Couple open up about husband's recovery from 30-year addiction to pornography

For years he was living a lie, hiding a shameful secret that he didn't know how to deal with, never mind tell his wife about.
Steven Croshaw from Deseret, Utah, struggled with a porn addiction since he was six-years-old.
For years he hid his shameful secret from everyone - including his wife and seven children. It is only now that he has recovered that he is eager to share his story with others.
Steven found a porn magazine in his brother's chest of drawers when he was six and - not knowing what it was but knowing it was wrong - took it to his mother. It was never spoken of in the house again.

Secret: Steven Croshaw from Deseret, Utah, struggled with a porn addiction since he was six-years-old and it would be 30 years before he was in recovery

'She thanked me, I guess for giving it to her, but we didn't talk about it, 'It was something we never talked about, in fact.'
But it wasn't long before he found more magazines, and this time he didn't show them to anyone but looked at them himself.

 

As he got older, he became more and more involved in pornography and would share it with his friends. But they were the only people who knew he was involved with it.
He said: 'I occasionally spoke about it with friends who participated in the behavior. But I didn't speak about it with church leaders. I didn't speak about it with my teachers at school. It was just something I did privately.'

Sufferer: Wife Rhyll is one of thousands of women in the United States affected by their husband's pornography use

The more he looked, the more he isolated himself until finally he left college and moved to Montana for work. This is where he met his wife Rhyll.

'I brought into the marriage this behavior and I didn't tell my wife about it,' he said.
He thought that the marriage would satisfy his sexual needs and his addiction would be cured. But seven children and many years of marriage later and it just intensified.
He started living a double life and lying to his wife.
Rhyll told the Deseret News she knew almost immediately that something was very wrong in her marriage: 'There was an emotional disconnect that I didn't expect.'
Finally, when he was 36-years-old, after three decades of being addicted to porn, he decided enough was enough.
'I determined at about age 36 that I could not continue in this double life. I had hid it. Rhyll knew nothing of the behavior. So I determined that I had to come forward,' he said.
Telling his wife was one of the hardest thing he has ever had to do, he admits, though added it was a lifting experience for him.
She said of the moment: 'I was blown away, not with anger. It was, "What has happened to my life". I was very quiet and cried a little bit. I thought, "I don't know what to do about this".'
She was just one of thousands of women in the United States affected by their husband's pornography use
So the couple sought professional help.
For the next ten years, Steven would keep 'clean' for periods of time and then lapse again while he attended therapy and 12-step groups.

Struggle: Steven Croshaw had already confessed his secret life to his wife twice before. Each time, years went by before she learned the behaviors hadn't gone away

'When I went the first time I thought, "Wow, I don't think I really belong here". I did, but I didn't realize it.'
When he determined he would come forward and admit he had lapsed one last time, he knew it would be the last.
'When I made the decision that I would come forward I knew that I had made it in my heart because the feelings that I had changed.
'They changed from fear to hope. And they changed from the attitude of can't do, to can do, and that I must do.'
Now the Croshaws have started S.A. Lifeline Foundation to deliver 'a message of hope that recovery from pornography addiction is possible'.