Fight For Love after Porn: Rosie Makinney

Shelby:  Hey Shelby Abbott here. Just want to give a heads up before you listen to this next program. Today’s conversation on FamilyLife Today covers some sensitive but important subjects that might not be suitable for younger ears. So please use discretion when listening to this next broadcast. Alright, now let’s jump into it.

Rosie:  If you’re struggling compulsively with pornography you don’t even know who you are yourself. Because most guys have started this really young, and it’s become a coping mechanism, which is then had other consequences in how they view things, how they interact with people.  So until you actually get rid of that stranglehold on your entire life, you don’t even know the potential of who you are and the, the most glorious thing is seeing who you can become when you’re free of all this stuff.

Dave: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Dave Wilson.

Ann:  And I’m Ann Wilson, and you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com or on the FamilyLife_® app.

Dave: This is FamilyLife Today!

Dave:  So we’re going to tackle a topic today that’s a little sensitive.

Ann:  I think it’s incredibly relevant, scary to talk about, but we need to have this conversation.

Dave:  For FamilyLife it’s not only a topic that should be talked about in a church but families.  Husbands and wives, parents need to know how to discuss this topic.

Ann:  –mmm hmm

Dave:  Don’t you agree?

Ann:   I agree.

Dave:  We’ve got the perfect person in the studio to talk about this today.  Rosie McKinney is with us. Welcome to FamilyLife.

Rosie: Thank you for having me. It’s such, such a pleasure to be here with you.

Dave:  Your book and your podcast called Fight for Love is I think remarkable. For a wife to tackle a husband’s struggle with porn, so that’s where we’re going.

Ann:  Yeah so the subtitle is How to Take Your Marriage Back from Porn, and you’re not just talking husbands, primarily.  This could be a battle that a woman is struggling with too.  But I’m so glad we’re talking about it because I’ve talked to so many women that this is a battle and they don’t know how to fight it. I’m sure men may feel like that.  But it’s like, “Where do we start?” So Rosie, thank you for being so gutsy to write this.

Rosie:  Well thank you for being willing to talk about this topic and just tell people that it’s okay to start talking about this. It’s okay to come forward and say, “We struggle.  We have this problem in our, our marriage,” because it’s so prevalent. I mean if you’re not dealing with this, you’re kind of in the minority. It’s over 50 percent of marriages are dealing with this and we, we have to start talking about this because it’s not just a guy’s issue. This is having huge ramifications on the family and certainly on a wife.

Dave:  Well let’s talk, how common is it? I know you put some stats in your book.  But help us understand. You said it’s over 50 percent. It’s even higher than that, right?

Rosie:  It is. Josh McDowell in 2016 did a Barna study and this was a massive study.  He spent about 300,000 dollars to find the data, which I’m really grateful for. And he discovered that 79 percent of guys who regularly attend evangelical church are struggling with this. By struggling I mean using it at least once a month.

Dave:  I mean in some ways I’m not shocked. In other ways it’s like, “Wow that is a high percentage.” I, I do, I do remember–of course you don’t know this, but I pastored for 30 years and early in the startup of our church I shared in a sermon that I had struggled with this in the past and in our marriage. And I had all these guys, my assistant Debbie said, “All these guys are wanting to meet with you.” They came in and then that’s where it always went you know. They’d hem and haw around a little bit and then they’d say, “I’m here because you said you struggled. I’m struggling.” And so that gave me an awareness, this is 35 years ago. It was a problem. I would have said based on the number of guys that came in and wanted to talk with me, it was at least eight out of ten.

Rosie:  I would say it would be even higher now. The statistics are really jaw dropping is the fact that one out of three users is now female, and one out of every ten is under the age of ten. And I think that is a really important one to just wake people up and say, “We have to start talking about this. The only way to protect your children is to start tackling this in your marriage.” You can’t shut the back door when you’ve got the front door wide open. You know we have to talk about this. We have to equip ourselves and the perspective I’m coming from is our guys need our help. They need our help. They need us to come alongside them and understand what they’re dealing with so that we know how to best help them.

Dave:  Well tell us your story. I mean obviously you didn’t wake up and say, “I want to write a book about [laughter] you know helping my husband with porn.” What’s your story?

Rosie: Before I became a Christian I was in a long-term relationship with someone, an unrepentant porn addict and I tried everything. Everything that the media tells you, how to compete with it.  I tried ignoring it.  I tried pleading, placating all that stuff and nothing worked. It all got turned around so it was my fault and I was overreacting. If only I was x-y-z, then it wouldn’t be a problem. It’s just not true. So that all fell apart and then I became a Christian, and then I meet my lovely husband, and then we get married. And then I discover that this is a problem again.

