/ By admindesert

How Do I Help My Husband Overcome Porn Addiction? | Desert Solace

From creating a supportive recovery environment to finding the right type of treatment, Desert Solace is here to help you and your husband finally beat his porn addiction

Here’s a personal story for you – Back in 2018, I was depressed and having suicidal thoughts. My life felt impossibly heavy to me. I hated my work and I couldn’t find anything that would help me out of this depression, even though I had gone to see a psychiatrist and several therapists for my issues. My wife constantly told me that she didn’t feel connected to me and I would gaslight her into believing she was the only one who was feeling that. For the longest time I deluded myself into thinking that my job was the problem. I was in a very high stress career and I was convinced that my anxiety, panic attacks and depression were all a result of my job.

In reality, it was something else that was causing almost all of my issues – I was hiding a porn addiction that I had maintained for over 28 years. I kept it secret from pretty much everybody in my life. The one person who knew about it was my therapist at the time, who didn’t see it as a problem (more on that later). My porn addiction had gotten to the point where it was spiraling out of control, and rather than giving me the sense of relief and escape from life that my subconscious was telling me it would give me, it was just causing me more and more distress. The thing that was hurting me the most was that I felt like I had to be two different people – the real me, and the addict me. Constantly dealing with that much inner conflict, something had to break. 

I remember coming to the realization that the two best options were either suicide (this is how badly an addiction can mess up your thinking), or come clean to my wife about my addiction and face the possibility of divorce. Looking back now, the choice was obvious; but back then, it felt like a life or death situation.

I finally came to the conclusion that the pain of disclosing my darkest secret to my wife had to be better than suicide. In early August of 2018, I told her about my years of lies and hiding my porn addiction. She was understandably heartbroken and betrayed.

I told her that I had tried everything I could on my own to quit and that nothing had worked. I felt hopeless and lost. Other than 12 step groups that were hosted by my church, I had no knowledge of any other resources that could help me overcome my porn addiction. At one point I sarcastically said that if there was a rehab for porn addiction, I would go to it (at the time, I honestly didn’t think that there were rehabs that treated sex addiction or porn addiction). She called me out on that and told me that she would find one. 

After a few days of internet research and many calls to different programs around the country, we found Desert Solace, which was located fairly close to where we were living at the time. We were able to speak to Mark Jorgensen right away about the program and my wife spoke to Jerri Jorgensen and immediately asked, “How do I help my husband overcome his porn addiction?”  They were able to relate to what we were going through because they had gone through a similar experience.  We also felt like they cared about us as people, whereas some of the other programs we called were very impersonal and it felt like we were just another client to them.

After looking into the program at Desert Solace, I felt like it was the right fit for me. They had a CSAT therapist (certified sexual addiction therapist) as their clinical director, which meant he had received training specific to treating sexual addiction, including porn addiction. I also appreciated the attention they devoted to helping my wife through the process as well, including weekly support phone calls where she could get help from other wives who had been through this before.

Within 3 days, I was fully committed to going to Desert Solace for 90 days. I wanted to be done with my addiction so bad that I went into it willing to do whatever they asked me to do. I will never regret that choice. It’s been 6 years since then and I am full of gratitude for my wife and for Desert Solace for helping me save my marriage (and my life). 

I’m very fortunate that I had a wife who was willing to help me find resources that could help me. I recognize that everyone’s situation is different, but if you found this article because you’re looking for help for a husband who is struggling with a porn addiction and is ready to get some real help, then hopefully you’ll find something of value here.

Show Some Love No Matter How Difficult It Feels

You might be super angry at your husband, and you’re totally justified in feeling that. You can be angry, but no matter how angry you get, it’s not going to do anything to permanently fix the problem your husband is facing. He needs real help. 

My wife went through a lot of emotions once I disclosed my addictive behaviors to her and a lot of that was anger. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to stay with me, but through her anger she was still able to see that I was broken and wanted to get help. Even if we didn’t end up together she still loved me and wanted me to get better.

