hello @findingmywayback I am just reading over this post and wow.
My wife has threatened to divorce me and has beared so much of my issues of sin. I know it's been years and you might have moved on or might still be with your husband. I hope and pray and you are doing much better and he has finally learned his lesson and will do whatever it takes to get a new heart and love God and love you as his wife again. If you have moved on, then I'm glad you did too.
for anyone else maybe reading this...I wanted to say this to others.
If anyone else is out there hurting, I know God is able to change the man, because I'm like the husband in her story. The Lord is able to make a heart convicted, in tears, sick to the stomach, and God disciplines his children. For me, what matter most now is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and truly knowing who Jesus Christ really is. I am done playing church and playing a fake Christian life. I'm done flirting with the women around me. I want to love my wife, whom God has given me, because she is the only one for me and the best one for me.
God has revealed to me how I have crushed my wife's soul, smashed her heart to bits and pieces, and almost drove her to insanity and possible suicide over and over. I'm not lying. If it were not for other sisters around her, if it were not for God always helping her, I honestly do not know how my wife is still even alive, sane, and still with me. I don't know what to say.
If Jesus said that looking with lust is adultery, and adultery leads to hell, and if these promises and warnings of God are given to the husband, and he still is not yet convicted, ...then only God may have mercy on his soul now more than ever. A Pastor/Drug Addiction counselor told me that I was possibly heading to hell, even while I professed faith in Jesus. Now the hurting wife tries to share the scriptures but the disobedient husband will always(or mostly?) get proud and not understand and resist the word of God. I know it did. I was finding all kinds of faults with my wife and calling her names and 'holy person' and mocked her many times in the past. It was because I was convicted and I hated my sins to be exposed in brought to the light.
Jesus said "men love darkness rather than the light and would not come to the light unless their deeds be exposed" (John 3:17-19 around there). and 'whoever practices the darkness hates the light' ..so I hated my wife, I hated God too, because God is light and the light being shown through my wife, I was hating God's working through her, thus also hating God. I could hear someone saying "hey dominic, you are wrong and unloving to judge a Christian brother, and you are guilty too".
I have hated God, and I have hated my wife. This is what the Bible say. We will have one master, either one will hate the one and love the other or vice versa. The question I ask my self is...'what do I love? more than God?" The Bible has the answer in Romans 1. We served the creation more than the creator. The creation is anything we see created, in this case, the human body, aka the private parts. Sex, pleasure, self, and private parts are the idols.
The idol of self must be repented of (I can't demand sex from my wife as she is some sex slave)
The idol of pleasure must be repented of (I can't demand my pleasure be met)
The idol of private parts must be repented of (I can't demand to constantly please the members of my body)
We might (Christians who struggle with sex addiction) know these things but the power is not there. Why? It's God power, not ours. Why is God's power not working in us? I would ask myself this. Am I truly God's child? Am I born again? What are the evidences of my salvation? Doesn't the Bible say that all the sexual immoral will have their place in the lake of fire? More than just the fear part though...Didn't Jesus die on the cross for all my sins? Why don't I see Jesus as precious? Doesn't the Bible say "God's kindness leads us to repentance? (Rom 2:4) Why can I see kindness enough to want to repent and stay repented? Why don't I live in righteousness? Yes, Romans 7 applies here where there is a struggle but why don't I live for God? Why don't I fear God enough to quit lust/flesh and do whatever it takes? Doesn't the Bible say "by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil" (Proverbs) The root is the "I". The "I" will. This is why Jesus said "if anyone comes after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me"
Ok, this is teaching but what does that even look like in real life. Here is my example from my own sad story.
