Dear Mr. Wood,

About 3 years ago, I discovered my husband had been involved in on-line porn. It affected us in these ways:

1. It completely damaged my trust in him, yet (thanks be to God) I know God brought it painfully to my attention just in time.

2. It hurt our babies. My 7 year-old son has been affected - he is too "wise" about pornographic matters, and my 16 year-old daughter too. This so-called "hidden addiction" CANNOT BE HIDDEN. It will come out in the most innocent of children somehow. It will hurt them, and will cause a permanent scar on their souls. The victims are the ones you could never have expected.

3. It weakened, maybe permanently, any ministry we could have, be it pro-life work, or homeschooling, or anything else.

I think I have something important to say about healing from this addiction. It is an ongoing process. It takes incredible strength of character on the part of the hurting wife, and the husband, too. If they can remember why they fell in love with one another, it helps. If there is ANY love left, and if they lean on the graces of Matrimony, and on God's love, they can win over this! But more than that, it takes a willingness to trust God with your husband, and NOT to be afraid to deal with it, bring it up, and listen to all the excuses and reasons without accepting them. The problem, I believe, is that too many of us have such horrible feelings about ourselves that we are willing to believe the lies and excuses, and not hold our husbands accountable for their sin and the damage it has done to their families and their children!

My husband's subscription to SJCK mysteriously lapsed as he was getting deeper and deeper into porn! Maybe it was too "convicting." I think he had been addicted for a very long time, I am guessing several years. His work environment was not conducive to purity.

The glorious end to all this, while hurtful and difficult, has been that I believe he is no longer enslaved by this addiction. Maybe he wasn't as deep into it as many, but it was extremely destructive. It has made us become closer, and better at communicating. We still have problems, and I feel the "hurt" sometimes if I start to feel sorry for myself. But that is not God's way. It will continue to be a learning process for both of us. It has been so sad to experience the poison of pornography creeping into our Catholic homeschooling family.

Editor's Note: Details of this letter have been modified to protect the anonymity of the parties involved.