Let’s begin with an explanation of how pornography affects a person. Porn strongly appeals to our natural tendency to lust and to idolize sex. It gives the viewer a temporary surge of sexual pleasure, fantasy and control that functions like a drug. People, men especially are easily drawn into addictive patterns with porn, and become slaves to sexual lust. After a person repeatedly fills their eyes and mind with porn, they become callused to its evil nature.
The spiritual aspect of sex addiction involves powerful evil spirits that work to destroy marriages and families. The spiritual evil behind porn is revealed in the “fruits” it grows, including lust, selfishness, anger, irritability, lying, denial, numbness, lack of communication, emotional withdraw, sexual anorexia, frigidity, coarse jesting (sexual innuendo), divorce, sexual abuse, incest, emotional abuse, physical abuse and financial troubles. I think people will recognize that these fruits come from Satan.
There is hope, however, as God is reversing the devil’s work and delivering people from the snare of sex addiction! We believe that breaking porn addiction is a healing process more than anything else. God is the healer and with Him all things are possible.
What you can do to help your spouse
Don’t condemn the person: Condemnation seldom accomplishes anything more than causing the addict to become defensive, destructive and angry. It could very well make him/her even worse off than before you tried to help them.
Show them love: God wants us to show his love to our spouse. Love may be the last thing you feel like showing your spouse right now. We’re not suggesting you make yourself a doormat and allow your spouse to continue to violate your marriage with his or her porn activities. We encourage you to adopt a “tough love” approach with your husband. Tough love involves setting clear boundaries for his behavior at home and consequences for breaking them. Dr. James Dobson wrote a book called “Love Must Be Tough” that is a great resource to review.
Seek God: If you are not walking closely with the Lord right now, we encourage you to press in and seek Him with all your heart. Your relationship with God is your lifeline. God will give you the strength to weather the storms ahead, and to love your spouse with Christ’s love. Loving a sex addict often requires supernatural love and forgiveness.
Prepare for spiritual warfare: Don’t expect the devil to be happy about your decision to fight for your marriage and your spouse. Expect resistance. If you are doing spiritual warfare from a strong relationship with God, you’ll be able to stay afloat emotionally and be effective in joining God in helping your spouse break this addiction. Learn about the spiritual weapons you have as a Christian and use them to resist the devil.
Pray for your spouse: Persistent, fervent prayer yields results! Here are some suggested aspects to pray about:
- Pray for God’s protection, love and healing to fill your spouse.
- Salvation (does he/she know Jesus Christ?)
- Freedom from deception (person may not feel porn is bad)
- Emotional healing from past abuses done to your spouse (incest, rape, trauma, etc..)
- Plead the blood of Jesus Christ over your spouse for protection from further spiritual attacks
- Plead the blood of Jesus Christ over your spouse’s thoughts and memories of porn
- Bind the activity of evil spirits in your spouse, marriage and home (see binding prayers)
- Sexual healing of the marriage
- Restoration of love in the marriage
- For the Holy Spirit to convict of sin, righteousness and judgment
- Protection over you and your spouse from the evil one (see protection prayers)
- That God will create a pure heart in your spouse and renew a steadfast spirit in them (Psalm 51)
- Pray over rooms of your home, the computer and any other media conveying the porn. Ask God to sanctify them. Anoint them with olive oil in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, dedicating them to good use and not to evil use.
- Visit our prayer page for additional prayers
Break secrecy: Sex addiction likes to stay in the dark. People don’t like to talk about the evil that has invaded their lives. Breaking secrecy helps dispel the fear that the devil uses to keep this destruction protected. Once the evil is brought into the light, it can be dealt with more effectively. Ask God to show you to what degree you should break secrecy.
Ask others to pray: This can be part of breaking secrecy – the more prayer the better!
Join (or start) a support group for spouses of sex addicts (…see support groups and ministries)
Talk to your pastor or a trusted Christian counselor: You are going to need all the help you can get! If your pastor is unable to help you, then seek sources who can. (…see suggested ministries)
Don’t believe the enemy’s lies. If you let him, Satan will drag you down into depression, despair, suicidal thoughts, low self-esteem and rejection. One of the devil’s favorite lies is to suggest that your spouse’s addiction is your fault. It’s not your fault! It is sin that he/she has decided to engage in through their own free will. You may recognize these other common lies the devil uses:
“You’re not good enough in bed for him”
“If you act out what he’s seeing in porn, he’ll be happy”
“If you just looked a little better, he’d give up his porn”
“He doesn’t really love you, if he did, he wouldn’t be lying to you”
“He’ll never get free”
“Your marriage is finished! Leave now while you still can!”
“You’ll never be able to trust him again”
Don’t buy those lies for one second. Rebuke Satan in the name of Jesus Christ, and invite God to work in your husband’s life every time you get attacked by the enemy. This is an effective tactic that will frustrate the enemy’s attacks.
Don’t visit the porn sites that your spouse is visiting. Porn opens the door of your mind to all kinds of evil. It’s like jumping in the lake to save a drowning person when you don’t know how to swim. We’ve heard from many spouses who looked at porn to see what was so exciting about it for their mate. Their minds became polluted with perversion as well.
Don’t lose hope! God will help you get through this difficult time. Remember the words of the psalmist: “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13 NKJV). (…more hope verses)