UpStream

EP 10 - Geremy Keeton - How Porn Destroys Marriages

• The River

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In this episode of UpStream, marriage and family therapist Jeremy Keaton reveals how pornography fundamentally violates the nature of marriage. "Marriage is supposed to be like a blank canvas where couples co-create their own beautiful picture," Jeremy explains. "Pornography introduces outside colors and shapes – it contaminates what should be sacred between two people."

Perhaps most hopeful is Jeremy's insight that pornography addiction is rarely about sex itself. Instead, it's about emotional regulation and connection. People use pornography when they lack healthier ways to process stress, anxiety, or past trauma. As Jeremy powerfully states, "The opposite of addiction isn't sobriety—it's relationship."

If you're struggling with pornography or its effects on your marriage, know that healing is possible. Focus on the Family offers consultation services, and their book "Aftershock" provides a compassionate, biblically-grounded pathway forward. With specialized counseling, accountability partnerships, and group support, even the most damaged relationships can find restoration.

A devotional podcast for parents on the go! Encouragement, Scripture, & prayer in just 7 minutes. Join the journey!

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Upstream. I'm Joy Toll, a chaplain with River Radio Ministries. Here on this podcast we'll journey together with Jesus as our guide, navigating against life's tide. My guest on this episode is Jeremy Keaton, a licensed marriage and family therapist, the senior director of the Counseling Services Department with Focus on the Family. Today we're speaking with Jeremy about the book he co-authored with Joanne Condie called Aftershock Overcoming His Secret Life with Pornography A Plan for Recovery. Jeremy spends his time with us talking about the devastating impact of pornography's presence in every aspect of marriage and the family, the brokenness behind the addiction, but also the resources available to provide hope for healing, recovery and restoration.

Speaker 2:

Now let's go upstream with Jeremy Keaton. So we're here today with Jeremy Keaton, and he's a licensed marriage and family therapist with Focus on the Family. He leads their team of mental health clinicians and pastoral specialists as they serve as safe, confidential guides on a wide range of family-related issues. They do one-on-one consultation, kind of like a one-time thing, where they can help callers who might be in crisis figure out what important next steps there are for whatever circumstances they are, and also gives them resources that they can you know local counselors in an area that they can touch base with and get needed help. So they have a focus on the Family Christian Counselors Network and that is all part of that process. Jeremy has extensive experience in counseling men and couples on topics of healthy sexuality, infidelity and pornography addiction. In addition to offering individual and marriage therapy, he has authored materials and conducted recovery groups on these very topics. He is co-author of the book called Aftershock Overcoming His Secret Life with Pornography A Plan for Recovery.

Speaker 2:

Now I'm just going to be real transparent here and tell you I read the book in its entirety in two days and so much it resonated, yes, so much of it resonated with me. And just to be really transparent, my first marriage was destroyed by a pornography addiction that had morphed into affairs anyway, things where it was really affecting my kids and and my husband had said he was not going to change his behavior. And at that point I I knew I needed to walk out. But I will tell you this was a resource I so could have used. You know, 25, 30 years ago, when it first cropped up, I wasn't prepared for it at all, wasn't prepared for all. But anyway, I have recommended I mean, there is such clear guidance, compassion and really down-to-earth practical steps to consider within the pages of this book. I have recommended this book to several women that I have spoken to in the chaplain capacity at the river because we had encountered this a fair amount. I'm ordering copies for my chaplain team to read because they also will encounter some of this and I just want them to see this from a wife's perspective, a female perspective. So it gives insight into the wife's emotions, which I don't think we see very often, especially not in a Christian context, and gives them ways on how to move forward from this type of and I have no other word to call it but betrayal. It's. It is a betrayal.

Speaker 2:

The book is prayerfully written. It is scripturally sound. It's a plan for recovery for the couple or and even for the woman if things don't turn out the way you know, if he continues to to actively continue to pursue his addiction. So I really, really have to tell you that I so appreciate you writing this book. I know it was co-written with Joanne Condie. It is a much needed resource because of the biblical foundation to it and the prayerful consideration just the scriptures. You can tell that a lot of prayer and thought and consideration was put into it as it was written. So I just really appreciate both of you for collaborating on this book. It's really a lot of prayer and thought and consideration was put into it as it was written. So just I just really appreciate both of you for collaborating on this book. It's really, really needed. And just to give parents a heads up this is not a podcast that you want to listen to in the presence of your children. Okay, so let's begin Kind of prefacing what I said.

