Mimi: I had the advantage of knowing the struggle my husband, Matt, had with masturbation and pornography before we even dated. After two years of a college friendship, one night we opened up to each other and shared our histories and struggles. We started dating soon after that, and most of the time we dated, we didn’t talk about his fight with porn again.
So, while I was surprised when he told me years later that he still struggled to stop watching pornography, it didn’t catch me totally off guard. Because of my own struggle with a different addiction—to food—I was able to be compassionate and forgiving toward Matt.
For much of my life, my “drug” of choice was food. I have a personal experience of wishing I could stop a behavior and finding it tremendously hard to do so. Leading up to our engagement, I could accept that he made it two weeks, fell, then three weeks, fell, then a month, fell, then a week, fell, etc. Matt said that I set the expectation for better but never judged him. I found solace in Matt’s efforts and progress, even during the times he took a step back.
Matt: In December 2012, I proposed to Mimi. By this time, I was in the upswing of ridding my life of masturbation. Almost two years before, I had learned that watching enough pornography can lead to erectile dysfunction. Combined with finally accepting God as my first love and wanting to be the best version of myself for my future bride, I was motivated enough to drop pornography from my life for six months. But still, the addiction of masturbation lingered, and after those six months, the porn returned. Until we started our pre-Cana marriage prep meetings with our priest the following January, I figured the addiction would be a part of my life forever.
Mimi: I remember during our first pre-Cana meeting, our priest started with one daunting question: “How are you with forgiveness?” Shocked by the bluntness of his question, I replied, “Pretty good.” I then proceeded to give some background of my family history. “But, of course,” I concluded, “I know it’s kind of a continual choice to forgive. Because it still hurts sometimes, so I still have to choose to forgive. And that’s just a cross I’ll have to bear.”
I thought I was being wise and was surprised by his response. “No, it doesn’t work like that. It shouldn’t hurt forever. Think of a scar you have from an injury,” he said. “It’s a mark left on you from that wound, but if you scratch it, it doesn’t hurt anymore, right? And if you scratch it and it still hurts, we would say that the injury still hasn’t healed.”
“Okay . . .”
“So when you talk about your family member, and that it still hurts sometimes, that means the wound isn’t fully healed. But it can be healed, and when it is, it won’t hurt anymore.”
“Are you saying that this struggle, this wound, that I’ve had for my entire life, and have basically dealt with except for maybe just a tiny bit, can go away?”
“Yes. And before you get married.”
It was hard to believe him. But still, I was in marriage prep, and I knew I wanted to bring as little baggage as possible into our union. So I figured that even if I could get the hurt from two percent to one percent, it was worth the effort.
Matt: The priest focused on Mimi and encouraged her to confront the wounds of her past. He told me I needed to “get in the trenches with her.” For the first time in our relationship, I began to pray for her intentions in a deep way, holding her hand as she dealt with her healing. We would go to the monthly healing Masses at our church, and I would pray hard for her, sometimes next to her as our priest prayed over her. It was during these times I felt most like her protector, forcing me to be the best version of myself.
My spiritual armor couldn’t protect both of us if there were chinks in it. I started going to daily Mass as often as I could, confession a couple times a month, and began falling in love with Jesus again. If I knew I was going to see her the next day, it motivated me to stay clear of the sin of masturbation, because I wanted to be untainted, clean, and strong during this time she needed me most. And in fighting for her, masturbation and pornography left my life, and I went weeks, then months, free from both leading up to the day of our marriage.
Mimi: After going to a professional Catholic counselor and attending Masses with healing prayers at our parish, I found that our priest was right. I believed, trusted, and surrendered to the love and healing power of our Lord through the ministry of the priesthood. And if you had scratched my family scar on my wedding day, I would have confidently told you that it didn’t hurt anymore. I had learned how to forgive in a way I hadn’t thought possible.
By the time our wedding day arrived, my experience of forgiving brought a lot of peace to my heart. I was still feeling some lingering effects of my food addiction, but it was essentially under control. Matt had been free from pornography and masturbation for more than two months before our big day and had been an incredible source of strength for me in our marriage preparation journey. Therefore, I entered into our spiritual and physical marriage covenant feeling great about how far we both had come and confident that the graces of marriage would take us further into freedom.
