No Porn Marriage

Dr. Greg Smalley: Many people believe the lie that pornography is an individual issue or a personal struggle, that it doesn't really affect a spouse or their marriage. I've heard people try to justify pornography by saying things like, "It's not really hurting anybody. It's just some meaningless naked pictures, or it's just a harmless romance novel. It has nothing to do with how I feel about my spouse or our marriage relationship. It's just entertainment." I'm sure that I used these same rationalizations when I was struggling with pornography as well.

I'm Dr. Greg Smalley and I'm joined by my wife Erin. Welcome to No Porn Marriage. Erin, pornography obviously isn't simply an individual issue. Talk about how the use of pornography impacts a spouse, the individual, as well as the marriage.

Erin Smalley: The individual is definitely impacted as well as the marriage. You think about the individual, when you have a secret, when you're hiding, you're not fully known. It impacts the connection then that you have with God and with others because you're having to compartmentalize that part of your heart off. You work really hard, you spend a lot of energy hiding that secret.

However, pornography has an impact on your brain as well as it has an impact on how you show up emotionally. The guilt, the shame, feeling worthless and inadequate. Many times you turn on yourself individually, that you really can't stand what you're doing, but you don't understand why you're doing it.

So that's the individual impact. But then the impact on the relationship ends up being, there's erectile dysfunction. It's difficult to have true sexual intimacy the way it was designed because you're experiencing a fabricated form of what sex really is and intimacy really is. You're not completely known within the relationship, thus the level of intimacy and connection in the relationship is impacted. And again, the chances of having an affair skyrocket.

There's a lot of impact. I know our world would love to say that there's nothing wrong with it, no big deal. But the truth is, there are many, many impacts not only on you but your spouse and the marriage.

Dr. Greg Smalley: I think what really stands out to me is that porn doesn't require you to relate. So it kind of reinforces this lie that sex and pleasure are completely separated from relationship. I mean, you think about the fantasy land of porn. You find a perfectly airbrushed woman who acts like a complete nymphomaniac. She never has a headache, never needs foreplay. She has no sexual needs on her own. And that is such a lie. That's not how God designed this to work. He designed sex to be relational.

Erin Smalley: God created it to bring the oneness within the marriage, that deepest level of being known.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Sex should always join two people together in love. It should always strengthen the relationship and never weaken it. And porn is always at the expense of your spouse because it's about you. And this is really the message from Chris and Cindy Beall. Chris worked as a worship leader at their church and his struggle with pornography led him down a really dark path. Here now is Focus President Jim Daly with more of their story.

Jim Daly: You were a young couple, I think you had nine years of marriage under your belt, probably still in your 20s or into your 30s. You also had a three-year-old son at the time. What happened that precipitated this crisis?

Chris Beall: The long story short is there was a pornography struggle that started when I was eight years old and followed me all through adolescent years into young adulthood, manhood. It just changed the moral center of my life even as becoming a believer in Jesus and a follower of Christ and then later full-time ministry. And there was a season where we were a young couple, I was a youth pastor in Memphis, Tennessee. In that season, I just let the guard down so much.

Unfortunately, I had made decisions to be unfaithful to Cindy. She knew something wasn't right, but didn't know exactly what it was. And it wasn't until we moved to Oklahoma City and I joined the team at Life Church that it really was one of those Holy Spirit put me in a corner and said, "I didn't bring you here to be the next great pastor at Life Church. I brought you here to heal you."

Jim Daly: And we're going to get to that hope. That's the key thing. Cindy, obviously it's your turn. And you are representing women who go through this. You went through it, that feeling of betrayal, all of that. Describe for us that day when Chris was forthright with you and honest with you, maybe for the first time in your nine-year marriage at that point. What did that feel like and how did you respond?

Cindy Beall: We had been at Life Church for six weeks and he was the worship pastor at our second location. We only had two locations back then. He came home one Tuesday morning after staff meeting and he said, "We need to talk." I was still unpacking boxes. We had only been in our house that we had just bought like three days. We sat down and he proceeds to tell me everything he's just told you about pornography and that led him to act out. And then everything was just dropped on me.

The final blow was that one of the women that he was in a relationship with was pregnant. So not only did I deal with the betrayal, but I dealt with that he would be a father to another. Immediately, 60 seconds later, I was unpacking boxes, excited about our new world, our new life, and then I'm deeply devastated. I literally just wanted to die. I just thought, I can't live on this earth. Just immediate and utter ruin was all I was thinking.

