is pornography grounds for divorce

[chosenone]

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As a women I can imagine that is feels as if a knife is being stuck in you every time that your husband looks at porn. After time it would damage you severally both emotionally and spiritually. A person can only take so much of this before they break.

...

Like a knife repeatedly stabbing and twisting, and salt poured and rubbed into the gaping, bleeding wounds, that reach into the very core of your being, destroying any and all self-esteem. It is repeated affairs with endless multiple images.

A wife can fight flesh, win back her husband if she chooses. But this... this she can't compete.

  Phoebe I can only imagine the horror of it and that is why I could never tell any woman that they have to stay married to a man who thinks nothing of doing such awful things to his wife who he is supposed to love and cherish above all others.
As you say you cannot fight porn in the same way that you can fight another person.
 It is all around and you cannot stop it if the spouse doesn't want to.It is unfaithfulness day after day month after month, year after year with hundreds of other women. IT is SERIOUS stuff and marriage breaking stuff.

My husband committed serious sexual immorality for years and years. (It wasn't porn). I didn't know about it until 10 years ago when I found out . That was a  nightmare.It was so serious that we immediately separated (the same day) and later divorced.

 I wouldn't be able to stay with a man like your ex who treated me like rubbish and would rather look at other women in films or pictures than be faithful to me. I wouldn't be able to cope with the pain and deep hurt that you describe and neither should any other person have to. That is NOT what marriage is about.

Praise God that you have found a good man now though, as I have.

posbe's situation sounds worse than mine,my heart goes out to her. i look back over all the years of my marriage and what i have been through emotionally and now know my husband was looking at  porn throughout the marriage without me knowing until now, it explains so much to me now, i was blaming myself for the way i felt during sex with my husband, praying for God to help me and asking him what is wrong with me, because my husband kept telling me i was a prude or like a stone and i wasn't normal, i wanted to please my husband. i used to have frequent nightmares where i would wake up yelling NO! or HELP ME! in a sweat. i even became suicidal and he said he couldn't come home from work, it was the grace of God that kept me from pulling the trigger, not my husband. a time long  before that he left work early and home in record time to have sex with me. then i questioned my own salvation, and God began to open up everything to me, he assured me of my salvation and that all these years were not all my fault. i wasn't perfect but it's not all my fault as my husband says it was. he revealed to me my husbands porn use, it explained so much about why i was having emotional problems. we haven't had relations in quite a long time.....i haven't had a single nightmare since. porn use is very damageing.

 

That's good sahg that you haven't been having nightmares since you stopped having sex with your husband. That just shows what an evil thing porn is. There are evil spirits associated with porn use such as the spirits of lust and this is borne out by what you and phoebe have said. The more that a man addicted to porn has the more he wants. he wants more and more immoral things and his lust is never satisfied no matter what.
I am so pleased that God revealed these things to you, and showed you that it wasn't you that was the problem. God LOVES you to bits and he wants to heal you of all of this. He HATES porn and what it does to people, and the devastation it causes to both the one who does it and to their families.
I pray that God will guide you as to what to do next, but I feel that you are allowed to divorce him if he is unrepentant. or at least to separate from him.

[chosenone]

So what are we arguing for then? I can agree with that, so long as divorce may be in order when it gets like Phoebe has experienced.

Didn't realize we were arguing... 

I agree 100%. I guess my snag was the porn-adultery thing. While I do agree that it can become adultery, many men (and some women) fall victim to porn. It is innocent enough to begin with.

The first reaction of a spouse should not be to scream I want a divorce. The guidance given from a counselor should not be divorce. At least not at first.

But because some women have been injured in this way, and the counselors they are seeing are women, the result can be devastating. They innertwine their own experience into "their" advice for others. That is a no-no.

As I said before, I know exactly how it affects women. My wife is a living example of it. 

I believe that God's wisdom alone should be sought. And anyone in a position to help these people who think otherwise, shouldn't be in a position to do that.

I know people will divorce because they are abused and sick of the pornography. I am not saying they shouldn't. Only it shouldn't be their first and only option.

Peace...

Who better to advise than someone who understands, someone who has been there, walked in those shoes?!?

What counselors? What makes you think we have "women counselors", and what makes you think they  give "devastating" advice? Why did I have to wait until I was nearly destroyed before it was "OK" to get that divorce???

