My Husband Was A Secret Porn Addict For 10 Years And It Destroyed Me

Jourdan Kehr started dating D when she was only 14 years old – but the green-eyed, sweet girl knew there was still much to learn, so they separated not too long after. At 19, in April 2013, she found her way back to her first love. Still young, but finally old enough to know that D was the man she desired to be with forever, they got married one year later. D was everything Jourdan could have ever wanted in a husband: He was funny, incredibly romantic, and sexually enticing. He was deeply thoughtful, putting effort into everything just to make his wife smile. D made sure that Jourdan was the happiest girl on her birthday, at their anniversaries, and on all of their dates. D was also loyal. He never talked to other girls, refusing to even follow any of his female friends on social media. And, like a match made in heaven, they shared the same beliefs about God. They were both raised as Christians, allowing them to connect over their values on marriage, love, and life. After being married to D for nearly a decade and having two kids with him, it was only natural for Jourdan to know her husband like the back of her hand. Despite this, their relationship wasn’t always smooth-sailing. Throughout their 9-year marriage, Jourdan and D would have fights. Arguments would arise seemingly out of nowhere, over things that never warranted heated disagreements in the first place. Jourdan never knew why D would be so angry at her. What am I doing wrong? She would wonder. Am I not pretty enough? She blamed the fights on herself every time. Am I not praying enough? Jourdan went to D for solace, who never failed to respond in the sweetest, most gentle way to her go-to question. The question she’d ask him whenever she would find herself being weighed down by the insecure voices in her mind, the ones that would always try to sink her to the bottom of the abyss. “Am I the only woman you look at?” she’d ask him. “Yes, of course,” D would say. Even though it was the same answer he’d given his wife a thousand times, it still oozed like honey out of his lips, comforting and soothing Jourdan. It was all she needed to hear to be pulled out of the darkness every time. This answer had become Jourdan’s identity. In her heart, mind, and soul, she knew she was the only woman in D’s heart, in D’s world. D started a new job about six years into their marriage. It was a contract job, and he had to move to another country for two years to work. In these 24 months, and in between visits, Jourdan began to notice a change in her husband. When he was done with the contracted work and came back, Jourdan knew for certain that something was wrong. D was more depressed than usual, and she felt an invisible wall between them. D was no longer giving his wife the love and attention he used to give her, but she didn't know why. Their sex life had lost its spark. When Jourdan would try to initiate, D would always have an arsenal of excuses as to why he couldn’t make love to his wife – he was too tired, he wasn’t feeling well, he was unhappy. He no longer called her beautiful. Jourdan’s confidence started to wane. D was asleep while Jourdan was lying in bed, awake. Her mind was racing. Something was tugging at her to get up. Then, she got the sudden urge to check D’s phone. She wasn’t suspecting anything – the couple always had access to each others’ devices, even sharing passwords for everything. There were no secrets between them, or so she thought. In the middle of the night, Jourdan grabbed D’s phone. She snuck into the bathroom to examine the contents of his device. At first, nothing seemed off. His search history was fine, and there weren’t any messages to be worried about. Then, she tapped on his Google photos. In it, Jourdan found a porn video in a folder from 2014, around the time after they had just gotten married. She had no idea her husband even watched porn. Still, it was eight years ago. Should she let it go? Jourdan would have been more than ready to forgive her husband if it was just a one-off case. But Jourdan felt inclined to listen to her gut, and her intuition was telling her to confront D about it. And so she did. Much to Jourdan’s surprise, her husband broke down: “There’s something wrong with me,” he admits. “I don’t know why I’ve done this for so long.” D’s porn addiction started when he was a teenager, just after he got his first smartphone. With a few taps of a finger, the hormonal adolescent had access to the most beautiful women engaging in a variety of sexual acts. D had grown dependent on the easy dopamine hits and sexual relief that porn so readily provided. But after marrying Jourdan, his indulgence started to consume him. All of the love and attention he couldn’t give to his wife during their marriage was given away to the pornstars behind his phone screen. His deepest, darkest secret – that he kept hidden for over 10 years from his friends, family, and his wife – had begun to gnaw at him. For a decade, he'd manage