I have been a military spouse – in 7 years of marriage, we have been separated for almost 3 years. Not so much fun, especially in light of maintaining a positive intimate relationship! My hubby also struggles with porn, made much more challenging by long absentees. We have made a couple videos – heavily security protected on his devices – and for us it’s been a huge help to maintaining trust in our marriage cause I know where he’s “going” and what he’s seeing. I have also gifted him with boudoir photos for an anniversary – suggestive, but tasteful 🙂

Also, Anonymous (military couples), if you are on Twitter, could you shoot me a direct message(@hotholyhumorous)? I’m also on Facebook, if that works better.

Excellent question! I am among those who believe that long-term absences call for creative measures. The parameters are still that whatever sexual activity a couple engages in should be focused on one another and should provide both intimacy and pleasure. So sexy pics and messages, etc. seem like they’d be okay to keep one another’s minds focused on being together.

I’d be curious to hear from military spouses about what they have done to keep their hearts and minds focused on one another during long deployments.

Thanks for the tip! The Marriage Bed is a great source for Christian sexuality information.

Do you frequent The Marriage Bed [dot] com? I only ask because we know the couple who runs it and were heavily involved for years, and what you wrote was well thought out and nuanced, like someone who’s been thinking and/or writing about this topic for a while. Do you have a username on TMB?

Thanks for sharing, that helps me a lot. My husband has struggled with porn for years, and by the grace of God, he too is finally breaking loose from it and experiencing freedom he never thought was possible. He has always enjoyed taking “explicit” pictures of me (not actual pictures during sex though), and I’ve never really seen anything wrong with it, except that his porn addiction has made me extremely insecure, so, now I don’t like the idea of him taking pictures of me and looking at them. I feel like he is trying to make up for the porn by using me as a cheap and more holy substitute. He tells me this isn’t the case at all, but I can’t help feeling weird and very insecure posing for him. He likes taking the pictures and having them to look at every now and then if he happens to be home without me. Then when I get home he’ll tell me he was looking at them and he’ll be ready to have sex. While on the one hand I’m glad he chose to look at me versus the alternative, but on the other I just feel weird… P.S. You can tell your wife that I’m praying for her; lately I’ve had such a heart for all of the other wives around the world who are choosing to stay with their husbands and be the helpmate that God has called us to be. I know the strength that it takes to love, encourage, forgive, and respect someone who has broken your trust.