Speaker 2:

As a chaplain with the river.

Speaker 2:

Often I receive calls from wives who are in crisis mode.

Speaker 2:

Their calls get directed to me as one of the female chaplains, because they've discovered either their husband is involved in an extramarital affair or he has a pornography addiction, or it's a pornography addiction that has morphed into other things.

Speaker 2:

Now sometimes they're holding on to this secret and they haven't told anybody, and I have found that happens a lot. They are so ashamed of what's going on in their marriage and they don't know who to confide in. They don't know who they can trust. But there are other times and I've gotten these calls where they have basically for lack of a better term bombed their husbands with this discovery, whether they walk in on them doing it or have put the pieces together and whatever, and they've had disastrous results. When they've confronted the spouse so often in the conversation, what I hear is that the husband downplays the use of pornography or he justifies the use of it like saying you know, all guys do it, it's not going to hurt, it's you know. Or I've even heard this where he belittles the wife for being so upset and alarmed about something like this when she discovered. So can you give me an idea of how big of a deal is pornography use in or for a marriage, in a marriage?

Speaker 1:

Well, joy. Thank you First of all, just for the question and for the opportunity and really for the affirmations about our book Aftershock, because that is the sense when something is rocking your world, you're in shock and you don't feel safe and you don't know what to do and you're panicking sometimes or you're aghast, or you're scared, and so there can be all kinds of reactions to what you're saying, and I am so really as an author, as a counselor, as someone that focused on the family, always so encouraged and touched to hear that feedback that you believe the resource meets people where they are and is meaningful, even with the experiences you shared. So thank you for that.

Speaker 1:

The impact on a marriage with pornography is really the ideal marriage. What we're all shooting for is an incredibly safe place, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and so pornography's presence is. It really brings less safety to the marriage, because the ideal, the design for marriage, the biblical design for marriage, is a radically exclusive relationship. It's just like a picture of heaven. We don't have multiple gods, right, our faithfulness is to the one true God. We don't have idols, we have no other idols before him, and marriage is to be a radically exclusive picture, just like our relationship between Christ and the church is radically exclusive. There's only one way to heaven and that is through Jesus Christ. There's only one pathway of faithfulness in this marriage and it's radically exclusive between two individuals creating a safe place, a vulnerable place.

Speaker 1:

Sexuality is a very vulnerable place and so pornography really invades that safety.

Speaker 1:

It also creates just practically a sense of not being satisfied within the marriage because it's imposing appetites that are inspired often by pornography, the sexual cues. We're all supposed to be invited into painting this picture of sexuality together. It's very personal. It's like a blank canvas at the beginning of your marriage and you co-create a picture that belongs only to you and to your spouse, and it's your picture. You get to use the metaphor, the colors, the shapes, the things that are beautiful that you want to put on the canvas. But what pornography does is it introduces outside colors, outside things, and it's no longer your own picture. It's in a sense contaminated or invaded by other pictures invading this beautiful artwork that your marriage is supposed to be, which is your sexuality. So, rather than having kind of a God-glorifying sex marriage, you can turn into more of a pornified sex marriage, and even where you're kind of baptizing pornographic actions into marriage. So again the safety and then just what it leads to from a satisfaction standpoint and a sense of comparison.

Speaker 2:

Do you guys like do research? Do you have statistics or what are you seeing related to this type of stuff in your counseling at Focus?

Speaker 1:

Well, we have about 1200 phone consultations a month on every type of family topic you can imagine right. Okay, we're getting all kinds, from potty training to infidelity to addictions to, you know, general conflict. So out of that we have a kind of a sample size within the top 10 topics. Every month of our 1,200 ministry phone consultations is always the topic of pornography Somewhere within the top and usually more in the top five. In a month we track topics that it's always within the top 10.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's what we see.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, barna is a research group that many people have heard of and they're doing some even recent survey work that just in the US, not just the Christian population, but in the US adults are viewing. Two out of three US adults are viewing pornography. So 61%, which is that's risen 19% points in the last eight years because there was a prior survey. So it's a, you know, it's a growing here. Here's what it means is that it's normalized. It's just the way it is for many, for many people.

