XXX Struggles

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Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Naked Marriage podcast where we undress the truth about sex, intimacy and lifelong love. We are Dave and Ashley Willis. So excited to have you here. Quick plug a quick announcement before we dive in. Our new book, the Naked Marriage, titled the same thing as the podcast, just to keep it Easy to remember, is available for pre order. And when you pre order it, you get instant access to two of our most popular conference videos, plus an instant access to a download of our book, the Naked Truth About Sex. So you can find the Naked Marriage book for pre order on Amazon or the site Naked Marriage book dot com.

That's right. In this episode, we're going to talk about something that affects millions of people. It is a huge issue in marriage, but it's also extremely controversial. So please tune in.

Today's topic is, I think maybe the biggest, the biggest single issue impacting marriages today of everything. I might put it at number one on the list of negative impact on marriage right now. And a lot of people argue with us every time we talk about it. Cause it's controversial even to say this is wrong. But we wanna have an honest conversation today about the issue of pornography and how porn will devastate your mind, your heart and your marriage. And don't tune out if you're like, no, porn is good. Porn is instructional. Porn is something that spices things up in our marriage. It's. And I know some of you think that way. In fact, a lot of you probably think that way. But just with an open mind, I encourage you to listen along with us. Join the conversation for the next 30 minutes or so because we believe. And we believe a lot of research backs this up. We believe the Bible certainly backs this up. That porn is poison for your mind and it will destroy. It's an enemy of intimacy in your marriage.

It is. And we're not talking about this as people who are kind of looking down on those who've dealt with this. We're talking about this as people who've been through this.

Right? Yeah.

And this is a part of our story. It's very personal in Nature. And we understand that. And for many of you, you may be going through this. One spouse may be actually engaging in a regular porn habit, but they've never really talked about it with their spouse. And this may be really uncomfortable for you, but I really want to go there because I know that for us, this was an issue early on in our marriage. And really, we weren't able to have the kind of marriage that we have today when this was going on. And so until it was actually brought to light, that's when we could deal with it. And what I'm talking about, and I'll just go ahead and dive in and share. Part of our story is, you know, probably in the first couple years of our marriage, I can't even remember when this actually happened. We've been married almost 18 years, so I can't believe it.

You only look 18 now. So, like, how is this possible?

He's very. It's not the truth, but I like it.

It's very sweet.

So very. You know, pretty early on in our marriage, I just knew something was off. I felt like something was off. I couldn't quite, like with Dave, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. And I think when we know something's off, sometimes we're like, well, life is busy, and we have busy jobs and we have busy this and that. And so I didn't really address it, but one day I was in our house in our basement, and we. Just to give you kind of a little perspective here, Dave and I liked in the early years of our marriage to flip homes. And this was before flipping was a thing. I know we just enjoyed doing that.

We should have gotten our own HGTV show. We could have been on the front end of this whole thing.

Oh, goodness. We loved it, but we did not have a lot of money, so we bought, like, the house that we could afford. And it was a HUD home, which means it was literally ready for the wrecking ball. And so we got this house with a little money that we had, and we were just excited to have a home. And it was drafty, and it was yucky. And so we fixed up this house. Well, one thing with this house is it was a hundred years old, and it had this dingy basement that, like, you would never finish. It was just dingy. And you would just kind of put stuff down there for storage, but you would. It literally looked like it was out of a horror film or something. And so for some reason, in this house, the best hookup for the computer, like the best. It had been wired in the basement. And I guess somebody had had a business there or something. And so we had our computer down there and I needed to work on something. And so I go down to the computer, I turn it on, I go to the Internet, and all of a sudden I see this nasty porn site. And I'm like, what in the world? So I go to the search history and I see descriptions of even nastier porn sites, and I'm just like, oh, my gosh. And my first thought that comes to my mind was, what creeper broke into our house, our 100-year-old, drafty home, and went to our basement.

I know I should have.

