I do want to make one slight modification. I don’t believe anyone has the power to make anyone else anything–except God. Certainly, our behavior can influence others. I don’t want my wife to believe that if I’m not a great person it is because she didn’t do something right. I also don’t want her to believe that my greatness is contingent on her doing everything right. We are both working on ourselves.

I would never recommend that you or anyone condone sin or downplay its devastating effects, and I agree completely with Edwin that it is best to be overly cautious rather than not cautious enough. My guess is that your husband struggles more than he has told you.  

However, what will motivate him more than anything to actually overcome this sin is prayer, an honest love for God, and your respect. 

If I were your husband, I would be motivated more than ever to overcome after reading your first paragraph. You believe in him. He is your man. You admire him for being open about his struggles. You know that he’s determined to overcome. And you’re proud of him for helping another brother who is struggling. Are all those things true? Then tell him so. And keep telling him. Tell him how proud you are of him as many times each day as you wish he would tell you he loves you.

Most importantly, tell him those things when he messes up and when he comes to you for forgiveness and for help. That’s when he needs to hear those things most. You will be mad at him. You will be devastated that he’s messed up. But, if he is a good man deep down inside, then every single time he messes up, he’s just as devastated as you are. Just like when you’re upset and what you need most from your husband is to hear that he loves you no matter what, he needs to hear that you’re proud of him–for being a good man deep down inside–no matter what. That will encourage him to come to you more. That will make him want to be honest with you. He won’t want to hide things, he’ll want to make you proud.

What makes most men hide their struggles is fear that they’ll lose the respect of the people closest to them. That means you. You don’t respect the sin–at all–and you shouldn’t. But you do respect the man. You respect the fact that he is being open and honest with you. So tell him that part. Once he is assured that you respect him no matter what, then you two can discuss how devastated you are.

But be very careful about how and when you tell him how devastating the sin is to you, or else he will almost definitely start to reign in his openness. Men are strange creatures. We desperately want to make our wives proud. When they are not proud of us, it devastates us. So be careful not to criticize. He wants to know how you feel and what you think. He wants to hear how devastated you are by his sin because he desperately wants to quit and he knows that hearing how it hurts someone he loves will motivate him to quit. But before he can even begin to process any of that, he just needs to know without a doubt that you’re proud of him for who he is. Once he’s assured of that he’ll do anything he can to love you and take care of you.

I know that I wouldn’t even hesitate to share every thought, every feeling, every struggle with my wife if I knew that every time I do she’ll tell me she’s proud of who I am regardless of those thoughts, feelings, and struggles. When you two have that kind of relationship, you’ll be able to really work together to deal with any specific problems that may arise. He’ll be able to tell you if the laundry is a problem for him, because he won’t be afraid of you cringing. But, if he’s afraid that your first response will be telling him how disgusting he is, he’ll probably just keep it to himself, struggle with it alone, and most likely fail.

You have the power to make him a great man. The key is to be proud of him no matter what. Know that he is a normal man, and his struggles are normal. Be proud that he’s not content with just being normal.

I’m sorry to have missed this request from you for so long. Somehow I missed the notification and my attention was drawn to it only now because Justin responded to you. 

The situation you have brought up is very sensitive. 

On the one hand, we must not paint with too broad of a brush. The fact that a man has struggled with lust and pornography does not necessarily mean that his own daughter will cause him a temptation. For some men, the emotional attachment and fatherly affection for their daughters will serve as a protection against that temptation even if they have other sexual struggles. We need to be aware that not everyone who struggles with any sexual temptation necessarily struggles with all possible sexual temptations.

Having said that, however, I believe all men need to be on guard. A growing daughter is still a woman. Further, she is a woman with which the father already has an emotional attachment. A man who has struggled with pornography, by definition, has some unhealthy views of sexuality and must never assume that some sexual sin is so far out of reach that it will never plague him. I am grateful that there are some sexual sins I have not committed. But I have had to learn not to boast about the sins I will never commit. Rather, I am thankful to God for the sins I haven’t committed yet. I now add the “yet” as a reminder that if I think I stand, I must take care lest I fall (I Corinthians 10:12). 

My advice to you, Guest, is that you make sure to keep all blinders off and not allow your husband’s lack of comfortableness with this topic put you off from bringing it up when necessary. If he does something that makes you uncomfortable regarding his actions toward your daughter, talk to him about it. Certainly, talk gently and properly, but talk to him. (A good book about these kinds of conversations is “How to Have That Difficult Conversation You’ve Been Avoiding” by Cloud and Townsend.) Do not let it slide, thinking you are overly sensitive. In my book, it is better to err on the side of caution on this issue. Don’t yell at him and accuse him of things, but talk to him about the behavior that made you feel concerned.