Matt: Being free leading up to our marriage was amazing. What I didn’t anticipate was that I had to keep fighting impurity even after our wedding. I was dealing with some monumental stresses: a new place to live, a new job, and a new lifelong roommate called a wife. We were also making love, which had awakened a part of my male psyche that I had shut down for months. Working from home gave me a lot of unstructured time, which led me to a lot of undisciplined habits. Then, only a couple weeks after our honeymoon, I succumbed to watching porn.
I felt embarrassed and guilty. I’m pretty sure I fell after we had made love the night before. “How could this happen?” I wondered. I went to confession that day, but when she got home, she could tell something was different about my demeanor. I knew I couldn’t keep this from her if I tried. I sat her down, got down on my knees, and told her what happened that day.
Mimi: The moment Matt confessed to me, everything I knew about addiction, and specifically about pornography, went flying out the window. It was easy for me to understand and forgive before marriage, recalling the struggle with my own addiction. But that was before we had a sexual relationship.
Now it didn’t make any sense.
The first thing that came to my mind was not his struggle or insecurity but mine. “Those women are skinnier and prettier than me. My body is fat and ugly, and that’s why he doesn’t like it.” I recognized these lies that I had spent many years redirecting. I combated these thoughts with my usual positive messages, though the doubts didn’t go away easily.
For the first time in all the years I had known about Matt’s use of pornography, I cried. I didn’t want to make things worse between us, but in my heart I knew I had to be honest about how I felt. My healing before marriage gave me strength to stand up for myself, so I did not hold anything back. I told him I didn’t want to have this conversation ever again, raising the bar to where he was, to what he was finally ready for: total freedom from pornography and not looking back. In addition to my continuing to pray for him, he asked if we could fast together, and it started off as simply giving up chocolate for a month.
After accepting his apology and forgiving him, I had to let it go. To continue to dwell on the doubts would have been an offense to his apology and an impediment to my genuine forgiveness. It would allow his one transgression to continue to affect our marriage because I gave in to the lies about myself. His actions were not due to something I lacked.
Matt: Mimi’s forgiving love was saint-like for me. There I was, feeling like I didn’t deserve to be loved anymore; but she eventually opened her arms again to me. It was like Jesus loving me, not because of what I do or don’t do but for being who I am—including my sins. It humbled me.
And yet I fell again two months later, and continued to fall every two or three months after that for almost a year. We would go through the same process: I would feel awful, she would break down, we would pray and consider what else we could do to fast and pray and take more preventive measures.
Falling over and over came with a cost. Each time I fell, it affected our love life. It was hard at times for Mimi to give fully of herself when she couldn’t trust me. Like a saint, however, she would eventually forgive me each time, choose to trust again, and we would move on. She raised the bar higher and higher, and I would go longer and longer between falls.
Mimi: In the months following our wedding, I continued to work through the traces and aftereffects of my food addiction. On one retreat, after being prayed over by a priest in front of the Blessed Sacrament, I felt a huge burden lifted through the healing of my heart and mind regarding the addiction and the wound it caused to my self-esteem. By the grace of God, for the first time in my life, I felt peace regarding my eating habits and body. The healing of this wound made it easier for me to accept truth and choose forgiveness in those sporadic times that Matt fell.
The healing of my wound meant accepting how much our Lord loves me, how much he delights in my beauty. To him, I am supremely lovable. His love and affection as my God and creator of my soul meant more to me than any earthly feeling, including the love of my husband.
Because of this, I was able to be more honest with Matt about the hurt and disappointment I felt when he fell. Through healing, I allowed the light of the Lord to transform me so that I was more like Christ. In being more like him, I was better able to forgive. It was still a letdown each time Matt fell, but I kept loving him, forgiving him, and expecting him to never fall again.
Matt: Mimi’s willingness to love me throughout my falls was a game changer in our marriage. It was this love, when she could have judged me instead, that motivated me most to stay pure. Then, almost a year into our marriage, Mimi went on a four-day pilgrimage to Mexico with some women from our parish. It was during this time, when she was off having a powerful spiritual experience, that I fell multiple times to porn and masturbation.
This was the lowest of lows for me. Though it’s not an excuse, there’s something to the fact that the devil was not happy with what was going on in Mexico, and so he picked on me. I felt so guilty when I fell the first time. I just wanted for things to be right again. But, knowing there were more days before she came home, I fell into the temptation of bingeing. The lie in my head was, “Well, she’s going to be disappointed with your one fall, you might as well get all the falls in now before she gets back.” On the contrary, it was the number of times I fell that actually upset her the most. I felt so ashamed. How could I do this to her?