Dude, I walked through this mess with no human being at my side, no one to lean on, no one to talk, no one who understood, no one to pick me up and carry me. It was just me and God. One cannot so easily go to others with this kind of humiliation. It isn't the problem of non-Christians, this shame of telling someone your husband has a porn problem, it's the problem of Christians. Some people won't believe you. Some will tell you that it is "your cross to bear". Others will want you to go through counseling where you get to sit and listen to the jerk lie about how he lives his life. OH! And my favorite: If you would just give him more sex, "satisfy" him more! His hunger was insatiable! It's an addiction that is a high that requires more and more and more. And it began with pornography. Stats prove the addicting power of pornography. The internet and it's easy accessibility and privacy has taken Playboy magazines to a whole new level. Stats are proving that the increasing number of child predators is directly related to internet pornography. It's a mistake to underestimate it's power and the damage it leaves in it's wake. It's humiliating and shaming to tell others that your husband is a pervert. And frightening. Telling someone may put you in physical danger.

I was raised believing that divorce was sin, and it was treated as though it was the unforgivable one, at that.  I might STILL be married to the jerk if he had not left me. THAT was a gift from God! His pornography led to sex with hookers, then married neighbors and "friends", customers of our business, molested a teenage girl who worked for us, a man and his adult son with whom we did business, and finally left me because he was in a relationship with a very wealthy, married, black woman. Thought she could offer him something more-lucrative. She dumped him as soon as he left me. He brought home STD's. He has been married and divorced 5 times now. We had no children. I miscarried twice, another gift from God. He was a Christian all his life, an Independent Baptist, one who believed in OSAS. HE KNEW BETTER. I lived with this stuff for seven years. Seven long demeaning years of my life stolen from me because I thought I was doing the "biblically right" thing. Hogwash. God never wanted His children to live like that.

When does one say "Enough!" and it is "OK", "permissible", "Biblical" to get a divorce? The answer is when the vow of faithfulness is broken. It is THEN up to the TWO people involved as to whether they feel they have something salvageable. If I had believed that divorce was an option for me from the beginning, if HE had believed divorce was an option for me from the beginning, if I had been taught that it was unfaithfulness that breaks the vow instead of physical adultery only, my life would have been very, very different.

I left church after that. (Not God. Please see the difference.) It took another eight years and the death of my second husband before I returned to her. It was this loss that brought me to where I am today in my walk with God.

 Phoebe, were you even advised to stay with him after he started going to prostitutes and others for sex?

[phoebe]

Advised? By whom? I never told anyone while we were still married. It was my shame to have such an unfaithful husband. † The only one who knew was my family doctor, the one he went to when he got gonorrhea-three months into our marriage. This would happen two more times during the next seven years. Once was with one of my nurses while I was in the hospital fighting for my life following an auto-motorcycle accident on April Fool's Day, 1977.

No one knew about his unfaithfulness until three years after the divorce. And even now, 29 years after, small bits of all the rest are still coming out. I buried it so deep, it was even hard for God to dig out. It was a very painful process.

People who think that small bits of porn are harmless are listening to the (wrong, satan) voice in their head, not the (right, Spirit) one in their heart. It destroys marriages, it destroys people. I am content and at peace now. But my ex-husband is not, never has been, and probably never will be.

Choices. It's all about the choices we make in our relationship/walk with God.

† I should add that it was understood that marriage meant forever-no-matter-what in my fellowship and in my family.

[fanuvmxpx]

Porn will not only ruin your marriage it will ruin your dating life as well. These are just the physical consequences of disobeying God.

[chosenone]

Advised? By whom? I never told anyone while we were still married. It was my shame to have such an unfaithful husband. † The only one who knew was my family doctor, the one he went to when he got gonorrhea-three months into our marriage. This would happen two more times during the next seven years. Once was with one of my nurses while I was in the hospital fighting for my life following an auto-motorcycle accident on April Fool's Day, 1977.

No one knew about his unfaithfulness until three years after the divorce. And even now, 29 years after, small bits of all the rest are still coming out. I buried it so deep, it was even hard for God to dig out. It was a very painful process.

People who think that small bits of porn are harmless are listening to the (wrong, satan) voice in their head, not the (right, Spirit) one in their heart. It destroys marriages, it destroys people. I am content and at peace now. But my ex-husband is not, never has been, and probably never will be.

Choices. It's all about the choices we make in our relationship/walk with God.

† I should add that it was understood that marriage meant forever-no-matter-what in my fellowship and in my family.

  I thought that you said that people in your church told you that you had to put up with his behaviour, that is what I was referring to.

[phoebe]

Advised? By whom? I never told anyone while we were still married. It was my shame to have such an unfaithful husband. † The only one who knew was my family doctor, the one he went to when he got gonorrhea-three months into our marriage. This would happen two more times during the next seven years. Once was with one of my nurses while I was in the hospital fighting for my life following an auto-motorcycle accident on April Fool's Day, 1977.