Regarding the daughter being careful where she dresses, this is not just an issue of dealing with a husband who has struggled with pornography and lust. This should be a standard of modesty in every home. Husbands and wives are allowed to enjoy each others bodies both physically and visually. But no one else needs to be involved in that. Obviously with very young children modest behaviors may be somewhat relative. But as children grow, they should no longer dress or wear skimpy nightclothes around other members of the family who are of the opposite gender whether parent or sibling. The parent should maintain standards of modesty as well. 

Finally, let me also say that this issue of lust for a daughter is not simply a matter of being trained by pornography. Though that certainly doesn’t help. Many fathers are blindsided by their daughter’s developing bodies, whether they have struggled with pornography or not. While some men are protected from this particular temptation by their fatherly affection, most men naively think they will be and then out of the blue something happens causing them to notice that their little girl is turning into a grown woman. Noticing that change is not sinful or immoral, but if the father is not prepared for it, he may have thoughts that bother him and of which he is ashamed. These men do not need to be berated as perverts or accused of awful things. Rather, it is normal. God made men to be visually stimulated. They simply need to be on their guard. And their wives need to support them in that. I once heard the story of a man who was watching television.  His teenage daughter came in and laid down on her stomach on the floor in a long t-shirt that she used as pajamas right in front of him. Her head was propped up on her hands as she watched tv. Her legs were spread, her knees bent up, and her feet waving in the air. The father saw this, was shocked at his first thoughts, and immediately told his daughter to go put some more clothes on. As teenagers often do, she didn’t immediately obey, but asked, “Why? I’m comfortable.” Instead of standing his ground, he turned to his wife for support and said, “Tell her to go put some clothes on.” His wife, instead of supporting him, said, “Why? Have you got a problem?” Yes, we men have problems. We were designed to be visually stimulated and it is not our fault if a scantily clad daughter is the one who stimulates us. Yes, we need to be men and establish good modest boundaries, but we also need support from our wives without having shame and guilt heaped upon us for it.

Guest, I completely understand you making use of my first comments policy rule. I hope this has been helpful. Again I apologize for taking so long to respond to it.

I like to think that Lot considered it an absurd possibility that he and his daughters would ever produce children (Genesis 19:36).  However, I also doubt he ever thought that he would willingly offer up those same two daughters to a lust-crazed mob of Sodomites, but that is exactly what he did (19:8).  It has often occurred to me that the women that produce pornography, immorally driven advertisements, or dress provocatively–these women have fathers.  These women that are enslaved, whether willingly or not, to this lie of Satan, many were once under the guardianship of fathers.  They were infants cooing in the arms of their daddies, yet they have grown to entice other men to lie in their own arms.  What happened?

Using Lot as an example, I’ll like to suggest a few things:

1. It is not impossible that I could commit gross sin.  As I surround myself with more and more worldly thinking (living in Sodom), I will provide more and more opportunity to fall.  What opportunities am I making for sin by the day to day saturation of this world?

2. I need to guard not only my own heart but the hearts of my family.  The worldly influences that surround me also prey on my children.  Remember, it was the daughters of Lot that initiated the incest in Genesis 19.  What am I passively teaching my children?

3. I cannot shy away from loving my daughter for fear of abusing her.  In truth it is the lack of love that I show her that causes me to abuse her.  Lot showed no love for his daughters when he offered them up to the city of Sodom pounding at his door.  Yes, he showed his abhorrence for sodomy, but he also betrayed his deficiency in guarding his family.  Had he loved his daughters truly, the sacrifice he attempted would have been unthinkable.  Am I loving my children by zealously guarding their souls?

2 Peter 2:7-8 names Lot as a righteous man, but it also says “he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard” (ESV).  I believe Lot must have grieved deeply upon the realization of what he had done with his daughters.  It didn’t have to be.  In light of this heart wrenching example, I have committed to:

1. Removing what worldly influences I can and replacing them with godly influences, 

2. Providing a good example for my children and creating a sanctuary with my wife for my family to enjoy without the multitude of Satan’s snares lying about,

3. Loving my daughter (and my son) by guarding them from unholy attractions and showing them the holy affection of a father.  That may mean guarding my children from myself, which means I need to humbly examine my own struggles, confess them to God, and repent to be His kind of man.

I apologize for the length, but I hope that helps.