I need objective advice

I have been married for two years to a man that I felt was a good Christian guy. Six months into our marriage I found old messages between him and another woman...granted these occurred before our marriage. Actually they had been going on for a while and continued after we were engaged and right up until two months before our wedding. This was extremely hurtful for me, but I was already married and I certainly never want to go through another divorce. Now I have discovered that he uses steroids and has for a long time. This terrifies me since both of his parents died of heart attacks. Also, I know when he uses steroids he watches porn. I hate all of this and it makes me feel terrible! I feel like I am not enough for my husband and he needs to view someone else to want to be with me. My heart is broken. I work hard to try to look nice for him. I am 5 foot tall and 103 pounds and work out daily. I DO NOT take a substance of any kind..other than vitamins. I love the Lord and I work hard. I just feel like an utter failure. I should mention that I left the town that I have lived in for 30+ years, my church, friends, and job to marry and live with this man. I am 104 miles away from anyone that I know and I cannot help but feel cheated. When I try to tell him how upset this all makes me, he accuses me of "snooping" and some how everything is suddenly turned around and is my fault....What should I do??

I'm very sorry you are going through such heartache! I understand what it's like to be with someone who hides things.


My advice is very simple. I would seek pastoral counsel. I would talk to my husband about going to a counseling appointment and then tell the pastor the whole story. If your husband refuses to go, then I would go alone. After the pastoral appointment, I would align myself with a good, strong women of God. I would find a way to get plugged into church via women's ministries or some other type of serving ministry.


If you're not attending church, I would recommend finding one. Churches are anything but a sure fire fix it, but connecting with God and others there can make a big impact on your life.

A.) I'm sorry you're going through this. I can't imagine what it's like to be married and have this going on.
B.) I'm curious. You said you "felt" he was a good Christian guy. What caused this feeling?
C.) It's very difficult to give advice with such limited information, but I'll bet his bad habits have less to do with you and more to do with who he is and his relationship with the Lord.

I am very sorry for the mess you are in.

There are some things you can do and they work.

1) Pray and ask God to reveal to you anything he is hiding from you that you should know about as his wife. I prayed this and two weeks later, I had hard evidence my wife was cheating. If nothing gets revealed to you then assume everything is good. There is no need to poke around at this point. If you do find out something, confront him in a christian way.

2)Pray that he gets into trouble with his drug use. Ask God to help him get clean and rid of this bad habit.

3) Same thing with his porn use. Pray that God out's him and he gets in trouble for it. Pray for his correction on the porn use.

4) Ask God to reveal to him all of his idols. Those things that he has given a priority in his life that only God should have.

5) Ask God to help you become more attractive and NO, I do not mean in a physical sense. I mean what comes from your heart like peace, gentleness and confidence.

6) Have faith that God will be with you and that Romans 8:28 still applies to you.

Prayer works. Keep on praying nightly and learn how to pray effectively. Satan is targeting Christian marriages so fight back.

His grace is sufficient for you. He is all you need, to live a joyful life. Yes, your husband can add to your happiness but he is not your source, Jesus is. When we get that fixed, you have Jesus as the centre, then we can 'sail on through' life's storms in peace, confidence and hope.
Pray! For the strength to live this way, stay focused on what you have, not what you want through your witness, your displaying of Christs love in action toward your husband, things can change. But, it will be in Gods timing. God can use all things for His glory you can grow and your faith be deepened through your circumstances. Getting into a good church, building a support network is important. Praise Him!! Jesus has done enough. More than enough. We are not promised a stress free life but we are promised that we can find peace and happiness, regardless of our troubles. What can you do for Him today? Walk in this, believe it and see your heart change, your fear go....perfect love casts out ALL fear. You are beautiful not because you think you are, feel it or see it but because He tells you, you are the precious loved daughter of the King of Kings God Bless you. <><

Typical behavior of a guilty individual is to default to blaming the victim. I think many of us - if not all of us, at some point - have been guilty of doing so. It's natural to become defensive when one has no legitimate or valid defense.

