Brutally Honest Insights from a Porn Addict and His Wife: "Our Divorce Didn't Work Out"

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“I know what’s right and wrong, so why can’t I stop going back to what I know is wrong?” As these feelings of hopelessness increased, ‘I made a mistake,’ quickly evolved into ‘I am a mistake.’

These thoughts were just some of those that kept Traylor Lovvorn from seeking help for his pornography addiction for over 20 years. What can we do to help those struggling with such deep turmoil and temptation know that we love them, we believe in them, but most of all, God loves them, believes in them, and He will stay with them, no matter what?

I walked into the workshop with curiosity. I knew that the couple presenting had been married for eleven years, then divorced for six, then married again. I read the description of their presentation and watched the two interact as microphones and powerpoints were set up.

I wondered how you could have the words ‘husband’s betrayal’ and ‘ripped their family apart’ plainly spelled out in your biography and yet look at each other each morning full of understanding and forgiveness and be happy to be together. I looked around at the audience, many of whom were in various stages of the struggle with pornography addiction or struggling with the discovery that their spouse or parent or loved one has been keeping something so serious from them. They all watched the couple at the front anxiously, looking for hope that it might all turn out ok.

It wasn’t until she had been married for ten years that Melody Lovvorn discovered that her husband had been hiding a pornography and sex addiction. She said that finding this out was like being blindsided by a 2×4. “Who is this person I’m married to? Everything I knew to be true about my life was now a blur. What is real? What did I do wrong?…Nothing felt safe and everything was uncertain.” Her world was turned upside down. Her children were six, four, two, and six months old and it suddenly felt like she didn’t know their father at all.

Traylor was only eight years old when he first encountered a stash of pornography.

Lead image from Meridian Magazine.
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