Speaker 2:

That's what I hear from a lot of husbands, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And you know, certainly for believers normal isn't God's standard. But at the same time the impact on a marriage, whether it's quote common or not, is still present. And you know, oftentimes and I do want to acknowledge this Joy the men are stereotypically seen and statistically there is a higher usage. But it can be either way. Women are beginning to have more of this. There's an uptick there for a number of reasons that we might theorize about, but there is increased usage. It can go either way or couples really compromising and are one party relenting and saying, well, let's use this together, and then again that's violating that radical exclusivity and the satisfaction and harm rate of that is reported to be highly dissatisfying to women, women that have that in their marriage. It's impacting them, but males are also.

Speaker 1:

If we're moving into addiction and habituation, it affects your brain similar to what a drug would I mean. There's been brain scans and so habitual use. There will be cravings, there will be desire for more and just doing quote more sex in your marriage is not even the answer, because a big misnomer in the church is well, if we just you know, if I, a woman, might be even told sometimes by a Christian leader, if you just, you know, we'll kind of be sexier, it'll help. And it's sort of giving almost empowerment to the what I would call abusive type mindset toward a female, that she's just a sex object, when really this is about treasuring one another, cherishing one another, and so you know, to just be sexier and control your man is pretty. I mean, it's really upsetting advice because actually that is not the answer to pornography and that solution never works. And even if it did, it's disrespectful and makes a sex object out of the marriage. But I will tell you it does not work.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it plays into objectifying the woman Exactly You're right. Well, and I into objectifying the woman, exactly You're right.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I would just cap this off, I say this even to my own children, in the sex education that we do in our home it's not that sex is so bad that we need to run from it. It's that sex is so good and sacred that we want to protect it.

Speaker 1:

It's like my wedding ring that I put on my finger. It's so valuable, it's such a symbol to me. I make sure I know where that is stored. Every night when I take it off my hand, I keep it in a safe place. I have protection around it. So, again, pornography introduces such shame to sexuality and secrecy that we are beginning to think negatively about this amazing, beautiful, symbolic and profound gift of God. And so, again, it's not that sex is so bad that we should sex is so bad. Save it for the one you love. I mean, that's kind of the inadvertent message that some people get versus.

Speaker 1:

Sex is so sacred that we want to protect it because it's telling a story. Sex is the coming together of male and female. Is an icon, an image, a beautiful picture that we have stopped thinking about it this way, it's now just more recreational, or it's a quote, a right versus. This is actually something to steward as believers, as a symbol of our faith.

Speaker 2:

Right? Well, paul even was very careful about how he spoke about marriage. He was a single man, but he was very careful in how he addressed the marriage relationship. So you were talking about addiction and the brain. What I understand is that many addictions, and pornography in particular, literally rewires your brain, and I know in the book you talk about SPECT scans and I know in the book you talk about SPECT scans. So maybe you could talk about how the brain is rewired and what these SPECT scans are, what they mean, because it indicates how the brain has been changed or is changing or is overactive?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, this last really decade of research has been considered kind of the decade of the brain and learning how the brain responds. And what's amazing is that what we find out when we get more and more sophisticated as humans, we just discover what God has said in different ways in the scripture to be true.

Speaker 1:

And there is the phrase in scripture to throw off the sin that so easily entangles. There are certain types of sin that we need to run our race and we need to throw off the things that so easily entangle. And I think that phrase to me kind of points to what the spec scans will tell us about the brain's response to pornography. Not that that verse is only talking about sexual sin, but even substances and alcohol use that's out of control. These are all creating a dopamine response in the brain. That's the pleasure chemical and we can become dependent upon that. And then cravings and then tolerance, where you need more for the same effect occurs.

Speaker 1:

And spec scans on brains of pornography users, when compared to those of drug users of certain types, have a very distinct similarity. And so even the brain science in recent years are basically telling us that the stop it approach, or just try harder just to stop it, cold turkey immediately, is actually. It's difficult, and it's not about behavior change only, there's emotional regulation that needs to happen because this is medicating, just like taking a substance. It's medicating an emotion.

