Send to KindleToday we welcome author Vicki Tiede to discuss her latest book When Your Husband is Addicted to Pornography: Healing Your Wounded Heart.
Welcome, Vicki. They say, “write what you know.” How did this book come about for you?
This is my story. In my first marriage, my husband regularly engaged with pornography. I often say, “the good guys struggle with this addiction, and the rest just do it.” Unfortunately, my husband was in the second category. He never took responsibility for his actions , nor did he repent of his behavior. As a result, it spiraled out of control. When my emotional, physical, and spiritual health was at risk, I ended the marriage.
If I was going to write a book based on Truth, then I had to begin by being truthful. My first marriage did not survive pornography. Some issues may make a marriage irreconcilable. A recent study indicated that 56% of divorces today involve at least one of the people having “an obsessive interest in pornographic websites.” That’s the unfortunate reality about the state of our world right now. Obviously, for many people divorce, not restoration, is the outcome. But the truth of the matter is God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16 NIV) and He is all about restoring hearts and marriages (Job 22:23). Because I’ve been in the shoes of the heartbroken woman, I know that more than anything she longs for hope. I want my reader to know that there is another answer besides divorce, and that regardless of how deep her pit of despair feels, God’s hand can reach her.
How long did it take from the initial revelation of your husband’s addiction to a healing within your heart?
That’s a tough question. From the initial revelation until my divorce was 3 years. That was 16 years ago. While I leaned into Christ during those 3 years, I didn’t have a resource like my book to walk me through the process, so I fumbled around in the dark for a while. I’m not sure you ever get to brush your hands together and declare, “There! All better!” Even the writing of this book brought a new level of healing to my heart that I didn’t even know was needed.
Can that be a paradigm for other women?
There’s no magic timetable. Each of us have to wait on God’s timing. He will wait as long as it takes for us to exhaust our human efforts, put total trust in him, surrender our will, and expect the impossible from the Creator of possibilities.
You wait until later in your book to deal with one’s identity in Christ; yet you make it seem like one of the most important aspects for a woman’s healing in these circumstances. Could it have come earlier with all others building upon it?
The simple answer is, yes, it probably could have. However, I was drawing from my own experience and confirmed with my focus group that when my husband’s addiction was unveiled, I wasn’t in a position to hear, let alone believe, anything I was told or already knew about my identity in Christ.
If my plane crashes in the middle of the ocean and I survive, I don’t want to hear about forgiveness or that I’m a child of God. No. I want to know that there is hope that God can and will rescue me from this situation. I need to know that He sees, and hears, and cares, and that He won’t leave me in this place of pain. That’s why I start the book out with hope. My reader will name her losses and address and eventually surrender unproductive feelings, behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs, including ownership of her husband’s daily choice about whether or not to fight this addiction. She’ll also spend a week processing through trust, which is one of the single greatest losses for the wife of a pornography addict. Then we get to identity.
I do think identity is a particular point of difficulty. Speaking from personal experience, when we were at the pinnacle of our crisis, I was a shell of my former self. I didn’t know what I believed about God, my husband, or myself anymore. I allowed my identity to be defined by my relationship with my husband rather than by who God says I am. It is vital that every daughter of the Lord know that He (God) deems her irreplaceable and that she learn to only let His opinion shape her identity.
Thanks so much for joining us. Readers, do you have any questions for Vicki?
More about Vicki: I am an author and speaker who has a passion for opening the Scriptures and pointing women to their true source of grace and faithfulness. For the past ten years, I have been honored to speak for numerous women at conferences, retreats, and women’s events. I am the author of three books including When Your Husband is Addicted to Pornography (2012), Plug Me In and Let Me Charge Overnight (2009), and Parenting on Your Knees: Prayers and Practical Guidance for the Preschool Years (coming January 2013). I live in Rochester, Minnesota, with my husband Mike, daughter, and two sons. Visit her on the web.
For Your Readers: Sample Chapters from When Your Husband is Addicted to Pornography: Healing 
Your Wounded Heart
Links to buy the book:
Vicki Tiede
Barnes and Noble (BN’s processing times are lagging, but it will eventually be available here too)
