I am very excited to introduce you all to my new friend, Jolene Winn! She is a momma, life coach, and fitness enthusiast who lives with her family on the beautiful East Coast.
Jolene specifically coaches women who have spouses battling pornography addictions. It was during my own research on pornography that I came across her podcast, The Porn Addict’s Wife. I was impressed with the direct and upbeat way in which Jolene shared her own story of finding healing after her husband informed her about his own pornography addiction. I decided to email her about UNITE WITH LIGHT, and she agreed to let me interview her! I have learned so much from her, and I can’t wait for all of you to read our interview here. Let’s jump right in!
Can you tell us when you found out about your husband’s addiction to pornography?
Yes. So, Rob and I had a very typical LDS relationship. We met at church during our freshman year at Brigham Young University. We dated for a while before he left on his two-year mission trip, and I wrote to him while he was gone. We resumed dating when he returned and got married in the Washington D.C. temple about one year later.
About five years passed, and we had two children. One day, Rob came to me said, "Hey, I want you to know I've had this addiction to pornography. I'm handling it, and I'm taking care of it, and I don't want to talk about it."
And I was like, "Oh, okay."
The very first thing I felt was understanding. I grew up in an active Christian home in Delaware, but I was in no way sheltered. I had been exposed to pornography, like most human beings on this planet will be at some point, so I understood it intellectually and scientifically. I also understood the physical aspect as well, including the natural curiosity and dopamine reaction that makes pornography feel good. I understood all of that. So, half of me was like, "Okay, I get it."
The other half of me was obviously very devastated.
I didn't fully realize that this was my response until later, but my biggest thought after Rob told me was: "What's wrong with me?"
Then my thoughts shifted to, "Oh, Okay. Alright. I can control this." I tried to manipulate the situation, and Rob, in a way to prevent him from viewing pornography again.
Now, usually, when you use words like control or manipulate, people think it's a bad thing. However, my search for control was all done out of love and concern. I thought to myself, "I'm going to try and make sure that when he gets home, he's not stressed." I tried to always have the house clean and settled. I tried to make sure that I was always showered and ready and done up. When it came to our intimate relationship and sex life, I was conscious of whenever I said no, and I tried to initiate more for him.
Pornography was running my life in the background, and I was constantly anxious.
What is it that changed this, or did it change?
It did change, but it took a lot of intentional effort. For a long time, it didn't even occur to me to get professional help for myself. Maybe I'm just a slow learner, but initially, my thought was, "Okay, we've got this. Rob just needs to go to addiction recovery groups. He needs to go find a therapist. He's the one with the problem. He needs to go get it fixed, and then we will be fine."
I didn't realize how flawed this thinking was until years later when I started listening to podcasts that introduced me to life coaching. Up to that point, my healing process was going at a normal pace. However, as I learned more, it just took off like a rocket ship. I gained more tools to work through thoughts and emotions in healthy and productive ways that lead to healing, rather than shoving them down or pretending they weren't there as we sometimes do in response to difficult situations and emotions.
I honestly don't remember it being that traumatic when I found out about Rob's addiction. As I said, I understood it so well. But, looking back, I also think that was because I was ignoring a lot of the emotion. Years later, when I had the tools and learned how to do that, that is when it was a little bit more emotional. I was finally like, "Okay, I'm ready to look at all of this." And so I did, and it was a lot, but it was exactly what I needed. God created our emotions for a reason, and we just have to learn how to use them.
How can women learn to better process their emotions?
Hire a professional. The number one thing that I always say is that you should be talking to three people about your husband's pornography addiction:
The first person should be your husband, which is difficult. It sounds easy, but my husband and I avoided talking about it for years because that was the first thing he said. He had told me, "I don't want to talk about it." And of course he didn't want to talk about it! It made him feel very guilty, very ashamed, and very embarrassed. While he had been aware of this and dealing with it for years, but the day he told me was my day one. He didn't even really connect that for a long time. Because he had been aware of it, and dealing with these emotions for so long, he didn't realize that I was coming in and just starting this kind of journey. So the first person you should be talking to is your husband, and sometimes that takes a professional just to get that going.
Second, is a confidant. Just one person. You can talk to your husband about who that person should be, whether that's a best friend, or a mom, or a sister or a brother, etc. Whoever it is, pick one person that isn't going to try and help you fix it as a professional would. Find just one person both of you can trust that you can confide. This can be understandably difficult for the addict because they are again worried about what people are going to say or think. But a spouse needs to have someone that they can talk to.
To summarize, a woman should be talking to their spouse, one confidant, and a professional (a therapist, a counselor, a life coach, etc.). To clarify, a professional is someone who can help you work through what you’re feeling, which is really the way to learn to work through your emotions.
I have noticed that some women try so hard to "fix" their spouse that they forget to take care of themselves. In your podcast, you talk about betrayal and other hard emotions many women don't address. One of the common emotions I have seen women struggle with is guilt. Did you experience this specific feeling? If so, how did you address it?