Ann:  How did you discover it?

Rosie:  Well, to be honest I knew going in that he had struggled in the past but he said, “I dealt with that. It’s been a struggle in the past.” So I was naively assuming it was not going to be a problem. Like he said he’s dealt with it, which if he’d had good recovery before based on something solid, then it wouldn’t have been a problem. But something had triggered him, I think, before we got married. It was very clear from the way he was treating me. The criticism, the resentment, the anger, the not being satisfied with anything I could possibly do. And I broached the subject and started to put the pieces together. I’m like, “I have seen this before and I cannot do this again. I have walked this path and it’s so painful that I cannot do this again.” And so I said, “Enough. Either you get help or that’s it.” And I meant it. But the only way that I was able to get to that point of saying, “Enough,” was because I’d had all that prior experience. It wasn’t because I understood this is the only thing that actually works, that very firm boundary of, “This is not going to happen in our marriage.” That’s the only thing that works. No competing.  Not ignoring. Not, you know, being more understanding or more graceful. All those things can help but the only thing that will actually be effective is putting a hard line in.

Dave:  And so how did, how did he respond? I know you, you write in your book that what you did as a wife has to happen. Like a lot of guys will not deal with this.

Rosie:  No and that’s

Dave:  –really until their wife says, “I’m going to intervene and say I’m demanding you deal with this.”

Rosie:  Well I issued like a reactive boundary. It was a desperate ultimatum. My whole heart and whole passion is to educate and encourage wives to do it early, so you don’t have to do that desperate ultimatum, where you’re like, “That’s it.  We’re getting divorced.” I don’t want you to have to be at that place. I want you to understand what you’re dealing with and understand what it is you need to do, so you can do it calmly and proactively as soon as you understand that it’s an issue. And then you can come alongside your husband and say, “Look, I know you’re struggling with this issue and it has nothing to do with me. However, it is affecting me.  If you continue to betray and deceive me, it’s going to traumatize me, and it’s going to wreck our marriage.” You know, this is progressive, it’s serious, it is a brain condition. This is rewiring the neural pathways of your brain. It’s causing all this shrinkage of your prefrontal cortex. We cannot ignore this. We cannot brush it under the rug. Prayer is very important but you have to take proactive steps and that is getting help, getting the right help, and getting among other people who have walked this path and have been victorious.

Dave:  So did you say that on your honeymoon?

Rosie:  No. [Laughter] I said,

Ann:  I wish you could see Rosie right now [Laughter] with her hands on her hips.

Rosie:  Because I didn’t understand. I didn’t know all that stuff. It was just like, he is a lunatic. I don’t know whether he’s got some mental personality disorder. He is just utterly out of control. It was just an instinct. I just know it’s all connected, because you are not the man I thought I had married. It’s like Jekyll and Hyde. It was literally like Jekyll and Hyde.

Dave:  –hmm

Rosie:  –and I was so confused but there was a part of me that was like, “I think this is all connected. So let’s deal with this problem and let’s see if he’s still a crazy person.”

Dave:  Did he respond in a good way, like, “Okay, I’m going to..”

Rosie:  I think he threw his wedding ring in a field. [Laughter]

Dave:  He really did?

Rosie:  Yeah.  He really did.

Dave:  So that’s a good response. [Laughter]

Rosie:  Yeah!

Ann:  You were out walking when you had this conversation?

Rosie:  No I think he did it on his own. It was very symbolic. It’s very dramatic, it’s a nice bit of drama there. But God had put me in a situation where, and I was reflecting on this, God is so kind and He’s got healing for you. He is going to put you in that place where healing is the only way through this. And so He had just married me to a guy who was moving to America, so I went with him. Because he said, “I promise I will change. I will get help.” So I went but I had given up my job, my family, my friends, my support, my name. I mean, and put me in a treehouse in California. Literally a treehouse. It was a vacation rental. It was very bizarre. [Laughter] Um, and it’s like, you are going to heal from this and he is going to heal from this.

Ann:  You’re away from everything and

Rosie: –yeah and also

Ann:  –everyone you knew

Rosie:  –in front of all my friends and all my family I just made this big

Ann:  –uhh

Rosie:  –I think pride would stop me

Ann:  –hmm

Rosie:  –coming back to England and going, it was a disaster. It’s like, “No we’re going to try and sort this out,” because even if he doesn’t heal, I need to look at why I married him, when there were enough red flags for me to not deal with this before we got married. Like, there’s always some healing that I could improve on as well.

