Comparing Your Wife to a Porn Fantasy? How to See Her Transformed

For years, some of you have carried two different women around in your head. There's the fantasy: endlessly available, no history, no bad days, no needs of her own. And then there's your wife. A real woman, with a real body that's changed over the years, real moods, a real past she brought into this marriage, real needs you can't always meet on command.

If you've spent enough time with the fantasy, your wife starts to lose. Not because she's actually lacking anything, but because you've been comparing a real, complicated, three-dimensional person against a flat image built to have no flaws and no needs at all. That's not a fair fight. It was never supposed to be a fight.

The healing we've talked about this whole series was never just about stopping something. It was about making room for something. Making room for her.

Three ways to make room

1. Make your wife the definition of beautiful to you

Some of you struggle here because your definition of beautiful got built for you (mostly by Hollywood, marketing, and porn) and you didn't even realize it. It used to be your wife only had to compete with a few hundred women in her town, people you actually knew. Then came TV and the internet, and suddenly she's competing with every woman in the world: women on a screen you'll never meet, who'd never give you the time of day, and who she can never look like. That's a recipe for insecurity and comparison, and it's not fair to either of you.

Here's how your wife can be the most beautiful woman in the world: you define beautiful. Not Hollywood. Not marketing. You.

Imagine Adam, never having seen a woman, and suddenly waking up to see one. In that moment, she's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. She's the definition of beautiful. All other women are only ever going to be measured against her. We have no idea what she looked like by our cultural standards. She may not have looked anything like a model. But she was everything to him.

What if Jesus can help you get to that place, restoring you back to the innocence of the garden, being changed day by day into the kind of man who follows Jesus into seeing his wife the way He sees her: beautiful and compelling.

2. Include the beauty of her spirit

Your wife may not compete on level footing with the Hollywood idea of beauty. But if you could see her as she will be, as God sees her, as she'll appear in her resurrected, glorified form, you'd meet such a wonder you'd be strongly tempted to fall down and worship. That's where I'm choosing to focus.

Years ago, I asked a preacher who's since gone home to heaven, "How did you know your wife was the one for you?" He thought about it and said: "I saw the beauty of her character, and I was drawn to her as God's choice for me."

Yes.

3. Learn to cherish and express admiration for her body

Her body is beautiful too: the one she has right now. There's an entire book of the Bible about loving and appreciating her.

Song of Solomon is one of the strangest books in the Bible if you've never really read it. It's unashamed, romantic, physical: two people delighting in each other, describing each other with wonder instead of criticism. There's a moment where the husband can't stop admiring his wife, not comparing her to anyone, not finding her lacking, just marveling at who she actually is:

"Behold, you are beautiful, my love; behold, you are beautiful… You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you."

Of course there are flaws. Here's how it can say that anyway: she's become for him the definition of beautiful, and he's cherishing her body. That's not a fantasy. That's a real marriage, aimed at real delight.

Let your imagination run wild about her. When she's not there, let your imagination for her run wild, keeping it about the real woman you're married to, but within those bounds, go for it. Then text her and tell her what you're thinking.

I think a lot of us skipped past Song of Solomon growing up because it felt uncomfortable in church. But God put it in Scripture on purpose. He's not embarrassed by desire between a husband and wife. He designed it.

Then, when you are with her, give her and her body your undivided attention. Undivided attention is one of the most overlooked forms of gratitude and love in a marriage, not grand gestures, just this: when you're with her, are you actually with her?

A practical challenge this week

Look at your wife, really look. Instead of noticing what's changed since you got married, notice what drew you to her in the first place. Then go past that. Ask God to show you something new about her, something you've walked past a hundred times without ever really seeing.

This isn't about performance, on your part or hers, it's not "try harder to feel something." It's the opposite. It's laying down the comparison, laying down the fantasy, and letting yourself actually see the person you married. She was never in competition with anything. The competition was in your head.

Some of you will need an honest conversation with your wife about this, not confessing every detail, but letting her know you're fighting for eyes that are only for her. If you haven't had that conversation yet, this might be the week.

This is what Level 6 has been building toward the whole time. Not just resisting a threat. Learning to actually love a person. And there's no one more important to start with than the woman lying next to you tonight.

This is Day 45 of Victory Over Pornography. Continue to Day 46 →