I actually did a podcast specifically on the guilt an addict’s spouse experiences because I went through it too. The tricky thing is that guilt can be more sneaky than we would think. This emotion doesn't always come up as, "I feel guilty." Instead, it may sound like, "I should have done something differently." I was like, "Okay, maybe I need to lose weight. Maybe I need to do my hair different. Maybe I need to make sure that I'm always, you know, "on" whenever he's in the mood, and not too tired or whatever.” I thought that if I was more, or if I was different, or if I had done something different, or behaved a different way, then maybe this wouldn't be a problem. And again, of course that isn’t true!
A lot of times these men have struggled with this addiction for years. Like, long before their significant other comes along. But sometimes that's not the case. For me, my husband didn't start watching porn until after we'd gotten married. So, I for sure thought it was something to do with me. I was like, "Well, obviously, I'm not doing this right, or doing what he wants, because otherwise, he wouldn't turn to it." But that comes from false logic. It's that same false logic that leads women to not get help for themselves and to just want their spouse to get help. It's the inaccurate thought that once the addiction goes away, and once HIS addiction gets taken care of, THEN I will be fine. But that's just not true.
How do you not let your spouse's addiction take the front seat in your day?
Well, it did for a while, and that's totally normal. The reason getting professional help is so important is because the reason that it takes a front seat is because of the emotion that you feel. It is very overwhelming. And when you have some very strong emotion, it's difficult to ignore, right?
Think about somebody with depression. You can't just say, "Why can't you just be happy and think happy thoughts?" Right? It doesn't work like that. You have to process all of that emotion, all the hurt, all the pain, all the rejection, all of the distrust. You have to learn how to accept it, how to let yourself feel it, and then how to move past it. And that's really difficult to do. I mean, not that it can't be done on your own. I did it for years on my own! But once I learned what I did through life coaching, since that was what worked for me, I was just like, "Oh my gosh. Why didn't I do this 10 years ago?"
And I think the reason is fear.
We stay where we are because of fear. Even if where we are is uncomfortable, we stay there because it is a known discomfort. Even when you have a lot of pain and rejection and hurt, it's easier to stay there than it is to try and move forward. This is because there is that fear that if you move forward and face all of that hurt, and rejection and pain, you're never going to come out of it. You're scared of what will be on the other side, right? I've talked to a lot of women that say, "Well, I'm functioning right now so I'm fine and I don't want to disrupt the status quo." All that does is keep your life at a functioning level.
It's kind of like if you want to lose weight, you know? You might think it's super uncomfortable when you sit down and your stomach rolls over your pants. But this becomes a discomfort that you might understand and decide you can live with. That discomfort seems better than the discomfort of dieting and exercising so you might decide to just stay where you are even though that’s not where you want to be. My job, as a life coach, is to help women go from functioning to thriving to creating to living a life on purpose. Find someone like me, or another professional, to help you overcome the fear and take ownership of your life.
So, I am curious. Earlier you mentioned having three people to talk to. What would you have wanted your confidant to have said when you told them about your spouse’s addiction?
Nothing. They don't need to fix it. And that's another thing too. We have this huge desire to fix it, to make it better, to make it go away. All I needed, though, was someone to listen. My situation was a very lonely place to be. To be told your loved one is addicted to pornography is isolating, particularly in a situation like mine, which is very typical, where my spouse didn't want to talk to me about it. Also, I wasn't seeing a professional at the time, so I was talking to nobody, and just figuring this out on my own. All I would have wanted is to just have had one person that knew what I was experiencing. Just one person who understood, even just at a surface level, what was going on in my mind, life, and marriage. I didn't tell a single person for 10 years. I am grateful God gave me the ability to process all this on my own in a very healthy way, but I still look back and kick myself for not talking to someone sooner.
So yeah, that's all you need. One person that just knows your story. One friend that you can call when you're having a hard day or when your husband relapses. One person you can just cry on the phone to. Your professional should know all this too, but also having one person you can call and just say, "I can't be a mom today," or "I can't be a human being today," or "I'm having a hard time going to work because all I can think about is what's going on in my marriage"? That would mean the world.
How can a woman best communicate about, and address, this topic with her spouse?
Well, I think that this is why getting professional help is so important. There's a huge difference in the way you approach a subject. You have to remember that as much emotion as you're feeling, your husband is also feeling just as much emotion. And he's feeling guilty. And he's feeling embarrassed. And he's feeling ashamed.
What usually happens is that a woman is so in her own feelings that she forgets, understandably, what he's feeling. She might want to talk it through and he doesn’t. So, even the tone of voice a woman uses when she comes to her husband makes a difference. The tone of your voice all comes from your attitude, which all comes from near emotion. If you are sitting in hurt and pain and anger and rejection, it's very difficult to have an open and honest conversation. So I'd say the first thing is to learn how to be open and create a space. I did do a podcast on this called "How to Have Hard Conversations," in which I talk a lot about creating that openness by not feeling the need to be right.