No one knew about his unfaithfulness until three years after the divorce. And even now, 29 years after, small bits of all the rest are still coming out. I buried it so deep, it was even hard for God to dig out. It was a very painful process.

People who think that small bits of porn are harmless are listening to the (wrong, satan) voice in their head, not the (right, Spirit) one in their heart. It destroys marriages, it destroys people. I am content and at peace now. But my ex-husband is not, never has been, and probably never will be.

Choices. It's all about the choices we make in our relationship/walk with God.

† I should add that it was understood that marriage meant forever-no-matter-what in my fellowship and in my family.

  I thought that you said that people in your church told you that you had to put up with his behaviour, that is what I was referring to.

No. I was taught to tolerate forgive and forgive and forgive whatever he did, that divorce was an unforgivable sin. Maybe that's what you were thinking. But I never spoke with anyone about his behavior until several years after the divorce.

[Blondie]

You seem to have been caught in the middle Phoebe. The word has always said that we ought not to put our spouses away except in the case of immorality, fornication or whatever. Pornea the actual greek word. One never dwells on divorce and goes for keeps as that is God's will. When things go wrong as in your case then that scripture becomes particularly important, but we also need to be led by God's spirit and not use the word in a legalistic way as it is spirit and life.

We are meant to forgive but didn't Jesus say if your brother sins against you rebuke him and if he repents forgive him? I take it that He is talking about relationship here.

[phoebe]

What you know in your head and what you know in your heart are often in conflict with each other. I knew that adultery was "biblical grounds" for divorce. But the shame of this kind of life was more than I could bear to bring to the light of day. Humiliating for me, embarrassing for him. And he was still my husband, and I vowed to be his support. I thought I was doing the right, godly thing. Wifely "submission" was the rule of all good Baptist marriages at his church. I was very submissive. Should I have left him at the first Playboy? How about after the 12th? Magazines. Calendars, Movies. Which one crossed the line? I didn't know, either. He had already crossed that line before we were married. I just didn't know. Like all good addicts, he kept it well-hidden. Even after we were married, under lock and key. Several years passed before he ventured on to people I knew or brought home the STD again. I thought it was "contained", "corralled". I thought it was "manageable".

My mother-in-law brought me a book while I was still in the hospital-in traction, a Tim & Beverly LaHaye book on marriage with a chapter marked on satisfying a husband when you are incapacitated. Geez. Did she know he was having threesomes with one of my nurses and her husband??? Did everyone know but me??

Pornography is an addiction. And it isn't just "his" addiction. Eventually he will draw her into it, as that is one of his fantasies. And then it becomes "her" addiction, too.

[zoonance]

Those of you who dont think that longterm and constant porn use is sexual immorality, and there fore isnt grounds for divorce, what would they advise a woman whose life is in tatters becuase of that (and like my friend who may also need to protect their children from it also), what it their advice?
. Stay in a deplorable situation? Or seperate but have to stay joined to the man forever?

I wouldn't claim that longterm, chronic pornography is not grounds for divorce.  It is distructive and a substitute for the proper sexual relationship - clearly a sign of marital disfunction. 

 However, if "lusting after a woman in the heart" is the same as adultery in the strictest since, then lusting in the heart is grounds for divorce.  If I have sexual intercourse with another woman, one time, then I am guilty and my wife has grounds for divorce.  She doesn't have to divorce me, but clearly the covenant has been broken.  (Certainly, rape and other sexual encounters would not qualify in terms of the physical act itself - thus, it isn't just about the act)

If during an R rated film, I happen across a love scene (ie.  Sandra Bullock, Katherine Zeta Jones, and a number of other ladies that I would find hard to ignore - potentially no pun intended) and an adulterous thought occures - then strictly speaking, my wife would just then have grounds for divorce.   

[phoebe]

Those of you who dont think that longterm and constant porn use is sexual immorality, and there fore isnt grounds for divorce, what would they advise a woman whose life is in tatters becuase of that (and like my friend who may also need to protect their children from it also), what it their advice?
. Stay in a deplorable situation? Or seperate but have to stay joined to the man forever?

I wouldn't claim that longterm, chronic pornography is not grounds for divorce.  It is distructive and a substitute for the proper sexual relationship - clearly a sign of marital disfunction. 

