My Husband Watches P*rn. Is It My Fault?

Okay, so I'm not exactly that excited about recording this, but there's a reason why this has become necessary, and that's because this is a call that I receive fairly frequently. And I figured that if so many people have this issue, maybe it'll be helpful to just put it out there on a public forum where people can find it when they need it and let the algorithm do its magic in getting it to the people who need to see it. And the the topic is women, specifically women, who will reach out and say that either they believe sometimes they'll say they believe their husband has an addiction to pornography, or sometimes they won't use the word addiction, but they'll just say that he is watching pornography and um that it's an issue. But either way, whether that they call it an addiction or that it's just something that they're not they're not comfortable with, um I wanted to address this. Now, I want to give a major disclaimer before anything. And that is I'm a rabbi. I'm not a mental health professional. I do speak about issues that I suppose many people would consider to be within the domain of mental health, but I just want to be very clear about my credentials, what they are and what they are not. Um, I do speak a lot about I I don't speak often about it, but I in I have in the past spoken a lot about addiction recovery. I just want to make it clear I'm not coming from a perspective of being an addiction counselor. I am coming from a spiritual perspective as a rabbi who counsels people and uh I hear all types of things. anything anything that happens within the human experience I end up hearing about and trying to respond to in a compassionate way and hopefully a productive way. So that's the disclaimer. you know, if uh if you're interested in a rabbitic perspective from a rabbi who has had this conversation in real life hundreds of times, um here's your opportunity to have that conversation without having to find my phone number and get a hold of me. There you go. So, uh the first thing I want to tell you is like this. No, it's not your fault. In fact, it has nothing to do with you. I know the argument is made by many people that well if he were fulfilled he wouldn't look elsewhere. People make that argument with some measure of indignance. Actually uh many men make this argument with some measure of indignance to imply that the the women force their wives their husbands uh like almost like you gave me no choice but to um to do this. That's not a legitimate argument. Adults have agency. They make their own choices. A person who has uh a moral code that they live by can make choices, even difficult choices, even painfully difficult choices, to not indulge in things, to refrain from things. And uh when someone doesn't make that choice, rather makes the opposite choice, it's not because somebody else forced them to do it or or made it too hard for them to make the right choice. It's absolutely preposterous. Now, I want to add to that and tell you, I don't even have to add that add to that because I think everyone knows that an adult has agency. And from a moral and philosophical perspective, human beings have free will. Okay? So, no, nobody could force you. To me, it's it's as it holds as much water as saying, well, you know, this woman bothered her husband so much. He she forced him to hit her, right? He same to me, it's about as legitimate as an argument, which is zero that legitimate. Zero legitimacy. Okay. But that that's that's the first thing I'll say. But now I want to add to that and say the following. I don't have any statistics. I I told you before I'm not a mental health professional and I don't even particularly read up on this subject. So, it's not like I have studies that I'm quoting from. I'm speaking purely anecdotally, but I I have I think more experience than most people. So, for whatever it's worth, take it with a grain of salt. My personal anecdotal, albeit anecdotal experience with um these situations, my experience has been that many many times, in fact, I'd say the the vast majority of times the wife has been more than accommodating in the intimate area of the marriage. It is not a case where she is denying him and um depriving him but to the contrary where she has made herself available to him to such an extent where an an objective third party meaning me who's catching a glimpse of what's going on would say her behavior toward herself self in the intimate relationship lacks boundaries and self-respect. Meaning to say she is going out of her way, bending over backwards to accommodate. And and and accommodate might might sound like a passive aggressive term. So let me just make it clear. We're talking about people, women who by any rational, objective, logical criteria, you would say their husbands should be very satisfied to say the least in this area of the marriage. And the fact, so my point is to bring out the fact that these husbands are looking elsewhere is not because they're being deprived. They're not being deprived. To the contrary, I would actually flip it and say it's not that the husband was deprived and therefore his going to pornography. But to the contrary, flip it because the husband is into pornography which causes male brain to objectify women. So he's treating her in in a dehumanizing way. He is emotionally and physically um just vampirizing her in in a very parasitic way, very dehumanizing way, just trying to extract as much physical pleasure out of her as he possibly can. And and and and she's used up. And and again, this is anecdotal, but I'm just telling you in the majority of cases, and you're going to say, "Well, you heard her side of the story. you heard her side of the story. That's true. Yes. But I'm also taking into account where I heard his side of the story and I put together both sides of the story. And it's