Ask Evie: My Husband Has Been Watching Porn Behind My Back After Promising He Quit. What Do I Do?

READER’S QUESTION: "Dear Evie, My husband and I talked about pornography and our stances on it prior to marriage. I told him that it was me or porn for the rest of our lives if he wanted to date me. He was fully on board, and it didn’t seem like a big deal at all. I found out right before we got married that he had been lying to me and watching it. We told our priest, he repented, he said he was done with it, and we decided to continue moving forward with the wedding. We’ve now been married for 10 years and have three children together. I recently found porn on his phone and confronted him. I’m heartbroken and feel like everything is a lie. I’m so confused. I’ve kept my figure, and we have sex regularly (and I’m constantly suggesting we try new things). I make sure I look and smell good before he gets home, I feed him home-cooked meals, and I’m raising our children at home. What am I doing wrong? Why wasn’t I enough?

Sincerely, The Broken Hearted Bride"

EVIE’S ADVICE: First of all, we need to address the question of "Why wasn't I enough?" Your husband watching porn behind your back and lying to you about it, quite frankly, has nothing to do with you. You are not doing anything "wrong" that would justify your husband watching porn – and worse – lying to you about it. You could have sex with him every day and look like Megan Fox and keep the house immaculate and your kids could be the happiest kids on the block, and he might still watch porn. World-famous Victoria's Secret supermodels like Behati Prinsloo still get cheated on by their husbands. To put it simply: It's not a "you" problem, it's a "him" problem. As difficult as it may be, try your best not to let your husband’s porn habit tear down your own confidence as a wife and mother. The last thing you should be doing in this situation is blaming yourself for his lack of self-control and honor. He needs to take full accountability for his actions. 

That being said, we aren’t having this discussion 10 years ago, prior to you getting married and having children, where we might've told you to cut your losses and find a man who honors your feelings and whom you can trust wholeheartedly. You have built a life with this man and you have three beautiful children together, so we need to find a way to move forward in the best way possible.

This is not only an issue of him watching porn, but disregarding your feelings, being unaligned on values, and betraying your trust.

This is not only an issue of him watching porn (which is bad enough on its own), but it's a problem of him disregarding your feelings that you've clearly communicated several times, being unaligned on values, and, worst of all, betraying your trust. Don’t let him use the excuse that “every guy does it” or say that since you don’t have sex every day, he needs it. Are any of your children daughters? How would he feel if they did porn? How would he feel knowing that men are getting off to them? If you've discussed with him the negative effects of porn on marriages and on society in general in addition to how you feel hurt by the idea of him watching it, you can frame it in this way where it may hit a little closer to home.

He may have been watching porn all along and lied to you because he didn't want to stop but still wanted to marry you, or he may have stopped since you caught him last and only recently restarted watching it. Either way, you may never really know the truth because he clearly isn't being upfront with you in this situation. You had to go through his phone to even find out about it. Which brings us to another issue: Why are you going through his phone? Unless you were on his phone in his presence for valid reasons (to find a photo of the kids, etc.), this clearly points to a lack of trust in your marriage. Do you find yourself going through his phone when he's sleeping to snoop around because you don't trust him? It sounds like something more is going on here that you need to get to the bottom of.

In any case, we'd seriously recommend getting a licensed professional involved (like a marriage counselor who honors your faith) to work through these problems with your husband. The trust in your marriage is now broken (or has been for some time), and that's not an issue that is going to be resolved on its own. Your husband will need to get to a place where he honestly doesn’t want to watch porn anymore, even if he feels like he can’t stop. He might be in that place already and is feeling shame from watching it behind your back. A counselor and an accountability partner (not you) can help him discover what he thinks he’s getting from porn that fulfills a need and help him put measures in place to break the habit, like using a dumb or a light phone, for starters.

Have a question you want our advice on? Email it to us at ask@eviemagazine.com.