to sneak away and watch porn excessively. The years of guilt and shame he was feeling started to seep out through his thoughts, actions, and words, sparking fights and burning bridges. His inner demons, Jourdan soon realized, were the cause of all of their disagreements, his mistreatment of her, his denial of her advancements, and his depression. The Addiction That’s Silently Taking the Minds of Individuals An estimated 40 million Americans visit pornographic websites regularly. Most reports state that only about 200,000 Americans are addicted to porn, yet the addiction itself is not recognized by the American Psychological Association (APA) – which leads many to believe that the number of individuals who are addicted to porn is much higher. Porn acts in the same manner as drugs, dulling the reward system in the brain. It starts to demand more of the rush that an orgasm provides until a viewer falls addicted, losing the willpower to refrain from masturbating. But the relief pornography gives comes with a cost: Studies found that men who watched porn had less motivation compared to non-viewers. Porn desensitizes people to reality , affecting their perceptions of women and sex. Men who frequently viewed pornographic content were also at a higher risk of struggling with erectile dysfunction and delayed orgasm. Alas, as with any addiction, porn has the ability to ruin relationships. Porn acts in the same manner as drugs. The admission came as earth-shattering news to Jourdan. The man that had become her other half became a stranger in an instant. There were no more secrets between them, D’s mask had fallen off. But the transparency broke the reality Jourdan was familiar with for so long. She started to question everything. My whole life is a lie, she thought. I don’t know this man. “Whenever you go through something like this,” she explains, “and you realize, ‘oh my gosh, my husband’s addicted to porn’ or ‘my husband had an affair,' or whatever, and you have that trauma – you’re continually asking questions.” After the heartbreaking revelation, Jourdan felt like her identity was stolen from her. It dawned on her that she wasn’t, in fact, the only woman D had been looking at. He’d been watching – fantasizing himself with – thousands of other women, who, according to Jourdan, looked nothing like her. The man she loved and trusted more than anyone had been lying to her for nearly a decade. And she knows now that D's porn addiction had completely taken hold of him when he spent time working outside the U.S. Jourdan felt betrayed. She felt empty. “It didn’t feel like my heart was broken, it felt like my heart was removed from my body,” she admits. Betrayal Trauma Has Serious Consequences People with porn addiction need help – but so do their partners. Both Jourdan and D needed assistance with their struggles. With the help of professionals, one therapist was able to narrow down what Jourdan was going through: betrayal trauma. Betrayal trauma was introduced by a psychologist named Jennifer Freyd in 1991. Just as its name suggests, it describes the emotional impact someone experiences after their trust and well-being are violated by a partner, specifically someone whom they have to depend on. One theory states that the dependent, typically a child , is likely to block the abuse from their mind by going into a dissociative state. This leads many victims of betrayal trauma to suffer from extreme emotions, feelings, and other reactions. It can cause PTSD, anxiety, eating disorders, difficulty concentrating, and mood swings. The dissociative state impacted Jourdan’s ability to think and act. “There was a period of time that I was, basically, telling myself ‘this isn’t real,’" she recalls, "I couldn’t even accept what was going on.” She couldn’t look at her kids – and this was one of her biggest regrets during that time of emotional instability. “If there's one thing I have to say [to the porn-addicted men], it would just be: Tell her before you get married – if you don't tell her before you get married, tell her before she has a child,” Jourdan admits out of frustration. The mother-of-two struggled to get out of bed, and she stopped eating as well. Jourdan felt “out of control” of her own body, at times throwing objects, shaking, and screaming. She began to compare herself to the women D would masturbate to. As she continued to grieve, Jourdan found herself “hate-watching” the tight-bodied, plastic, and gorgeous porn stars online. She started to hate her own post-partum figure. The stretchmarks, the softer stomach, and the saggier breasts – the beautiful markings of a mother – were all things that she became ashamed of. She had to turn her body mirror around because she couldn’t stand to see herself anymore. “The damage this has done to my self-image – the way I view myself, love myself, and the way I think about my body – I don’t want to say this, but it feels irreversible," Jourdan confesses. "I can’t imagine ever loving my body again.” "I can’t imagine ever loving my body