I think it's a disservice that we do in our culture to say we need to always validate our feelings. Yes, your feelings are valid, but it's a disservice in that it creates this kind of place where we feel like our spouse deserves to be at the brunt of our hurt and anger. When we approach conversations that way, it's very difficult to get anything productive out of it. When you feel the need to be right, you feel the need to defend your position. When you're on defense, that automatically puts your spouse on offense, or vice versa. Next thing you know, you're on opposing sides. Instead, learn how to be open enough that you don't need sides. Create a place where you and him are just discussing. Reject the need to be right. You can feel anything you want to feel, and he can feel anything he wants to feel. This is all necessary in order to move forward.
Now, this can be a hard thing, especially when you are carrying around so much hurt and pain. It can feel very important to feel right because you may think, "Well, if I'm not right, then that means he's right. And I don't think what he did was right." I encourage you to remember that his feelings are real and your feelings are real. You have the option to fight this addiction with your husband rather than having to fight both your spouse and his addiction on your own. This all takes practice, and probably some professional guidance, but it is possible to feel hurt and anger while still having an open line of communication.
Finally, remember that there is so much more within our control than we realize. It's little things, like how you approach a conversation, and how you go about your day, and how you think about him, that can make a big difference.
How has your faith has played a role in all of this for you?
That's a great question. So I never questioned my faith throughout this. I never asked why. I never asked, "Why me? Why him? Why us? Why this?" And that's not because I'm superhuman, but because I decided a long time ago that faith is a choice. I've been blessed with faith in Christ and in God and never questioned it. I didn't see a reason to start questioning it now.
The biggest way this influenced my faith was by making it 10 times stronger. My husband’s addiction was a way that I learned about the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and saw its application in my own life. I learned about Christ’s Atonement as this experience taught me how to truly forgive.
The truth is, I actually thought I had forgiven my husband. Then, one day, I realized that I was still carrying around this little piece of hurt within me. I was doing that because I thought that letting go of that hurt would mean that I was okay with everything my husband had done. I was worried that it would almost condone everything he did and would signify that I was indifferent towards what he had done. Finally, I realized that when you are able to let go of that last little piece of hurt, and give it to Jesus, you will find real freedom. I was really worried that on the other side of forgiveness was condoning, but on the other side of forgiveness is freedom. It's liberation. I never would have learned that in this way had we not gone through what we did.
Again, I did a podcast about how I forgave my husband. It was a beautiful experience on a day where I just kind of sat on my bed and cried. I had this image in my head of my husband in a long line of faceless women. He was standing between me and these women. I watched as he chose them over me one at a time. In my mind, that is exactly what had happened. Every relapse, every image he saw, and every person he watched was him saying, "I choose them. I choose her, not you."
I was in my room just kind of sitting with that image in my mind. I was crying and allowed myself to feel all of that. Thankfully, I had a lot of tools I’d learned through life coaching to do this in a healthy way.
All of a sudden, the image kind of shifted, and there was Christ. He was standing next to me. He looked at all these faceless women and my husband. Then, Christ looked at me and said, "I chose you."
That was all I needed to let go of that last little bit of hurt. That is what helped me understand that keeping the hurt we feel shackles us. We can only let go once we give it all to God who sent His Son to perform the Atonement. That's what gives us freedom.
I am now at a point where I am actually grateful for my husband's addiction, which is something I never thought I could ever say. But here I am. I'm super grateful for it because of what it's taught both of us, how it's brought us closer together, and how it has allowed me to help all the women I’ve met. And I know it's just going to get even better! This was God's plan all along.
There's a reason I am with Rob. There's a reason that he had this struggle in particular, and there's a reason I understood it. There's a reason I think the way I do. All of this. God is in the details of our lives. And, if nothing else, that is what this has taught me.
Thank you so much for sharing your story with all of us, Jolene. Do you have anything else to say to women who have a spouse battling a pornography addiction?
The number one thing I would say is don’t stay silent. Find a professional. It took me 10 years before I spoke to a professional, and that was 10 years too long. It can seem scary. I know there's a lot of hurt and distrust and pain. And the number one thing I would say to you is, “It’s all okay.”
It's okay that you feel this way. It's okay that you don't trust your husband. It's okay that you feel hurt. It's okay that you feel rejected. Nothing has gone wrong, and everything is fixable. Actually, wait. I don't even like saying everything is fixable, because I know that most women just feel like they're broken. And that's how I used to feel. But you're not broken. There's nothing wrong with you. Nothing needs to be fixed. You're not broken. Everything can be healed.
But don't stay silent.
Talk to your husband, talk to a friend, and start with a professional right away. This will only help you to better avoid years and years of pain. A lot of women say they feel stuck. I felt very stuck, as if my life was not my own. I felt almost as if my life was being run by my husband’s addiction. And that's very normal. The only way to change that is by learning how to process your emotions and change your thoughts. Don’t be the victim of your life. Instead, start acting in your life.
To learn more from Jolene, you can visit her website at https://www.jolenewinn.com/. She is also on Instagram @jolenewinncoaching. Her Podcast, The Porn Addicts Wife, is available on Apple and Spotify.
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