When she returned from Mexico, she was ready to be intimate with me but could tell something was off. She was hurt and broken and angry to find out what I had done while she was gone.
Mimi: Yet again, a new series of angry questions and thoughts came to my head. “Why doesn’t he just stop? I keep forgiving him, and he keeps messing up. Maybe I should play tough and deny both forgiveness and sex until he proves he’s over this.” But in my heart, I knew that wasn’t the answer. Only love has the power to overcome any addiction, any sin. He had treated me poorly. It wasn’t fair that it put me in such emotional and spiritual turmoil—but I knew I had to forgive him anyway.
Forgiveness is a choice, a deeply Christian choice, to let go of anger toward one who hurt you. Prior to all my spiritual healing experiences, I would have thought forgiveness was neither appropriate nor possible. Now in word and in spirit, I was capable of forgiving.
But I was still unsure of the appropriate action. Distrust had been put between us, and I wanted our bond restored. At the same time, I wasn’t sure I was ready to give fully of myself and fully welcome him back. While undue anger or revenge wasn’t the answer, I needed to be honest with my words and body.
After more prayer and time, I was ready to be open again sexually. But it made me wonder, “How will I feel if he falls again? It’s more frustrating every time. Will I ever reach a point where I am unable to forgive?”
Matt: After the Mexico fiasco, Mimi drew it out of me that this addiction could ruin our marriage. It was a wakeup call that motivated me to swallow my pride and take drastic action. I installed pornography-filtering software on my laptop and phone and recommitted to praying a daily rosary.
Mimi’s unwavering standards and loving forgiveness have helped me tremendously in this fight against the addiction. As many times as I have fallen, not once has she gone easy on me. She always expected me to get back up and never fall again. Her desire to love and be loved melted me, and my motivation has never been fear of her wrath but the desire not to disappoint someone I love. Her consistent choice to love, and her expectation of me to be the man God is calling me to be, have propelled me to another level of freedom.
Because Mimi was able to go through her own healing, she has been able to show me that she is a woman worth fighting for, because she is loved by God and knows it. Her Christ-like love in forgiving was part of what made her so beautiful—a beauty I wanted to uphold, protect, and preserve.
Looking back, I realize that the act of sanctifying my wife sanctifies me.
The more she fashions her heart and being after Mother Mary, the more she becomes a woman in Christ’s image and likeness, the more evident it is to me how important it is for me to protect and preserve that beauty. If I forget this, if I ever take my eyes off God, it will be no surprise if I fall again.
This idea was clear to me during our engagement, when the finish line of a wedding was very real. In marriage, I’ve had to learn that fighting for her is a daily choice, and though the end of the battle may not be imminent, it doesn’t mean she needs me to fight any less. By the grace of God, the act of masturbation to porn has left our marriage, and the key to staying on this path is the clearest it has ever been.
Mimi: In our story, I’ve found that addiction recovery is a long process. What I’ve learned from my own addiction is that the strength to run the last yard of a hundred yards to win the victory of being fully healed requires something other than myself. It requires the intense, beautiful, scary, eternal love of Christ. Only Christ can heal the wounds and bring light to the dark places of my soul that not even my husband can reach. In Matt’s addiction, I know he needs the same thing.
I can’t condone Matt’s use of pornography in light of the negative ways it affects our relationship. Yet I know that an angry, bitter, resentful, and unforgiving heart is not going to help him heal. I know I can’t judge but have to keep loving him and expecting the best from him. I know I have to believe that this was the last time, that he will not fall again. I know that all of this is possible only if I pray and sacrifice that I may take on the forgiving heart of Christ.
The key to my healing from the hurt Matt’s pornography addiction caused was the wholeness of my soul. I had to go back to the past and deal with forgiving a family member. I had to heal from my food addiction and poor body image. It was only through restoration and accepting Christ’s immense love for me that I had the courage to accept the truth of our situation and be honest with Matt. It was only through learning how to forgive my family member and myself that I could authentically forgive my husband.
Learning how to forgive allowed me to use love to help Matt break his addiction and ultimately ignite in him the desire to be the man, husband, and eventual father God is calling him to be. It is with these keys that I know that peace, freedom, and purity are possible for both of us.
Editor’s note: This article is excerpted from a chapter of Restored: True Stories of Love and Trust After Porn, edited by Matt and Cameron Fradd (Catholic Answers Press, 2015).