A woman in my Facebook group shared that a friend of hers had caught porn on her husband’s phone, but he denies it. She asked what her friend should do. Here’s how a wise woman in the group responded:

I’d first start with what the Bible states: 1 Corinthians 13:7 – Love bears all things, BELIEVES all things, hopes all things, endures all things

In my opinion, believing all things means to believe your husband until proven 100 percent guilty. With that being said, the Bible also says all things done in darkness WILL come to light. So it’s perfectly safe to believe what he’s saying, because even if he is lying, it will come out eventually. But not believing him will do more harm than good.

I really like combining this with “The Empowered Wife” by Laura Doyle. She says to “have faith over fear” and that “what you focus on increases.” She also talks about “not shopping for pain,” which in other words means don’t go through his phone because at this point, unless you want to find something that will hurt you, it’s just looking for pain and there’s no point in that. It’s better to rely on your faith instead of your fear, and then focus on the good things about them so they increase.

This ties back to the Bible where it says to build each other up with your words. Laura talks about that too and calls it a “SFP” – an example of this is telling your husband things like, “I love how faithful you are” or “you’re such an honorable man.” It works both biblically and psychologically, because we as humans tend to want to live up to the words others say and believe about us. It’s like when you’ve been having a problem lying, and then you hear someone bragging to someone else about how honest you always are. It makes you feel guilty, want to repent, and do better.

You don’t need to put locks on his internet. That’s control, and it absolutely will backfire. If he is lying, he’s only going to get better at hiding it if you try to control him. He needs life/Jesus lessons, not wife lessons. What you can do is be vulnerable and say something like, “Hey honey. I hear what you’re saying about the pop-ups on your phone, but it still hurt and scared me badly to see them come up. Can I pick your brain to see how we can maybe stop the pop-ups from happening? I know you’re a faithful guy, and I don’t like feeling scared about this.” Then let him take it from there. I’m sure he knows about clean internet filters. He might bring it up himself, or maybe he’ll have another idea.

Additionally, I know the other women in the group have said they’ve never had ads for porn, but I personally have. Not OF specifically, and what I watch is Christian content, mostly cooking, holistic stuff, and very occasional political stuff. And I’ve still had random porn ads pop up on occasion. Especially once you click on it once, it tends to start coming up because of the cookies on the internet.

My husband and my friend’s husband, both very trustworthy men, and my husband lets me have full access to his internet whenever I want, have had it happen. For them, in these Christian groups, some of the men will make posts about these random porn stars saying they’re struggling with it, or some of them point out why they’re famous for the wrong reasons and start a discussion, etc. But as soon as you click, your page just goes on a whole shopping spree for that and similar content. I actually tried it on my phone one time when I thought my husband was lying, and my phone did the same thing. I chose to take him at his word. And he was accountable and apologized for ever clicking in the first place (even if he had a “valid” reason for it), and when he stopped clicking their links, it started really cleaning up his phone.

Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.
1 Peter 3:1,2

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