A while back, I wrote an entry here that was very unflattering to my wife. I wrote that post out of anger and pain, and I let far too many people into an intimate part of our life... a place those people didn't belong.
As Paul Harvey might say, I would like to tell you "the rest of the story".
My wife was sexually abused as a child. Her stepfather, and others in her family, forced her to perform disgusting acts at a horrible age. (They are disgusting at any age, just moreso when done to an unwilling, prepubescent child.) I knew this going into our marriage and found out more details as we went along together.
As a Christian man, I am called to be responsible for the spiritual well-being of my household. This includes the spiritual well-being of my wife. I am also largely responsible for my wife's emotional well-being and physical security. Throughout our marriage, I would frequently talk about this; it was something I grew up knowing. However, I was doing little more than paying lip service to God's calling in my life. In fact, even while I was saying one thing, I was actively destroying my wife's emotional, spiritual, and physical health.
I have had a compulsion/addiction to pornography since I was about 14. I found a pornographic magazine in the gutter (!!!) on the way home from school at that age and never had it far from my side for the rest of high school. I masturbated semi-chronically; there were times during this period that I would get sores from excessive self-manipulation. But it was a welcome relief from real life for me, since I was quite an awkward teenager. I never seemed to "click" with too many other people, especially girls, and pornography and masturbation was a place where I could get my way and satisfy myself without fear of rejection.
When Nase and I got married, I was still addicted to pornography. I thought I would stop when we got married and started having sex, but I soon realized it was never enough. I found reasons to escape from Nase and the stresses of life and relationships, escape to the world where I controlled everything. While I never fantasized about being with someone else, I think I fantasized about being someone else. I enjoyed watching other people having sex, and while I didn't see myself in the picture, I thought saw a willingness in those pictures and movies that didn't seem to exist in my wife.
But even that isn't quite right. The willingness to please me was there with Nase, even when it so desperately hurt her. She began to perform sexual acts with me that were exactly the same things that she experienced as childhood abuse. I pressured her to do things that reminded her of her stepfather and other childhood abusers... and she gave in to me because she loved me, and she wanted to feel the same love that she felt I was giving to those pornographic images. At the time, I felt that she was doing her duty and "not withholding her body" but in reality, I was demanding much more than her body from her. I was demanding her identity, security, and her trust. I offered nothing in return; I simply took the perverse physical pleasure from acts I had seen in abusive, pornographic images.
All of this progressed gradually, and I never really stopped to question what I was doing. In fact, I was destroying Nase and completely scorning my responsibility as God's man. I was in a more precarious position to do so, given Nase's childhood abuse. Where I was called to be even more tender, I was coarse. Where I was called to provide even more security, I was threatening. Instead of cherishing and protecting my wife, I was using her. Instead of helping her move on from her abuse, I reintroduced it by manipulating her to view pornography with me and having aberrant sex through it.
About a year ago, I sat on our church lawn and confessed to Nase that I had a problem. (I had previously expressed that I thought it was a problem, but had gone back to it.) I wasn't quite sure why it was a problem, but I knew that it was wrong. Little did I know just how much damage I had done; even at that time, I still thought pornography really was the "victimless crime". And that is the lie: that it's victimless, when in fact it victimized Nase to the point of desperation, and me to the point of being nearly closed off to her feelings entirely.
So that's my confession. While Nase made and makes her own choices, I recognize that I will need to face God someday and explain my actions toward her. He placed her in my life to protect, love, honor, and cherish. Even though I did fairly well in some things, I failed miserably in the most important things.
The epilogue is that God is big enough to overcome even my most heinous acts. God has given me a beautiful friendship with my wife, something I don't even come close to deserving. God has not withdrawn his love and spirit from me (cf. Psalm 51); given that I actively sought to destroy His child for my own personal benefit, I would certainly think it would be within His right to abandon me. God has protected my relationship with my children when I might not even deserve to have ANY relationship with them.
Nase, I love you. If I can ever do anything to make things right and somehow atone for my sins against you and God, I will do it willingly. Thank you for loving me in spite of all of the crap, and for being patient with me. If you want it, "you still have all of me".