Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
We’re the Vallottons, and we’re passionate about people! Every human was created for fulfilling connections in relationship and family, but it’s not always what comes easiest! We know this because of our wide range of personal experiences as well as years of working with people. So we’re going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family and parenting to encourage, entertain and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health.
Support us at on Patreon at patreon.com/datesmatesbabies
Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
131. When His Battle Becomes Your Self-Hatred
What do you do when your husband’s porn struggle becomes a story you tell about yourself—about not being pretty enough, skinny enough, or desirable enough? For so many women, his brokenness becomes her self-hatred. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.
In this powerful episode, pastors and coaches Jason and Lauren Vallotton share hope and healing for women who are carrying shame that was never theirs to hold. With compassion and clarity, they unpack why porn is not about a wife’s worth, how self-hatred lies to keep women isolated, and what tools actually help rebuild connection and restore identity.
Together, they walk through:
- You Are Not the Cause — Why porn is about escape, not about you “measuring up.”
- Self-Hatred Is a Liar — How shame masquerades as self-awareness and how to speak truth over yourself instead.
- You Still Deserve Empathy — Why your pain is valid and how to ask for emotional repair.
- You’re Allowed to Ask for Help — Practical steps for inviting God, community, and safe people into your healing.
If you’ve ever felt the sting of comparison or the weight of carrying your spouse’s struggle, this episode is a reminder: you’re not broken, you’re not too much, and your story doesn’t end in shame. Healing is possible—for your marriage, yes, but even more importantly, for you.
Resources:
Shasta Blue Sky Addiction & Trauma Recovery Services
75. What to do in Marriage Emergencies
Patreon
If you've enjoyed this podcast, would you consider financially supporting the show? Every donation, big and small, helps the Vallottons continue to prioritize making this content for you. Click this link to support! Thank you!
For information on the Marriage Intensive and other resources, go to jasonandlaurenvallotton.com !
Connect with Lauren:
Instagram
Facebook
Connect with Jason:
Jay’s Instagram
Jay’s Facebook
BraveCo Instagram
www.braveco.org
We're the valetins and we are passionate about people.
Speaker 1:Every human was created for fulfilling relational connection.
Speaker 2:But that's not always what comes easiest.
Speaker 1:We know this because of our wide range of personal experience, as well as our years of working with people.
Speaker 2:So we're going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family and parenting to encourage, entertain and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health. What do you do when your husband's porn problem becomes a narrative about you instead of about him? It becomes a reflection of who you think you are and what you did or didn't do, how you do or don't measure up. Well, we got a powerful message in from a listener and we're going to read it to you. I think a lot of women, unfortunately, might relate to this question. Here's what she said I'm 10 months postpartum and I'm struggling with self-hatred.
Speaker 2:It's been a tough journey in our marriage since my husband struggled with porn and is now struggling with lust in everyday situations since he stopped watching porn. I have a hard time separating the two, even though I know he'd be struggling whether or not I was skinnier or prettier. I also feel like my husband isn't as sensitive to my struggles as I am to his other, than him voicing occasionally that he feels bad and that his struggle is making me struggle. This question is going to relate to a lot of you listening out there whether your husband is currently in a porn addiction and is working through it, whether he's in one and is denying it, or even if it was something he struggled with in the past and you're living with the effects of that in your life. Still, we know this question will relate to a lot of you out there today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, honestly, we've seen this so often in marriages where the wife is carrying the bulk of the pain from her husband's addiction. And I think, for us, this isn't about shaming any partner, this isn't about pointing blame. This is about really helping to give you some tools. If you're in a marriage where your husband is really struggling to give you some tools to break free from the pain, from the shame, from the guilt that you carry, um, that a lot of women carry.
Speaker 2:I think, too, this is really important because, as we know, when it comes to any issue inside of marriage, both parties taking radical ownership is the only way towards healing and freedom in any area of our marriage. But if women are trying to take ownership over something that isn't actually theirs to own, the problem doesn't actually get fixed. So us understanding as women if this is you in this boat, us understanding as women what is actually ours to own and what should we be carrying is a really critical component to actually healing our marriage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent. There is this thing that happens when our spouse is really struggling, especially with something like pornography. It's easy for women to fall into the trap that this somehow I'm a part of this dynamic, somehow I'm contributing massively to it, and I think the first thing that you have to do is to realize that you are not the cause. Right.
Speaker 1:So you can just stop, ladies, and look in the mirror right now and go. I'm not the cause Right Now. That doesn't mean that you don't have any understanding or empathy. What it does is it removes this lie that somehow you're also the cure.