And got on these porn sites.

Oh, and I was the creeper, all right. It was me. And when she found it, I was so. I was heartbroken and relieved all at the same time, because I'd kind of been living, living this lie. And it had started years before. I was One of the 95% of American teenagers who were exposed to pornography before they turn 18 years old. That's a real stat. We've done tons of research on this. A few quick places you can check out fightthenewdrug.org, fight the new drug. You Google that. It's just a research based place that's talking about how porn really has the impact on your brain of a drug addiction, a heroin addiction. It does the same things to your mind. Some great resources there. Xxxchurch.com xxxchurch.com There are other places as well where you can get good stats. But 19 out of 20 kids see porn before the age of 18.

Whether they're both stats. This is boys and girls.

And now no matter what you're doing to protect your kid, I mean, you can live in a bubble and homeschool them and never let them out. It just takes one kid with one smartphone somewhere saying, hey, look at this. And all of a sudden there are images placed in our minds. And when we're growing up, it's like there's wet cement in our minds and heart and the impressions that are made there, especially as they relate to sex. Those impressions form our worldview and our thought process as it relates to sex and sexuality. And so I had those early impressions, and it just kind of put me on a path of really an addiction. And it was something I tried to fight in my own strength a lot because I recognized it was wrong. I knew Jesus had taught, to look at a woman with lust is to commit adultery in your heart. But yet I found myself Going back over and over again, just like a drug addict, to get that high, you know, to get that temporary rush. And it really was desensitizing me to the sacred and spiritual aspect of sex and reducing it to just the physical aspect, the physical release of this terrible cycle of porn and masturbation. Porn and masturbation. And there are millions of people, men and women, but especially men that are. That are caught up in this, and a growing number of women. It's certainly not a gender specific issue. Anybody can have these issues, but, man, it just gripped me and it completely imprisoned me. And most of the guys that I was around, especially in college, were doing the same thing, like the porn DVDs or just kind of make the rounds or the magazines or whatever. Now with smartphones, it's even, of course, more accessible than ever. And I would go long periods without it, staying away by sheer willpower. But then I would always fall back into it. And when we got married, I'd been sort of clean for a while and I felt like I'm cured. I don't need to confess this. I don't need to tell Ashley. This has been part of my struggle. And I believe the lie that once I'm married, I'm never going to be tempted again. Which of course was a huge lie. And about a year into our marriage, this temptation came out of nowhere and I fell back into the same pit of sin now, feeling all kinds of guilt and shame and wanting to cover it up because I just was terrified that Ashley would find out. But even as I was in it, I could feel myself being pulled away from her because of this dark pit that I'd fallen into that was rewiring my brain as it related to sex and causing me to just think disgusting thoughts throughout the day, causing me to objectify other women that I would see. Looking at all women as objects, the more you get into pornography and really causing a disconnect in the marriage. And so I experienced all that, just what it can do. And thankfully, when Ashley found it, it started a journey of kind of healing and really a form of sobriety, staying away from porn. I kind of liken it to its own form of sobriety, of just kind of having to stay away and be clean from it. But for those of you out there who are listening, and maybe you're a spouse of a spouse who's caught up in porn, maybe you're caught up in it yourself, maybe you're some of the millions that don't think anything's wrong with it, and you're still rolling your eyes. Think, man, these people are from the dark ages because porn is just entertainment. What do they think? We want to talk to all of you specifically about how your life and your marriage will be better without porn.

