Digital Only: Young Adults
What My Husband’s Pornography Struggle Taught Me about the Savior’s Atonement
The Savior’s Atonement is for everyone, not just those who struggle with compulsive behaviors.
I am not a naturally patient person.
I like to think of myself as a go-getter, a person who does the things that need to be done. When I’m confronted with a problem, I like to work at it until it feels resolved.
So you can imagine how things went when I knowingly married a man working to overcome a pornography struggle—I was relentless. In my mind, we were going to address this problem my way: immediately and unceasingly until everything felt resolved. I wanted therapy, filters, addiction recovery meetings (ARP), items to check off a list.
There’s nothing wrong with these things—they can be very helpful tools. But I was using them to take control of the situation instead of turning to Jesus Christ.
Waiting with Faith
My husband and I tried many solutions throughout our engagement and first year of marriage—he continued working with priesthood leaders, we attended ARP meetings, and my husband welcomed any questions about his struggle and how he was addressing it. We had many raw, vulnerable conversations. And he did make a lot of progress.
But I was hurting and impatient. I’d given this problem my all, so why wasn’t it resolved by now?
One night, one of my favorite scriptures came to mind:
“Let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed” (Doctrine and Covenants 123:17).
I had done just about everything I could think of—and then I’d continued at that frantic pace, attempting a new solution every time I felt any sort of distress. Standing still and waiting with faith hadn’t been part of my process at all.
I began learning about replacing chaos and frustration with stillness and compassion. And as I practiced turning to the Lord instead of trying to control my husband, something amazing happened: I began to learn from my husband.
Gaining a Deeper Understanding
I knew my husband was a wonderful man in many ways. But I’d always seen this as his big shortcoming. I thought he needed my help.
Instead, I came to realize that we both need the Savior’s help. My husband was being blessed for turning to the Savior, and while my reasons for needing Him were different, I needed the Savior’s power in my life just as much. While I stubbornly try everything on my own before turning to the Savior, my husband’s struggle with pornography has taught him that involving Jesus Christ should always be the first step.
He knows the value of daily repentance, what it means to fail one day and then try again the next. As Brother Bradley R. Wilcox, Second Counselor in the Young Men General Presidency, explained: “Worthiness is not flawlessness. Worthiness is being honest and trying. We must be honest with God, priesthood leaders, and others who love us, and we must strive to keep God’s commandments and never give up just because we slip up.”1 He also believes in the principle that Elder Michael A. Dunn of the Seventy taught: “There must be a consistent, day-in and day-out effort. And although we won’t likely be perfect, we must be determined to mirror our persistence with patience.”2
This realization expanded my perspective—I’d acted like the end goal for my husband and me was resolving this pornography problem. But I had to remember the bigger picture; the end goal has always been returning to Heavenly Father and living with my family for eternity. While that includes striving against pornography for as long as it takes, even if my husband never viewed pornography again, we would still need to focus together on a lifetime of working toward a celestial marriage. We would still be flawed people who need grace and mercy.
So we started living with that expanded perspective, implementing small, sustainable changes in many aspects of our lives. Often we focused on spiritual improvements, like establishing a time to read our scriptures together. Other times we focused on diet and exercise changes or connecting more throughout the day. We also continued those habits we’d had all along—therapy, ARP meetings, filters—but this time, we embraced progress instead of expecting perfection. Rather than giving all our energy to a single problem and hoping everything would be perfect once it was resolved, we began working on our lifelong project of becoming better and more Christlike people.
Repentance Is a Joyful Process
Learning about slow change and regular repentance changed my life. As President Russell M. Nelson explained: “Nothing is more liberating, more ennobling, or more crucial to our individual progression than is a regular, daily focus on repentance. Repentance is not an event; it is a process. It is the key to happiness and peace of mind.”3
I finally realized that I am not exempt from the need for daily repentance just because I don’t have a compulsive habit. Repentance has been the key to my healing because it helps me turn to the Lord every day. Through repentance, I stopped seeing my to-do list as a way to “fix” my husband and instead let it be something that brings me closer to Christ. Through repentance, I realized that peace doesn’t come from absolute control; it comes from absolute trust in the Lord.
I also know that the Lord can take even the most damaging and frightening challenges and use them to help us grow. Because of Jesus Christ and His Atonement, “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). I love my husband. I feel true joy and peace in my life, more than I imagined I could, and I know that it has come through my daily efforts to turn to the Lord and allow Him to change me.