about a year and a half ago I confessed to my wife that had been watching porn and lusting over women (both strangers and friends). It was traumatic and devastating to her. She now has extreme self consciousness about her body because of me. I have repented of my sinful lusts and have been porn free for a year and a half. I used to be a fun and energetic person, but now I don’t know who I am. I just see sadness in my wife day after day, knowing that I am the cause of it. I have hurt myself multiple times and have contemplated suicide. I don’t know how to help my wife know she is the only woman I want and that I have repented from evil thinking. She believes she is less than, which brings me so much pain to hear I can hardly bear it
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hey, welcome to heart support!! This is a deep first post thank you for sharing.
asking for your wife’s forgiveness was brave and admitting your wrongs is a great first step.
The only thing i could suggest for helping your wife feel more confident is just little compliments here and there about how great a top looks on her or how her hair looks great. Little compliments here and there make most feel a little more confident. Other than that i would suggest asking her what she wants and how you can help her feel more confident.
Also great job on your year and a half sobriety, it takes a lot of guts. You have put in some hard work and you deserve to be happy. Don’t give up you deserve life. You are loved <3
best of wishes
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So hard. Feels like you’ve done everything you can and yet the damage is done. Hard to live with the constant pain of your own failure, shame.
I can relate to this - I have a similar situation in my marriage. It caused a lot of mistrust and damage and it is so hard to see someone you live in pain at your own hands.
Honestly, one of the things I learned from the process was that my wife felt weird because I kept acting weird. I was low, which made her feel worse. It’s hard not to act weird though because you are wading through your own shame.
Additionally, it provoked wounding my wife had experienced in her own life and story.
It’s hard to be patient with someone else’s process of healing - or lack thereof.
I’m not 100% sure what helped our situation improve, but here are some things that I would say looking back were at least positive:
—> fighting to continue being intimate. The situation and awkwardness and shame will try to keep you apart. That will only make things worse. You feel like you are trying to respect her and keep distance but it compounds the insecurities.
—> fighting to speak how I feel about her and her body. I felt like a hypocrite for a long time, like a fraud, and I felt like she felt that. But again, she needed to hear it, and it was honest for me, and we had to mend the damage by pushing through it.
—> fighting to have honest conversations. It was hard, took a lot of leaning into the awkwardness and discomfort, but we had to talk about it - are you struggling right now? What’s going on in your mind and heart? Not forcing it, but not avoiding it either.
And then honestly just continuing to invest in our marriage through time, date nights, learning how she needs to be loved, and leaning into it.
I’m not sure if any of this is relevant for you, but I want to give you hope - if nothing else - that healing is possible. My wife and I have never been happier. This pain ended up leading to more understanding, more intimacy…this doesn’t have to be the end of your story or marriage. Better is still ahead.
Thank you for sharing
-nate
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