Testimony: Sexual Addiction Ends in Stromger Marriage

Michele caught her husband Mitch red-handed. She was going through bills, when she saw charges for Internet pornography. She told herself it wasn’t a big deal - the first time.

“’It was just a guy thing. It was just something that men did.’ I just said, ‘Don’t do it anymore.’ I was going to ask him on a monthly basis if he had looked at anything, to kind of hold him accountable,” said Michele.

“It would be something I would have to confess more than once,” said Mitch.

Mitch was just a curious 7 year-old when he opened a pornographic magazine, left behind by his big brother. One glance started a habit that stayed. “It became part of my everyday life,” said Mitch. 

Mitch couldn’t just stop. He was addicted to pornography and as the confessions kept coming, Michele’s feelings changed. “Then I just thought, ‘I don’t want to know.’ It was easier to just not know. You start to think, ‘Am I not good enough?’ It’s just betrayal. It’s heart breaking,” said Michele. 

Michele was already a Christian when they married. Soon after, Mitch became a believer too. But the couple was more concerned with how they looked to others, and didn’t really surrender their lives to God.  

 

“I don’t know if I know who I was, really…Probably (I was) scared, lonely and looking for security in a marriage and not in the Lord at all. I did religion. I did what I was supposed to be doing. You go to church. Take your kids to Sunday school and everything works out perfect.” said Michele. 

“I believed in God but I don’t think He had any rule or reign over my life,” said Mitch.

“It was all a mask,” Michele added.

The couple was already growing apart, when Mitch was asked to work overseas a few months.

“I was taking care of the kids, taking care of the house, taking care of all the responsibilities here and actually enjoying it being just us girls.” said Michele.

But Michele had no idea Mitch was having an affair. “The flesh and the devil had just pulled me away.  And I allowed those things to come between me and the Lord and me and my wife,” said Mitch. 

Mitch’s secrets caught up with him when he returned home, and noticed symptoms of a sexually transmitted disease. “You need to hit some sort of bottom before you understand the real ramifications of what’s going on in your life,” said Mitch. Turns out, he didn’t have an STD but the situation was enough to scare him straight. He told Michele they had to talk. 

“One way I describe it is if God reached down and grabbed me by the back of the neck and said ‘I’ve had enough.’”  

Michele walked into her house. “I could hear him crying. I just asked him. I said, ‘Are you having an affair?’ And he said ‘Yes.’ Immediately, my heart sunk into my stomach,” said Michele. 

“I think I had expected her to ask me to leave. I had intentionally left some things in the car just in case,” said Mitch. 

The confession from her husband was devastating, but Michele says the Holy Spirit took over—and even she was shocked by what she did next… 

“I just began to embrace him and to love on him and to tell him that I would be there for him. And it’s a picture of what Jesus did for me. I make my own selfish choices and He does not turn his face from me. He embraces me and loves me and that is what I did for Mitch. And in the midst of that I was comforted as well,” said Michele. 

Mitch says his wife’s response showed him what God’s love really looks like. 

“He’s the one who put me back together. He’s the one who reached down and pulled me out. He’s made me whole again through Jesus,” said Mitch.

Mitch and Michele made friends at a local church. That’s where they joined the Celebrate Recovery ministry, a Bible-based program that helps people overcome hurt, habits and addiction. “It takes some accountability. It takes an open place where you feel like you can actually share what’s going on in your heart,” explains Mitch.    

The couple decided to put God first, and let Him show themhow to love each other. “We love because He first loved us. So I don’t love Mitch just because he’s my husband. I love Mitch because Jesus loves me,” said Michele. 

“He paid such a high cost for me. I need to love Jesus more than I love that sin,” said Mitch.

By Brandice Hudson