In August, on my second wedding anniversary, my husband confessed to me that he had a sexual addiction (although he didn’t realise what it was at the time). He told me that on 3 separate occasions he had gone into men’s public toilets and had oral sex performed on him by strangers. The final time before he confessed, was on his oldest brother’s wedding day while I was at the reception with our two daughters, and he had gone to get some baby food for our youngest child. I then discovered the full story about his pornography addiction, porn movies etc.

We’ve been together for almost 5 years and have been married for just over two years. His confession has completely destroyed me. His actions, but most of all his lies, have ripped us apart and I’m really struggling to find a way through this and I just don’t know if our marriage will survive.

He’s recently become a Christian and is growing in his faith. He’s getting all the help available to him, attending a course at our church and seeing his counselor who runs the living waters course which he’s doing. I can see the change in him but I’m so ashamed and disgusted by what he did. He’s also destroyed the joy I had on our wedding day because I will never remember that wonderful day, just his confession.

I feel terrible within myself. In my head I know I’m not to blame for the things he did. But in my heart I feel that I was not enough for him and neither were our children. He claims to love me more than anything in this world but my heart is really struggling to believe this. He says he is not gay because he does not find men attractive and has no desires to be with a man. It only happened with men because it was so easy to get that sexual thrill through his orgasms, which came from the oral sex.

Just writing this is turning my stomach, I’ve always thought I was a strong person. Everyone important to me has always betrayed, even family. My husband knew this and I’d told him the importance of honesty to me and trust. I never thought he would do such a thing. The person who should be my back bone, to love and protect me is the one who has completely destroyed me and the life we have. It feels like everything has been a lie and I do not trust him.

I’ve always had trust issues and I worked so hard to get through them for the sake of our relationship, and he’s just proved that everything I ever thought was right, I want to leave and run a million miles away. But I can not do that to our children because they love him and he loves them.
I’m so fearful that everything he’s doing now is just an act to keep me here, when really behind my back, he’s getting up to even more things.

If anyone has an advice for me, please let me know. I know that God has plans for each of us and things happen for a reason and that God would not give us things we can not handle. But I’m beginning to think that perhaps God’s plan for me is a life of constant suffering so that I can be an example to others that you suffer but you just have to keep on going. I have to survive because my girls need me.

I don’t know how/if your husband takes up the slack with house chores and/or children if you are working (and I assume he is as well). But I’m struck by a lot of comments that come to this website of working women.

The following verse always comes to mind: Titus 2:5 I truly wish all women were staying at home not only because it’s biblical but also because the other types of comments I read are of marriages suffering from infidelity, usually because a husband or wife met someone of the opposite sex at work and then became unfaithful to their marriage with that person. (I’m not saying that’s you, of course, but it is some people on this website and I use the example to demonstrate a point.)

So….for the 2 reasons above I believe it is better for people to slip into the roles God designed for them (and I’m sure there are other reasons as well). The problem with a lot of societies, however, is that after women’s lib (or because of the influence of communism) – all of a sudden we have women working and everyone thinks it’s impossible to have an alternate arrangement.

I have trouble reconciling the cost of childcare (esp. if you have more than one) with the menial wages most women are earning. Unless someone has a master’s degree or is a corporate manager, I can’t see the money earned as being enough to make up for the additional cost (gas, childcare, etc.) that 2 spouses working creates not to mention all the non-monetary problems that it causes, like the ones you describe. My neighbor stays home and they said when they started having kids, the reason they chose that is they took a simple look at the books and saw it was not financially beneficial to have both of them working.

But it’s become a way of life in this country and so many others and it’s hard to convince people to even sit down and take a look at the finances and see if it wouldn’t be more cost efficient for the wife to stay home (even though it would probably take a little bit of lifestyle tweaking).

I simply wanted to share my thoughts and the above verse with you. I wanted to suggest to you to consider, prayerfully, the thoughts I’ve shared but then also go to God and ask Him what He thinks. If you have asked and God hasn’t allowed you the circumstances to stay home, then perhaps it’s not His will. However, if you haven’t asked at all, about the situation and what your course of action should be, then that should be your next move. Start praying or even fasting, if necessary, to find out what the solution is. And, of course, pray for God to take the bitterness.

I wake on many days and find I need to have God give me an extra jolt of joy and/or positive outlook because it’s not there on some days and God is my only way of getting that.

The last suggestion I wanted to make, to help keep you from burnout, is to either ask your husband to stay home one evening a week so that you can go out by yourself or with friends. OR – there are a lot of daycare centers that offer mom’s day out or parents’ night out on a weekend night so you might want to check into those as well.

Please know that God loves you and keep your chin up in God and your faith strong. With love and prayers, LT