the light, even though it hurts at first, it’s the first step towards healing.

That was a decade ago, and thankfully, God and my wife both showed me a lot of grace which has helped me break free. It took trusting God and putting safeguards and accountabilities in place to retrain my thinking, and today, I’m so thankful to be living without that secret shame and constant temptation eating away at me.

Porn is having a HUGE impact people and specifically on marriages. Some people view it as pure evil while others view it as harmless entertainment and even a helpful aid in “spicing up” things in your sex life. I definitely don’t claim be an expert, but I want to briefly share my own story and a few insights that I’ve learned along the way.

Below are four of the most damaging lies related to porn. The more we view it, the more we believe these lies and sabotage ourselves and our marriages:

The end of this post contains a very detailed, visual display of porn statistics courtesy of our friends at XXXchurch.com

Lie #1: Porn doesn’t hurt anybody.

The truth is that it will hurt you and and also harm your present and future relationships. In the Bible, Jesus said, “To look at a woman lustfully is to commit adultery with her in your heart” (Matthew 5:28), so porn, by its very nature, is an act of infidelity.

Click CONTINUE for more!