Not to make light. When I thought it was a creeper going into our basement, getting on porn sites, I. Very quickly. It was like I felt God just revealing to me something that I really did want to know. I wanted to know why things were off in our marriage. And it was like in that moment, I realized very quickly, you know, this is Dave. And we hold our spouses on such a pedestal, and it's hard sometimes to realize what's going on. And I just realized, you know, it's Dave who's looking at this. Dave is the one who looked at these websites. And I felt hurt, and I felt angry and I felt confused, and, I mean, just a whole host of emotions. And I knew that I had to address this with him or it would. You know, I can't just act like it's not happening. You know, in marriage, whenever there is an issue that comes to light, whether your spouse has come out with it or not or you find it, you need to go to them immediately. And I knew I needed to address this with Dave. And so it happened to be during the workday I called him at work, and I just. Like, he answered. He said, hello, or, hey, sweetie. And I immediately. The only thing I could say that I could utter up was, do you have something to tell me? And he immediately, out of all the things that I could do.

And, guys, listen, if your wife ever calls you and just says, do you have something to tell me? Just start confessing, like, everything you've ever done. In third grade, I stole a candy bar in fourth grade. I mean, she knows, just get it all out. You'll feel better. But she.

But you knew.

I knew.

And it was almost like you wanted. Like, I think he had been wanting to tell me for a long time, but he didn't really, at that point, have the willpower. And he came out with it immediately and just said, I'm so sorry. And he said, I know it's wrong. I'm so sorry you had to find it like this. I wanna do whatever I can to stop doing this and to regain your trust. And, you know, I have a lot of ladies. Whenever I share this, at conferences or in some of our blogs, I always have men and women. Like Dave said, it's not just a husband problem or wife problem. It's both. And whenever I Have. You know, usually wives will write me because of my situation with Dave and what we went through, and they'll say, you know, it was so hurtful to me. My husband's done this, and then he's even fallen back into it. How do you forgive him? Like, how do you do that? And I would just tell you, and we've talked about this on the podcast before, but I'll just remind you guys, you know, trust and forgiveness are two different things.

Yes.

You know, we forgive immediately because God has forgiven us time after time after time. But just because we forgive doesn't mean that it didn't hurt us or that we're saying it doesn't matter. We forgive because that's what makes healing possible. But then we also forgive because it also makes trust possible again. And trust is something that has to be earned. And that is something that takes a lot of patience. It takes a lot of step by step, you know, things that you do to put accountability into place. And a lot of times it takes more time than we realize. And that's exactly what we did.

It does. And the trust takes time. And I will say that pornography has such an addictive grip over our mind that it's one of those things where even if your husband is 100% committed to just breaking free, I want to do this to cold turkey, if there are some relapses along the way, as heartbreaking as that is, continue to offer the opportunity for trust to be rebuilt. In my own story, there were some relapses even after that. Terrible. Like, yes, it's all out. And in my mind, I thought, yes, never again. I'm free. You know, there were a few relapses, and then I got free of porn. And then I thought, well, I've got to. I'm free from that. But then, like, later on down the road, I would find myself, like, you know, a year later looking up stuff on YouTube and saying, well, it's not technically porn because you can't put porn on YouTube. And so I would find I would get as close to that line as possible of looking at stuff that was clearly way out of bounds and clearly meant to just induce, you know, lust. I finally, you know, broke free, you know, once, kind of once and for all, and finally just had to say, I'm gonna not put anything in my mind that could create any kind of lustful or sexual thought. I don't want any form of. There's a great book called Every Man's Battle and a follow up called Every Young Man's battle wonderful book about sexual temptation in men and God's plan for helping us overcome it. And the definition for sexual sin that they outline biblically is that if you're looking to anyone or anything to provide sexual gratification of any kind outside of your spouse, then it's a form of sexual sin. And I had to go to that definition and say, I don't want anyone or anything, any thought, any image to create any form of sexual gratification outside of my marriage, because my wife Ashley alone is my sole source of any kind of sexual fulfillment. And so I had to kind of start the process of rewiring the way that I thought, rewiring. What I would look at, what I would try to turn away from when it came on the screen. And it became not just like, how close can I get to the line? And it not be considered porn? But now. And it's a constant struggle. And I'm not saying this is a guy that's got to figured out, because for most men, visual temptation is a constant struggle, no matter how much we love our wives and are attracted to them. And I love my wife and I'm attracted to her more than ever before, but we just live in a world where there's targets everywhere. You know, I had to, like, walk by Victoria's Secret just to get to where we are right now. And, like, I find myself kind of trying to dart my eyes a little bit because I don't want images to cultivate lust in my mind or any sexual thought in my mind that is not directly tied to my wife. And we just have to be that vigilant, guys. I mean, we really, really do. There's so much at stake, and so you've got to win that battlefield in your mind. Our last episode, we talked about anxiety and depression and kind of holding thoughts captive. I think that same thing here, Same thing here, man. We have got to focus in on these things and say we're going to take control of our thoughts. We're going to live differently. We might live in a way that even seems weird to the world based on what we look at and what we don't look at. But I'd rather be weird and have a great marriage than to be okay by the world's standards and have, like, toxic thoughts in a toxic marriage.

