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If Your Husband Yields to Temptation

Unfortunately, your husband is engaged in an intense battle, so successfully quitting “cold turkey” all pornography use, masturbation, or habitual forms of acting out is possible, but unlikely. The thought of this possibility can strike panic, or even deep anger, in the already-burdened heart of a wife in your situation. That’s why it may help to have general categories and terminology you can use should your husband act out in an inappropriate way in the future.

Preparing for this possibility is not a license for your husband to return to old ways. It’s simply a wise safety precaution that may offer some measure of predictability to both of you. Think of it like keeping a fire extinguisher under your kitchen sink. You never aim to use it, but it’s there if needed.

Let’s consider the words slip, lapse, and relapse.

· A slip is best understood as a brief failure in judgment that leads to an imperfection in recovery and a form of acting out that’s challenging to eliminate without some learned skill, effort, or empowering insight.

· A bit farther down the path is what some would call a lapse. This is when a poor decision or slip has developed into something more willful yet brief. Your spouse crosses a line but then returns to his senses, owns up to his lapse in judgment, and recommits to the recovery plan.

· When fully conceived and repeated, a lapse can become a relapse. During a relapse, your husband’s behavior looks very much like what was occurring before he started the recovery process. He returns to a secret life of pornography use or other sexual infidelities, along with lies, deception, and cover-ups, which often continue until he is “caught” again.

A man in recovery needs a well-defined safety plan to prevent further progression toward a relapse should he stumble or even willfully cross a line that goes against agreed-upon boundaries.

Next, we’ll examine why a structured plan by a counselor is so important.