Ann:  Well it’s interesting to me Rosie as you talked about him you said, “This isn’t the man that I married.” You could have thought, “Oh, this is really the man that I married. He’s this porn addict.” But you saw the greatness in him instead of the addiction in him.

Rosie:  Well it was very confusing. And I know that a lot of the women that I work with, they struggle with this. It’s like, “Who is he?”

Ann:  Right.

Rosie:  And I would say that if you’re struggling compulsively with pornography you don’t even know who you are yourself. Because most guys have started this really young, and it’s become a coping mechanism, which is then had other consequences in how they view things, how they interact with people. So until you actually get rid of that stranglehold on your entire life, you don’t even know the potential of who you are. And the most glorious thing is, is seeing who you can become when you’re free of all this stuff. And my husband is better than who I thought I was marrying.

Ann:  –hmm

Rosie: –he really is in every way. And he is so brave and courageous in his convictions that I feel very grateful. And I praise God for putting me in the tree house with the lunatic. [Laughter] You know, where we had to work it out, because otherwise I would have thrown all that away.

Ann:  –hmm

Rosie:  –and that’s not to say if you’re in a horrendously abusive relationship that the only answer is that you must stay with him forever, God will work it out. ecause that isn’t everybody’s path. We have many, many women in our community, and it’s not that path, and they do end up getting divorced. However, there is healing for that, and there’s healing for their children.

Ann:  Not everyone is repentant.

Rosie:  –exactly.

Dave:  That’s what I was going to ask you know. I’m sitting here with two wives, who have husbands that have struggled with it. Rosie, your husband, and Ann I have, so either one of you, how do you help wives who think initially, “I think he’s struggling with this?” Maybe there’s a listener right now and they’re going, “Rosie, I think my husband–we’ve never had a conversation about this. What does that wife do? How do you begin this healing journey?

Rosie:  We have like a three step program on our website for that very question.

Dave:  –and your website is?

Rosie:  –fightforloveministries.com

Dave:  –alright

Rosie:  And because what I’m saying about drawing that firm line in the sand, drawing that calm, proactive boundary, if you can. If you’re doing an emotional reactive boundary that’s okay, it’s just more traumatic for you I’m afraid.  [Laughter]

Dave:  By the way that’s sort of what we did.

Ann:  Oh I was a wreck and a mess and so traumatized,

Rosie: –mmm hmm

Ann:  –and I let him have it. And looking back I wish I wouldn’t have done that. But, we do our best.

Dave:  But I understood. I mean she had every right to be mad and in some ways I started to hide because I’m like, “Oh, I don’t want that response again. I hurt her,” and then I hid, you know.

Rosie:  And that’s the really good point you brought up, because if we do leave this issue until it’s you know - causing so much damage, you’re being triggered, which is triggering your triggers.

Ann:  –mmm hmm

Rosie:  –and then your triggers are triggering her triggers and it just goes round and round and the whole thing becomes bigger. So if we can somehow educate women, and encourage them and equip them, and edify them enough to be able to take this proactive stance earlier, it’s going to be so much easier for everybody, you know husbands included. Because I want wives to come alongside and it’s almost like you just have to park that part of you that’s like, “He’s a monster. He’s keeps deceiving me.  He’s keeps betraying me. He’s doing this horrendous thing that I can’t even wrap my head around. Why is he possibly looking at that material?” Just park that and say, “Okay, we’re going to deal with it for a bit and then we’re going to pick up that decision.”  Because all those issues are valid. I’m not going to tell you that you need to look at your husband in a different way, you need to look at him, you know with rose tinted glasses because, you know this is not the man that God created. Because your reaction, as you said Ann, about being so hurt and so disgusted is valid, it’s righteous anger. This is demonically inspired. It’s sexual habitual sin we’re dealing with. So to feel that passionate and that revulsion is right and holy. However, it’s not always the most helpful state, [Laughter] to help him come forward and ask for help.

Ann:  And honestly so much of that was my fear.

Rosie:  –yeah

Ann:  It just confirmed my own insecurities, “Oh, it is me.” It’s what you said earlier, “I’m not enough. I’m not good enough and it’s my fault.” Those were my inner fears, my triggers as you said. And so I agree it was not helpful to react that way because what happens is it puts us on different sides instead of coming at it as a team.