Jim Daly: Chris, let me come back to you because we didn't illuminate that part of the story. You were at the church, the pastor there, Craig Groeschel, said something that really challenged you that took you home to make the statement that you made. What was it that he said to the group that convicted you?

Chris Beall: He spoke to the staff and said that it is our private integrity that gives us the ability to minister publicly. In that moment, it was the Holy Spirit speaking to me, "That's not me. I don't have that." Not only that, but am I going to be the guy that brings devastation on this incredible ministry? That was the straw. I will say God had been working on me prior to that moment.

Just the sense of, "I am a prisoner. I am in bondage. Is there, God, is there a chance that I could be free?" I don't know if that means that my marriage would be restored or certainly ministry was not a part of, that's over. I've blown that opportunity in my head at that moment. But when Craig said those words, it was like, "That's it."

Jim Daly: And that's what pushed you to go home to address the issue. What was the next hour like? What was the next day like?

Cindy Beall: He then called Jerry Hurley, who is one of our executive pastors, leaders, and he came over. Then Jerry called Craig and then Craig came over. It was everything you would have imagined bad and they just sometimes just sat there as the both of us wept. We wept for different reasons and they were speechless, but they just began to help us and just began to go through each section of what our next steps were. It was just a lot.

Jim Daly: What were those next steps for you? What did you decide to do? I mean, you're in the driver's seat at this point, obviously.

Cindy Beall: I had wise people around me, another couple, Jim and Beth Kuykendall, Kevin Penry, another leader at our church. They just said, "Your emotions are so all over the place, probably the last thing you need to do is make a decision right now." So that was the counsel I had received, so I didn't make decisions for the next six months. I was like, "Okay, what are we going to do today?"

The next step was resignation. They were graceful to let him resign even though there wasn't an option and he didn't want to, obviously he wasn't expecting to stay. So there was a resignation and then Craig preached about it to our campus the following Sunday.

Jim Daly: How did that come about?

Chris Beall: I'll tell you, this will go down as one of the moments in Life Church. He stood on stage and said basically, "This is the deal." Without room for wondering what happened or what I did, he was pretty direct. And he said, "Now here's why I'm telling you the truth about Chris and what he's done and why he's resigned."

He said this: "The local church is one of the only institutions in the world that shoot their wounded and we will not be that. We will be a hospital within which they heal." He said that if we all know the truth in love, there's nothing to gossip about. We're not going to give our spiritual enemy an inch of ground here. So we're going to know the truth and it's going to empower us to love Chris and Cindy as God does a work in their marriage. That moment of courage not only was the catalyst for our healing, it changed our church forever.

Dr. Greg Smalley: I so appreciate Chris and Cindy's honesty. I know for me it makes talking about my own struggles with pornography easier. Looking back on my journey, there are some things that God taught me that really stand out about dealing with pornography. Erin, in some of our earlier episodes, we talked about our own story. We were teaching a marriage seminar. I had a couple days before that had a business meeting with some male colleagues where we were just sharing some of the struggles that we've gone through, and the guys ended up talking about pornography. Well, one of the wives ends up telling you.

Erin Smalley: You kind of held on to that. What better time than when we had a break from teaching the marriage seminar? Honestly, as you shared with me your struggle with viewing pornography, it was really hard to hear, especially in light of having to hold it together to get back up on a stage the next day.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Actually, something you said I think was really the first place that God really convicted me was around this idea of justifying or rationalizing how I was viewing pornography. I told you that night, and it was honest, that this is an occasional thing. I sort of minimized it, extremely infrequent, kind of a slip up here and there. But then what God began to say to me is that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter the frequency or the material. You're doing that and I needed to own that and fully embrace. So even through our conversations for me, I stopped minimizing and justifying what I was doing and really owned that.

I think another thing that really made a big difference for me is finally bringing that secret into the light. It was one thing to talk with my male colleagues and share that sitting in a men's group talking about pornography. It's a whole another story to be sitting with you as my wife and admitting that this was going on. But there's something so powerful when you finally take something that's been hidden and secret and bring that into the light.

I love Ephesians 5:13 and 14. It says, "But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, 'Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.'" And that was a big part of my own healing was now that this secret was out, now I could really begin to deal with it. First and foremost, it's confessing that to God.

But then came the hard, the big challenge of how do I say this to you? How do I confess? Because I hate that I was doing that and I hated the fact that this may hurt you and weaken the trust in our relationship. I imagine as you've worked with other people in your clinical practice, this is hard to confess to our spouse.

