It was hidden in someone's house I was at.
I was seven.
He had a wife.
He had a daughter not much older than me.
Yet there it was, staring at me in all it's grotesque glory.
The woman on the front was exposed and seemingly happy about it.
My face turned hot and I rushed to stuff the magazines back where I had found them.
Maybe he wouldn't notice they were most likely out of their normal order.
I didn't fully understand at the time what exactly this meant, but I knew I hurt for his wife.
I was a child, but I knew she would be pained by what I had just found.
So I shut up and shut down.
I left the magazine in their secret place and never went back there.
Then, years later I was back at that house again, staring at those magazines.
Or so it felt.
I was a woman myself now. I had forgotten all about the man's dirty magazines.
Until now.
My hands were shaking and my heart was trying to find a way out of my chest.
The only escape route was through my mouth with muffled sobs.
I was supposed to be in the shower.
The water was on, so I pressed my face into the bathroom towel.
I screamed.
No words in particular, just a mixture of anguish and confusion.
I was that little girl again, shoving those magazines back into the wall where I had found them; yet this time, I was the woman totally oblivious to her own shortcomings.
Shortcomings?
I'm sure you're lost.
What does a man looking at porn have anything to do with my own worth?
If you're a man, you may be thinking that by looking at porn, that doesn't mean you love your wife any less or find her any less beautiful.
You may be thinking that it's only natural, that the only one affected by these images is yourself.
You are wrong.
The ugly truth about porn is that it affects every woman you touch, especially your spouse.
You are mixing the poison, but she is drinking it.
I could go into the biblical aspects of porn and beat you over the head with scriptures, but we have all heard them before.
We have heard the sermons, seen the moves and witnessed the marriages torn apart.
I have no need to go there.
You already know those things.
I'm here to let you in on the things you don't.
Not only are you destroying the hearts of the women in your life by subjecting yourself and them to these idolized images, you are paying the industry that exploits someone's wife, someone's sister, someone's mother and even someone's daughter on the front cover every month.
Men, but enough on you. This blog isn't necessarily intended for men suffering with an addiction to porn.
This is mainly directed towards the women currently being inflicted with the pain porn brings or the women who have been in the past.
That's the ugly truth about porn: It is a poison that doesn't just leave your system in a short time. It remains stagnant in your mind for as long as you let it, making itself comfortable in the bed of your heart.
It's cozy there.
Those images you stumbled upon are engraved in your mind and on your broken heart.
They visit you when you're getting into the shower or trying on your once favorite dress.
They visit you when he tells you how beautiful you look or in your bedroom.
They meet you everywhere.
I wish I had a secret 5 step solution to ridding yourself of the pain that porn has caused you.
But I don't.
Whether you were a seven year old girl rummaging through the things of a man you looked up to or a grown woman searching your spouse's search history, porn is poison and it can kill a special part of you if you let it.
That part of you is the part that let's you love yourself again.
That part of you is the part that likes the way you look in your favorite dress again.
That part of you is the part that doesn't argue when a man calls you beautiful.
That part of you is the part that doesn't hide in your bedroom closet when intimacy comes calling.
A little uncomfortable?
Maybe.
But the ugly truth about porn is that it is uncomfortable.
Poison isn't going to feel good, no matter how much you coat it in rationalizations.
I wish I could tell you that one day I woke up deciding I wasn't going to let the ramifications of someone else's choice destroy me anymore, but I can't.
Every day you will have to remind yourself that the images you saw are not beautiful.
Not only are they an unrealistic expectation for all women, but they are bought with an awful and ugly price.
Porn is not beautiful.
It is a drug that destroys so many men, good men, and their families.
How you reconcile is your own journey.
Maybe you are picking up the broken pieces of the trust you had in a marriage.
Maybe you are starting over and struggling with falling back into the mindset that every man is going to break your heart in the same way.
I'm no self help book, but from experience, there's one thing you can not do if you want to heal: hide.
Hiding from your spouse, whether they were the one who hurt you or simply the one getting the brunt of your hurt is the worse thing you can do.
You are only continuing the process of poisoning those around you by sleeping in your infection.
When you have a deep cut or burn, medics don't tell you to hide it, ignore it and just shut up about it.
They treat it with immediate care, washing the wounded area with haste and with no concern if your wound is exposed so that they might get in and fix the issue at hand before extreme infection ensues.
Honey, expose your wounds.
Expose the things that hurt so that they might heal.
I was embarrassed for too long, so I hid my wounds and prolonged the process of ridding my blood of porn's poison.
The dark things can only be lifted from you when you let a little light in.
I'm not going to tell you some frilly, feel-good version of the truth.
Porn freaking sucks and so does the healing process-for everyone.
You can read as many self help articles as you want, receive friendly advice from everyone on your contacts list and pray until you are blue in the face, but you have to get up and do something to start the healing process.
Not your husband, not the man who hurt you, not the man with the dirty magazines hidden in his wall.
They can't help you.
Only you can.
Am I saying prayer and advice from Godly, experienced women won't help?
Of course not.
But sitting on your butt and expecting someone else to come in and save you is crap and only makes you a victim.
Harsh, but the truth is usually a little prickly to the touch.
If you want to heal your marriage or your heart from a previous relationship, you have to decide to do it.
Change out of those victim panties and let's do this.
Some practical, cut the crap insight?
Let him call you beautiful without rolling your eyes.
Stop throwing the covers over your head or jumping out your bedroom window every time he walks in.
The poison might have been mixed for you, but you don't have to keep drinking it.
If your husband is the man who hurt you, don't hide from him or make him sleep in his infection forever.
If, like in my case, you are with a wonderful man who longs to love you through the wounds of your past, let him love you.
Don't make him pay the price that porn took on you from someone else's pocket.
Dance in the shower.
Get that dress on.
Let your hair down.
Be beautiful again and own it.
You freaking deserve it.
The ugly truth about porn is that it hurts like hell.
The beautiful truth?
You don't have to live there.
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