Husband “David” and Wife “Patricia” (age 38) share their own perspective.

“David” (age 40)

The first time I saw erotic material I was 7 years old.  I found my dad’s Playboy collection stored away in our basement.  At the time I did not realize that the feelings I got from viewing those magazines would lead into the start of an awful prison-like sentence I would serve for the next 30+ years of my life. 

Porn and masturbation had been a constant part of my life since my pre-teen years.  It started off with magazines only, however it quickly escalated into cable TV, videos and eventually the internet.  I always thought I would “grow out of it” when I matured, got married or became a dad.  But that was not the case; in fact that couldn’t have been further from the truth.  Oh, I tried to quit on my own many times over, but the grips of bondage were too severe -- it owned me.  Along with the addiction came severe struggles with anger and frustration, to the point that I could no longer manage my own emotions in a healthy way.  I knew it was sin and I knew it was wrong, but no matter what I tried I could not stop.  I fondly remember in my denial-like ways telling myself “this was the last time.”  I continued to tell myself that for the better part of 20 years.  I finally got to the point where I instead started asking myself… “was I going to die with this addiction?”  I can honestly say I hated myself and what I had become but didn’t know what to do or where to turn. I was scared and at times I felt hopeless.  That is where my story of healing, restoring and redemption begins….

It was September of 2017, and I was at the end of my rope.  My marriage of 14 years was suffering mightily and at the brink of collapse, I was a new first-time father and I could not process or handle the daily struggles that came along with that duty.  Overall, my internal emotional support system was broken to the core.  All the years of living a lie and being dishonest to God, my family, friends and co-workers had finally caught up to me. At the request of my wife, I asked a friend to meet me for breakfast to help coach or refer me to a counselor who could help through my anger issues.  It started off like any other meeting we had in the past with prayer, discussion through scripture, and man-to-man conversation, until out of the blue he asked me… “have you ever looked at porn?”  I had never been honest to anyone about this before, but for some reason I felt compelled to tell the truth, so I said “yes.”  Then he asked if I had ever masturbated to it before, and again truthfully, I said “yes.” 

At this point I was really getting nervous because I had never been honest to anyone about this before, but he reassured me that it would be ok.  He admitted to me he had struggled with the same addiction in the past, but with proper counsel and by God’s grace he was able to break free.  He told me there was hope for purity for me as well if I was willing to put in the work.  He began to tell me about Pureheart Ministries, a Christian-based ministry that specialized in sexual addiction and recovery, and the man behind the vision, who is Tim Davis.   Obviously, I wasn’t sure what to think at first as I was excited and scared all at the same time.  What would this mean?  How transparent would I have to become? How was I going to confess all of this to my wife and how would she react?  You can imagine the thoughts running through my mind!  Obviously by this time I was way out of my comfort zone, but knowing how far I had fallen, I was willing to give it a shot.

Two weeks later I met with Tim Davis via Zoom to begin my assessment and order my Basic Training! workbook.  I was nervous and uncomfortable at first since I had no idea where all this truth telling was coming from, especially to someone I did not know.  Tim reassured me that his success rate was nearly 100% if I was willing to be truthful in my answers and I was willing to follow Pureheart Ministries processes for getting pure.  After my assessment, I told him I was all in for as long as it takes.

We quickly got to work unpacking my past.  The hardest thing I ever had to do was confess to my wife the 14 years of lies, deceit, and sexual sin I had been engaging in throughout our marriage.  I thought my marriage was over for sure, but time and time again Tim encouraged me that he hadn’t had a divorce yet, to trust the process and to lean on God for the outcome.  That gave me hope so that’s just what I did.  Though telling my wife everything was difficult to say the least, there was also a burden lifted that day.  A deep, deep burden that had been festering for years; one that only confession was going take away.  For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt healing beginning to work in me and weight lifted off me.  I felt a closeness with my wife that I had never felt before.  Almost like a bonding of souls that could never happen when I was living a lie.

Though it was a tough start for me as I had a lot of baggage to unpack and sins to confess, Tim couldn’t have been more accurate!  Tim was very honest, transparent, loving and patient when I needed it the most.  Never once did I ever feel judgement from him.  Certainly there were times in the beginning when I would be challenged to get outside of my comfort zone (balanced work schedule, working out regularly, daily devotions and prayer time, routine, family time along with personal time) or by some corrective action that was needed on my part; but looking back now these were all things needed in my life.  Tim showed me how and why my internal emotional support system was broken and the direct correlation between sexual addiction and anger. This was something I had never considered before.  He provided me with the tools and expertise needed to fix the problem and keep it fixed!  That’s something that I was never able to accomplish on my own.  

Now that my internal support system was beginning to show signs of healing, we could now focus on the sexual addiction and the sin that accompanied it.  For me, Pureheart taught me how to be completely honest and accountable, even when the answer may be hard to admit.  I learned to be honest with myself by recognizing and understanding denial and my trigger behaviors, and by being honest with my wife and my accountability brothers.

If, and when we had breaks in integrity, we instituted tangible consequences as well, that proved to be good icing on the cake!  Implementing all these tools has really proven to be a very foundational principal in my life today.  I spent many years breaking trust with my wife, but post Pureheart, our relationship is stronger than ever emotionally, physically and spiritually.

Overall, I could not be any happier with the lifesaving help I received from Pureheart.  I’ve been pure for over 16 months now and I’ve never felt better.  Literally, I feel like a new man!  I’m thinking clearer than ever before and I’m as healthy and strong as I’ve been in 20+ years.  All glory and thanks to the work GOD is doing in and through Pureheart Ministries and the grace He shows each of us.  My new life going forward is to focus on maintaining the process I was taught by Pureheart and eventually help others who struggle with the same addictions as I did.

