For women who learn their husbands have a pornography problem, emotions come rushing in, sometimes out of the blue and other times as an explanation for behavior that was never adequately explained. They report feeling:
Betrayal of marriage vows to "forsake all others"
Confusion over how video images and pictures became more important than marriage, family, church or career
Anger at the lies, the secrecy and the emotional abandonment that is minimized or unacknowledged
Fear of who will find out
Isolation in not knowing where to turn
Hopelessness that the marriage can ever be salvaged
Many have seen signs or had a hunch that something was amiss in their marriage, but they didn't put the pieces together. Their husbands often withdraw, become reclusive, spend money that's unaccounted for and — most of all — they have secrets.
The secrets are about where they go, how they spend their time, why they stay so late or go so early to work, why they have to have wireless Internet access wherever they go.
After being discovered, some men ask their wives to keep their secret to give them a second chance because it "will never happen again." And invariably it does. Others ask their wives to "cut them some slack." Trust is further breached as pain continues to be inflicted. "I found out, and he still does it," recalled one woman after she had confronted her husband and he promised it would end.
Research shows the majority of people grappling with Internet porn are married heterosexual men with an average age of 38, according to Jill Manning, a researcher and author who has examined the impact of pornography on marital relationships. "The majority of spouses impacted by this problem are women," she said.
While infidelity in some other societies is more widely accepted, "women in North America are raised to expect exclusivity in a (marriage) relationship." When they find their husband has a porn problem, "suddenly there are hundreds or thousands of women in the bedroom." Many find themselves wondering whether to stay with the marriage or cut their losses and leave.
The problem is different from discovering hidden drug addiction or gambling. "It cuts to her very center," Manning said. In her mind, "It's an attack and commentary on her as a wife."
While nearly half of women who discover a long-standing pornography problem threaten their husbands with divorce, less than 8 percent actually end the marriage, according to Rory Reid, research psychologist at UCLA and director of the Provo Counseling Center.
After pondering their options and considering the possible consequences, women who are desperate to find help often approach religious leaders, looking for solace and direction. But gathering that courage is a huge challenge for many women.
"There's a lot of severe shame," Manning said, noting pornography "cuts into our deepest values and most privately held beliefs. People are more willing to discuss parenting or even financial problems, but when you get to sexuality it really has a different weight to it."
Compounding the problem for many women, she said, is a hesitancy to talk with men about the issue. "Most clergy are men, and if you've just been betrayed by a man, you've likely been sucked into this mode of thinking that men are pigs and they all think and act like this. The last thing you want to do is go and be vulnerable to a man (while) looking for help."
Manning, whose in-depth research on 25 women included 15 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said some women have negative experiences talking with lay clergy about the issue. In fact, her research showed LDS women disproportionately felt unsupported by their first-line religious leader compared to women of other faiths.
Reid has seen the same dynamic. "I think that a lot of pastors from other faiths get training, so they're more equipped to handle it." LDS bishops, on the other hand, often "unintentionally say things that offend like, 'how often are you sexually available to your spouse?' as if lack of sex was the problem.
"Pornography problems are no more about sex than an eating disorder is about food. If I'm simply focused on sex, I'm missing the entire deal. You'll miss the boat by doing that," he said.
As a result, such women feel worse than they did before revealing the problem because it seems they're being told their husband's behavior is their fault, Manning said.
Women also fear sharing their secret for fear their husband "will be a marked man forever, even if he successfully overcomes it," she said.
While older women whose children are grown are less tolerant of their husband's porn use, and are more likely to leave the marriage because of it, younger women have been exposed to a "massive cultural tide that says porn is normal and acceptable behavior and this is just what people do." Though it occurs with older men, Manning found porn use was more prevalent in men ages 20 to 40.
"When you're pushing up against that," particularly if the husband is begging for indulgence of his behavior, "you don't have the resiliency to fight against some of those attitudes," Manning said.
Recent research shows the emerging adult population of women "are more accepting of porn than their father's generation. Among 20-somethings, women may find their husband looking at porn, but many are more tolerant and accepting of it because they've had more exposure to the Internet and more discussions with peers," she said.
Even so, almost 70 percent of the women in her research said they felt isolated once they discovered their husband's porn problem, and they didn't know where to turn. It's even more complicated for women in rural areas, who don't have access to support groups, books or blogs to help, she said, though that is changing as people learn how widespread the problem really is.
Women who pursue counseling in addition to talking with clergy and others are looking for a solution, Reid said.
"Their focus is 'how do I fix my husband?' But you can't be in therapy to change someone else's behavior. I help them try to reclaim parts of their lives, to set boundaries. But I don't want to turn them into the porn police."
He affirms their feelings that porn use is "a form of adultery and betrayal" as their hopes and dreams for what marriage is have often evaporated.
Reid said research shows the biggest predictor of how stressful the situation is on a spouse is not whether they are religious or not, but how long they have been married. "The longer it is, the more distressed they are." They say things such as, "I thought I knew you" and "How could you?"
"They don't feel safe any more. They can't predict or depend on things they thought they could. It really throws people for a loop, and they do a negative reappraisal. When we don't trust someone, we hold back and withdraw."
As he works with men, he tries to help them understand that "trust is a direct conduit to intimacy. If I trust you I feel safe with you and am willing to take risks, to be vulnerable."
When they don't feel safe, women often distance themselves through anger, he said. "They're trying to protect themselves and they get angry about trivial things." Fear and mistrust create a "narrow field of vision in the brain" where women focus on a perceived threat. That's when they feel they have to become the "porn police," he said.
"Our goals in therapy are to reverse all these. We help people look at what would give them hope, what needs to be different in the relationship to feel safe and what needs to be different for them to slowly start to trust again."