The comparison game

I have already mentioned that until I found out HB had been viewing porn, I had felt that I was enough for him. I had been secure in his attraction to me – in feeling like he was able to easily resist looking at other women or being severely tempted by them. Even though I have a “mom bod” and could stand to be in better shape, I didn’t worry that he would be drawn away to looking at other, more perfectly shaped figures.

That changed when I found out he had been doing just that. Since then it has been more of a struggle to feel comfortable in my body and to feel that I am enough for him. I remember thinking in the first hours of my angry pain after HB’s disclosure that I did not know how I would let him see my body again. At that time our bathroom door didn’t lock securely and that was one thought I had – I need to be able to lock myself in there for privacy! Thank God He worked a miracle in me and by the next day my heart had so changed that I was ready to have sex again and be okay with my husband still seeing me as only marriage allows.

But that doesn’t mean all worry and thoughts over my appearance and what he might be thinking just disappeared. The second disclosure, and other times when I felt frustrated brought that same sense of just wanting to hide from HB.

For myself, becoming physically intimate after the initial anger and pain of disclosure was actually very healing. We have had a good sex life. And in the pain of dealing with betrayed trust, we both found healing in each other’s arms. I know that is not the story for everyone. And I am sure it is more normal for a wife to not want to be sexually intimate with her husband right after a disclosure of betrayal. Even though I was able to keep that as a part of our healing without a breach in it, that doesn’t mean I didn’t wonder what images might be going through HB’s head as we made love. That is a thought I have simply had to resist.

But another thing a close friend told me has helped. She said that the way men’s brains work allows them to compartmentalize things differently than women. That the porn part of his brain was separate from the wife part. And that he probably didn’t mix the two. From conversation with HB I find this seems to have been the truth. He may have had to resist thinking of pornographic images at times when we were intimate, but it was something he just didn’t allow himself to do – and it didn’t sound like it was much of a struggle. I can’t really understand how this works, but it seems that HB viewing pornography had very little to do with me at all, or with our sex life. For HB it was an addictive sin, not a reflection on me not being enough.