It is certainly no secret that a man’s use of pornography has a tremendous impact on his wife. Just the fact that he finds pleasure in looking at other women validates any negative feelings she may have about herself. Men find tremendous pleasure in viewing women either online or magazines who have perfect bodies, perfect smiles, and don’t talk back. These women seem to always be available for his pleasure and convenience. Pornography, just like drug and alcohol abuse, is a very selfish game that he hopes she will never discover.
The problem is she will.
At first the pornography acts a s stimulant for the man toward his wife. But soon the brain over stimulates. As the man consumes more pornography, the demand becomes greater and greater. Eventually, his wife is not enough and pornographic images take over as the means of sexual stimulation and consumption. Slowly, the sexual relationship suffers as he ignores his wife’s intimate needs in favor of the “false intimacy” of pornography. The consequences to her can be damaging beyond repair.
Sexual intimacy is both an emotional and physical event for men and women. However, for the man the balance is tipped more toward the physical and for the woman it is tipped more toward the emotional. When the man decides to forego real intimacy in favor of false intimacy it puts tremendous emotional distress on the woman. We tend to emphasize the man’s need for sexual satisfaction and what happens when his needs are not met. But what about the wife? Here is the typical downward spiral for the wife as her husband consumes pornography.
Insecurity: her emotional distress initially appears as a lack of confidence in herself. Her deepest fears are validated. I’m not enough or I’m not attractive. She may not even know yet that her husband is viewing pornography, but the lack of intimate attention from her husband is enough to trigger her insecurities. The lack of attention she receives from her husband will worsen her thoughts and feelings about herself and her own confidence and even impacts her work and friendships.
Anger: Eventually, the wife will try to play the aggressor in the sexual relationship with no or little response from her husband. For a woman, even if she is not “in the mood” she can still meet her husband’s sexual needs. However, this is not always the case for the man. His lack of sexual responsiveness to her will eventually turn to anger in his wife.
Foolishness: As the husband continues to meet his needs through pornography and the more she is rejected, her anger soon turns to feeling foolish. Repeated rejection by her husband is wearing on her. Now thoughts of divorce are entering her head. The emotional toll is getting to be more than she can bear.
Failure: Soon the wife suggests that their marriage needs help, but the husband does not want to be “found out.” He refuses. She counsels with friends or maybe her pastor. Pornography is suggested as the cause of the problem. It makes sense to her, but she doesn’t want to believe it. The more she thinks and reads about it, the clearer it becomes. How can I compete with these women? The feeling of failure soon sets in.
Betrayal: Finally, she confronts her husband. The truth comes out after his attempts to cover it up. He delivers his excuses, but they do not work. The wife feels betrayed as if she has been replaced. Her husband no longer finds satisfaction in her, but in someone else. While this is not physical adultery (yet) anything that replaces your wife is still unfaithfulness.
Distrust: This is the death nail to marriage. When one spouse can no longer trust the other, the damage can be irreversible. Remember, this is much more of an emotional issue for the wife than the husband. The husband typically sees his actions as a way of meeting physical needs. For the wife, this is an emotional hurricane and she will interpret her husband’s unfaithfulness through her eyes and not his. The husband may commit to getting help, but for many, it is too late. Emotional distress takes years to overcome, and so many times the husband is unwilling to endure the time it takes to rebuild the trust, therefore he returns to the very thing that is destroying the marriage.
For many men, the pornography problem begins many years before marriage and even keeps them from getting married because no woman measures up to the erotic images he experiences alone in the privacy of his home. No relationship effort is necessary with pornographic images and the man is always in control. Eventually, these men find themselves searching for greater and greater levels of excitement that can’t be found online or in magazines and they fall into sexual predatory actions and even molestation. Pornography is a dangerous drug that destroys both the married and single man. If you need help, get it and get it now. It will destroy your wife.