Rosie:  Good point. But I just wanted to, to just piggyback on what you said Ann about you know, yes it’s not helpful but if anybody is listening and they are in that stage feeling like, “Oh, I have to suppress my anger–”

Ann:  –yes

Rosie:  –or, just be authentic. This is a journey into intimacy, which requires both of you to be honest so

Ann:  –yes.  If somebody would have told me, “Like, just calm down,” I couldn’t at that point. I didn’t even know why.

Dave:  –and this was four decades ago. When I remember that I was glad she was honest.

Rosie:  –yeah

Dave: –and authentic. I knew it was her fault. I knew she was angry and I was okay. I was–I deserved it I felt. I was like okay. But I also got afraid

Rosie:  –yeah [Laughter]

Dave:  –to be that honest.

Rosie:  –I mean wouldn’t you?

Dave:  –yeah

Rosie:  –you know, you’re already feeling bad about the fact you’re doing this, now you’re starting to get a glimpse of the damage it’s doing. Of course it’s going to make you just retreat. Absolutely.

Dave:  Yeah

Rosie:  So the two steps I recommend before you draw that firm line in the sand, before you even have that conversation are things that are going to help you cope with the level of emotion and fear. One step is education. So educate yourself on what it’s doing to his brain, what it’s done to your heart, what it’s done to your own sexuality. Just start to objectively, without emotion, look at what you’re dealing with. Let’s have a look at the enemy that we’re facing. What is it that we’re dealing with? And also look at some of the statistics and hear from other stories. It just breaks the shame when you realize that you’re not the only couple who are dealing with this, you’re in the majority. But if you’ve got a husband that’s willing to face this, you’ve got one of the good guys.

Ann:  –mmm hmm

Rosie:  –okay. That’s what I really want you to hear. When we get together for sort of a recovery barbeques, I love these guys and the families. You know these, these are the heroes in my eyes, because they’re brave enough to raise their white flag and say you know, “I can’t do this anymore. I need help. I need Jesus. I need support.” They’re, they’re the good guys, the ones that you need to fight for and hang on to. So that was education, step number one.

And the second step is get into community. You need other sisters to walk this road with you, you really do. Finding them is kind of difficult, and that’s where our ministry comes in.  Because our whole ministry is talking to wives in that really uncomfortable, hidden area between discovery that this is an issue in your marriage, and recovery. Because it takes years for women to move to recovery, because of all the lies that you’ve already mentioned, “This is my fault. People will think he’s a pedophile, if I come forward and talk about porn. It’s something to do with the fact that I’m not a good enough Christian, and if was more sexually available, or if I was more graceful or loving, or forgiving, or clean the house better,” all these things

Ann:  –or if your husband’s in ministry

Rosie:  –oh yes

Ann:  –does that wreck our whole lives?

Rosie:  Yeah

Ann:  Yeah.

Dave:  And all of those are lies.

Rosie:  They are lies but they’re very common. I think the statistic was 76 percent of partners of porn addicts believe at some point that it’s their fault. I mean it’s devastating, especially if you’ve got a guy who’s on the more sexually avoidant side. How can you not think, “If he’s looking at all those other women and yet he’s not sexually interested in me,” it’s not a reflection of you. But it’s really not. It’s really not. They’ve been conditioned to be aroused by this isolated voyeuristic experience of watching other people, rather than interact with a real person. Even if you look like the women in pornography, he would still be acting out with pornography and people come forward and say that. Actually the women in pornography say it’s like, “I can’t stop my boyfriend from doing it.” It’s because it’s a coping mechanism. Because it’s to do with sex it gets so hard to disentangle it and feeling that it’s not somehow not a reflection on how we are. But if he were sneaking downstairs and doing cocaine in the middle of the night you wouldn’t be lying up there and going, “Oh, if only I was more attractive,” [Laughter]

Ann:  –yeah

Rosie:  –you just really wouldn’t and you’d go, “He’s doing what? He’s doing cocaine every night? Okay we need some help. We need some help. Okay. I’m not going to shout it from the rooftops but–

Ann:  –you wouldn’t personalize it

Rosie:  –you wouldn’t personalize it.  That’s the word I was looking for

Ann:  –yes

Rosie:  –well thank you Ann

Dave:  Well what if you have a husband who isn’t repentant?

Rosie:  –yeah

Dave:  –who just lies and just will not receive what his wife says like, “Hey we need to get help.”