Speaker 1:If you looked prettier if you were better in bed, if you pursued him more, that somehow you would be the answer to the thing that he's really struggling with. And in this dynamic I have seen this dynamic so many times when I'm working with couples. It creates so much resentment when the wife carries the responsibility and the burden of his pornography or lust issues because she feels like she's trapped. If he asks for sex and I really don't want to or I'm not feeling up to it, if I turn him down, then I'm afraid that he's going to go do something. Creates tons of fear. And then how do you enjoy your sex life when you feel like you have to? Because I'm the cure, I'm the cause.
Speaker 2:If I don't, then dot, dot, dot. Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:And then you also have this self image right. His, his pain, his guilt, his shame is bleeding into the way that you see yourself. So if I was more beautiful, he would desire me. Something's wrong because my husband doesn't desire me, and again it's back to. You're living underneath this lie that's creating so much hatred and shame for yourself. Something's wrong with me, and I need to somehow fix this thing that I can't really see, and so I think really, grabbing a hold of you're not the cause and you're not the cure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's important to remember and we've talked about this on previous episodes. But you know, we know that at the core, porn is actually not about sex. Mm-hmm. So a porn addiction is somebody getting a need met? Often has to do with what would you say Like the top. The top factors are like loneliness.
Speaker 1:Right, they say the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it's connection, right. So just think about it like this Pornography is the solution to somebody's problem, right? Whatever that is.
Speaker 2:But the problem isn't like I'm not getting enough sex from my wife or I'm not, my wife's not pretty enough and so I look at porn like that's actually not where porn addictions come from. I think that's important to mention, because we're saying you're not the cause of this problem. This problem is here because your husband has a deficit in a different area that is affecting your sex life. It's affecting your intimate connection, but you're not the cause.
Speaker 1:No, um, and so again being able to look at yourself in the mirror and go like, wow, I have taken on this thing that feels like mine, but it's not mine. You have to give it back. You have to like give it back and be able to step away from that.
Speaker 2:What about? Just so we can be really clear on this, because I think it's worth mentioning or posing the question. So let's say you're in a marriage where you know like our connection is broken, we don't connect well, we don't communicate well. Maybe I'm aware that I'm not the cause in the sense of you know, it's not that I'm too fat or not pretty enough, but maybe my husband is running to porn because we don't have a good marriage connection. Is it still not my cause? Am I still not the cause?
Speaker 1:I think you're what you are contributing to is you're contributing to pain in his life. What he does with that pain is not your responsibility.
Speaker 2:Totally.
Speaker 1:It's his responsibility. That's what creates nobility, right and also a lot of trust. My wife had an affair on me. I didn't go run to pornography. I didn't go have an affair Totally. I ran back into community and went wow, I'm super hurting, I don't really trust myself right now. I have to be really careful, I have to get known. I have to get really really known. And so you can absolutely be contributing pain, even shame, guilt, disconnection, but it's not your responsibility what they do with it. It's your responsibility what you're contributing to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think. Point number two self-hatred, is a liar right. When betrayal or neglect happens, women often turn inward, humans often turn inward. We see it. When couples get divorced, what's the question the kids ask themselves?
Speaker 2:What did I do wrong?
Speaker 1:What did I do wrong? The commentary is about me. If I would have been kinder.
Speaker 2:If people hurt me, I must have done something to deserve it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's wrong with me becomes this weapon, it becomes this lie. That's what shame does, right? Shame says if you can do better, if you could achieve more, if you made more money, you'd be more accepted, if you were prettier, you would be pursued more, you'd be more valuable. And so that shame comes in, that say self-hatred, shame their best friend, their tickets. Like you can't separate them. And they come in and they say if only, if only you would be different, you would get a, you would be accepted, you'd have all this thing.
Speaker 1:And the problem with self-hatred is it creates so much isolation it creates. It creates such a narrative about yourself that you want to hide, you want to run away. If you start to go, okay, let's say that she did neglect his needs. Let's say that she wasn't kind to him. Let's say that she rejected him. She doesn't need shame to go. You're horrible. She needs some guilt that says I'm doing something wrong, some conviction. I'm doing something wrong. She needs to go and clean up her mess, right? Like, hey, I am rejecting you because of whatever my own fear, my own pain or my own frustration. That's not okay for me. I want to be a safe place for you. Right, she doesn't need to go and pile on a bunch of guilt and a bunch of shame and self-hatred onto herself, because what comes out of shame and self-hatred Punishment.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to punish the world around me and I'm going to punish myself, and you can do that in all different kinds of ways. Not eating for long periods of time, different surgeries, again isolation, yeah, but mostly it happens in the mind. Right. Right Is this deconstruction of the beauty that God's put inside of you. You begin to deconstruct who you are, what your identity is, and it becomes this crazy cycle.