Your husband is most likely dealing with the same issues that I described in my story above. He doesn’t want to hurt you, or any of the people he loves, but he doesn’t feel like he has any choice. Porn addiction can cause some very distorted thinking.

Try to tell yourself that his addiction is not personal no matter how much it feels that way. His addiction is most likely something he had long before your marriage started and is not something he is intentionally doing to hurt you or because he doesn’t think you’re good enough. 

At the end of the day, if he is in a place where he recognizes that he has a problem and wants to get help, the one thing he needs right now is love and support.

Set Some Clear Boundaries

Helping your husband overcome his porn addiction isn’t going to be easy. He’s going to have to make some drastic changes and you’ll have to make some drastic changes of your own. You might not feel like this is your issue to deal with, but you’re in a marriage, which means that his issues are also your issues.

You might even be enabling your husband’s porn addiction without realizing it. Now, before you freak out and throw all the electronic devices in a pile on the lawn and start a bonfire, there are things you can do as a wife to help your husband that aren’t so drastic! One of the most important things you can do is set some boundaries.

If you don’t know what a boundary is, that’s okay! You’ve come to the right place. My wife and I didn’t know what boundaries were until I started my own recovery.

A personal boundary is a limit or space between you and others that helps define your identity and maintain your well-being. It encompasses the emotional, physical, and mental aspects of your life, guiding how you interact with others and what you consider acceptable behavior.

I was completely unaware of how important boundaries are to creating a happy and fulfilling marriage.

Now, one crucial aspect of setting boundaries that people tend to forget about is that boundaries are not intended to control another person. No happy marriage is based on control.

In terms of pornography usage

You deserve to be in a marriage where you feel connected to your husband. You deserve to be in a marriage where your husband values you and is honest with you.

Something that you might not realize is that if your husband never experiences real consequences from his porn usage or sex addiction, then he doesn’t have any incentive to make a change. Pain is 

Setting a boundary with a husband who struggles with porn addiction might feel mean or harsh. Trust me, there is no greater act of love than refusing to enable someone’s addictive behavior.

12 Step Meetings Can Be a Good Resource for Porn Addicts and their Spouses

You have probably already heard about Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s a support meeting for people who struggle with alcoholism and its members generally go through its 12-step program to get sober. You might not have heard of Sexaholics Anonymous (“SA”) or the many other 12 step organizations that have been set up to help people who are struggling with sex addiction or porn addiction but there are numerous programs out there and I encourage you to find one for your husband and a support group for yourself. 

You might be wondering, “How do I find a support group near me?”  

For your husband, I would start at SA.org. They should have a link to a page that lists all the meetings across the United States. There is also another program called SA Lifeline that has pornography and sexual addiction support groups that meet in various locations. 

The LDS church also runs an Addiction Recovery Program that is based on the 12-steps. Each of these groups also has support groups for wives of husbands who struggle with porn and sex addictions.

These groups can be incredible resources for husbands and wives who are struggling with the damage that an addiction can cause to a marriage. If you choose to attend, it’s very important for you to become integrated in the culture of the groups if you want lasting change in recovery.

It’s also important to remember that while these groups can help with recovery from porn addiction, they are only a small part of the recipe in completely overcoming a porn or sex addiction. They are not therapy and are not designed to get to the root cause of the addiction. This brings me to my next point – finding the right type of treatment.

Help Your Husband Find Professional Porn Addiction Treatment with a CSAT Therapist

Getting help for pornography addiction is just like dealing with most medical conditions –  it’s important to find the right doctor who understands the problem and the most effective methods to treat it. 

Going back to my story above, I saw several therapists who had no idea how to treat sex addiction. In fact, they didn’t see pornography usage as a problem at all. They believed it was something that my wife needed to accept and that I should just change my moral perspectives on pornography.

Now, that might be fine for someone else who hadn’t experienced a life of damage from being addicted to pornography, but for me and for my wife, it didn’t work. My porn addiction was causing real problems to my marriage, my relationship with my children and friends, my career, and my psychological well-being. To tell me that my pornography usage was not a real problem felt very dismissive and invalidating. 

