The following article is based on the course Rebuilding Trust in Marriage Through Boundaries. You can access this and other great content in the free Victory app.
In situations where a marriage has been affected by pornography use, it’s common for one person to feel responsible for the healing process, while the other doesn’t take enough responsibility. This dynamic can lead to resentment, self-centeredness, and controlling behaviors. For example, a husband might blame his porn use on his wife’s physical appearance or lower desire for sex, and a wife might start micromanaging and punishing every mistake. Both of these attitudes are unhealthy for the relationship.
To avoid or correct this issue in your own marriage, establishing boundaries is crucial. Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend define boundaries as personal property lines that separate what’s your responsibility (feelings, attitudes, choices, and behaviors) from what’s your spouse’s responsibility. Boundaries provide a framework for your husband to take responsibility for his own healing journey and give you the space to focus on your healing, which is equally important for the marriage’s recovery.
Trusting your husband again should not be forced but should come naturally as he follows the boundaries set during the recovery process. Trust rebuilding takes time and should be based on his behaviors and commitment to change.
Setting boundaries is a starting point, and as your marriage progresses and trust is rebuilt, these boundaries can evolve. Regular discussions with your husband and a counselor are encouraged to ensure the boundaries remain effective.
The main goals of boundaries are not to turn into your spouse’s parole officer or to seek revenge. Instead, they serve to:
- Rebuild trust.
- Provide space for your healing.
- Offer concrete goals and standards for his recovery.
In the initial stages of crisis, demanding obedience might be necessary, but demanding obedience in the long term can sabotage trust rebuilding. Trust should be based on genuine care and commitment, not just following orders.
Here are three important boundaries to consider for rebuilding trust in your marriage.
Sexual Boundaries
Sexual boundaries are an essential aspect of recovery. During the early stages of healing, most counselors recommend a period of intentional sexual abstinence lasting 45-90 days. This abstinence has several benefits, including preventing sex from being used as a weapon, allowing time to observe his commitment to rebuilding intimacy, and helping him detox from porn’s impact.
Encourage your husband to pursue intimacy in non-sexual ways during this period. Focus on rebuilding emotional connection and romantic gestures, such as buying flowers or helping with chores. Sexual abstinence should not be seen as a punishment but as an opportunity to refocus on the emotional aspects of your relationship.
Rebuilding intimacy can also be facilitated through daily check-ins using the FANOS model, which covers feelings, affirmation, needs, owning actions, sobriety, and spiritual growth.
The timing to resume sexual intimacy varies, but it’s generally recommended to have at least 45 days of abstinence, with a true reboot possibly taking 90 days or longer. The decision to resume intimacy should be based on your readiness and trust in your husband’s commitment to recovery. If he continues to violate boundaries or threatens your progress, you may need to extend the abstinence period.
Physical Boundaries
Physical boundaries are crucial during the emotional volatility that often accompanies recovery. These boundaries aim to provide space for both partners to heal and avoid conflict escalation. If your safety is at risk, you should not tolerate physical or sexual violence and should seek help from appropriate authorities.
Common physical boundaries include:
- Exiting volatile situations: Remove yourself when conflicts become heated.
- Physical separation: Request personal space and time away to think and heal.
- Third-party mediation: Involve a trusted third party when communication becomes difficult.
- Financial and technological transparency: Request access to his phone, bank statements, email accounts, and credit card statements.
- Full disclosure: Consider guided therapeutic disclosure by a professional counselor to ensure honesty and openness.
- Recovery support: Encourage your husband to seek counseling, support groups, or accountability groups.
- Check-ins and transparency: Ask your husband about his recovery progress.
- Avoiding triggers and temptations: Request that he avoid situations that may lead to temptation.
Additionally, it’s important to encourage your husband to explore positive hobbies during the recovery process.
Accountability Boundaries
Accountability boundaries aim to hold your husband responsible for his actions and help build trust. Accountability is not about policing but about fostering openness and honesty. Common accountability measures include:
- Accountability software: Use monitoring software to track his online activity.
- Financial and technological transparency: Request access to his financial and technological accounts.
- Full disclosure: Consider guided therapeutic disclosure for complete honesty.
- Recovery support: Encourage him to seek counseling or join a support group.
- Check-ins and transparency: Discuss his recovery progress and triggers.
It’s crucial to emphasize that boundaries are not about revenge or policing but about providing structure and space for healing and rebuilding trust.
Personal action items may involve seeking personal counseling for emotional healing, along with creating a plan for different scenarios based on your husband’s response to recovery efforts. If he earnestly seeks help, you can commit to working on the relationship together. If he refuses help, you must follow through with consequences when boundaries are crossed.
Boundaries are essential in healing a marriage affected by pornography use. Boundaries create a framework for both partners to take responsibility for their healing, rebuild trust, and foster a healthier relationship. It’s important to focus on fostering trust, emotional connection, and open communication throughout the recovery process.
I believe and want to obey God’s commands in 1 Cor 7:5 and Colossians 3:18, and want to obey my husband and give him everything he asks within the limits of what is right in God’s eyes. My husband has been open with me about his addiction and it’s effects on him, and I appreciate this and want to love him and be used by the Lord to help him, and certainly not to cause him to be tempted further by doing a poor job of my responsibilities in marriage.
