Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, March 10th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey and I am Bob Lepine. We’ll hear from Meg Wilson today about how a marriage gets put back together after there has been sexual sin in the relationship.
Welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us.
I am just curious given the subject we are talking about this week and let me say again this may not be an appropriate subject for younger listeners. Moms and dads will want to make the decision about what age group ought to be tuned in to today’s program.
If I were to stop and ask you what kind of sin is it that is the most pervasive sin facing marriages today? We could take the generic subject of sin and say sin is the big problem but if there is one area of sin is it the one we are talking about do you think?
Dennis: My first thought was perhaps the misuse of money. My second thought was selfishness. Then I quickly ran to what our guest on today’s broadcast said sexual sin and sexual addiction. Meg Wilson joins us again here on FamilyLife Today. I’ll let our guest answer it. I’ve got a feeling I know how she is going to answer it. What do you think, Meg?
Meg: Well, I don’t want to sound like I see monsters in every closet but the statistics that I have seen are conservative at 50-70 percent of men who are wrestling at some level with pornography.
Dennis: In the church?
Meg: In the church.
Dennis: We aren’t talking about in the culture we’re just talking about it being a pervasive sin. If those numbers are right then at that point then it would be a larger number than either finances…It may not be bigger than selfishness.
Bob: Selfishness may be endemic to all of us but Meg this is not just a men’s problem as you’re investigating this there is a growing segment of the pornography industry that is aimed at women, right?
Meg: Yes. Today’s Christian Woman a few months ago had an article that said that 34 percent of women in the church admitted to struggling with various aspects on line whether it’s chat rooms or pornography.
Bob: You mention chat rooms. You’re including sexual talk…
Meg: Yes.
Bob: …as pornography. We may not classify that in the standard definition of pornography but again it is sexual sin to be having that kind of conversation with someone you are not married to.
Meg: Absolutely.
Dennis: We do know from your book, Hope After Betrayal, as well as other people who Bob and I have interviewed and from data that comes at us regularly on FamilyLife Today that a number of men do get exposed to pornography between the ages of 5 and 15. It triggers something within them that sets them up to step off into this snare on a regular basis.
I’d like you to speak to parents right now around the seriousness of protecting their sons and daughters from this sin. What would you advise a mom and dad to do in terms of having conversations and what kind of guard rails to place around their families?
Meg: First of all awareness is key. I’m so thankful for this broadcast but I would tell Christian parents in particular that you can no longer assume that because you bring your children up in a Christian home and they go to a good Sunday school class that they are protected. Those kids don’t have to look for it. It is looking for them.
So being aware and knowing what your kids are going to and having controls on the computer are all important steps but more importantly as Christian parents I see parents that want to insulate and try to protect their kids. The brutal reality is we really can’t do that. So we need to give our kids tools. We need to teach them that this is out there and give them tools to battle it.
The first thing we need to do is to celebrate and paint a picture of what godly relations are about. Don’t just tell our kids don’t do that until you get married. This is part of who we are. God created us. He created this physical representation of what should be happening spiritually and emotionally in a marriage. The enemy has taken it completely out of that context and distorted it and made it something awful. So we need to be having those conversations in home and church and in youth groups. That is the greatest protection.
Dennis: I like where you started which is God’s design. And I think it is good, Bob, that we talk about this in a wholesome way with our children but sex education is not a one birds and the bees conversation. True sex education is a time when you do sit down and some things are explained but then you spend the rest of the adolescent years asking them what have you seen? What are you noticing? Have you had any sexting on your cell phone where they are texting and sending partially nude or nude pictures of teenage girls or guys to one another?
This is pervasive in our culture and it is the wise parent who is engaging in conversations with their children not acting like I covered that with them. They are good. They will be able to handle it. Well, it’s coming at them today like it has never come at any generation that has ever walked the face of the earth.