Fortunately for me, I ended up finding a therapist who was certified to treat sexual addictions (CSAT) when I went through Desert Solace’s 90-day residential treatment program. But I really wish I had sought out a CSAT sooner because it could have potentially saved me a lot of pain.

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to find a therapist who understands sexual addiction! You wouldn’t go to a dentist to treat cancer, even if a dentist is technically a doctor. Just because someone is a therapist, doesn’t mean they know how to treat sexual addictions. 

Our therapists at Desert Solace have years of training and experience in treating sexual and porn addictions. Our clinical director is a certified sexual addiction therapist (CSAT) and is very good at what he does. 

Wife Helping Husband Overcome Porn Addiction

Considering Inpatient Treatment for Porn Addiction

There are many different ways to get help for sex or porn addiction, many of which are not effective at all. The most effective form of treatment for sex or porn addiction is inpatient treatment at a center like Desert Solace that specializes in treating sexual addictions. We’ve been doing this for 15 years now and we are one of the few centers in the world that focus solely on treating porn and sex addiction.

You and your husband might be wondering why is residential treatment the most effective form of treatment for sex and porn addiction? There are many reasons that I could write a whole separate article on, but I’ll go into a few of them:

  1. Your husband will get more therapy in our 90 day program than he can get in years of individual counseling or group therapy with a therapist. Our clients leave our center much further ahead in their recovery process than people who are getting weekly therapy or who attend an intensive program that is two weeks or less. 
  2. Scientific research backs us up. Studies into addiction recovery show that staying longer than 60 days at a residential treatment center gives you the greatest chance at achieving a full recovery. Any treatment for less than 60 days gives you less than a 50/50 shot at recovery. Why would you spend money and time on a treatment that doesn’t give you the best shot at full recovery? 
  3. Removing an addict from their environment can be very healing. If your husband has been struggling with addiction for a while, it’s likely that his environments are a major trigger for him. Whether it’s at work, or a home office, or even parts of the city you live in, addicts are constantly being bombarded with triggers that they might not even be aware of. It’s so much more difficult to get traction in recovery when you’re constantly being faced with triggers and stresses that come with everyday life. I felt like I was constantly treading water! Removing them from that environment and some of the stresses of life can give them the time they need to address their addiction from a place of power rather than weakness. It gives their brains time to heal so that when they return home, they can recreate an environment that fosters their recovery.
  4. Our program provides a lot of support for spouses and family members. We don’t believe that the focus should be completely on the husband who is seeking treatment. We know that spouses often feel left out and stuck cleaning up the damage that their husband left behind. Our family support coordinator, Jerri Jorgensen, has been in your shoes and knows what you are going through! She’s guided hundreds of women through this process and hosts two support calls a week for the spouses of our clients. We also have a thriving community of wives whose husbands have gone through our program who support each other and are frequently on those calls.

 

I know that the idea of your husband being gone for 3 months seems difficult! (Or maybe you would prefer for him to be gone while you process things for yourself!) The question is, how much of the time he’s spent in his addiction has he truly been present with you and your family? I can tell you when I was stuck in my addiction that I wasn’t very present as a husband or a father. Having him gone for 3 months is a major investment in the years to come where he can be fully present for you and your children. 

If you’re wondering whether inpatient treatment is right for you and your husband, please reach out to us. We honestly care about you and want what is best for you and your family!

Lasting Recovery From Porn Addiction is Possible

I wouldn’t be where I’m at today without the help and support of my wife. She is truly the hero in my recovery story. When I was stuck in my porn addiction it felt hopeless. I didn’t think that real recovery was possible.

What I learned through my own experience is that it is possible and that it took the help of my wife to find the right kind of professional pornography addiction treatment. For me, it was finding Desert Solace and going through its 90-day inpatient treatment program that finally got me sober and gave me the tools I needed to find long-term recovery from porn addiction. 

If you have a husband that needs help, please give us a call. We know what you’re going through and we are happy to help. You can call us at 435-817-1351.