My wife might be upset at me, and will not let me have sex with her. By God's power, I cry and pray and listen to worship songs, I do this now because I don't want to sin against God. I am here to tell you. My body changes in a way, that I am not aroused and I'm ok to sleep, every time. I don't get the "blue balls" like some men say they get when they are horny and can't get orgasm. (men will lie to women as an excuse to make the women please the man) That is a lie. It's all in the mind and the Lord is able to change the mind (Romans 12:1,2)
Joseph, when Potifar's wife came to him for sex, said, "How can I do this wickedness and sin against God?" and Job made a covenant with his eyes not to look lustfully at a women. (job 31:1?) So I know my porn and masturbation will take me to hell.(Matthew 5:27-30, 1st Corinthians 6:9-13, Revelations 21:1) Now someone's theology might lead them to believe "Hey, I'm saved and I am heaven bound so my porn is not so bad". Wrong!. The Bible doesn't say that a saved person can live in consistent sexual immorality. There has to be a new creation, a new heart, a born again spirit. Romans 7 can't be used to say "hey, it's ok or I can sin". The Bible says not to turn the grace of God into a license to sin and in Titus 2:11-14, the grace of God teaches us to say "no". There have been times of sexual sins by David, Samson, and a brother in the New Testament that apparently was with his father's wife and this brother was expelled until he repented and then was told to welcome him back into the fellowship. My wife did kick me out and for two weeks I had no contact. This was in 2016. We almost divorce a few times before that too.
When I'm feeling horny, what do I do? Go online and watch p to m? No. Why? Because nothing will help me besides God. The fake porn are only others who are going to hell, why would I join myself to a prostitute (men and women prostitutes). Plus, when I do, I felt shame, guilt, unsaved, again unsure of my eternal destination. Jesus also warns of a house being cleaned of demons, and the demon finds seven more powerful demons who try to come back into the cleaned house. How stupid if I keep flirting, keep emotional affairing, keep watching porn.
Now I do have a really bad track record. For example, I have not watched porn and masturbated, but my last fall was not a porn one but a emotional affair one which is just as deadly and sinister. I was seeking some emotional support through another women I met online. I thought it was my ministry but it was just my flesh and not helping her. I was told to break that off and I did. I am very much still a weak, broken, and messed up individual. It's getting better. I feel like such a hypocrite because it sounds like I'm blasing others while practicing the same things. I get this a lot, this "your fake Christian" thought. God knows if I really am or not. I'm not going to worry about it anymore or what I think or others. I want to live for Jesus and I need His help and your prayers too. I want to help brothers. I can't help sisters or wives.
I think everyone who posted on this thread said it right. I know it's years from the original thread but I wanted to share my painful story and what my wife did to help me.
I will say this too. When I was getting sex from my wife, that did not help me. It did not because I was still flirting with office ladies and talking to other women online, even while my wife was supplying my physical needs. So wife should not think "if I do this, he's fixed" No, he is not fixed until he sees his sins has a horrible offense to God, whom God will punish his disobedient children, or even worse, the person might not even be saved to begin with and would need a radical transformation. He needs to hit rock bottom. This is why I think it is biblical to divorce. Matthew 19. Unless, he will do "whatever she asks" without back talk, without "justification" and do that for a long time, in order to start rebuilding trust again.
For now, I have a flip phone and will probably always have one, because it's my boundary, not a white knuckle change.
For now, no more office talks with any women.
For now, no social media. I don't have Facebook, Reddit, all that stuff.
What do I do when I go home? I try to be involved in the family. I read some forums posts on here Blazing Grace. Reading Christian books. I listen to worship music. I do like to web development work on that as a side hobby. It's fun, and gets me distracted. I admit to playing video games. Even this is not all that great. Some brothers I know don't play video games but go out on fishing and hiking and other stuff. I use a PC in front in the main room. Even that is not enough. I have to be reading my Bible seeking God, and in a love relationship with the Lord more than anyone else, even my wife, and just like the hurting wife is leaning on the Lord for her own health and sanity, so I must also for my own health and sanity and it will work out.
I admit, it's really extremely hard for me to call someone. I am very anti-social, but on here, I feel like I can write a lot. But I don't like to call brothers and say "I'm struggling" but I have to do this now. I have been doing it now and it's helping me a lot. God is helping me change my evil self. The self that must die daily. Because I know if I don't treat myself this way, I will go back eventually. In fact, when I was reading in Nehemiah today, they were praying and confessing their sins and remembering how their fathers were blessed, got proud, sinned, God delivered them over to their enemies, then God humbled and called upon the Lord again, and God delivered them every single time. Then, they got proud, same thing, over and over. I can't tell you how often I'm repeating myself. Sometimes, months, then I lost, sometimes victories for years, then I lost, sometimes, I lost in different ways. For example, not like having sex with women, but emotional affairs and sexual fantasy. Like a women struggle but for guys, that was my last big ones. It's insane and I have to be really serious to win this.