Bob: Your husband was first exposed to pornography when he was ten years old. It was in the home and he found the stash. Actually he wrote the last chapter in your book. He describes what happened to him at that point as if there was almost a chemical reaction. I was thinking as I read that I was exposed to pornography about the same time. I don’t know that I have the same kind of chemical reaction.
There may be some differentiator that some folks are more susceptible to this kind of a sin trap than somebody else is. When you get that exposure at a young age and if you are susceptible in that particular sin pattern area it can lead you off in the kind of behaviors that…here he was a happily married man and I don’t want to pry too much but I’m assuming that your relationship was full, right?
Meg: Yes.
Bob: So it wasn’t like he was a starving man who was hungry. There was just something in him that was like Romans 7. Things he hated that he ended up doing.
Meg: Yes, that is a really good point on a couple of different levels. First of all, it seems logical on some level to think that a man would only do this if he wasn’t being satisfied at home. That is a huge lie. No matter who you married he would have brought this with him because of what you are talking about. In fact, he describes something when he found that material he then went and showed a couple of his buddies and they laughed. It crushed him because he thought this had such a powerful impact on me and they were able to laugh it off.
So, I wonder what makes the difference. Now after talking to so many men I realize it is like a petri dish. If you take an empty plastic laboratory petri dish and you drop a little dab of virus in there it will dry up and probably leave a stain but nothing will happen.
But if you take a petri dish and it is full of fertile material—a young man isolated alone who doesn’t have a safe family environment where he can go to someone if he sees material that has this gaping hole in his heart of low self esteem or 70 plus percent of men who become addicts were abused themselves as a child so that is a big piece. Whatever that fertile material is you drop a bacteria in that and it takes off and it grows and that is a significant piece.
Dennis: I want to talk to you about a wife who may have heard us talk about this subject this week and she has begun to wonder. She is curious. Maybe her husband stays up on the computer late at night and there are little things that occur that she is suspicious now. What should she do with her suspicions?
Meg: Excellent question. There are a lot of women in this camp because there is the wonderful Holy Spirit at work and God gives women a really good gut and we so often discount it or explain it away. I want to say to that woman explore your gut but be careful. It’s not your job to be the policeman and the detective but get on your knees and ask God if there is something that is hidden to bring it out into the light. He will do that.
Bob: Let me ask you about that. If you were to look back to the time prior to your husband’s first confession were there things you see now that if you had been alert you would have been able to pick up on? Have you gone back and said I should have known there were some tell tale signs or was he keeping it pretty tidy?
Meg: He was very tidy. For a lot of men when they have this dark corner of their lives every other area is squeaky clean. There are a high percent of pastors that struggle with this issue because see if I make the outside look really good in being a pastor.
Dennis: I’ll remove all suspicion. Nobody would ever think I’d be off into that.
Meg: That’s right.
Bob: I’m thinking a wife who is listening right now is thinking this wouldn’t be my husband. I don’t want to sow seeds in her heart of mistrust for her husband because he may be a righteous godly man and this is not an issue. You don’t want to have her all of a sudden suspecting something when there is no reason to suspect.
Dennis: Here is the thing. As a man if Barbara came to me and she said I’ve been in a women’s group and there have been a number of women talking about these matters I just need to ask you a question. As a man I have to say to her you need to know there is nothing off limits with you, Sweetie. Bring the question. I may not like the question. I may not like that it was even having to be asked of me but in a healthy relationship that kind of question ought to be able to be asked.
Now the question is at that point if you find out something then you have the issue of what are you going to do with it? How are you going to handle it? At that point it might be a wise wife who is not taking this on by herself but perhaps getting her pastor or if your husband does have a best friend in the church perhaps allow him to come and help you present what may be a confrontation at that point if there has been deceit. I think lying and deceit are the seeds of destruction of a marriage relationship.
Bob: This gets to the issue of rebuilding trust after there has been a breech. It’s eight years since your husband came to you with the second confession and you’ve seen evidence of genuine repentance in his life.