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Well, I'll even venture to say this. I mean, there's been some times we love Netflix, we love Amazon prime, we love all that. But one thing with Netflix and Amazon is there can be shows on there that are very mature in nature. And I'm not saying that all mature shows have nudity in them, but there are some that really are borderline pornography. And there's been times where we were watching a show that's a popular show, and we're like, we're gonna really love this show. Everybody says it's great. And then all of a sudden a scene will come in and we're like, ugh, we can't do this. I feel dirty. This is gonna introduce those thoughts to me. And again, you might think we're totally archaic and, like, ridiculous.

And we miss out on some great shows. Cause we love.

We do, we love shows.

Great shows. We love that we stopped watching some shows that we were. Because these fairly graphic sex scenes would pop up unexpectedly, like, out of nowhere. You didn't have a warning where you could kind of fast forward. It would just be like, hey, they're in an office. Oh, next thing, whoa, whoa, hey. And it just takes those images being planted in your mind to really kind of start your thought process down that dark path.

And I will tell you, too, just like with drugs, I know Dave has really equated this to a drug addiction. That's like a gateway drug. Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a gateway drug. It is. And I will even tell you, too, I did an article on this years ago. There's things like Pinterest that seem like, oh, it's so innocent. It's like where you go to do your kid's birthday party in an amazing Way, y', all, there is porn on Pinterest. There is. And so you have to really watch things because it's just everywhere. I mean, it's permeating things that are supposed to be innocent and beautiful. And I just hate it because it's really. It's the enemy at work trying to ruin sex. I mean, sex is something that in and of itself, it's awesome, it's beautiful, it's a gift from God for married people. And here we have Satan going, having a heyday, making it something that's perverted, that's dirty, that causes addiction, that causes lust, that causes all these ugly things that do not bless our marriage. And so we need to be willing to say, you know, we're creating boundaries where we're not even gonna go there. We're not even gonna do things that seem okay on the surface but have this underlying sinister aim with, you know, sexual scenes. And I'm even saying it's not just visually. I'd say for a lot of women, we can read something that is just as. As sexually charged for us as it would be for a man. And I think with women, this is a way that we kind of. Kind of let pornographic images enter our mind. And we think it's fine. It's like the whole 50 shades of gray thing, we think it's fine. I've had so many women tell me it's a love story. It's a love story. I'm sure there's love somewhere in the story. But every love story doesn't need to have graphically depicted sex scenes for it to. To be a beautiful love story for you to read. So I just wanna challenge you. And I'm telling you as one who. I've been guilty of reading stuff I shouldn't read. I've been guilty of watching scenes that I shouldn't have watched. I mean, it's not like I'm perfect here. And so please don't misunderstand me, I get the temptation. I think as human beings, we're just drawn to nudity. We're drawn to that. I mean, it's just something our eyes and our minds are naturally drawn to. And God designed us to be sex, to want sex. That's awesome. But he designed it for us to. To place that desire on our spouse. And so it's a misplaced desire, and it's a misplaced fulfillment. And it literally. It just. It wreaks havoc. And I wanna tell you this. I always. When I was a middle school teacher years ago, I had to talk about sex with the students kind of in one of the classes I taught. And I remember the only way I was talking about this with Dave, I'm like, the only way I can describe, you know, I want them to know sex is good, but I also want them to know that it can be really dangerous. The only way I could kind of draw this picture was with a fireplace. You know, if sex is the fire, then our marriage is the fireplace. And when it stays in that fireplace, it gives warmth to everyone. And it's something you have to tend to. You know, it needs to be something that.

