(This is a contributed article.)

For some time I carried a terrible burden of shame and regret. I struggled with knowing how I had compromised and even betrayed myself.

At the time, I had been married for about 15 years navigating the good and bad of marriage. In the last few years of my marriage, my wife had become increasingly critical of me and the life I was able to provide for our family. I was no ‘Bill Gates’ financial provider to be sure but we lived above the standard that our parents’ had provided us while growing up so I didn’t feel like a failure even when she suggested I was. Her constant criticism was followed by her withholding affection and intimacy. Something I believed was critical to maintaining a happy and healthy marriage relationship.

This is where my shame and self-betrayal come in. For a short period, I turned to pornography to ‘purge’ myself of the desire to be intimate with an increasingly resentful wife. I had felt that viewing porn would provide me with a ‘disgusting view’ of intimacy and help me purge my desire for intimacy with my wife. After a short period, I confessed to my wife what I had done. I apologized and asked for her forgiveness.

I could see in her eyes and face that my confession and actions had broken her heart. I explained that while I hadn’t done it to hurt her, I was sorry that it had. I acknowledged that I was wrong, my actions were shameful, and I regretted them. I promised I wouldn’t ever engage in such despicable behavior.

While I could have argued that what my wife had been doing and how she had been treating me was equally — if not more — hurtful than my viewing porn, it would have only been an attempt to shift the blame on her. Yes, her actions were very hurtful and demoralizing to me and our marriage, but my bad actions were not to be excused by her bad actions. My actions were mine to own. Over time she forgave me and it appeared she began to again trust me. She even backed off some of her critical treatment of me and scaled back her judgemental behavior toward me. Still, we both carried wounds from our behavior.

I knew what I had done was hurtful and inexcusable. I couldn’t undo what I had done so I worked hard to show how I would never repeat such an indiscretion. No matter what I did though it seemed insufficient to cross the chasm that had started years before my indiscretion.

Several years later, things came to an unfortunate and ironic end when I discovered my wife had been engaging in an affair. As the details of her affair were revealed, we learned that her affair partner was married and had been going through marital counseling and porn rehab recovery. He had been addicted to porn for most of his marriage and had just gone through an immersive rehab program just in time to start his affair with my wife.

What strikes me now as most unfortunate and ironic is how, to some extent, the beginning of the end of my marriage started with my wife’s critical treatment of me which then led to my indiscretion with porn. My wife’s affair partner’s affair started with the seeds that he sowed with his porn addiction and consequent infidelity. His more than a decade-long porn addiction served as an incubator for his fantasies, discontent with marital intimacy, and objectification of his wife and his eventual objectification of my wife. His porn addiction propelled him into a life of infidelity and deception.

At the onset of their affair, my wife didn’t know about his porn addiction. This was a convenient fact that he withheld until after their sexual affair started. Only when he had no other choice did he tell her he had been a porn addict. Whether he was still actively engaged in porn when he finally confessed to her or not isn’t the point. Porn served as a ‘gateway drug’ to his infidelity and betrayal of his wife and children. Unfortunately, my wife chose to entangle her life and our family with his. My short experience with porn taught me that it distorts the mind and poisons love.

Recovering from Infidelity

If you have experienced infidelity-induced trauma caused by the emotional and sexual betrayal of your spouse, there is hope! If you are a child affected by parental infidelity, there is hope! If you are a spouse who has betrayed the trust, love, and fidelity of your marriage, there is hope! We recommend that you seek support through professional counseling and therapy as well as through groups dedicated to supporting you through this traumatic journey. You are not alone and recovery and healing are possible!

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The CHADIE Foundation shares personal stories of spouses and children impacted by infidelity and affairs. If you have a story you would like to share and have published, please use the contact information below to share your story with The CHADIE Foundation. Our mission is to help educate everyone about the damage infidelity, affairs, and adultery cause families and how to minimize the impact.

About the CHADIE Foundation

The CHADIE Foundation (Children are Harmed by Adultery, Divorce, Infidelity, and related Emotional trauma), helps spouses, partners, and children who adultery, affairs, and infidelity have negatively impacted. To learn more about CHADIE and how you can help, please email us at support@chadie.org or visit us at CHADIE.org.