Guest post by blogger – Robi Smith of Hopefulwifetoday.com

It was three and a half years ago that I discovered my husband was addicted to pornography. I had been looking through his phone when I stumbled upon deleted still screens of images from porn websites. It came to me as a total shock. My husband had meticulously deleted all traces of his addiction for ten years. I never even knew he had a problem with lust. This crisis in our marriage set forth many months of difficulties.

My husband was opening up to someone for the first time ever in his life. Since I now knew that he had real struggles, he had to tell me about his life. Because he was such a hidden person, I felt like I was just getting to know him. How could I have been married to someone for ten years and never really known him?

At the same time, I was deeply struggling with my faith in God. I had never been more devastated in my life. I was living a happy, satisfying life as a stay-at-home mom. I was raising my kids and loving my husband. Then I felt the shock and sorrow of knowing that my husband continuously looked at other women.

He later confessed that he had been unfaithful to me in other ways. He had inappropriate relationships with women at work. He had private text messages and chats with multiple women, sometimes meeting with them. There were many confessions that just added to the ugly mess our marriage had become.

Instead of being the two people in love that we had always been, we were becoming two people that hated each other and argued constantly. There was just so much hurt in our relationship. It seemed impossible to ever restore our marriage.

Then, I decided I didn’t want our life to be like this. I didn’t want to argue every day. I didn’t want to hate each other. And, I didn’t want to end up divorced. We loved our children so much.

We both loved God and wanted to follow Him. We knew somewhere there was the love we had for each other also. My husband was repenting to God. He was actively changing his life around. We had too much together to just let it all go over past hidden sins. Yes, the sins hurt our marriage deeply. Those painful times will be there forever. But, we couldn’t let go of the plans God had for the rest of our lives.

[Tweet “After this decision, we started to fight for our marriage. “]

The enemy hits us hard, so we had to make plans for our restoration. God showed us that the most important thing to do was to pray, read the Bible, and talk every single day. We have been doing this for over two years. We use this time to read scripture and pray over our marriage. We also talk about our days and the struggles we’re facing. This is the time that we can connect spiritually and emotionally.

We started making many other changes in our marriage. We set up boundaries so that this sin wouldn’t come back into our home again. We each drew close to God. I learned to lean on God like never before.

God’s words filled my heart and have true meaning each day of my life. I relied on God completely to help me through this difficult time. God showed me how important my marriage was. It turned out nothing like I planned. It was an awful crisis that I wouldn’t have imagined. But, God used it to bring two empty, hidden people close to Him and close to each other. I placed my trust in God and He was faithful.

[Tweet “God is faithful even when our spouses are not! #RuntoGod”]

Other great articles by Robi are – Rebuilding Sexual Intimacy after Porn Usage, Breaking the Addiction, and Anger: An Ugly Mess.

Robi Smith is a wife and mother to four wonderful children. She has been married for thirteen years. Robi has a Master of Counseling in Counseling Psychology and is the founder of Hopeful Wife Today. She aims to bring hope and healing to hurting wives from their husband’s pornography use and unfaithfulness. She is continuing to see God’s restoring power every day in her life and in her own marriage.

[Tweet “Bloggers, come join Wedded Wed Linkup with guest, Robi Smith!”]

Help us to brainstorm! What are some boundaries that you think might be important for someone trapped by porn addiction?

What words of encouragement would you like to offer Robi for being so brave and vulnerable about this heartache in marriage?

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