Chris Pruitt soaked in the familiar thrill of excitement and fear as he listened to the seductive female voice on the other end of the phone line. He knew his wife, Susan, was home, but the veteran fugitive had cached all evidence of his phone-sex pursuits--and much more--for their entire seven-year marriage.

 

Then he heard a quiet click on the line. Then another click.

 

Seconds later, Susan burst through the bedroom door. Inside, Chris felt himself screaming from the shock of high-voltage panic, but he stood mute before his wife.

 

He'd desperately wanted to honor and cherish her, but what if she knew about the massage parlors, the adult bookstores and the sexual affair with his co-worker? In that moment, Chris made a decision--a bad decision.

 

"I admitted to doing what she had just overheard, but at the time, I didn't let her know about anything else," Chris says. "I was afraid she would divorce me if she knew about any of my other transgressions. I pretended she had discovered my only area of weakness."

 

Like many men, Chris was terrified of exposing his struggle with lust to the woman he loved most. He defaulted to the conspiracy of silence--a term used by Prodigals International founder Patrick Means. Means and other Christian sex-addiction experts resoundingly agree that one of the most tragic mistakes many husbands make in their battle with lust is keeping mum about it around their wives.

 

Men often dodge rigorous honesty out of fear--fear of hurting and even losing their wives, and fear of giving up access to titillating stimuli, many of which are considered an inalienable right in today's sexualized society. But guys who opt for ongoing frankness with their wives not only preserve their marriages, but also tap into a deeper intimacy with their spouses that wasn't possible before.

 

Chris, then 38-years-old, first disclosed the severity of his addiction to Harry Schaumburg, the founder of Stone Gate Resources, a Colorado-based program that offers brief intensive counseling for sex addicts and their wives. After meeting with Schaumburg, Chris mustered the courage to call Susan and confess his violations--at least most of them.

 

Unfortunately he again resorted to the Chinese water-torture technique. That's when men squeeze out tidbits of truth little by little instead of divulging their major breaches in one sweep, says Joe Dallas, program director for Every Man's Battle. Chris didn't mention the affair with his co-worker until Susan asked, "Is there more?"

 

The biggest argument for exposing a struggle with lust is damage control, Schaumburg says. "When men don't come forward, it feels like a double betrayal for the wife. First, they learn that you are looking at another woman, and second, they find out that you wouldn't have told them unless they caught you. If you come forward, it's like earning points because you're showing that you have the courage to address this."

 

Though honesty is essential, the sexperts caution men to censor the gory details when sharing with their wives. For guys who are first exposing a hidden sex addiction, Dallas encourages men to tell their wives the length of time of the addiction, the vehicle of acting out and the nature of the pornography or illicit relationship.

 

Means warns men that some spouses will want to know the painful particulars. In that case, he advises them to say they are willing to share those details, but explain that they've been counseled to avoid vivid visual descriptions. Means says those images can forever plague a spouse's mind.

 

After a wife discovers her husband's weakness for other women, he should take time to grasp the depth of her hurt and pain. "Listen to your wife and recognize your limited capacity to understand what you've done," Dallas says. "Ask her what it feels like, and tell her you won't defend yourself."

 

He teaches men that most wives need to grieve the death of the assumption that their husbands were faithful internally and externally. Men should expect their wives to swing between emotions of denial, anger, depression and acceptance.

 

It's also wise to find both an accountability group and partner before unloading on your wife. "I compare the use of porn with spousal abuse. It's never enough to simply apologize because he's crossed such a serious line," Dallas says.

 

Once husbands come out of hiding, they usually realize that going public with their thought lives needs to be followed by a talk about how much she wants to know from then on out. Dallas counsels men to let their wives make the call on how much he should disclose on a daily basis.

 

Some may want to hear every time he so much as looks at a woman inappropriately, while others prefer a toned-down version in which he broaches the subject when he's having a particularly tough day with temptation. Still other wives opt for a "don't ask, don't tell" policy and would rather not hear about it at all.

 

Regardless of what she wants, sexperts are emphatic that guys should resist the temptation to use their wives as accountability partners. That job is reserved for godly men who won't feel wounded the way a wife can when her husband falls.

 

"Some men wuss out and make themselves only accountable to women who are financially dependent on them and love them, and women are designed to express the mercy side of God," says Douglas Weiss, New Man columnist and director of Heart to Heart Counseling Centers, a recovery program for sex addicts. "But men are designed in the masculine image of God and will say, 'What's your problem?'"

 

Guys who turn to their wives for accountability also run the risk of squashing intimacy as she turns into the parole officer.

 

"He will become resentful because it's hierarchical, and she'll get sick of having a little boy who won't grow up and take responsibility," Schaumburg says.

 

Though there are a plethora of land mines couples can walk into when they are open about lust, those who learn how to navigate usually turn this topic of tension into a tool for healthy intimacy.

 

The Pruitts had one of their first tests when they were watching Schindler's List together at a movie theater. They'd just seen a wrenching scene about persecution of the Jews when the movie jumped to a cut with nudity. Chris turned to Susan and told her how upset he was about the unexpected scene. Another woman's nude body was the last thing he wanted prancing through his mind.

 

Then he asked Susan how it made her feel. Chris, 46, admits that it felt risky to tell her the image had affected him. It would've been easier to say he wasn't bothered and she had nothing to worry about.

 

"But that doesn't do a thing for her," Chris says. "It tells her that I'm not having a problem, so she can't come back and ask if it bothers me. It also allows me to avoid dealing with her feelings, which feel scary because I can't control them."

 

Instead, he took a risk, and the payoff was high, Susan says. "I felt sorry for him, and there was a sense of anger at the world, that this was being offered to my husband," Susan says. "We grieved over it together, and it was a feeling of ultimate intimacy. We felt like we could cling to God and each other to face the disappointments of life."

 

It's choices such as these that allowed Chris to make an about-face in his addiction. After the Pruitts finished a couple weeks of intensive counseling at Stone Gate, Susan decided to give Chris another chance. They returned home and began the arduous task of learning to stay relationally connected through both pain and joy, but Chris says this genuine intimacy was absolutely vital in enabling him to give up his old lifestyle of betrayal.

 

Couples also can bond in the midst of battle by talking honestly about needed lifestyle changes. Guys can divulge their dangerous settings, or "target rich environments" (TREs), Means says.

 

The couple may decide to skip trips to the beach on a hot day or get rid of dicey cable channels. Maybe she should go into the video store while he waits in the car. In Means' own life, he and his wife have an understanding that he no longer joins her on shopping trips to women's clothing stores. It may be less convenient to get his opinion after she buys the dress, but at least he won't risk a plunge into his obsession.

 

Means also urges men to tell their wives about women who are significant triggers, which may sometimes translate to radical choices like skipping a holiday party or attending the early service on Sunday morning.

 

Even the most strategic couples, though, can't avoid every temptation. Sometimes Victoria's Secret will be right next to the jewelry shop where you and your wife are heading for an anniversary gift.

 

When Chris walked into this kind of scenario recently, he had the same choice as always: to conceal or not conceal. This time, he made the right decision.

 

"I wanted to live life in such a way that people know what I really think, and I give them the chance to love or hate me," he says. "I tell Susan that I know what the images in that store pretend to offer, and I know it bothers both of us, but it's the society we live in. If I look at it honestly, there's something the images offer that I can only find in God."

 

By Heather Stringer, a freelance writer and a regular contributor to New Man.