How Lust Leads to Death in Your Marriage

James 1:15 tells us, “After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”

Let’s face it. We live in a highly sensual and lust-driven world!

A world filled with intense sexual desire and the need for immediate gratification. A strong and even excessive craving for some “thing” or some “one.”

Yesterday, my husband and I sat down to talk about lust and pornography. I asked him if he felt he had overcome lust in our marriage after having an affair.

Over the last couple of weeks, the topic of lust has been hard-pressed in my mind. And something that we as Christians, especially men, need to talk more about.

Unfortunately, it took something as horrific as an affair in my marriage for both my husband and I to learn the attacks of the enemy when it comes to lust and the fact that you must protect your mind and heart from being overtaken by such intense desire.

It isn’t easy, especially given our culture and fleshly human nature.

It has never been a massive struggle for me, but I have seen what it has done to my life.

The pain and, in a sense, death at one point in my marriage and to that of my husband’s soul has, at times, been unbearable. It has brought me significant pain and trauma as the wife and has been a struggle in our marriage for years.

Without lust, I feel the affair would never have happened.

The majority of affairs are based on lust, not love, like in the case of my marriage. It was lust—a fantasy.

You become a lying and deceitful version of yourself, overtaken by emotion and hunger to delight in your most sinful and deepest desires. Little did I know my husband struggled with feelings of lust since he was young. He battled alone and thought his behavior was normal. It took adultery and the redeeming love of Jesus to overcome his sin.

Sometimes, it takes something big for you to see.

This post is also written from the perspective and voice of my husband. He was the betrayer and has gained victory.

This post will cover my husband and I’s private conversation on lust and pornography. He has a way of verbalizing this, and my hope is it can reach those of you struggling in YOUR marriages.

Maybe you get an opportunity to stop lust from becoming a reality and save your marriage from the aftermath of an affair. Or perhaps you are reading this post affair and are struggling. You are not alone.

There are others who have struggled with the same sin that you do.

My question for my spouse was, “What have you learned about lust?”

His answer:

“Walking through the affair made me realize the power of lust.

I knew I wanted my wife, and I wanted my soul. I needed my heart and soul to be pure.

Truthfully, I made it ok to look at porn and to think these thoughts mostly in part because that is what the world thinks.It teaches from a young age that you can look at women and think of sexual things.

The worldly view is that it is normal to have sex with multiple partners. To not be monogamous. To not hold your body pure. I didn’t even think I had an addiction to lust and pornography. I had an addiction without knowing it.

You think you’re in control, but the lust is in control. The addiction is in control. You become distant. It becomes a ritual. And then, all of a sudden, porn isn’t enough.

The enemy looks and says, “GOTCHA”! And you look up and say OMG, what did I do? How did I get this far?

Lust is so superficial.

It has no bearing on who the person actually is. It is purely physical. And purely self-gratifying. The more you look, the more you lust, the more porn you watch because it is never fulfilling. It’s all fantasy.

As a child, I remember having a poster of Pam Anderson on my wall. You learn to look at women as only physical and not emotional and spiritual beings. You put your desires first. It is emotionless. And all about this release.

Porn and lust set such a high standard; nothing in real life will meet that. You see these things and think these things, and you want to reenact what you see.

I wanted to be this man. Fill in the gaps in my mind of what I thought a man should be. A playboy who is good at sex. It’s what the world tells you a man should be. And you learn this from a very young age.

It is an Intense sexual desire.

After the affair, when you’re out of what you’ve been plugged into—the sexual world. Everywhere you look, you can see the lust. You have to fight the demons.

Real intimacy with your spouse is about an emotional and spiritual connection. When you’re physically intimate, you are not having sex with a body or object that is doing you a favor. You love your significant other in a pure way that you are giving yourself to them. And they are giving themselves to you. Trusting you. Versus sex as an activity that you can have with anyone. When you have it with the person who matters to you, it can go much deeper.

After an affair, when you KNOW who you don’t want to be, it is easier to combat.

I gave up my morals after being that guy and then seeing the damage and hurt and what my actions caused. And it took me a while. Many months to a year, I went from this hardened individual to seeing and understanding what my actions did.