“Patricia”

Like many couples, when my husband and I began our relationship, things were exciting, romantic and intimate.  However, the intimacy aspect of our relationship began to deteriorate shortly before we were married, and continued to go downhill thereafter.  I knew something was “off” in terms of my husband’s interest in being intimate, and when we were intimate, things did not always go as smoothly as I would have hoped.  When we would discuss the issue, he would say things like “I am just not that sexual of a person” or “I have sensitivity issues (physically).”  Knowing how the libido of a 20-something guy can be, I found this difficult to believe; but then again, how can one really know what is “normal?”  I justified it by telling myself that everyone is different, and ultimately I chose to trust what he told me. 

In addition to the issues we were having in the bedroom, my husband had a past subscription to Playboy magazine that initially came to our house when we first began living together. Despite my Christian foundations, this really did not strike me as that big of a deal for a younger guy to have; but at the same time, I was not completely comfortable with it.  After I asked him to stop the subscription, he indicated he had done so and I believed that was the end of his involvement with pornography.  I now know that was not the case.

During the first few years of marriage, our relational intimacy continued to go downhill.  I would try so hard to do things that would spark his interest or turn him on, only to be turned down time and time again.  This felt humiliating and was extremely painful for me to negotiate.  I would blame myself thinking that I wasn’t enough.  When I would tearfully try to talk to him about it, he would continue to respond as he had earlier on in our relationship, but now with increasing frustration and anger.  His anger came out in other areas outside of the bedroom as well.  As he became more volatile with his angry outbursts and our level of intimacy decreased, the wedge between us slowly widened.

As the years wore on, we had our share of ups and downs, but we settled into our life.  Sure we had a divided romantic relationship; but we got along well and had fun together, had a strong circle of friends in and out of our church, and we were blessed with financial stability and opportunity.  Eventually I justified our relational intimacy as normal (for us), and over time I simply accepted it.  I would still raise questions periodically and knew something wasn’t right, but I gave up on expecting it to improve.  I continued to long for a deeper romantic connection, but as I was getting older and my libido was naturally decreasing, the lack of sex in our marriage did not bother me to the degree it once did.

My husband continued to struggle with anger issues as well, where he was developing a shorter and shorter fuse over time.  While this was still very stressful and hard on me to constantly be his sounding board, his outbursts were mainly directed at his work rather than me or our marriage.  Overall, I knew we weren’t perfect and had our share of problems/issues as most couples do, but we had a good life and what I viewed as a good marriage – particularly in comparison to many of those around us.  Little did I know that his decreasing fuse and declining ability to control his emotions was correlated with his increasing level of internal self-hatred due to a lie he was living.

Everything came to a head shortly after our son was born, thirteen years into our marriage.  Soon after this major life change occurred, it was like a switch flipped in my husband.  He became angrier and more volatile than he had ever been, withdrew from me and our son, and we fought all of the time.  He seemed to have fallen into a depression and would make comments about how he was miserable with his life.  I was concerned and could not understand how he could feel this way.  I asked him to seek counseling many times, offering to go with him if it would help.  He would agree to seek help but never follow through, or his behavior would improve for a short time and then he would fall back into his typical pattern.  It was not until he had several angry outbursts directed at our 8 month old son that made me so scared for my son’s safety and where things were headed that I gave my husband an ultimatum.  I told him I was drawing a line in the sand, and if he did not seek help, I would leave him.

My husband finally agreed to meet with a trusted friend, who was familiar with the Pureheart ministry.  They got together and were discussing my husband’s anger issues, and our friend bluntly asked my husband if he struggled with pornography at all.  Something made my husband admit that he indeed still struggled in this area.  Our friend was aware that pornographic addictions were often linked to childhood trauma and anger problems – both of which my husband had experienced.  At that point he was referred to Tim Davis of Pureheart Ministries.  My husband then confessed to me his pornography addiction, the lies he had told me, and the life he had been leading.  While it was hard to accept this type of long-term deceit and betrayal, I was fully on board with my husband seeking the help he needed through Pureheart.  Because of my Christian faith and our son, I was committed to our marriage and to supporting him, and I was also committed to begin my own journey of forgiveness.

My husband’s journey through the Pureheart Ministry has been nothing short of life changing for him as an individual and for us as a couple.  I am not sure I initially understood the weight of his sexual addiction issues and the impact it had on every aspect of our lives; but in seeing the transformation in my husband, I now understand how bad things really were.  The Enemy really does find ways to permeate every area of one’s life – with the ultimate goal of destruction - when this type of unconfessed sin exists.  It makes me cringe to think of where things could have gone had my husband not been introduced to Pureheart.  I wholeheartedly believe that the Lord did a work in my husband through the Pureheart Ministry that saved our marriage.

After going through the Pureheart Program, my husband is a different person in the best way possible.  He is committed to his purity, works hard to stay in the Word, lives a healthy and balanced lifestyle, and is committed to his accountability groups.  He is finally becoming the spiritual leader of our household that I always dreamed of and prayed about – and deep down always knew he could be.  He is a more loving father and husband, we communicate much more effectively, and our intimate life has improved dramatically.  For the first time, sex is not a struggle and I feel we are connected emotionally when we are intimate.  He is also able to control his anger in a healthy way, which is such a relief day-to-day.  He isn’t perfect, of course (none of us are), but it truly has been amazing to see such a miraculous change and feel the hope and peace that comes along with it!

Overall, I am thrilled with the changes I have seen in my husband, and I praise God every day for the blessing of Pureheart Ministry in our lives.   Fourteen years of emotional hurts do not go away overnight, but I will say that our marriage is well on the road to being the best and most stable it has ever been!  With the tools and foundation my husband has acquired from Pureheart, and with continued help from the Lord, we are finally living the life God always desired for us.  The Lord is faithful, indeed!