What to do Husband is Using Pornography

Imagine with me for a minute ...

Everyday you wake up excited to get up and face the day. You have energy. You have clarity of thought. You have JOY! Real shine from your face joy. You feel happy, not forced but actually have the feeling of happiness down deep within yourself. You are present in the moment no matter what you are doing. You know you belong no matter where you go. You have confidence, your shoulders are back and your head is held high. You have purpose. Life is meaningful and fulfilling.

If this is not your life right now ... keep reading. I know that life, too.

I was so caught up surviving my abusive marriage that each day was like moving through thick mud. My thinking was foggy. I couldn't make decisions when my children asked me to do something or go somewhere. I wasn't able to be truly present with my children. Life was hard, overwhelming and intrusive thoughts were ... well, intrusive. The question "is he using pornography" was constantly in the back of my mind.

One of the things, among many, that I did was to decide what my priorities were ... then I created boundaries around the priorities.

I decided that my children were more of a priority than my marriage at one point and asked if he was still using pornography. When his answer was yes, I asked him to move out. His pornography use was affecting the children and our marriage. He still saw the children but he was no longer in our home, inviting the enemy into it with his consumption. I was able to put up spiritual boundaries on the property line, on the house and on each of us still living there.
His boundaries were that he was not allowed at the house, I took the children to him and picked them up. They did not spend the night with him. The house was my safe place. It was that way until he moved back home.

Knowing that my children were the priority made it so much easier to put boundaries in place for their protection and mine. At this point though I had no support system in place, so while I was able to hold my boundaries in many ways, there were other ways that my priorities and boundaries were poo-poo'd by others.

Boundaries are Biblical. The first 5 books of the Bible are full of boundaries set by Yahweh. These boundaries are for our protection, not to limit our lives and make life hard or boring. Rather so that we know how to truly live life freely without being afraid we are doing something we shouldn't. Yeshua had boundaries when He walked the earth.

Boundaries are not something new, they are old!

What boundaries do you need to set into place? Given that you understand that even Yeshua had boundaries while He was here on earth ... what do you need do now?

Matthew 16:21-25 From that time on Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, and be killed and on the third day be raised. So Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him: “God forbid, Lord! This must not happen to you!” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me because you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but on man’s.” Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it.

Do you see the boundaries in those verses? Yeshua set a boundary with Satan, who was speaking through Peter, he was to be behind Yeshua. And there are boundaries for us as His followers, we are to deny ourselves (boundary) take up our cross and follow Him.