And that is a fun fire to see.

Keep going, right? Exactly. You keep it going. You make sure that fire is burning bright. But when it exits that fireplace, it burns everything in sight. And people cannot escape, you know, without being burned. And it ends up causing lots of harm. But in the fireplace, it's awesome. And so we need to make sure that we keep sex between us and our spouse and not bring anyone else into the marriage bed virtually or in person or perfectly. And we need to protect it with everything we have and tend to it and make it keep on being the beautiful, warm, enjoyable, and satisfying thing that it's supposed to be in our lives.

And if you feel like. But porn brings us closer together. You know, there's even an article going around from a female Lutheran minister that says, well, if it's ethically sourced porn, meaning that there. There isn't human trafficking involved because much of the porn industry is fueled by sex slaves. Human trafficking, there's just a lot of wretched stuff that happens behind the scenes. But she's saying, well, if it's ethically sourced, if it's consenting adults that are just essentially actors, really, you call it actors, really. They're prostitutes, they're having sex. Well, you're being paid for sex. It's called prostitution, not acting. And so we can justify it. We can say it's just helping us spice things up, it's helping us learn new things. But the bottom line is you're participating in and something that just breaks the heart of God and it is poisoning your mind. There's, again, so much neuroscience research about how it just completely, completely sabotages the thought process, harms the man. And it might, in the moment, just like a drug rush, you might feel the surge of intensity in the sex you're having in that moment with your spouse, but what it's actually doing is putting a wedge between you. But let's talk a little bit to those people where one spouse is using pornography. The other isn't, and just how it was in our marriage and all the different things that can cause so for the spouse that when your husband, let's say, is using porn. Guys, when you're looking at porn. And Ashley has a great article called to the Husband who Watches Porn, A Wife's Perspective. And she shares some of this. You can find all these articles@marriagetoday.com by the way. We write and speak a lot about porn specifically and about other aspects of marriage. But it makes that wife feel like I'm not physically enough. I mean, it creates, as you've said, just a lot of insecurity because the husband is essentially choosing these other women, these other images over his own wife. And it's a form of infidelity, any way you slice it.

And I would say, too, when you're into porn, especially as a man being into porn, it causes really bad habits. You'll notice men who tend to look at porn a lot are also the men who tend to watch the pretty lady walking down the street. And when your wife sees you watching that pretty lady walking down the street, that just breaks her heart. And it makes her feel less than. And it makes her feel like she's just never gonna be enough for you. And then, you know, and when she finds that you've been looking at porn, that does the very same thing. It just completely makes her feel ugly. It does not make her want to engage in sex. I mean, it does the very opposite thing.

It makes her look at sex as something that's dirty because.

Exactly.

Your actions have made it something that's less than pure.