Speaker 1:

And so there are reasons why people are vulnerable and then, as the deeper they go, they have a sin that has now entangled their neurochemistry. So it's not just pray harder and believe in God more and you'll get out of this. You actually need faith, plus some practical body changes, some information about, some insights into what it is you're medicating. What are you using this for and how do you now change the brain over time and address the cravings? By getting into better emotional regulation, which means relationship skills. Okay, so I've never met an individual in my counseling practice that had just excellent relationship skills and was simultaneously caught in something addictive that they didn't want to be in. Almost always, addiction has something to do with I am not able to get out or express this thing that's in my life. I want connection, but I don't know how to get that connection. I have stress and I don't have the skills to regulate my stress or my emotions, so I short circuit it with these either substances or behaviors.

Speaker 1:

The redemptive thing is it's not just shame on you, you're addicted. It's actually learning to have self-compassion and to get below the surface of the behavior and say, wow, what do I really need? Because this is an attempted solution for something and yes, it is sin. And yes, god does have something to say about sin and Jesus is the only path that can redeem us for our sins. None of this is anti-biblical. To be looking at the body and the brain, science and the psychological reasons, it's all supportive of the fact that there's a sin that's entangled me. There's something in my history, my brokenness and my actions that have encouraged this to take root in my life. Let's follow the breadcrumbs backwards to the sources and untangle this and become accountable and rewire our brains, and that takes time, yeah, I hear exactly what you're saying and I believe that when you dig down, there's usually something that is propelling the behavior.

Speaker 2:

It's because self-medicating we don't know how to. People don't know how to cope with what's going on. They've not learned good coping skills. They've not learned how to self-regulate. So you're yeah, that is exactly right.

Speaker 1:

You know and I don't, it sounds a little odd, but to say this there's pornography use is not ultimately, at least, about sex?

Speaker 2:

No, it's a symptom of an issue.

Speaker 1:

Emotional regulation, and so the opposite of addiction, joy. And this is very commonly said in all addiction counseling. Now, the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it's not merely sobriety, it is relationship. The opposite of addiction is relationship to know, to be known, because addiction runs off. The fuel the gas tank is. The fuel of addiction is shame and isolation right, it causes isolation.

Speaker 1:

Shame, right yeah yeah, shame, isolation and I and in hiding. And so when someone is broken to a point of humility that says I need help, I want help, I know I've hurt myself and others and they get to a safe place, then there's so much hope and that's what we talk about in the book is that sometimes there are marriages that don't make it and there are many reasons why we have our freedom of choice and how difficult it is to recover and we have to go directions that you know we never imagined in the marriage when we started the marriage. But there are many, many stories also of redemption. I mean God rushes in His heart is to rush in to the humble and the contrite.

Speaker 1:

A humble and contrite heart he loves. And so I have seen couples as painful as it is and it's not a quick fix but when they go through their sexual history together and there is disclosure and the addicted party maybe gets in a support group that's biblically oriented and clinically informed and change starts happening. And when there's a slip, there's communication. And yet it's painful, but you're learning. Okay, how do I prevent this in the future? Why did I slip? What was going on? What was the trigger for this happening? In my heart, you actually grow in intimacy during recovery, potentially, if you invest in recovery.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love the fact that there's a biblical foundation to this recovery journey, especially the way it's done in the book, because so many therapists or counselors resort to behavior modification therapy and it doesn't get to the root of the problem and doesn't fix what's really causing the issues, and it is always goes back to an issue of sin, whether it was sin committed against a person or whether that was emotional or physical or whatever. So the biblical approach to this is by far what has to be the most effective, because every counseling theory that I have run across that has been effective and good, it has a biblical foundation to it.

Speaker 1:

So yes, the integration of psychology and theology. Those two things are not incompatible. But who created all truth? If it's true, god created it.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

And so we're looking at the issue from a body, mind and spirit intervention, right? So think of a recovery is like a three legged stool and that recovery is going to be incomplete if, if you just think, okay, I'm going to go in my prayer closet and I'm just going to pray this thing away.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Right Now. Yes, god can and does often do miracles. Sometimes there's instantaneous change. I believe in what I've seen, though more commonly is he's interested in character transformation. Yeah, he's interested in that journey of healing. He's interested in that journey of healing and the instant like I'm going to pray harder and just believe harder and this will go away and I'll be a better Christian, pull myself up to the bootstrap. That's a spiritual behavior modification and that doesn't work either.

