Our Marriage Journey: From Pornography to Purity (Part 1/3)

When I was young, and even into my teen years, I can’t say that I thought much about what I wanted my marriage to look like.  Quite honestly, I didn’t think much about my wedding or my dress or anything like that.  I knew there were lots of girls who had their whole wedding planned out, down to what they wanted their dress to look like, and they just needed the man.  I wasn’t like that.  I never thought about what I wanted my marriage to look like.  Once I was in my 20’s, I definitely knew what I didn’t want it to look like, but while I didn’t necessarily think about it a lot, hind sight, I realized I had a lot of expectations going into my marriage.  I did, however, have a list of “must be’s” and “must NOT be’s” – a list I began working on during my first year of Bible College thanks to a class taught by a dear older lady, Mrs. Friesen.  In that class we talked about all sorts of things, but the one thing that stuck with me was a question she had posed to us:  If you don’t know what kind of man you want, how will you know when you’ve found “the one”?  So, I started on my list.  My must haves, my must be’s and my “would be nice if. . .”

I met Keith during my 2nd year of Bible College and his 1st year.  I assumed that he was younger than me since he was in the same class as my brother who was two years younger than me.  I thought he was good looking, but I didn’t really know much about him, other than he liked sports and hunting.  Over the months we bumped into each other doing kitchen duties etc. and started chatting with him.  First year students weren’t allowed to date during the first semester during those days, so we just spent many afternoons and evenings chatting and getting to know each other.  I was not looking to date anyone and really had no thoughts about dating him, until December.  We had chatted about what the new semester and year would bring, and we both agreed that we would like to go out on a date.  So, we went on a date in January, and by the end of February, I knew he was the boy I wanted to marry.  On October 1 (1988), we got engaged, and we got married May 13, 1989.

And when we got married, I knew I had found the man for me.  In fact, he filled every one of the must haves with the exception of one, AND he even fulfilled some of my “would be nice ifs” including the fact that he drove a motorbike.  A year after we got married, we moved to Manitoba to start our camping ministry at Red Rock Bible Camp.  It was amazing how God had orchestrated all of these things to culminate in being involved in this ministry.  It was a good thing that we didn’t know that God would take us there to shake up our world when Keith had his accident there, but we knew God had set all of these things in place and we were ecstatic to be living at camp.

After Keith’s accident (details here), we moved to Steinbach and started out our lives living as a couple with a disability.  Of course, none of the expectations I’d had about my marriage involved caring for a husband in a wheelchair, but God helped us meander those waters, provided for us in ways I cannot even begin to write about, and helped us settle into a life in Steinbach, Manitoba.  Life was good.  I was working at the Bible Camp in the camp office, and Keith was now working in Steinbach, where he had been trained for a new job. It wasn’t what we had planned for our life, but for the most part life was good.  We were able to visit our families in Ontario and Saskatchewan on a regular basis and while Steinbach didn’t quite feel like home yet, we were happy there.

Then came the bombshell.  The day my image that I’d had of my marriage came shattering down.  I discovered that my husband was involved in pornography.  I remember the day distinctly.  The absolute sick feeling I had when I discovered the websites on our computer.  The nausea that I felt thinking about how to confront him.  The anger.  The betrayal. And then self-blaming.  The questioning of everything about myself.  The questions of why?  The guilt that I was not enough for him.  The shame I felt that I was inadequate.  I told no one.  I was humiliated.  I was devastated.  How could he have done this to me?  How could God have directed me to someone who would do this to me???  Over the next several months, Keith begged me to believe him that he was done with it.  That this would never happen again.  That he was incredibly sorry for his mistake and that he would make it up to me.  And so, we worked to try to move beyond it.  We prayed.  We shared.  And we grew.  And my trust in him returned.  Obviously, that did not happen overnight, and obviously there were some very difficult days, but we worked through it.  And we got back to a solid relationship.  Or so I thought.

A few years later, I again discovered that he had slipped back into those same old ways.  But this time, the sites were more graphic.  The sin had become a habit.  And the grip of it was tighter.  I was sickened!!! How could I have been so naïve as to trust him?  How had this happened yet again?  How had my marriage become about other women?  Why did he want them and not me?  The questions swirled around in my head.  The lies I told myself, that Satan filled my head with, were deafening.  And so, our marriage floundered.  What was I to do? What COULD I do?  He hadn’t actually gone out and cheated on me.  .  . or had he??? The mistrust continued to grow.  The pain got buried.  The walls grew thicker.  And our marriage was in name only.  Eventually, we developed a life of co-existing but not really living.  I checked the computer continually.  And after a few years, began to believe that this was indeed over.