a it's this is the typical scenario where unfortunately for reasons that have nothing to do with her, he has fallen into a trap and that trap is is forcing him to be deprived not by her but by himself. He's depriving himself of the ability to be satisfied in his intimate relationship. So, that's the first thing that I would make very, very clear. If you are the wife in this situation, the odds are, and I'm not saying there aren't exceptions. There may be exceptions, but the odds are, in my personal experience, um, this has nothing to do with you and you've done more than your fair share. Okay, that's the the typical scenario. Now, the question becomes like, what's the way forward here? like now what what do you do? Does this have to end a relationship? And and the answer is no. Obviously, it doesn't. I don't know if it's obvious, but I'm a very strong proponent of keeping marriages together even when it entails going through severe challenges and working through that, working past it. No, it does not have to end a marriage. The question though is from your side. if you're the wife, like what's your what's your move now? Here's what I'll tell you. Let's let's go to the scenario where a woman is convinced that it's an addiction. She uses this word addiction and she's insistent that her husband gets help. And very often, by the way, the call that I'll get is the wife will be saying, "My husband needs to come to you for some type of treatment, which just to be clear, I do not provide any type of addiction treatment. I provide spiritual support to addicts in recovery sometimes as a nonvocational thing. Okay. But what happens is you know people know that I wrote a book on recovery and so I have sort of a reputation being you know adjacent to that to that world. And so a woman will say my husband has to come to you for you know for help. I'll say but I don't first of all I don't offer that kind of help. Second of all why isn't he calling me? Why isn't he calling me? Like here's what I want to tell you. It is not your responsibility if you are the intimate partner of the person who you think has an addiction specifically in this area. Let's say a pornography addiction, sex addiction, whatever it is. Not only is it not your responsibility to be the one who gets them help, but it's so counterproductive. It is so counterproductive. Don't worry about how they're going to find help. He's a big boy. He's got Google. He he knows people he can ask. He'll find whatever help he needs to find or not. But you're um setting an assignment for him, you know, giving him like a checklist. Not only is it not facilitating healing to the to to be totally frank in my experience that sort of cat-and- mouse game of like I caught you now I'm going to oversee your correcting of the situation and it becomes it becomes I call it a cat-and- mouse game because it is it is a game and it becomes this like preoccupation where I guess in some ways I understand it's like a woman feels this sense of betrayal which is incredibly destabilizing like it's like your whole life that you thought you had suddenly is like the rug is pulled out from under you and then you're trying to get some feeling of control back and so very often the feeling of control or the attempt to get some feeling of control back is like okay I'm going to outline for him a program or a a an agenda or a regimen. This is how he's gonna get better. He's gonna that itself becomes such a a toxic dysfunctional preoccupation that is so it's just not it's not conducive to healing a relationship. It's not conducive to any type of responsible adult intimate relationship. My advice is like this. You want to know you're the wife in the situation. Okay. What should I do? What should I do? What should I do? What should you do? Have your own standards and boundaries. Don't worry about his standards and boundaries. Whether he's going to get help or he's not going to get help or if he's going to ever watch porn again or if he's not going to watch again or he's going to get a filter on his phone or he's going to get rid of his his smartphone. You don't worry about it. That's not your problem. To take back your power, your agency, your sense of emotional autonomy. By emotional autonomy, what I mean is, and this is to me the most important thing, your ability to be sane and serene and have your own life, even if he is acting in ways that are completely offthe-wall. Okay? Your path is for you to figure out what your standards are, what you're okay with, what you feel safe with, and what you don't feel safe with, and make some decisions based on that. Like, what are you okay with? What can you live with? But can't you live with? So instead of trying to like force him into a certain way of getting better, let go of that and say, you know, that's between him and God if you're a spiritual person. And I highly recommend if you're in a situation like this that you should either um become a spiritual person or even if you're already a spiritual person to double down on your spirituality to say that's between him and God. And as for me, you know, I'm the wife talking here. I have to look more deeply into my own sense of what kind of life I'm okay with and to make some decisions. You know, a boundary is never about what the other person needs to do. That's an ultimatum. And and quite frankly, if I'm talking to you right now, and if you've made it this far into this video, let me ask you a question. Did ultimatums ever work? Right? Did threats ever work? Did manipulation work? Did sweet talking work? Did being tough work? Did being sweet work? Right? You tried everything. You tried everything. You're exhausted. Okay. So now, congratulations. You get to let go and say, "I'm not here to govern your behavior. You're an adult. Do whatever you want to do. I'm not here to govern your behavior." When I make a