Meg: Yes.
Bob: Do you still wonder if there is something going on?
Meg: Well, let me talk a little bit about trust and forgiveness. Those terms get muddy in the church and they are misunderstood. They are not the same thing. To your question, do I have moments sometimes when I call him and he’s gone and he doesn’t pick up the phone. You betch ya. That is scar tissue. That will probably remain in our marriage.
The first time he had back to back trips was seven years later and it brought up a lot of fear in me. He brought a journal with him and he wrote a love note to me every night he was gone. And now he’s incorporated that in. Every time he leaves on a trip he comes home and he hands me the journal that he has written in every night. So that trust continues to get built. It’s a complex structure like a bridge so when that is destroyed it takes a lot of time to rebuild.
There were times when I just had to say I’m going to forgive him but I don’t feel like it. It’s like Lord this is a work that God does in us and through us. Forgiveness really has nothing to do about my husband. It has to do about me. Trust is for both of us.
Dennis: I think it is good to revisit what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is giving up the right to punish another person. You’ve been hurt. You’ve been wounded by their betrayal. The feelings of having rights that have been betrayed in that relationship but when you forgive someone you take your hands off the scales and you say I could continue to punish you but I choose not to because Christ forgave me and I am commanded to forgive you just as he forgave me.
Bob: I don’t know if I got this from you or not but as I talk to groups about this I’ve said we have this expression where we’ll say let’s bury the hatchet. Well, what did we have a hatchet in our hand in the first place for? Because we wanted to have a weapon and to be able to attack. Burying the hatchet is saying I’m putting away the tool of punishment. You just have to be sure that you don’t bury it with the handle sticking out of the ground.
(laughter)
Dennis: That is where I was going. Make sure you bury the whole hatchet. Don’t leave it where you can grab it and pull it out. That’s a good question for you. I know you’ve said you have worked through your mistrust. Have you wanted to grab the handle of the hatchet and pull it out and punish him? Have you found yourself getting angry about matters now ten years later?
Meg: I’m sure that there is some residue in that. There are women for whom anger is a bigger piece of the puzzle. It’s one of the reasons there are three stories in the book. Anger is actually a place I struggle with. I wasn’t allowed to express anger that was viewed as disrespect in my home. So I’ve had to process through that. Some women that anger comes quickly and easily and readily and in a lot of cases they heal more quickly. Anger is not a bad thing. It’s what we do with it. It’s often a door to sin which is why we have the warning do not sin in your anger. But it can also be a real impetus to move a woman forward in the healing process. So there should be some anger in this situation.
Bob: It’s possible in the situation like the one you are in where there has been such a grievous offense on the part of a husband toward a wife or the other way around wife toward a husband where the offended party can feel like I’ve got in my hand now the ultimate trump card. And the next time you want to get mad at me for anything I’ve ever done I can go “hey, wait a second buster. I didn’t do this _____.”
Dennis: Right.
Bob: I didn’t do what you did.
Dennis: Yes. And even feel a little self righteousness.
Meg: It is interesting you say that because there was a point when my husband was on the road to healing and he began to step up to be the spiritual leader in our home and I had prayed for that for a long time but to be honest as in many homes I was kind of taking the spiritual lead with two daughters. So he would take the lead and he might question the way I handled something with the girls and that little ugly head of resentment would …”like who are you buddy. Now all of a sudden…” and I had to say wait a minute. No, you’ve been praying for this. There was a point in our relationship when I said I’m firing myself as spiritual head of the household.
(laughter)
I needed to give that job back. Because as long as I was there I wasn’t going to enable him to do that. So that was part of my healing. I needed to step back and let him do it. He may not do it the way I thought but it’s been amazing to watch him step up in that position.
Bob: Tell me about the conversation you had with him when you went and said I think I’d like to write a book about our story.