Speaker 1:

So the integration of body, mind and spirit why does this take root in people's life? We're looking at what does your body need? How do you? Are you even medicating some stress level? We need to get you on maybe some exercise programs, some daily pausing, prayer, things that get your brain cleared, renew your mind, and then the psychology of it, like many times, the early exposure, like what I am replaying, what happened to me at age 11 or age eight, when I found that magazine, or I got on the internet and I was secretly using and I'm kind of stuck Part of me, even though I may be a 28 year old or a 38 year old or a 58 year old man part of me is still that eight year old.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and, and that's where the the, where the sin is happening. But the sin has been rooted by the enemy in your life and is being exploited. And if we can get around that, body, mind and spirit, scripturally as well as clinically and psychologically brought together under a Christian worldview, I believe that is the best intervention to deal with habitual sin of this nature or addictive sin of this nature.

Speaker 2:

So can you give me some specific ways in which pornography actually affects the emotional and physical aspects of marriage? Sure.

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, again back to safety. Safety leads to openness and openness leads to emotional intimacy and many times people want to go for intimacy. You know, I really want a good marriage, I really want to feel close to my husband or my wife, but you absolutely cannot have a intimate, fun, great marriage if you don't have safety. Yeah, so many people are wanting to go for you know, I'm just not getting what I want out of my marriage. And so let's do all these things to be more intimate, or maybe let's get some tips for the bedroom, and when you just make spice up the bedroom but you're going for the wrong thing, the premium thing to pursue is safety in a marriage. And then, naturally, when people are emotionally and physically trustworthy and trusted and trusting and safe, then we move into openness and intimacy.

Speaker 1:

And what pornography does is it kind of promises all the pleasure with none of the work and the pain right, and none of the safety. So you know, not to mention that this is rather obvious, but no one involved in acting outside the marriage physically. They've crossed that barrier of I'm looking at porn to. It's a transition point for physical infidelity and then when physical infidelity or prostitution or these things begin to happen, then you actually have health risks in the marriage quite literally, and so then you sexually transmitted diseases and so forth. But there is some amount of the population that gets into that place. Other times maybe it's not progressing to that level, but at the same time there are real emotional and physical risks to the safety of that relationship and its future.

Speaker 2:

Not to mention erectile dysfunction, which is clinically reported. Yes, so I have done some research, read some other books and things, and they have said that lots of times men will approach their doctor saying they're having issues with ED and if the doctor is smart he'll go back and go. Okay, it's not a physical, physical issue, as in you have high blood pressure or heart issues. Let's dig in and find out what's really going on. And so many times they have discovered that if they get the porn addiction under control then they don't have the issues with ed. Or I mean, it takes to, obviously takes time to do that, but yeah, I have. I have read that and understood that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah but joy, the hopeful. The hopeful thing is that when you draw a boundary and you call an individual to the person that they especially if they're believer that they, they really are desiring to be, yes get intervention and say this isn't okay with me.

Speaker 1:

There is, but I will walk with you. But I expect some actions or I'll be making some steps, you know, to see if you know, see if I need to make you know, do a separation, something to activate your motivation to deal with this addiction. When they step into that, there is as much as your listeners may not feel it now if they're going through something like this. There is so much hope on the other side of humility Right.

Speaker 2:

I think a lot of times when you can get it exposed, then it loses some of its power as well.

Speaker 1:

We invite people to at that early intervention. This book is really representing what we tell people when they call Focus on the Family for intervening, because usually there's a discovery and the early intervention is really to say that there are three non-negotiables. Right now, I care enough about you to call you into the person that I think you want to be and to call you towards the vows of faith to this marriage, and so there are three non-negotiables I need to see, which is first, I need you to consider how you're going to do kind of a digital makeover, like the access points to this. You need to put some stopgap measures in place. And then, secondly, bring a trusted other person into your world to say I am needing to address this, I want to address this and I want to have a partner traveling with me, accountability, really a trusted other individual. And then, thirdly, seek specialized counseling Because, again, the I'm just going to stop. I'm going to promise I mean that might work. A week, two weeks three months but that's behavior focused.

