I feel like the church’s teachings on pornography are ruining my marriage

I apologize in advance for the long post, I’m not sure where to turn and oddly enough this community is the only place I’ve found even a glimmer of hope and comfort lately. I’m still technically active in the church but I’ve never felt more confused.

A few months ago I saw porn links on my husband’s phone. After a little bit of he finally came clean and said it’s been happening off and on since we were dating (we’ve been married 12 years). I’ve asked him so many times over the years (I have been VERY afraid and almost paranoid of this exact thing happening so it’s something I’ve talked about a lot) but he’s always looked me in the eyes and said no, he hasn’t looked at it since before his mission. He came clean that night and opened up about every little detail. He was devastated and I’ve never seen that look in his eyes ever.

My comfortable Mormon world feels like it’s falling apart. I thought we had a good marriage and a great sex life, I thought he loved me and the way I look. I also thought porn was horrible. Like the equivalent of having an affair and will inevitably lead to dark/illegal things (had a lesson in my YSA ward in college about how porn is essentially what led Ted Bundy to do what he did). It sounds so silly but I had such a deeply rooted fear of it since I was a little girl and first heard about it. I did everything I was taught- I dressed modestly, I didn’t make out with boys, I was honest, I wore my garments, I did everything I could do to earn the type of man who wouldn’t do something like this, or so I was told. We went to the temple regularly, paid tithing, were always extremely active in our callings. I did everything possible to avoid this kind of thing but here we are.

I feel so confused and caught between a rock and a hard place. One hand I love my husband, he’s my best friend, an amazing dad and makes me so happy. I don’t want to see him as evil or ruined or perverse and I don’t believe he is those things. On the other hand, the churches teachings on the topic (if men look at porn their brains become rewired and ruined, they’ll be bored with you, they will always compare you, become addicts, etc) are so engrained in my brain and I can’t let them go. I am genuinely heartbroken and feel like I’ve never been enough and never will be enough.

I feel betrayed by my husband but I also feel an overwhelming level of betrayal and anger towards a church I dedicated my life and my everything to. I feel like their messaging to both ym/yw on this topic set so many marriages up for failure. My husband talks about how it was a topic of discussion all the time growing up in the church and always heard how horrible and life-ruining it was and he was terrified about it since he was little as well. He felt ruined and hated himself when he first saw it when he was 11 or 12 and always felt pulled back in and unable to tell anyone or get out of it. His dad told him to only go to the bishop, not to him, if he ever saw it. He dreaded having to talk to the bishop and always just felt stuck and ruined. Meanwhile they were teaching me to cover my shoulders so I didn’t give boys bad thoughts, to fear anything “immodest,” to make lists of the qualities I wanted in my husband and to avoid a man who has ever watched anything even close to pornography. It feels like a recipe for secrecy, policing and marital disaster.

He knew I wouldn’t marry him if I found out and that I’d leave if I ever caught him so he felt like he just needed to stop on his own eventually and not tell me. I’ve tried to be kind about it (it’s been hard and I’ve definitely yelled and said things I regret) but I even though I’m livid at him, I also recognize that I never was a safe person for him to come to. I definitely would have left in the beginning if he had told me. I was so judgmental and harsh about this topic but I thought I was doing what was right. I didn’t realize that my shame was only contributing to the very problem I feared.

Now that he has come clean he says he feels so free and like a huge burden is off him. He says he can’t ever go back to hiding things because he knows now how good it feels to live out in the open and is surprised that the desire to go back and keep looking at porn is not really there and he’s never felt this way in his adult life. He says he hasn’t looked at it since he came clean (about 3 months ago) and wants it out of his life for now at least because he hated the way it made him feel. I want to believe him but then I hear “once an addict, always an addict” in my head and I feel like I’d be stupid to believe him and to stay with him.

He’s more devoted to the church than I am and went straight to the bishop. We both met with him separately but the bishop told me he was so sorry to me and that I should probably treat this like a heroin addiction which made me feel so sad. He’s a nice guy but I left feeling so hopeless. My husband said he’d have on and off phases over the years- during an on phase he’d look at it maybe once a day but then he’d go weeks and months without it sometimes. I don’t know if that’s an addiction or not but it certainly doesn’t seem comparable to someone who is hooked on heroin. I think monitoring his phone, acting like a babysitter and going to addiction recovery classes will make the guilt and shame worse and kill the deep marital intimacy we finally found. I told him I don’t think he’s an addict and I don’t think he needs to go to those classes but I’m not sure. I’d much rather have this real version of my husband than a pretend, perfect one he was told to be. But then I wonder if I’m just saying that to make myself feel better? Maybe I am wrong and he is an addict and will always lie and hide? I don’t know what feelings are mine and which ones are just engrained in me because of the church.

I’m angry but I also feel so sad for him that he has felt like he needed to hide this his entire life. I look at pictures of him when he was a little boy and he looks just like our son and I feel so angry that he was made to hate himself so young. How lonely that must have been. I am so mad for him, for me, and for us and I wonder how things could have been different in our marriage if he was loved and felt less shame.

Anyway, so sorry for the long post but basically I am just looking for resources, podcasts anything that can help me make sense of all this. I know Reddit isn’t the best place for help but all of my family and friends are orthodox members who would just tell me to go to the church programs. I don’t know who else to turn to. I feel like my home is on fire. The kids hear us fighting a lot lately, I am a shell of who I used to be, my testimony is falling apart, and there is a clear spirit/feeling of anger and sadness in our home. My marriage, my husband, my self-worth, my mental health and our future are up in flames and the only place I know to turn to is the organization that, in my opinion, was the one to pour gasoline on us in the first place.

I know we need counseling/therapy but we have such limited resources right now so before we find someone I would love recommendation on a general direction. Therapists, podcasts, books, anything.

Am I allowed to see this as not a huge deal? Am I lying to myself to think the “power” of porn could be lessened and maybe he won’t have a need for it, or at least not a need to lie about it? Is this marriage worth staying for? How to I begin the process of developing an opinion that is truly mine? Is there hope for us? Thank you so much.

*****editing just to add: Wow, I had no idea if anyone would even see this let alone take time to read it all and respond. THANK YOU from the deepest part of my heart. I am going through these comments and have found myself in tears several times realizing that I’m not as alone as I thought. It is so helpful to hear from so many perspectives and I wish I was able to thank each of you in person. Thank you so much.