It's very. It creates a lot of insecurity. And in marriage, our marriage should be a very secure place. We don't need to feel like our spouse is just gonna up and leave one day. We don't need to feel like we're never gonna be good enough. They're gonna go cheat, or they're gonna just keep on looking at porn and getting sexual fulfillment elsewhere. Whenever, you know, our spouse feels uneasy about that. There's just. It breeds insecurity. And so we need to do whatever we can to make sure that we're not, you know, having our eyes wandering and looking at porn or other people or anything that is gonna, you know, fulfill us. That's not our spouse. When it comes to sex. We need to guard ourselves. And like Dave said, I mean, sometimes some of you listening to this are like, this is crazy. But I just wanna ask you, do you feel close to your spouse? Do you feel like it's a safe place. Do you feel like that you have this intimacy and this closeness, or do you feel like there's maybe this something that is off? Because it might be that there's porn somewhere in between you two, and it might be that both of you are looking at porn and you think you're both agreeing on it and you think it's a beneficial thing. But I would venture to say that you know deep in your heart that it's not the right thing for your marriage. And you know that it's virtually bringing in these other people. And I just want to challenge you to get that out of your marriage. Get that out of your marriage bed and just focus in on God and what he has for your marriage and, and focus on your spouse. Because your intimacy will grow between you and your trust will grow.

Yes.

Because anytime you have porn kind of in the equation, there's not as much trust there. I mean, there isn't. And there's lies between you. And it's just not what God wants for our marriage. He wants us to have this wholeness and this complete devotion to one another. And we can't do that when we're, you know, out looking at porn or bringing porn into our marriage collectively or whatever it is. Like, we just can't do that when our mind is divided.

That is so true. And that's exactly what happens to your mind. It gets divided. And you look at, in the short term thinking, oh, it's spicing things up, it's maybe helping things, it's teaching us new things. But what it's doing long term is really desensitizing you. Because the way that porn works, it's like a drug addiction in many ways. But the one dangerous way that it's different than a drug addiction is if you're on a drug like heroin. Your mind is always wanting more of the same drug. When you're on the drug of porn, not only do you want more, but it also has to be different. Your mind is not satisfied by more of the same. Your mind is always wanting more and different. So it's sabotaging you from ever being able to experience true fulfillment within a monogamous relationship. Because no one woman will ever be enough. It's always about different. Not just variety in the sexual acts themselves, but more in different women. It's this. It's this just consumer driven emptiness, this bottomless pit of wanting to consume and have sexual contact with other people mentally. And then eventually you're gonna want to do that physically so long Term porn users actually have really unhappy sex lives. They really, really do. So bottom line, porn is gonna hurt your marriage. It is not good for you. And, you know, biblically, emotionally, spiritually, physically, in every way, it is going to hurt your marriage. It is going to hurt your life. There is nothing good that comes out of it. And yet we keep going back to that same pit because it feels good in the moment, but the price we pay for that temporary rush is something that actually just. It poisons our very soul.

It's so true. So if you're listening to this and you feel convicted right now, you're like, that's me. I'm dealing with this. I can't see. I want to stop. I know it's hurting my marriage, but I just have this drive to look at porn. I just want to tell you first and foremost, confess it to the Lord and say, God, please forgive me of this. Please help me to stop doing this. Then you need to go to your spouse. You need to tell your spouse what's going on. You've got to come out with, have.

The courage to do what I did not have the courage to do. I had to be caught. And that set us back in ways where if I would have just confessed, I think it would have sped up the healing process. So confess and get that accountability and then get help. And get help.

You know, go to. It's xxxchurch.com they have amazing resources, accountability partners, articles for both the person who has the porn habit and the spouse whose spouse has the porn habit. So it can really give you a lot of resources and also get some accountability software on your wi fi as well as every device in your home. We have that in our home and have for years.

X3 watch and Covenant eyes are both two good solutions.

They're great.

If you go to marriagetoday.com again, we have tons of resources specific to sex and specific to porn and other podcasts as well. Like, if you're enjoying this podcast, check out the new. It's not new, but it's relaunched. The Exo Marriage Podcast 2.0 ExoMarriage Podcast or the Marriage Today podcast. And if you go to the Marriage Today channel on YouTube, just search Marriage Today on YouTube. Marriage Today is one word. You can find a whole bunch of videos that we've done and Jimmy Evans and others have done related to porn, but also related to really every aspect of your marriage.

That's right. Thank you all so much for joining us. We'd love to hear from you. So please write us@marriageday.com and tune in next time.