boundary, a boundary isn't what your behavior has to be. No. No. To the country. The exact opposite. A boundary. When I set a boundary, a boundary is a statement, a clear unambiguous statement about what my behavior is going to be. So, for instance, it it sounds like like a semantic difference, and it's but it's not. It it it's completely different and it the experience of it feels different. Completely different. If I say to you, you are never to watch pornography again, that's not a boundary. that that that's a that's an ultimatum, a threat, whatever. Cuz I'm talking to you about your behavior, but flip it and let me say if you watch porn again, I mean, I don't know if you will. I can't I'm not I'm not going to try to catch you. I'm not spying on you, but if I become aware of it, um my boundary is whatever. And then fill in the blank. And and if it's something so severe as I will then not feel comfortable being in this marriage. Okay. I mean, God forbid, I don't like when people rush to the end of a marriage. I I I try to encourage people to do everything to save a marriage. But if that's your boundary and that's what you need to do to feel safe and to feel that you have integrity, then that's your boundary. But again, that's your boundary, meaning you're communicating clearly what your behaviors are going to be based on your standards. And when you can do that, you start to take back your self-respect, which again, you know, the main injury here is, you know, that that that betrayal wound really does damage to your self-respect. And all those compromises that you probably were making in terms of your own boundaries, your own autonomy, you start to take that back by having clear boundaries about what you are okay with, what you're not okay with. And and that to me is the most important most important aspect of your healing is to examine the ways in which you may have given away your own emotional autonomy, your own ability to make decisions for yourself about what you're okay with, what you're not okay with, and and to sort of like put your life on hold in some way. You know, that's a very common feeling that people will have. you know, I'm putting my life on hold until this person, till this other person starts to act normal again. And my greatest hope would be that you don't do that. You don't put your life on hold. That you reclaim your dignity and your sense of emotional autonomy, irrespective of what this other person chooses to do, even though this person is very close to you and your lives are interconnected in in serious ways because because it's your your spouse. Th those are the basics. Basic basic basics. I would also encourage you that if you do believe that it's an add an addiction, then you know you know if you're pushing so hard for him to have a program of recovery, like I told you before, that's not really something that's going to be healthy for you to focus on too much, whether he gets help or he doesn't get help. But what I highly recommend is that you get help, that you pursue a pro a program of recovery. Um I'm not here to endorse particular um programs but I I'll just mention that you know people know a lot about like 12step programs for addicts like let's say alcoholics anonymous what people don't know so much about is the corresponding program for the friends and families of alcoholics like Alanon and so too you know there's essay Sexholics Anonymous and there's other 12step programs that deal with sex addiction as well that's just a well-known one that's why I'm mentioning it but then there's which is for the friends and family of uh members of of well they don't have truth is to be a member of ESN it doesn't have to be that your qualifier meaning your spouse is a member of uh essay maybe they should be a me a member of essay but whether they are in a program of recovery or not you can be in a program of recovery and and I and I understand that not everybody um resonates with 12 steps and you know I'm not telling you have to do that I'm just saying that the the main concern here is that a bomb just went off in your in your in your face and you are reeling and you're just trying to get stable again. You're trying to feel normal again. And I'm saying that in many many cases the path back is going to be to learn to focus on yourself. um take back your self-respect, your dignity, um your sense of personhood, and that that very often is a is a powerfully spiritual path. And that in 12step programs like Essinon, the aforementioned Essinon, that's a really great way for that to happen. Or or you'll find other ways. There are many many ways to recover, many ways to um to heal, but that's just one that I've seen people have a lot of success with. At any rate, um I I hope that whatever you're going through will that you will find clarity and resolution quickly. I don't know if it's necessarily the kind of clarity that you want. Sometimes we get clarity and it's not the outcome that we wanted. But just in general, I think clarity is better than the lack of clarity. And um I wish you God's blessings of uh knowing what the right thing is for you at this moment and having the the power and the conviction to uh carry that out, whatever that might be. Hey there, I hope you're enjoying this content. We are amazingly, thank God, we are reaching 10 million people a month across all platforms, changing lives, bringing wisdom, clarity, and light to people all over the world. Uh it takes a lot of work to make this happen. We are in the middle of our annual fundraising campaign. If you would like to partner with us in changing lives, if what we've given you has given value to you and you'd like to share that value with others, please consider making any donation, even a dollar. It just shows that you're a partner, that you want to be part of this. Thank you so much. Blessings to you and yours.