Erin Smalley: Absolutely. No wife or husband wants to hear that, that that's going on under their own roof. However, it's amazing when the secret comes into the light and if it's pornography or hiding, whatever it is, it's a secret. When that secret comes to the light, it's amazing the walls that come down. It's hard to hear it. Don't get me wrong, I did not want to hear that. But it was the beginning of the healing, healing for both of us because it drew out true vulnerability within our relationship and authenticity.

I did not step into the role of becoming your accountability partner because I didn't want that. But yet there's something so powerful in the midst of healing and rebuilding trust about your spouse coming to you and saying, "Hey, I'm struggling. Hey, I messed up." And again, whether it's pornography or another secret sin, there's something so powerful about that.

Dr. Greg Smalley: However, the warning is this: this kind of happened. We didn't plan on having this conversation. I just want to encourage you, be super careful around this. When this needs to come out and when you're ready to confess, this shouldn't be done like at a break while you're teaching a marriage seminar. I mean, that worked for us, but just really guard that because that confession needs to happen in a way that you're ready to stop lying. You're ready to get rid of the secrets.

Actually, the worst thing that could happen is for you to tell partial truth and kind of keep some other things compartmentalized off. We're going to get into really how to have this conversation. But right now, we're going to hear a conversation that Focus on the Family President Jim Daly had with Jonathan Daugherty. Jonathan struggled with pornography for many years, but he hadn't told his wife the whole truth, kind of like we were talking about. Here's the story of what he told her and about some of the mistakes that he made in that process.

Jim Daly: So now you've hit the bottom of the bottom. What occurred that began to lift you up?

Jonathan Daugherty: By this time I was married and I married a wonderful woman who I really thought, "She's got enough faith for the both of us, she'll just carry us through life." Like a lot of guys, I thought marriage would cure my problem. It only got worse. I never disclosed to her this thing I was battling, not to the degree that it needed to be disclosed. I mean, I had a little bit of disclosure before we got married, a few things afterwards, but it just got worse, went to very dark places. Eventually decided it would be better if I just wasn't alive anymore.

In the summer of '99, I finally had my breaking point where I was thinking, "I don't want to carry this anymore." There might have been a part of me that was feeling like if I am going to follow through with suicide, I don't want to not disclose everything I've done. So on a random Tuesday night, I told my wife everything. Listeners out there, do not do this. This is a very unhealthy way to unpack everything, just on a random night, just decide to pull the curtain back.

So I told her about everything. Obviously, that did not go well. But I didn't realize that confession alone doesn't actually change anything. I felt lighter because I felt like light has come in here, I've finally gotten things exposed, I'm not hiding anything. I'd gotten a burden off of my shoulders. But the problem was that I didn't do anything to move into that light, to really move toward better behaviors. Less than a week after that, I was engaged in some inappropriate behavior. My wife knew about it and then when I came home, she had her bags packed and she says, "I don't want to see you anymore," and she left.

Jim Daly: In fact, if I remember in the book you wrote that she, when hearing this, just went to a fetal position.

Jonathan Daugherty: The first, the initial confession, she got into a tight ball and cried all of her tears out. It was a broken place that I have rarely seen in another human being. It was almost as if I just sucked the soul out of her.

Jim Daly: When you talk to her about this, even subsequently now years later, how has she described what that feeling was like? What did she say about that moment?

Jonathan Daugherty: It felt to her as if I had total disregard for her heart. I will get emotional when I talk about this because it felt to her like she had given me the most precious, delicate part of who she is and I decided to just throw it in the trash. That just crushed her. She talks about how subsequently after that for days and even for months she felt like, "Why is the sun still coming up in the morning?" She even prayed to God. She wasn't going to do it by her own hand, but she prayed that God would just take her in her sleep. The pain was so intense for her.

Erin Smalley: Wow, that was so difficult to hear Jonathan describe the pain that his wife experienced amidst him confessing to her. But we know that for some of you listening, that's your story. That's exactly why we have a counseling department here at Focus on the Family. If you've made the mistake of telling your spouse too much or you need some advice and encouragement in how do I tell, please call us. Our number is 1-800-A-FAMILY. Again, that's 1-800-A-FAMILY.

Dr. Greg Smalley: That is such a great resource. Let's return to more of the conversation between Jonathan and Jim Daly.