You know what it was? It was seeing the pain in your eyes at the intensive weekend seminar.

When we did the exercise of looking into the betrayed eyes. And you were told to tell with your eyes what you were feeling. You didn’t have to say it. I could see it. I could see your soul—the betrayal. And I could see and feel it in your eyes.

God knows I never want to see that again.

Hindsight is always 20/20. You know right and wrong. I knew having an affair was wrong, but when you are convinced by the lie you are telling yourself and living in the fantasy, you refuse to think about how wrong it really is.

I was more scared to be my authentic self with you and tell you my thoughts for the fear of rejection.

The crazy part about the lie is that you would rather have a catastrophic fallout rather than open up and be honest. With the reasoning being we want to stay in the lie and the fantasy. Who are we if we are not the person in the fantasy? Are we worthy, seen, and enough?

But after staring into your eyes and seeing the devastation, I realized how much I meant to you.

It was pulling the curtains back and seeing the scene. It was very raw and pure. Pure pain. Pure betrayal and hopelessness. It was knowing that I, as a human, hurt you to that level.

You don’t want to forgive yourself because when you see that, that’s the hardest part, and I hold onto it. At that moment, it was an allowance of myself to feel what I had done to you. My actions directly impacted you as the person I made my vows to.

I never wanted to be the man that hurt you and went back on his word. A lot of shame in that. How could I have done this? The fact is that I did it. The feeling you think you’ll get is never what it is. Nothing the enemy can promise you turns out good or turns out the right way.

Complex and utter sabotage of your humanity and your soul.

All these false promises. If I got to be the guy the world says I should be, and you do it and give in to your lust and intense sexual desires and then crush this individual you say you love; you fall from grace.

My internal thought of who I should be outweighed what people thought when they saw me. I cannot say to this day that what I was feeling during the affair was worth me having the affair. That’s the realization.

You are literally doing the devil’s work, doing the wrong things for pennies on the dollar, giving away your feathers.

True happiness is in a secure marriage.

Because of my own insecurities, I didn’t share.

Be vulnerable and take the chance to expose the darkness that you FEEL before the darkness that you DO. The act of darkness is way worse than the thought of darkness. Bring it to the light.

I wish I could have been like, “I’m thinking of having an affair. I’m being tempted in this way. Let’s talk about this”. But the lie internally is you want to have an affair.

You want to live out your fantasies and give in to strong sexual desire and sexual gratification. If you say it, you’re not going to do it.

You need to have courage, though. Tell your spouse what you are struggling with. Your thoughts are not actions. Not yet, anyway.

This is where you can really develop and change these patterns of thought and lust. I would rather you be mad about my thoughts than crushed about my actions.It was using someone as a vessel. That is what lust is. The path I was on, the thoughts I was having was a collision course. It only brought pain and struggles. Real struggles.

There is no way out of porn other than abstinence.

Be a why person. Why did I do this?

Going to an intensive. Being around other men who are struggling with sex addiction makes you not feel alone. It feels empowering.

It is normal to be a sexual being but not normal to be addicted to sex. The world is what makes it normal. Pornography is a billion-dollar industry. People pay money to act out their wildest fantasies. There is porn for every single thing you could imagine. The Porn industry is a perfect weapon that wedges the enemy into your life, your marriage, and your relationship with the Lord. As well as magnifies lust.

Its sole purpose is to destroy and pervert what is supposed to be so pure and life-giving. We have to maintain our discipline and keep our eyes on what is real and not get sucked into the fantasy.

Conclusion

We will all struggle with temptation in our lives and marriages. While lust is a natural human emotion, it can unravel even the strongest of bonds.

Unchecked desire leads to a death of sorts in the marriage. Especially if it has led you far enough to act on such desires and have an affair. It kills your emotional intimacy, communication, and trust with your partner.

Please recognize what lust, pornography, and acting your fantasies can lead to. Or, for most reading this, already have. This requires open and honest communication.

Remember, lust seems harmless because it starts in our minds. And who are we hurting, right?

By channeling our lust into the true love and connection we have towards our spouse, we can have marriages that thrive and live out our relationship as God intended.