Speaker 2:Well, if you hold on too long or too tight to the narrative of self-hatred, ultimately you start looking for somebody else to answer the question. Am I lovable? Yeah. Am I okay? And we weren't designed for that. We were designed to get our identity from the Lord and actually how anybody treats us is not a reflection of who we are really, but what they're going through. So you know, we would say gosh. If you're struggling with that self-hatred message, it's time to practice a new narrative.
Speaker 1:It's time to practice, a new narrative yeah, being able to. I would spend some time and go like I. Maybe I don't love what I did, but God didn't make me trash Like I rejected him. Okay, I don't love that action, I don't love what I did, but I am not my worst day. I'm not my worst mistake. I'm the virtues and the values that I embrace.
Speaker 1:So I get to dust myself off, I get to apply the blood of Jesus, I get to ask for forgiveness, apply the blood of Jesus and go back to I. Am created in the image of God.
Speaker 1:I'm actually worthy of love and affection and care and I get to step out of that old, broken identity of shame. The biggest key here is to recognize when it comes and shame is always going to come, probably most often like a best friend, but it's going to make you feel something. You're going to feel, uh, you're going to feel down, you're going to feel a tremendous amount of guilt, you're going to feel unworthy. The biggest piece is to not that you don't feel worthy, right? And so I think that I do want to make a distinction. Is God is your ultimate source for identity, direction, protection, love, comfort, right, and a few other things? When your spouse doesn't pursue you, you do lose a sense of oh, he doesn't want me or she doesn't want me. I feel unseen, I feel unknown, I feel uncared about. That should hurt, that should rock your boat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not impervious to their lack of care.
Speaker 1:No, just because you know God unconditionally loves you, you feel so cared for by Him. Like it should really hurt when somebody's sending you a message that says I wish you were more. You're not enough, I don't desire you, it's just, I'm not going going to.
Speaker 2:They don't get to decide what I do from that yeah, that's like a really mean thing to do, which is a commentary on them. It should hurt.
Speaker 1:It's really mean it's not actually a commentary on you yeah, so being able to move out of this place? Well, first, being able to recognize self-hatred. It looks like it's trying to help you, but it's ultimately hurting you and it's rooted in this lie. And so, breaking away from that and moving on, we want to take you through two more points.
Speaker 1:Point three, which is you still deserve empathy right, empathy right. So if you've been in a marriage for a long time or a short time where your partner was looking at pornography or is looking at pornography, the typical thing to do is to just shut down and to hold those emotions inside because the fear is like if I share them with him, then we get in this big argument.
Speaker 1:He feels a lot of shame, he gets triggered and then you're, as the wife left, just holding onto that. Or, if you again, if you think that it was your fault, then you never talk about it and you carry it, which creates just again, a ton of resentment and pain and this unending cycle of disconnection which furthers like the void inside of the relationship. And so this, to me, is where I love to have the partners get really good at being able to share what's going on inside of you, so for a wife to be able to say, like, hey, this is, this is what I'm experiencing, this is how it's affecting me, like, uh, I have, I'm carrying lots of pain from the choices that you've made.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or I'm really scared about it happening again, or you know what, if or how has this impacted our kids, or you know you're allowed to have fear, you're allowed to have pain, you're allowed to feel uh, all kinds of things, and to be able to be in a marriage where you can be present in your emotions is really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is where a coach or counselor, a therapist, could come in and probably add a ton of help right, because chances are, if your husband was stuck in some type of porn addiction or looking at pornography on a regular basis, then the chances that they have a really good tool set to be present with you and or maybe you don't have a really great tool set right To show up and be present for him and to share your emotions Um, this is where a therapist could come in and give you guys those tools and the skills. And I was working with a couple probably six months ago. He had had an affair for quite a while, but it was like a year ago. So they had been working through it for a year and she, of course, was still struggling with some of the pain, the memories. He had an affair over at this hotel right here. So every time she drives past it sometimes I shouldn't say every time it would bring up these emotions and you'd get triggered. And so the couple had a big blow up and they ended up contacting me again because it was like this massive blow up. He was like it's been a year, you're always going to hold me under this like prison, of you're in pain because of what I did. I can never get out of it. So, as I'm talking through it with him, they were really frustrated and he was saying I'm always going to be stuck under my worst day, under the worst decisions that I've made. And she's saying to me, like I'm not trying to be in pain, I don't want to be in pain, it's just really painful. And I wanted to just share with him.
