This lesson is written for you, the spouse who has discovered or been told about your husband's or wife's pornography use. You may be reading it in shock, in anger, in exhaustion, or in a numb kind of quiet. Whatever you feel right now, please hear this first: it is not your fault, and your pain is real.
It is not your fault
Many betrayed spouses start asking questions that turn the blame inward. Was I not attractive enough? Not available enough? Did I fail somehow? These questions are understandable, but they rest on a false premise. Pornography use is a choice and a struggle that belongs to the person who used it. Marriages have real problems, and those may need work, but no difficulty in a marriage makes a spouse responsible for the other's sin. The Church teaches that each person is responsible for their own free acts (CCC 1734).
Your pain is real
Some spouses are told, by others or by their own inner voice, that "it is only pictures" or that they should not take it so hard. The Church does not see it that way. Jesus spoke of lust in the heart as a kind of adultery (Matthew 5:28), and pornography offends against the intimate self-giving of spouses (CCC 2354). Feeling betrayed is a reasonable response to a real betrayal.
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