 However, if "lusting after a woman in the heart" is the same as adultery in the strictest since, then lusting in the heart is grounds for divorce.  If I have sexual intercourse with another woman, one time, then I am guilty and my wife has grounds for divorce.  She doesn't have to divorce me, but clearly the covenant has been broken.  (Certainly, rape and other sexual encounters would not qualify in terms of the physical act itself - thus, it isn't just about the act)

If during an R rated film, I happen across a love scene (ie.  Sandra Bullock, Katherine Zeta Jones, and a number of other ladies that I would find hard to ignore - potentially no pun intended) and an adulterous thought occures - then strictly speaking, my wife would just then have grounds for divorce.   

Yes, strictly speaking. Under Law. What if she also has an adulterous thought during the same movie, same scene? Do you consider it a "draw"? Does one nullify the other? No. In a healthy marriage, love and forgiveness is the "law".

Who defines what is "longterm" and "chronic"? There's no BCV for it. We define it. We draw the line. The individuals in the midst of the mess. That's why God gives us all these shades of grace-gray. We have choices to make. We choose what is forgivable to us, which broken vow we can't live with, and what breaks our hearts/spirits beyond repair. 7x7, 7x70, is there a limit? and if so, what? We want a number. But the answer isn't a number. It's a choice. Living under grace is harder than living under law. We want God to draw that stationary line for us. But with grace, He keeps moving it. That's why we can't give this woman a definitive answer to her question. She has to decide for herself. Her answer will not match my answer. Or your answer.

[chosenone]

I agree phoebe that we cannot say what is right for each women,  I do think though that a woman whose husband is into long term unrepentant porn use needs to be aware that she can leave and even divorce if she feels that she can take it no more. Every case is different, and as in cases where one spouse is unfaithful, one spouse will be able to have them back and another will never be able to trust them again. Each person is different and each marriage is different.

I feel personally that I would not be able to stay with a man who was into porn and wasnt prepared to stop. I know myself and I know that I couldnt take it. I also knowl that I could never trust a man again who was unfaithful to me with another women. Some can and I admire them but we are all different.

[Blondie]

If during an R rated film, I happen across a love scene (ie.  Sandra Bullock, Katherine Zeta Jones, and a number of other ladies that I would find hard to ignore - potentially no pun intended) and an adulterous thought occures - then strictly speaking, my wife would just then have grounds for divorce[/glow][/font].  
[/quote]

That is a bit rediculous Zoonance and is in danger of scuppering the genuine argument that is being made here. Having a lustful thought is not grounds for divorce. Many men battle with these thoughts. The main point of the argument is long term unrepentant pornography and all it leads to. If we get a lustful thought, and we will, we can fight it. If we give way everytime and feed it how long will it take before we get a desire for pornography and start entertaining that? We are talking here about unrepentant pornography that will be affecting the intimacy in a marriage.

Phoebe you have felt the full brunt of this and your experience could be invaluable in certain situations. There must be thousands of women in that position who think they have to put up with it in the name of submission. I think it is great that the subject is being aired out in the open. I think your words about us wanting a definite line are full of wisdom. Legalism is not the answer, (although giving ourselves rules on a personal level can help us). We are not under the law because we walk by the spirit and if we walk in the spirit we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, in this case pornography.

[chosenone]

Those of you who dont think that longterm and constant porn use is sexual immorality, and there fore isnt grounds for divorce, what would they advise a woman whose life is in tatters becuase of that (and like my friend who may also need to protect their children from it also), what it their advice?
. Stay in a deplorable situation? Or seperate but have to stay joined to the man forever?

I wouldn't claim that longterm, chronic pornography is not grounds for divorce.  It is distructive and a substitute for the proper sexual relationship - clearly a sign of marital disfunction. 

 However, if "lusting after a woman in the heart" is the same as adultery in the strictest since, then lusting in the heart is grounds for divorce.  If I have sexual intercourse with another woman, one time, then I am guilty and my wife has grounds for divorce.  She doesn't have to divorce me, but clearly the covenant has been broken.  (Certainly, rape and other sexual encounters would not qualify in terms of the physical act itself - thus, it isn't just about the act)

If during an R rated film, I happen across a love scene (ie.  Sandra Bullock, Katherine Zeta Jones, and a number of other ladies that I would find hard to ignore - potentially no pun intended) and an adulterous thought occures - then strictly speaking, my wife would just then have grounds for divorce.   

  Maybe steer clear of r rated films? If anything come son the tv that my husband thinks he shouldnt be looking at, whether it be on a programe or on adverts, he closes his eyes. We also never watch a film with any sexual content. He has always been strict about that long before we met and married 4 years ago. that is one of the things that I LOVE about him.

[Bocephus]

I believe this topic has been exhausted so it will be locked for now.