Meg: Oh, that was many, many conversations. The wonderful thing about true healing is that something that seems ugly and shameful is truly transformed. As I began to write the book we had a lot of conversations. What do we say? What do we not say? Our families had to all know. There were so many steps in the writing process that were parallel to the healing process so the book holds a special meaning for all of us. My girls are proud of what their dad and I are doing and when we speak it touches people. Every time I get an email from a woman who says your book made all the difference it’s pay day every time.
Dennis: You are finishing out your covenant even though there has been disappointment. There has been betrayal. It’s been called what it is which is sin and you’ve made good on what you promised till death do us part together as a couple.
Bob: And last night I was sending an email to a friend and I quoted two verses. One is Isaiah 61:3 which talks about beauty from ashes and the second was Joel 2 where it talks about how God restores the years that the locusts have eaten. The Bible is a redemption story—brokenness being forgiven and transformed. That is the whole message. We ought to be able to look at these situations and say that is a terrible thing that happened but it’s a wonderful thing that God has done with a terrible thing that has happened.
Dennis: Yes, and I want to add one verse to the two that you shared because this also has happened. Second Corinthians 1:3 “Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
That is what you have done.
It goes on to say, “For we share abundantly in Christ sufferings so through Christ we share abundantly and comfort too.”
Meg, this had to be tough to write because you had to go back in part of it and relive it. Relive it with your husband and with your daughters. Undoubtedly this is going to bring comfort to those who have faced these dark days and I want to thank you for sharing your story here on FamilyLife Today.
Meg: Thank you.
Bob: As you’ve said this has already been used by God with a lot of women who have been down the same path you have been down. Let me encourage our listeners if you find yourself here or if you know someone who has go to FamilyLifeToday.com and get more information about Meg’s book. It is called Hope After Betrayal: Healing When Sexual Addiction Invades Your Marriage. The author is Meg Wilson and the book is available in our FamilyLife resource center.
You can go to FamilyLifeToday.com for more information on Meg’s book. Or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to get a copy of the book. We also have additional resources that are designed to help couples that are in this same kind of circumstance. Resources to help those who find themselves snared in the web of sexual addiction and resources for couples to go through together when there has been betrayal like this in a marriage. Again it’s 1-800-“F” as in “Family,” “L” as in “Life” and then the word “TODAY.” 1-800-358-6329.
If you were in a position where you were doing premarital counseling or just having dinner with a couple that was about to get married and they said what do you think are the important things that we need to remember after we get married. What are the essentials for our marriage to thrive? Do you know what you would tell them?
Our team recently sat down with Dennis and Barbara Rainey and talked with them about what they see as the key, essential ingredients for a marriage to thrive. And they captured some of those thoughts and put them on a laminated card that looks a little like a bookmark. Something you can put inside your Bible. Actually, it’s a little wider than most of the bookmarks I have, but you get the idea. Something you can tuck into your Bible or into another book or tape alongside your computer monitor.
We are sending these out this week to anybody who calls to request The Five Essentials for a Thriving Marriage card. It’s our way of saying thanks for listening to FamilyLife Today and we especially want to get it to those of you who are new listeners and may not be familiar with the resources we have at FamilyLifeToday.com or in our FamilyLife resource center. We’d love to get you introduced to the ministry of FamilyLife Today so call and request two of these Five Essentials for a Thriving Marriage cards. We’ll send them out to you—one for you, one for your spouse. And again, it’s just our way of saying thanks for tuning in each day and being a part of the ministry of FamilyLife Today. We hope to hear from you.
And we hope you’ll be back with us tomorrow when we introduce you to a young woman who went on a mission trip, fell in love, came home and ultimately married the young man she met on the mission trip who was from half way around the world. We’ll talk about some of the interesting challenges that marriages face when two different cultures merge in a relationship. I hope you can tune in for that.
I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I’m Bob Lepine. We’ll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas.
Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.
© 2010 FamilyLife
Buy resources from this week's broadcast at the FamilyLife Resource Center