Defiling the Marriage Bed Part A
/Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. Hebrews 13:4 (KJV)
Years ago, a colleague at work was fired for viewing pornography on the company's internet. He happened to be a clergyman and would always engage me in discussions regarding the Bible. Apart from work, he spent most of his spare time in church helping children. I watched in utter disbelief, with my mouth wide open, as his position was terminated and he was escorted out of the building. I always thought of him as a good man. Was he a good man with bad judgment, like other cases I had dealt with before? Different thoughts raced through my mind as he left. I wondered what excuse he was going to give to his wife for his termination. Worse still, I wondered if his step-daughters and other children had ever fallen victim to this bad habit.
On my arrival at home, I continued to worry about what would become of his family. Our babysitter, on realizing how deeply troubled and distracted I was, questioned me about my day. I shared with her what had happened at work and my subsequent concerns. Suddenly, our babysitter’s demeanor changed drastically, the wind going out of her sails. Her face turned red and she looked as if she was going to have a panic attack. She became emotional, and it was my turn to inquire about the reason for the sudden change in her mood. After catching her breath, she sat in a comfortable position and narrated her ordeal.
For many years, her husband had been a brilliant executive with a promising future at a big company that paid him quite well. They lived the American dream: a lovely house in the suburbs for their three children. She was the stay-at-home soccer mom who worked behind the scenes to keep the family together and comfortable. Then, out of the blue, her husband lost his promising executive job.
As a result, they lost their financial stability, which led to them also losing their home—the most material thing that they owned. He had claimed that his boss accused him wrongfully of watching pornography on the job but that it was just one of those "pop-ups" from an inappropriate website. He initially succeeded in pulling the wool over her eyes—until she uncovered adult material on his laptop and cell phone. He soon got suspended from his new job within a couple of weeks of his start date because he was exchanging "inappropriate" photographs via the new company's email. This was the family’s dirty little secret. How were they going to tell family and friends that her husband, an elder in the Church, had such a problem?
The babysitter said in her husband's opinion, the whole saga was victimless! "It was just on the internet." As she pondered on his "victimless crime” perspective, it didn’t hold up to what she was seeing: a once financially stable family now struggling to make ends meet. She was at a crossroads at whether to reach out for counseling in the church or seek professional help. She added that intimacy was strained as her husband’s demands of her between the sheets were becoming more absurd.
Here is a summary of my advice to her: pornographic addiction, like any addiction, leads to loss of control and obsessive thoughts, which eventually will lead to corresponding actions. His pornography addiction was not harmless because it eventually cost him his job, his family’s home, and now his intimacy with his wife.