My first thong was white with purple stripes and an upside down monkey on the front. I was 13, and my best friend and I bought them from Aeropostale without our parents knowing. I hand-washed the monkey thong in my bathroom sink for two years until one day I accidentally tossed it in the hamper with the rest of my dirty laundry. 

“What’s this dental floss?” my dad asked one day, pinching the string between his fingers. He did the laundry at our house. I flushed with embarrassment, but he threw it in the washing machine with the rest of the load and never mentioned it again.

I wore thongs for another decade, but stopped five years ago after a series of trips to a marriage counselor’s office. It was there I realized I didn’t care about whether my ass looked smooth in a tight dress. Since I can’t compete with Victoria’s Secret models, I’d much rather feel comfortable. 

“Has anyone ever told you this is an addiction?” the counselor asked my husband during one of our sessions.

My husband looked at him and shook his head. No, no one had ever used that word. That word is used for people hooked on alcohol or heroin. Not pornography. When you’re a Christian with a porn problem, you’re supposed to pray it away. Have more sex with your spouse. And don’t admit to it.

“Your brain has been altered. You get a high. That’s why it’s so hard to fight,” the counselor told him. “It sounds like you’ve been addicted since you were a child.”

My husband stared at the floor. We sat side by side on a brown leather couch, but there was a gap between us. Our knees pointed away from each other—mine toward the door, his toward the wall. In that moment, I wanted to scream, “I’m done!”

I’m done feeling like I’m not pretty enough, or not good enough in bed, or not discerning enough to know what’s been happening behind my back. I’m done wondering what he’s looking at on his phone while I fall asleep at night. I’m done hearing the words he wants me to hear, like “I’m fine” or “it’s not a problem right now,” and discovering months later my gut was right. I’m done sharing the truth of my marriage with others, opening my soul to them, and receiving rejection through their silence or guilt-inducing advice. I’m done. 

But instead, I stay silent. And later, I remember our last vacation hiking amongst towering redwoods, holding hands and dreaming together. I think of our children dancing around the living room while my husband plays guitar and leads us in song, the only one in our family who can hit all the notes. I remind myself of his constant presence by my side in my own transgressions. 

So I stay silent, and I stay. We make weekly trips to the counselor’s office and my husband joins his version of an AA group. 

It’s a cycle. Months or years of secrecy and betrayal, a come-to-Jesus moment, followed by months or years of honesty and healing. Every time my scars begin to fade, I receive a fresh wound, ripping open the newly repaired skin. It’s like being married to two people—my husband, who is my best friend and confidant, and the addict driven by fear and shame who will do anything to get his fix and cover his tracks. I didn’t know about his dual identities when we married. I didn’t know his world got wrecked when he was a child, and I didn’t know the consequences would haunt us twenty years later.

Some people question why I stay. They only see the addict, not the man who loves Jesus and brings me pints of Ben & Jerry’s ‘Tonight Dough’ and rubs my achy feet at night. They don’t see the war raging between the two versions of this man.

Other people think I should stay and pretend it’s not happening. This is not the same as adultery, I’ve heard, along with “most men have a porn habit.” Everyone’s addicted to something, they say. But these people don’t see the distrust and division pornography brings into our marriage. 

I do have a limit. There is a line that cannot be crossed, a point of no return. I have a list of things I can’t handle, things I can’t recover from. And I know there is a way out if I ever need to go. But I pray the day will never come when I need to walk away. 

In dark moments I’ve imagined what life would be like if I left. I’ve envisioned shuttling our children back and forth between separate houses. I’ve made secret plans of how I would support myself, and how I would tell my parents the news. In this dark imaginary world, I’d never marry again, because I wouldn’t stop loving him. Leaving wouldn’t heal my heart, only protect it from more pain.

My husband and I have always been unified in protecting our children from this mess. We are hyper-aware of the ways they can be exposed to pornography and shield them the best we can. We will have hard conversations with them much sooner than I’d like, but it’s better coming from us than from their peers. And one day, my husband will share his own struggle with them. He’ll rip away the pretty illusion porn offers with the truth of the very real destruction it brings. They’ll understand why Mom was the keeper of the passwords for the TV and the computer, and why I always insist their friends come to our house.

Over and over I ask myself: How do I let my three boys fly off into the world when the world desecrates human bodies? And why do so many Christians silently follow along? How do I trust God with my children when I’ve trusted Him with my husband, only to be left disappointed time and time again?

Sometimes when I’m trying to be lighthearted, I joke we could live in the Arctic, away from everyone. “No TVs or phones, living in an igloo, always covered from head to toe to keep warm!” Even in playful moments, I still try to figure out how best to protect my children from the brokenness of the world. 

But I know isolation won’t help. An addict is not fueled by the substance they’re addicted to. The root is much deeper—something unseen is broken inside them, and they need to fill the void in order to mask their pain.

And anyway, hiding at home isn’t any better. 

My husband had been sober for two years when the world shut down. As schools closed their doors and offices sent employees home, the support groups and churches stopped gathering. We huddled in our homes waiting for things to go back to normal, but they never did. And recovering addicts everywhere turned back to their old ways while their spouses watched in horror. The covid death toll extends far beyond the virus.

He told me he was fine. I’m imagining things, I told myself. I’m paranoid because of the past. But one day he came to me, his golden-brown eyes full of despair, and I knew. 

“We need to talk,” he said.

Is this going to be it? Is he about to tell me something I can’t handle? 

He tells me how he’s really doing, and I can take what he’s saying. I’ve had ten years of what he’s telling me. I’ve spent ten years begging Jesus to take this struggle away from my husband. 

“I hate this—I hate this part of me. You don’t deserve this,” he sobs.

Today, I’m Jesus in-the-flesh, loving and forgiving and reminding my broken husband of who he really is.

Tomorrow my humanness will kick in. I will lie in bed all day, curled in the fetal position, wondering if I can endure this pain any longer. 

The author published this anonymously in an effort to share her story with honest vulnerability, while also honoring her husband and protecting her marriage. She hopes her words encourage readers to be a safe space for the women who are walking through their own painful stories, and hopes the women who relate to her story will be comforted in knowing they are not alone.

Photo by Jennifer Floyd.