Two questions I have:
He has tried but no longer believes it is possible to quit. Any stressor triggers it again. He is not interested in help and is devastated when I go to anyone for help saying I have shamed him and hurt him by this. I know the shame is so unbearable to him thst I feel like it is making it harder for him to do right, and I don’t want to hurt him like that. However, I’m struggling completely alone and he’s not working on his problem.
I don’t believe I have grounds for divorce since I am not aware of any actual relationship he has had, and so after 5 years I’ve accepted his actions and stopped even asking him to quit. He won’t, and there is nothing I can do about it. So I have to just live with it.
He says he is turning to these things because I am not giving him enough. I do believe I have a responsibility to fulfill his needs to the best if my ability in order to help him overcome the temptation for fornication (1 Cor 7:2). He is extremely frustrated by my lack of engagement and affection and intimacy. Our relationship is so bad that he acknowledges plainly that the only reason he stays with me is because God forbids divorce, and I don’t say so because such comments are hurtful, but I feel that way too. I would like to work on our marriage for both of our sakes, because I believe God commands wives to love their husbands, and it’s not love to just LET our marriage die to the point that he leaves with someone else. I know how essential sexual intimacy is to a man’s relationship, so I know I need to work on providing better for him in this area. However, I am struggling desperately with this.
We are sleeping separately by necessity because we have three babies who barely sleep at night and he’s in school and can’t lose too much sleep. I try to come spend some time with him after I put the kids to bed but it’s usually very shortlived since the kids start waking up around 11pm. I know this isn’t good for our marriage. This is not his fault that he’s not feeling fulfilled.
The thing I am struggling with is how to connect with him intimately at all, because of how his porn is affecting me. I know he’s watched incest, and he’s admitted that that excites him. He accuses me in great detail of committing such sins with family members which infuriates me because I hate to even think such disgusting thoughts and NEVER would have allowed ANY such thing. (It didn’t help that my dad ended up confessing to trying to touch a young girl who is my cousin; that COMPLETELY shocked my whole family; that gave my husband fodder to make even more accusations against me, which he believes are reality. My disgust and anger about this has definitely hurt our relationship from the beginning. For the first year if our marriage he wanted to talk about this continually every time we were intimate, and wanted me to talk about what I would do if other family members tried to touch me, etc. I grew up committed to purity and this kind of filth made me so angry that I would scream and fight. He stopped talking about it so explicitly during sex after about two years, probably because I had such meltdowns. But next it moved to asking me to have a threesome, and insisting that I was defrauding him by not agreeing to that. I tried to be respectful and even understanding but refused. He argued and begged me to consider that until I was having screaming meltdowns about that too. He let it go (that was almost a year ago). I’ve had a couple of babies in quick succession and he’s distanced himself saying he was concerned for my pregnancies. But he’s told me openly that he is attracted to other girls at school. Our marriage feels like not a marriage at all. He is complaining that I am not interested and engaged and that my lack of excitement with him is making him want other girls. I can’t deny that I’m very closed and not eager for intimacy, and I see his point and feel guilty. But the only way I can cope with intimacy at all is by just being numb and neutral. I honestly hate being touched because it feels so dirty after all the things he’s talked about. He’s not talking during intimacy anymore because I just fall to pieces when he talks like that, but he still watches those things and has told me he never has relations with me without thinking about my dad being involved. Knowing that elicits a visceral feeling of repulsion, and I don’t know how to do my responsibility as a wife without being completely blank and empty and fake at best, and miserable otherwise.
I’ve accepted life as it is a long time ago and don’t expect or require anything from the relationship. My only desire and goal is to do what is right according to God’s commands. But I’m struggling to know where to turn at this point since he won’t get help or stop what he’s watching, and I’m getting so disgusted by it that my feelings are overpoweringly diffucult to overcome. Yet I don’t believe I have a Scripturally justified reason to leave, since my life is not in danger.
My main question is, how do I continue to do what is right, not just technically, but right from the standpoint of loving and not causing a stumblingblock to his soul, and fulfilling all my responsibilities as a wife no matter how well he’s doing his or not? In all other matters – serving him, obeying him, speaking respectfully to him, assisting him, I feel like it’s possible to do right in all these areas no matter what he’s doing. But in the matter of physical touch I’m baffled as to how to show love in this way since the feelings of touch are extremely emotionally charged. At this point I’m finding myself unintentionally avoiding him as much as possible. He is wrong, I know. But I don’t want anyone to be able to say I was wrong too and contributed to his temptation in any way. What is my responsibility, whether it’s hard or not?
Thank you for reaching out. I’m sorry to hear about your painful and difficult situation. I would recommend you seek out qualified Christian counseling from someone you both respect. In Matthew 5:28 Jesus says that looking with lust is adultery of the heart. This means that watching porn is a form of unfaithfulness, so it is normal that you feel upset and hurt by it. It also has serious implications for your marriage.
In answer to the first question: quitting porn is possible for anyone, but only if they are willing to take responsibility and do what it takes. You can’t quit porn for your husband. You cannot control him by simply changing what you do or don’t do. However, you can establish healthy boundaries that will help encourage him to do the right thing. Even if he is unwilling to get involved with counseling, you can still seek it out for yourself.
That leads to the second question, and why I mention healthy boundaries. There are some deep problems here that aren’t going to be resolved unless he is willing to get help. Check out our ebook, Porn and Your Husband, for more detailed help and suggestions.
I’m praying for you right now!
Keith