again.” The pain had become too much for D's wife to ignore, but there was no way she could focus on herself by taking care of the house and kids. The heartbreak she was experiencing needed to be treated like an injury. Because, for Jourdan, who had previously experienced the trauma of having her house burned down and being raped, the agony she suffered from realizing she had been deceived for over 10 years felt worse. D decided to leave his new job in Alabama so that he could take care of their children while Jourdan focused on recovering. D, who finally understood the severity of what his wife was going through, took on the role of a homemaker for weeks. He cared for Jourdan and their kids until she was able to function normally again. “I was lucky because a lot of husbands don’t even care about the pain they put their wives through,” she admits. Jourdan was desperate to find ways to heal outside of therapy. She decided she needed an outlet to share her story. She figured she wasn't alone, that there had to be others who were going through the same struggles. Jourdan decided to post videos on TikTok, using it as a video diary to help her and others heal. Knowing that she’s helping many women – and men – by creating content on porn addiction motivates her to keep going. Throughout her short time on the platform, Jourdan has learned that many women didn’t realize that setting certain boundaries on porn in a relationship was perfectly normal. “Women are convinced, and young girls are convinced, that it is so normal,” she explains. Many young women have been brainwashed into thinking they cannot be against their partners watching porn. Young people, especially, grew up on a sex-fueled internet riddled with pornographic content. It makes them fall into the illusion that porn should be normal and accepted in a relationship. “You can put this [porn] as a boundary. If you’re uncomfortable with your boyfriend or your husband masturbating to other women's bodies on their phone, or on TikTok – or whatever it’s on – if you’re uncomfortable with that, you have every right for that to be a boundary,” she says. Still, Jourdan understands that you can’t force someone to change, but that you can find someone else who will respect your boundaries and wishes. With the help of her husband and her new followers, Jourdan is doing much better, but it’s going to take some time before she and D can truly feel at ease in their relationship again. “Not every day is easy,” she says. At the very least, Jourdan is able to breathe and take care of her children. She and D have gotten closer. And even though her husband hurt her, she knew, deep down, that he loved her. “I know that he loves me. And I know that he always has loved me," she adds. "But it didn’t matter how much he loved me, that addicted part of his brain wasn’t going to go away until he was confronted with it.” Jourdan still speaks highly of her husband. She knows he had a problem. Yet, she understands that many men weren’t taught to express their struggles and emotions. For these reasons, she remains patient with him and gives him encouragement. Shortly after D revealed his secret, he visited a therapist and started attending a sexaholic anonymous group for men. He downloaded an app that would alert Jourdan’s cellular device anytime he would try and visit a porn website. Jourdan remains at his side, giving him praise. “You’re doing good,” she’d tell him. And while they’re still in the process of looking for a marriage counselor, Jourdan and D are working together on rebuilding their relationship. They try their best to meet each others’ emotional needs, validating each other whenever possible. The same man that hurt her is now helping her heal. The last two months, according to Jourdan, have been the “worst and the best” moments of their marriage. D has been more kind and gentle toward his wife. He calls her beautiful, he buys her flowers, he cleans the house, and he watches the kids. He holds her, he comforts her. They have become each others' rock. It’s as though D’s painful confession and Jourdan’s reaction acted as a wake-up call, and he’s currently doing everything he can to regain Jourdan’s trust back. Though it could take years for that to happen, Jourdan is choosing to focus on the positives by reminding herself that there are better days ahead. "I'm trying to remember that my husband is doing work in recovery," she says. "I'm trying to remember that he does want to get help. That if he can truly recover from this – and when he does – our marriage is going to be better than ever." Closing Thoughts Some people hide their addictions very well. When I asked Jourdan what signs to watch out for, she says many porn-addicted individuals often project. Pay attention to their behaviors and their words. If you suspect something, keep pressing. Lastly, if you or a loved one are struggling with porn addiction, visit Jourdan’s link here for resources. Don’t miss anything! Sign up for our weekly newsletter and get curated content weekly!