Since you asked for objective advice, I don't want to shower you with 'I think's and 'just pray!'s. Yes, you should pray about it, and naturally, I'm telling you what I think.

So my recommendation is this: be diligent in prayer and constructive in how you address it with him. Divorcing him is not ideal, although it is written that doing so under the circumstance of sexual immorality is excusable (NOT to be confused with advisable, as some see it) - and your husband is being sexually immoral by looking at porn:

"But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." - Matthew 5:27

I agree with DuchessAimee on this.

I'd start with some counseling.

Be very careful who you share this with, it isn't biblical to go around telling everyone.
But you do need some help, and some pastoral counseling.
This is a very serious thing, and you need very serious counsel, that is wise and prudent.

DON'T get family involved.
They won't be prudent, they'll just go wild with emotions...
and they'll split your marriage up before you can blink, and maybe that isn't what God wants.

Thank you, Duchess. You offer sound advice and I appreciate you taking time to do so. We are involved in our church and Sunday School. I do think it would be good for me to get plugged into a women's ministry....good suggestion!

Maxwel, thank you! I appreciate you taking time to care and comment! I agree as well...

Siberian Khatru, Thank you for taking the time to comment. I appreciate it. You provide good insight and I intend to use the verse you posted when I attempt to address this. I detest confrontation, so I will also follow your advise and pray that God will provide me the right words.

Hattiebod, Thank you for caring and taking time to respond. I think you give good advise and your point that I should display Christ's love to my husband is one that I will follow. I believe I have withdrawn because I feel inadequate and hurt. I shall try this! Also, I love your Bible verse...one of my favorites!

Matthew Michael, thank you for caring and commenting. I just figured out that I may not be posting my replies correctly?

You are doing just fine but you can use button at bottom, then 'reply with quote' to the person you wish to reply too...I am no expert, but hope that helps <><

You're fine! There is a multi-quote button next to "Reply With Quote" for your convenience; if you click it, a "+" will appear on each post you select. Each "+" means that once you click on "+ Reply to Thread", those posts will be quoted, so you can respond to each directly.

God bless, teacher1.

I just now found your post. How my heart goes out to you. I guess it is part of me being elderly, but I get a "been there done that" feeling about the ones so close, the ones we depend on, letting us down. I feel as if I know all the feelings and thoughts that go with it, and the ones that just don't work at all.

Some thoughts that I found don't work are self blame, and thinking you can change the circumstance. But that was how I thought I could handle it, not what I see in you. The only thing that worked was simply trusting the Lord with the whole of my life including what I didn't like. Then looking for all the good things that can come from it. There are, you know. Only God knows what they are. Could be it will help you grow, or find a wonderful friend, or find a way to fix what is happening or-------? It is there. There is nothing you can do to live someone else's life, even someone so close they are your husband, but you and God can live yours well.

Let me give an example from my personal life, that only fits yours in showing how unexpected an Ah Hah! moment can be. My husband said he would never go into a church with all those self righteous people parading how good they were. We had discussed this to the point of nausea. This day I said the reason those people were there was because they needed forgiveness, if they thought they were so good they wouldn't go there. After that we went to church together.

I know how silly that must sound to you in your situation. I am only saying God is working, watch and pray.

You're very welcome. I'm new here too, so unfortunately, I can't be of much help yet. Good luck

I am praying for the disease and not just the symptoms to go away. Please note: Your error-prone husband is not the disease; rather, he is a carrier of certain symptoms. In the words of a pastor, "Sin jacks people up." But look at 1 Corinthians 13 and place your name in the place of the word "love." Does the long description of love match your intentions/efforts to help the marriage, help your partner? If so, praise God! If not, praise God still-- because Christ is more than enough.

i am sorry for the current hardship. God will see you through.