Speaker 1:Where I was at, he gets super triggered, he feels trapped, he feels trapped in guilt, but also trapped with her emotions. And I said to him hey, are you that man that had an affair a year ago? Cause he was actually saying to me I'm not even that guy anymore, I'm not that guy. And yet she keeps bringing it up over and over and over again. So I said well, if you're not that guy, then why does it matter if she brings it up? He just sat there and looked at me. I was like why, if you're not that guy? Like, do you like the guy that used to be? Are you proud of that guy? Do you like how he handled his pain? And he was like no, I hate that guy. I was like then why don't you tell her when she's having a hard day? Oh my gosh, I feel so. I'm in so much pain from what happened. I hate that. I was put through that. Why don't you say I hate that guy too? That sucked Like what a selfish decision If you're not that guy anymore it's powerful.
Speaker 1:Then you can show up and be present for her pain today. That's the whole point. Like, you can show up and be present for her today because you're not that guy that's stuck in your sin and your bad habits and your bad choices, right? If you're still stuck in it today, then you'd have to make a place to go. Oh, my gosh, you're right. The decisions I'm making are so painful and selfish and it's costing you a lot. I need to make a plan. Yeah, right, which isn't what this podcast is about, like how to make a plan but it is for her to show up and be able to have a place where she can be allowed to have emotions. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Otherwise, you're going to be stuck in a marriage that has no connection in it. Right yeah, and that's a marriage that you eventually have to escape.
Speaker 2:It's really good, so important. Okay, our fourth and final point today is, very simply, that you're allowed to ask for help. So if you're a woman in a marriage with this dynamic at play or it's been in the past and you're struggling and you feel like your narrative about yourself has been impacted by your husband's choices and you don't know up from down in this area, you're allowed to ask for help and you really shouldn't have to carry this alone. It's not how we were created or designed, and when we hit these spots in life, in our marriage, where we don't know what to do, where at our core, our identity is rocked right, it's not like that's how you want to feel, it's not what you want to think about yourself.
Speaker 2:So often we have to ask for help, and that's where counseling comes in, or mentorship. Um community, finding safe female friendships that really love their marriages and have gotten victory in some of these areas would be a great place, but ultimately, we don't want you to wait until you're drowning to call for help. This is, you know, I think, one of our first points. We discussed how this issue alone can drive a lot of people towards isolation, which is actually only going to hinder the process of healing. So connection and help is the way forward and we would want to speak a lot of empowerment to you in that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, taking action and not carrying this alone honestly, is your first step, is like don't be in a marriage where you're suffering in a ton of pain without some really powerful people knowing, encouraging you, helping you. Don't be dealing with self-hatred, self-doubt without some really powerful, awesome people knowing where you're at. Because when you're embedded in pain, when you're embedded in a marriage that has a lot of pain, you need a lot of outside perspective, you need a lot of other people's hope, and you're going to need people to go hey, listen, you're too awesome to be doing this. You're too awesome to be thinking like this. You're too awesome to not share your emotions. You're too awesome to not go get help.
Speaker 1:You know, and I'll walk out this journey with you, and so don't wait until you're drowning. Like Lauren said, step up in and really get help. Um, you know, if you're listening and you're like, oh my gosh, this is me, the message we're sending you is like you're not alone, you're powerful, you can. You can do a lot of things right now to start to change what's going on inside of you.
Speaker 1:You may not be able to change what's going on inside of your partner, but you can absolutely change what's going on inside of you, right, and this isn't your fault. You're not crazy, um, you didn't cause this and you get to be, hopefully, a part of the solution. Yeah. But more importantly, like you get to feel lovable and worthy and, yeah, and start the process of you healing, and and so I just want to really encourage you guys with that. Yeah. Just just to yeah, get rid of any shame that you may be carrying.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. If this, if this episode hits home for you, we'd love to hear from you. Feel free to shoot us a DM, share this with a friend if you know they need it and if you're looking for more support, we do have, uh, some resources in the show notes that might be able to help you. A couple other uh episodes that might be helpful if you're trying to understand pornography or what happens inside of a marriage connection when pornography is at play, as well as a couple other things. We'll throw it in the show notes and hope that you guys find it helpful.
Speaker 1:Thank you guys. Have an incredible week. We will see you next week. Bye.