It was during this time that our children were born.  First, our miracle Taylor through adoption in 2001 and then Peyton through a surprise pregnancy in 2004. (The doctors told us that I would never be able to conceive, so he was indeed our 2nd miracle baby!!)  As the children grew older, we became more settled in Steinbach.  It had by default become “home”.  Our children had friends here.  Keith’s job continued to advance, and I was happy at home being a mom.


Until the bomb dropped yet again.  Pornography.  It reared its ugly head yet again.  And so, the cycled repeated itself again. The pain.  The promises.  The pattern.  But this time, I had my children to ease my pain.  And I couldn’t walk away from my marriage because now it wasn’t just me anymore.  I had the kids to think about.  And the walls got thicker.  And more impenetrable.  The distance grew, as did the mistrust.  I shuttered every time he mentioned a woman at work.  I would stop by his work to bring the kids to visit him at work and see every woman who was more beautiful than me.  I would see the plunging necklines and know he was looking.  And know he was lusting.  I’d watch his eyes follow women at the mall.  And the pain continued to grow.  But what could I do?
During these years, my relationship with God was still up and down.  As Moms of little ones know, there wasn’t much time for me.  There was a life to create.  There were moments to make for my kids.  And so, I buried the pain.  I buried the reality that my husband had a sex addiction.  And I created a fake life for those around us to see.  I created a façade that made it seem that we had it all together.  I created an image that when viewed by others, was a family who endured injury, infertility, adoption etc. and survived.  We created an image of family that had it all together.  We appeared spiritually strong.  We appeared happy and secure.  We appeared to be “fine”.

And so, our little fake happy home continued.  Until the day my son at 8 years old opened up his dad’s computer to find pornography.  The words, “Mommy, what are these pictures on the computer?” are embedded in my head.  I wanted to scream.  I wanted to shriek.  I wanted to throw things.  But instead, I calmly closed the computer and told Peyton to go and do something else.  These were big people pictures.  It made me sick.  It made me want to vomit.  But, this was also the exact time that I was struggling with my depression, anxiety and panic episodes and so couldn’t even physically do anything.  I remember confronting Keith with the question why, and his response sent me even further into the pit of darkness.  “I’ve had to take care of everything on my own for the past several months.  You’ve done nothing.  So, I had to finally take care of myself.”

Shame.  Guilt.  Agony.  My world was rocked.  My heart was broken, and any expectations I had for a happy marriage were shattered.

But it was all I could do to try to hold myself together to care for my kids.  And I wasn’t doing a very good job of it.  Between the devastation of giving up my job at the camp, and not understanding what God had done by prompting me to leave the Preschool, to find out that my husband was still involved in his sex addiction, life spiraled out of control.  I didn’t want to live.  At least I didn’t want to live the way it was at that point.  However, I remember sitting in my office listening to the Casting Crowns songs, Praise You in This Storm and Jesus Hold Me Now.  And Laura Story’s song Blessings.  And somehow, I started to feel God’s arms around me.  I started to feel Him lifting me.  My medication started to kick in.  And I found a good Godly counselor.  And I started to lift my head out of the dark murky waters.  I started to realize that God STILL had a purpose and a plan for my life.  He was still there.  He had never left me.  He had not deserted me.  He was holding my life in His hands.  And He was there.

The journey back from those dark days weren’t easy.  I realized that I had to heal first before I could even try to restore my family.  And so, I allowed God to heal me.  I allowed myself the time to heal before making any decisions.  Before taking any steps.  I listened.  I waited.  For God to guide me.  For God to speak to me.  And for God to tell me what to do next.

And He did.  Because God is faithful.  And while the world around us – our world – falls apart, He is there holding us.  Holding me.  Holding you.  I didn’t know where God was going to take me.  I didn’t know what He had in store for me.  But I waited and trusted that He would take me through it.  And He did.

There is more to this journey.  And I want to share more with you about how Jesus took our broken messed up family and put it back together.  Not because of anything I did.  Not because of anything Keith did.  But He put it back together.  He brought joy back to our family. He brought healing to our hearts.

But not before He would allow us to go through even more difficult waters than we could have ever imagined.  

(Part 2 of our journey can be found HERE)