Mark. D. Chamberlain - Love You, Hate the Porn: Healing a Relationship Damaged by Virtual Infidelity

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chamberlain, Mark D. (Mark David), 1964 author.

Love you, hate the porn : healing a relationship damaged by virtual infidelity / Mark Chamberlain, PhD ; Geoff Steurer, MS, LMFT.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-60641-936-6 (paperbound)

1. Pornography. 2. Sex addiction. I. Steurer, Geoff, 1974 author. II. Title.

HQ471.C43 2011

362.196'85833dc22 2010048772

Printed in the United States of America
Publishers Printing, Salt Lake City, UT

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Introduction

It may be cybersex, but it can feel like real infidelity to your partner. Theres nothing virtual about the damage pornography does to a relationship. Porn can keep the two of you from feeling close and connected, interfering with your ability to meet your most important needs in your most important relationship. When youre hooked on porn, the wounds are reopened each time a relapse is discovered. Even when you keep your commitment to stay away from porn, your marriage may continue to suffer. As tough as it is to overcome a porn habit, healing a marriage damaged by porn is even harder. It can get so bad for some couples that they separate and divorce. Others stay together, but the strain of unresolved feelings takes a distinct, if not always acknowledged toll.

If youre the one whos hurting because of your partners pornography habit, its not enough for your loved one to simply stop looking at porn. You need healing yourself. Whether you keep bringing it up or suffer silently, emotional wounds can fester, fueling fights about other things and causing disconnected feelings. Many couples begin to wonder, Can our marriage heal? Will we ever feel close again?

Your marriage can help heal a pornography habiteven one thats deteriorated into a full-blown addiction. Heres why: the pleasure of pornography is fleeting, and no genuine human need is filled by its consumption. By contrast, feeling emotionally close as a couple satisfies people in a deep, sustaining way. This attachment meets a universal need that defines our very essence as a species. We humans are, as biologists put it, pair bonders. Our souls hunger for the kind of special, exclusive, and lasting sense of connection that only a strong marriage can bring. We are more complete as couples. While pornography strikes at the heart of this attachment, healing together can reestablish and even deepen the bond.

Recovery has three different aspects, his,hers, and ours. In this book, weve chosen not to delve deeply into spiritual aspects of recovery, therapeutic solutions, or individual efforts. We focus on what you can do together as a coupleand there is a lot that can be done. The topic has become a passion for us because weve seen so many people work hard and do well in their efforts to heal as individuals, only to have their relationship continue to flounder.

Weve found no better road map for the path of couples healing than Sue Johnsons Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. Her work at the University of Ottawa has developed into the most effective and research-validated way to treat couples in distress. Weve seen this perspective help many couples and were excited to share it with you.

Despite how important your relationship is, please make no mistake: as you strive to overcome the damage pornography has done, some of the work youll do must be done on your own. For instance, no matter how much work a couple does together to heal their marriage, what if a wife senses that her husband is halfhearted in his efforts to avoid pornography when hes alone? Shell likely doubt his emotional availability and find herself unable to invest wholeheartedly in building a stronger bond with him. If you find that the process of healing together derails even when youre giving it your all, ask yourself if you or your partner has more individual, foundational work to do before the relationship can feel secure enough for the two of you to start growing together again. (For more on key ingredients of his and her individual recoveries, please see our website: hatetheporn.com.)

Whatever it takes, dont give up! Your individual healing is worth it. And then, as you heal your relationship as well, you will reap some of the greatest rewards life has to offer.

Chapter 1

A Cancer That Can Ravage Relationships

Throughout her life, Sally had never objected to pornography on moral grounds. Shed always figured it was up to individuals to decide for themselves what they did for entertainment. Recently, however, shed been developing an objection of a different sort. Rather than moral, it was visceral.

It spread from a sick feeling in her stomach up to a choking heaviness in her chest. It had started several months ago when shed discovered at three in the morning that she was alone in bed. Shed gotten up to look for Lyle and found him downstairs pausing the DVR and rewinding it again and again to watch a sex scene. Shed stood there in shock, that awful feeling coming in waves up her torso, as she realized that her husband was, in his mind, having sex with that stranger on the screen. She was even more troubled by the fact that he hadnt even heard her behind him. He never noticed her standing there until she said something to him.

Obviously, he had been in another world. But even worse, he seemed different. She had the terrifying feeling that this was somehow not the man she thought shed married. Do I even know you? she had asked him. Really know you?

Lyle had insisted that hed had no idea how strongly she would react to what he was viewing, that porn meant nothing to him, and that he would gladly and easily avoid it in the future now that he knew how she felt about it. Lyle hadnt realized how Sally would react, and frankly, neither had she. She was embarrassed that it bothered her so much.

Sally knew what kind of guy Lyle was deep down. After all, shed watched him with his kids. He was patient with her dogs, who could be a real pain. Shed knelt beside him, handing him tools, on the floor of their elderly neighbors bathroom as he repaired her toilet. Shed chosen him because he was a great guy, she kept reminding herself. She wanted to be able to be less bothered by that incident, to get over it and move on in their relationship.

Nonetheless, it had taken Sally a couple of months to sleep soundly through the night again. And her chiropractor was still working on the knot he couldnt seem to knead out of the base of her neck. Even worse, she no longer threw on sweats in the evening when they both got home from work. Shed added more sit-ups to her workout routine to try to tighten up her abs. Shed even caught herself checking her makeup in the bathroom mirror at nine oclock at night. Whats gotten into me? she wondered. Rather than enjoying her time with Lyle, she felt like she was performing in an effort to hold his interest. She finally admitted to herself that she now felt locked in a potential contest between her and every porn actress out there for his attention and affection. She might have beaten back the first wave of attackhe was still here with herbut eventual defeat seemed inevitable.