Do you feel like something is “off” with your husband? If he uses pornography, you need support. Here’s what the research tells women to do when he uses pornography. Dr. Hastings and Dr. Lucero Jones are on the podcast talking about their groundbreaking research on how a husband’s pornography use affects his wife.

You deserve support, learn about Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions.

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4 Ways To Find Support When He Uses Pornography

• Listen to The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast


• Attend a BTR.ORG Group Session


• Meet with a BTR Coach for an Individual Session


• Call a safe person to share your feelings.

No Matter If He Uses Pornography, You Can Choose Emotional & Sexual Safety

Here at BTR.ORG, we understand the overwhelming chaos you feel when you discover your partner’s secret pornography use. Just brushing your teeth can feel like an insurmountable task.

Try to remember to give yourself grace as you process this new information, and give yourself the space to create emotional safety for yourself, rather than immediately “working on the marriage”.

Transcript: He Uses Pornography, I Need Support

Anne: I have Dr. Heidi Hastings and Dr. Rebecca Lucero Jones on today’s episode. Dr. Hastings recently completed her PhD in family studies at Texas Women’s University. Her research is on religious women who married men with compulsive pornography use or other compulsive sexual behaviors.

Dr. Lucero Jones is a practicing marriage and family therapist and professor of marriage and family therapy at Texas Women’s University. Together, they have researched women who have experienced betrayal, and I’m so excited to share their research with us today. Welcome.

Heidi: Thanks, Anne. We’re happy to be here.

Rebecca: Thank you. We’re glad to be here.

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Research Focus: Religious Women & Betrayal When He Uses Pornography

Anne: So in your studies, you develop the five stages of betrayal and self development. Why don’t we start there?

Heidi: So we are interested in the experience of religious women when their husbands use pornography. When it comes to pornography use for religious men, what’s going on with their wives?

We recruited women from non-denominational Christian religions, from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, several Protestant Christian religions, fundamentalist Christian religions, Jewish religions, and we had one Muslim participant, and Catholic. We also had a few women in different religions who moved towards spirituality instead.

So, our range of religious representation here is pretty broad.

Rebecca: We conducted interviews with 31 women of various denominations and sects of different religions, and wanted to understand their experience as a whole and understand the process they go through. Maybe even before they find out that their husband has some sort of sexual compulsive behaviors. Then what happens afterwards, and kind of where do they eventually land.

As we asked them these questions, they told us their stories of their experiences of discovery, that he uses pornography. And also of how they coped and what happened with the marriage. What kind of help they sought out. Their experience with their religions, religious leaders, other family members, friends, just anybody in their social circles.

From that, we developed this model that showed us that there were actually five distinct stages that women went through when their husband uses pornography. But we also noticed a lot of self-development throughout their healing process.

When He Uses Pornography: Understanding Religious & Cultural Scripts

Heidi: So the first stage is religious, family, and cultural scripts. Which scripts are, if you think about a play, somebody gets a script that tells them this is how they behave.

Before the discovery of that, their husband uses pornography, sometimes even before marriage. This understanding from a religious perspective facilitated her creation of beautiful, yet innocent core beliefs. About herself, her marriage, her sexuality, her faith, and her relationship with God.

Her personal identity was often abandoned, for the couple’s identity created at marriage. While these women had innocent beliefs that are beneficial to many women. For women I interviewed, their innocence later proves problematic in relation to pornography.

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Innocent Beliefs & Their Consequences When He Uses Pornography

Heidi: So the things that religion brings to many beautiful marriages. Actually compromised some parts and made them susceptible to danger, abuse, and trauma.

They described these initial innocent beliefs as naive and shallow, shameful or confusing later on. Their naivety was also seen in women who knew about their husband’s pornography use before marriage. So we did have several women for whom it wasn’t secret.

Their husbands were clear upfront that he uses pornography. But most of the time they let her know that this isn’t a big deal. I’ve taken care of it. It’s no longer an issue. Or they tell her, and the women believed when we marry, we can have all the sex we want. So the desire to view porn isn’t going to be an issue anymore. It’s just going to go away.

Anne: Marriage is going to be the solution.

Heidi: Marriage will be the solution,yes.

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Marriage Myths & Realities When He Uses Pornography

Anne: That is a common myth. That even sometimes church leaders perpetuate that marriage will solve his pornography problem, or maybe his immaturity problem. If he’s immature, he should probably just get married. And then he’ll be fine, rather than wait a minute, solve the problem first.

Heidi: Exactly. So even those women who knew he uses pornography ahead of time truly underestimated the problem. So each of the women in our study had a unique belief system and path leading to the discovery of her husband’s pornography use. Or the discovery of how problematic it truly was.

But there were many common characteristics that describe the process. That most of the women went through in this stage. Their naive beliefs about gender and sexuality, and God, really influenced their understanding of pornography at this point.

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When He Uses Pornography: Naivety vs. Faithfulness

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