Pastoral Care for Wives With Husbands Addicted to Pornography

Abstract

The goal of this thesis is to equip pastors to provide pastoral care to wives who are married to a husband addicted to pornography. Pornography addiction is a widespread and prevalent issue. In the recent years, Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary has been educating pastors about the dangers of pornography and teaching them how to stay away from it. While most young pastors are starting to feel competent to help counsel a man who is addicted to pornography, many feel less equipped to counsel the women impacted by their husband’s pornography addiction. But the reality is for every husband addicted to pornography, there is a hurting wife. With this thesis, I do not want to perpetuate the myth that men are the only one’s who view pornography. General statistics state that two thirds of porn users are men and one third are women. For the sake of narrowing the scope of this thesis, I will focus on pastoral care to wives with husbands addicted to pornography.