Consider the following opening statement from an article found in Covenant Eyes “see link: How to confess Your Porn Addiction to Your Spouse” https://www.covenanteyes.com/2015/12/03/how-to-confess-your-porn-addiction-to-your-spouse/

Dear Husband,
You know that I have too often caught you using porn, flirting with women, and pursuing any hottie that gave you the slightest attention over the years while being married to me. You have never confessed to doing these things…I have always caught you red handed. You tried to deny, minimize, blame shift and gas light me if I dared to confront you with what we both already know. I stood my ground with the Truth in spite of the demeaning insults that you threw at me.

I have been waiting ten long years to hear you…for once…come to me with brokenness, humility, and confessing without being caught. But it did not happen…you cannot and will not allow yourself to be broken. What are you afraid of losing???

For the purpose of this blog, we will define “the lie” as behavior unbecoming honor, integrity and trust.  In other words, the behavior being witnessed by spouses of the porn user causes a distancing coupled with a sense of waning intimacy and connectivity. I use the word “sense” because in most instances (by no means all) of marital infidelity involving pornography, the perpetrator is male, and the victim is female.   Most wives “sense” issues involving marital disconnect far sooner and more often than the husband.  “The lie” then is all about disclosure!!

Owning, confessing, admitting, full disclosure, “coming clean” are words that are sorely missing from the porn addict’s vocabulary.  Instead, the porn addict’s vocabulary is generally replete with words that reflect, obfuscate, redirect, confuse, defer, or even create tangents in an attempt to refocus pornographic concerns by a spouse, friend or acquaintance. The popular term for this type of manipulation in this day and age is “gas lighting.”

This brings our discussion to the topic of this blog.  Secrecy is only as good as the quietest suspicion. Suspicion leads many a spouse to explore and investigate.  Usually such suspicion is provoked by strange behavior of the pornographer.  When sin is at work in a person struggling with sexual integrity there is a “tell” of strange and unbecoming behavior.  Without trying, the person intent of feeding his porn habit will inevitably place himself in “harms way”.  Not going to bed with their spouse, finding an excuse to stay home when the rest of the family is going out, feign fatigue and needing to be alone. As the secret sin becomes imbedded, there is a frenzy of attempts to close all means of anyone intruding or investigating secrecy. There is a major effort to lock phones, iPad, or computers.  There is generally a big to do about individual privacy rights or right to personal “space.”

Little does the pornographer know, that every effort to hide behind the cloak of secrecy increases the spouse’s suspicions which increases the likelihood of getting caught.  It has been my experience that secrecy, especially in a marriage widen the gulf of communication and connection.  Secrecy builds incredible and often impenetrable walls of distrust between spouses that often erodes trust and security. Ironically, the pornographer may consider his efforts of non-disclosure to be protective and an effort to minimize embarrassment.

The truth about the lie:

• God brings everything to light. There must be disclosure!! If not voluntarily, then beware, God, will bring sin to light, yes even the sin of pornography! John 1:5 “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
• Pornography is a deed of darkness that coddles nondisclosure! Deeds of darkness are mentioned in Ephesians 5:13 “But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.””
• Nondisclosure promotes enmity with God. Note His words spoken by Nathan to David in 2 Samuel 12:13 “For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun.’”
• Secrecy and deception make lousy bedfellows! Consider:

Psalm 90:8 “You have set our iniquities before You, Our secret sins in the light of Your countenance.”

Mark 4:22 “ For there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should come to light.”

Application: Why should I do this and really get my spouse upset with me?

James 5: 16, 19 ¹⁶Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. ¹⁹My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, ²⁰remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

1. The goal of confession and full disclosure is to have a holy marriage not a hurting marriage. (Mark 10: 5-7)
2. The goal of confession and full disclosure is to “not give the devil a foothold”. (Ephesians 4:27)
3. The goal of confession and full disclosure is to promote righteous living (James 5:16) and to not give way to the devil.
4. The goal of confession and full disclosure is to acquire Psalm 133 in its entirety!
5. The goal of confession and full disclosure is to have Ecc. 4: 9-12 manifested by the husband and wife who do the ministry of Amos 3:3.