Rosie:  Yeah. And there could be a couple of reasons for that. I mean one could just be narcissistic and abusive, or it could be he’s so far into denial that he really does believe his own rationalizations. “It really is because she’s not available enough. She doesn’t make an effort. We don’t–” Whatever it is. He actually believes it, even though it’s not true. He doesn’t understand the effect the pornograpy’s had on the way he sees his wife anymore. Or it could be the shame.

Dave:  Hmm

Rosie:  You know it’s really, it’s really hard. Or the other one, that I’ve just thought of that’s so, so cruel, is the fact that guys have tried to stop, they have tried so many times on their own and they think, “I can’t stop. I really can’t. If we open up this issue and we start to go for help and she starts to believe this and I can’t stop this is all going to fall apart because I know that I can’t stop. I have tried. I have tried so hard on my own.” And I think a lot of guys they’re in that position. They might have been to therapy, or they might have been to recovery ministries and they still can’t stop. So it’s like, “We can’t go near this area, because if we do it’s going to end in disaster.” And it’s not true. It is absolutely possible to have a porn free marriage.

Ann:  Hmm.

Rosie:   You just haven’t done the one thing that really works and that’s being 100 percent honest with the truth. And that sounds really simple and really easy, but it’s the hardest thing to do, because it’s not just confessing to actions, it’s confessing to what is going on underneath.

Ann:  Hmm

Rosie:  –all the resentment and all the anger and all the fears and all the hurt. And you have to get that and you have to get it out and you have to get it into the light with other guys who are going to hold you to that standard. Be as equally honest and walk alongside you without judgment, and love. And that’s how we become Jesus incarnate to our brothers and sisters in that we love people, and yet we know everything about them.

Ann:  It’s so interesting to me, share with our listeners what your husband does now.

Rosie:  Yeah. He’s a CSAT which is a certified sexual addiction therapist. Sometimes I just you know will be standing making dinner in the kitchen and like giggle because he’s upstairs with a group of wives, you know, empathizing with the wives about how awful it is because their husbands are doing pornography and being critical and resentful. And I’m like, “How did you do that God?”

Ann:  –hmm

Rosie:  –you know and he’s so validating and helpful. You know I think it’s really helpful when you’ve got sort of a male figure, you know who’s in a position of authority leading the group, to actually validate your instincts, your, your fears, your experience. So yeah, he works with couples and individuals all day long.

Ann:  It’s amazing

Rosie:  –isn’t that crazy

Ann:  –what God has done

Rosie:  –yeah

Ann:  –miraculously through you guys.

Shelby:  You’re listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Rosie MaKinney on FamilyLife Today. This is a serious issue and Ann’s got some serious encouragement for wives in just a minute. But first, we’ve got a link to Rosie’s ministry Fight For Love Ministries in the show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com you can check that out there. Rosie’s also written a book called Fight for Love: How to Take Your Marriage Back From Porn. You can get a copy at FamilyLIfeToday.com or by calling 800-358-6329. That’s 800, ‘F’ as in family, ‘L’ as in life, and then the word TODAY. And in so many ways this conversation can draw us into more dialogue about how ungodly attractions and addictions in our marriages have the ability to lead to even darker places. Well our guest earlier this week Dave Carter wrote a book called Anatomy of an Affair: How Affairs, Attractions, and Addictions Develop and How to Guard Your Marriage Against Them. We’d love to send you a copy as our thanks when you partner financially with FamilyLife. You’ll help more families hear conversations just like today’s. Conversations that point to the hope found in Christ. You can give at FamilyLifeToday.com or by calling 800-358-6329. That’s 800, ‘F’ as in family, ‘L’ as in life and then the word TODAY. Alright, here's Ann with some encouraging words for wives.

Ann:  Besides pray I would say this too. Like begin talking to God about–and be honest with Him, “God this is what I feel,” if you’re the spouse, “this is what it feels like. I feel like I’m betrayed.”  Or, “I feel like I have no control. I feel like I’m not enough.” Like tell God all of that. For us as women, for wives, and your book is specifically written to women, wives, like what would it look like if we fought together?

Rosie:  –yeah

Ann:  –if we brought Jesus and God into this and said, “Let’s fight for our men. Let’s fight for our sons and our daughters and our children and our families.” We could make a difference.

Shelby:  Coming up tomorrow Dave and Ann are joined again with Rosie MaKinney to talk about how porn is often accompanied by denial, and how to know if you actually have an issue. That’s tomorrow.

Shelby: On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Shelby Abbott. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

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