Jim Daly: This is maybe an unfair question, but I want to ask it for the women who are listening who maybe feel something's not right, or maybe they've already gone through that first night experience and their husband has said to them some things that have made them curl up in a ball. Your wife, if she were sitting here, what would she say to coach, to mentor those women in that relationship with her husband, speaking if you can from her perspective? What do you think she would say?

Jonathan Daugherty: I think one of the things she would say is what you're feeling right now is right. If you're feeling angry, it's called justice. You should feel angry. You've been betrayed. If you're feeling incredible sorrow and sadness, you should feel that. You've had your heart ripped out. And what she, I think the biggest instruction she would give to a wife in that situation is you have to grieve before you forgive.

Sometimes in the Christian community, we're so quick to pull out all these verses that say, "As Christ is forgiving you, you must forgive," and try to create this urgency to forgive when in fact you can't really forgive until you've grieved what's happened.

Jim Daly: That's a real important point because I think you're right. There's a sense of you've got to forgive immediately whether you feel it or not. I hear you saying actually you've got to feel it first.

Jonathan Daugherty: You have to really understand all the offenses that have been done against you and be able to get to a place where there's a fullness of understanding of that before I think you can, and that's the grief process, before then you can say, "Now I'm in a position where I can choose whether I'm going to forgive or not."

And that's where I think the instruction of the Lord comes in that says as you've been forgiven, He who knows fully what we've done against Him and has taken that on Himself, then because we know that, now we can choose to forgive others. But it's not an immediate thing.

Erin Smalley: I love what Jonathan was saying. It's so critical that so often Christians believe like, "Oh, I just need to forgive. Just do it." Well, yes, but there's also part of it that's so important of addressing what's going on in my heart. How has this impacted me? I know personally and I've also walked with many, many women as they've experienced this exact thing, finding out that there's been a secret within their relationship. Believe me, first and foremost, you're feeling betrayal, anger, disgust, and maybe you felt other things.

However, it's just so important to step back and allow your heart to matter, to really address those things. Let your heart grieve exactly as Jonathan was saying. We personalize it and maybe feel worthless and devalued. Care about that part of you. It's so critical to do before you go to, "Okay, now this is full, wholehearted forgiveness."

Dr. Greg Smalley: So as someone is processing as you're talking about, kind of their own hurt and their pain and all those emotions, how do they grieve properly?

Erin Smalley: It's a great question because I'm telling you time and time again in my clinical practice I see this. There's one couple that just stands out that amidst finding out that there was not just pornography, there was a major, major sexual addiction. Shocking to hear that news. Shocking to hear that news in my office.

But thank goodness as you're with a counselor, that brings safety to some of these conversations. But then also safety for you to explore, "How is this impacting me?" The key here is to recognize that God has given you the job of attending to your heart. Part of that is really figuring out what am I feeling. Instead of judging and trying to brush these feelings under the rug, it's letting them come to the light, letting them breathe, just exploring them and being curious about them. What am I feeling and what do I need to do as a result of this?

Your feelings are nothing more than the voice of your heart. It's just a piece of information. God gave us a heart and a brain. As we get the heart information, then we can take our brain and make a good decision. Ultimately what we don't want to do is to just go straight into reaction mode. It's easy when you think about this situation that your spouse comes to you and tells you this, just to react and go off on them. Is that who you want to be?

Dr. Greg Smalley: What are some of those reactions that you've noticed as someone's kind of processing all that grief of just being told?

Erin Smalley: Shock, and in that shock, there's a lot of anger. However, what we know is that underneath anger are a whole host of deeper, more vulnerable emotions. So go there. The anger is simply the smoke signal that there's more going on underneath. These deep, vulnerable emotions of feeling worthless, feeling devalued, feeling inadequate, feeling betrayal, go there. If it's helpful, go and talk to a Christian counselor who can walk that process through with you. It's a place that's safe that your voice is heard and your heart matters.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Give us a call. We keep saying that we have amazing Christian counselors that are simply a phone call away. They are such a great resource as a consultant. They'll help you process some of these and then get you connected with someone in your area. That number again is 1-800-A-FAMILY.

Don't forget to visit focusonthefamily.com/npm, which are the initials for No Porn Marriage. There you're going to find lots of articles from trusted people with solid, practical advice and stories of how God saved their marriage from pornography. Again, that's focusonthefamily.com/npm. Well, next time we'll be discussing how to walk through a healing process. This is Dr. Greg Smalley and I'm Erin Smalley. Thanks for joining us for the No Porn Marriage podcast.