Speaker 1:

There's always something fueling this, even if it's not maybe and hopefully it's not full-blown addiction, but maybe it's every so often and you keep coming back to that, you're preoccupied with it, you're ashamed of it, and it happens in a cycle. Well, addiction doesn't have to be every day to have a cycle. It could be every month, it could be every six months. You're still following a cycle because this is serving a purpose, a sinful purpose, but serving some kind of purpose in your psychology, in your relationships, in your stress management, in your emotion management or in your history. So counseling is appropriate, whether you're falling every day and like obviously addicted or habitually doing this and not being able to get out of it, even if it's every few months, counseling can be specialized counseling and then a group being in some kind of group that that counselor is attached with or maybe utilizes to share with others. There is a common phrase in addiction recovery no group, no recovery. And that's the scariest thing in the world, but actually it's the most powerful thing. I will tell you again and again, and a believer listening to me now that's never been in a recovery group or support group will not really believe this, I know, but once a man or woman is in a support group, they wind up saying this was the scariest thing I didn't want to do.

Speaker 1:

I took a deep breath, I took the recommendation of my counselor or my pastor and I did it and within a meeting or two if it's a well-led group they finally breathe a deep sigh and say, oh my goodness, I'm not alone. I feel like I'm not the dirtiest, grossest person on this earth. I'm not a shame. And there's actually other people ahead of me that are succeeding. They're sharing about their slips and stumbles. I can now talk transparently. I'm learning how to share an emotion. I'm seeing other people share the emotions that are the triggers, and now I have this whole vocabulary for dealing with this that I didn't have when I was just alone and fighting with my spouse and going in my prayer closet and praying harder by myself every day. When you get in a group, there's a whole other set of tools and hope. If it's a well-led recovery group, that can be part of your story.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so obviously counseling and specialized counseling is in order and from what I have read in the book Aftershock, there's individual counseling and couples counseling. Now there are instances, from what I can read, that individual counseling would be a priority. Are there times where the couples counseling and the individual counseling is done simultaneously?

Speaker 1:

It comes in stages and I do believe that a couple will need some help together. But you need that individually as well, because each party is affected in different ways and it can't be simply you go get fixed and just come back that approach because there is something let's just say for sake of conversation. It's stereotypical. You know, husband is using, the wife is concerned about it.

Speaker 1:

I know that I want to give that disclaimer. It can be the other way around, so that disclaimer given, we're going to talk in those terms for a moment If it's just like, okay, you go, get fixed, the wife is hurting, the wife is affected, and it's like, imagine this it's like you've been in a car accident. Both parties are in the front of the car and both of you got a head injury. Maybe the wife wasn't driving, maybe she didn't quote, make a mistake or a wrong turn, but she still got a concussion. Well, the ambulance pulls up and both parties are needing some attention. The wife, I believe, needs to hear I really want you to honor yourself, and how this is impacting you and how you need to care for yourself. Well, right, and so you need to get in the ambulance too. But that's her choice and sometimes she rightfully so can be so upset. She's like this isn't about me, and in many ways it's not, but she deserves that attention, that care and that help.

Speaker 1:

And then, many times, wives will find, as they're recovering, that she wants to play a role in making the marriage thrive and she finds things she wants to grow into. Not because she caused the problem, she is never the cause. A wife is never to blame if a husband is using pornography. Or a husband is never to blame if a husband's using pornography. Or a husband is never to blame if a wife is using pornography Okay, the blame game is untrue and unproductive, right, but both parties do need individual help because there are things you can do that actually are better for your spouse when it comes to their motivation for recovery, for your spouse when it comes to their motivation for recovery. So, if you, sometimes a spouse will be very passive and say you know, they won't draw a boundary, and they're calling us and focus on the family and saying you know, this has actually gone on for about 15 years and I've finally something happened, right, and they've been very, very passive for a long time.

Speaker 1:

Or I think you mentioned this earlier, julie, in the interview the spouse is so upset that and so hurt maybe it triggers something from their own childhood too, where maybe they had a parent that had infidelity and they never wanted to have this in their marriage. And they're coming in and they're so aggressive and so upset that they're bombing the situation in a way that again rightfully so. They can be so aggressive, though, that it hurts the marriage. So we want to get people in the middle of the road, the assertive road. So we think aggressive or passive? No, we want to be right in the middle, assertive. What is assertive, what is safe? What is self-respecting? How do you respond and draw boundaries to your spouse? How do you love your spouse but not love what's happening? Right?

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

And that's why the wife or the offended party needs to be in counseling too. They need those skills.

Speaker 2:

I agree with that wholeheartedly. Yeah, Because it's like being on a rollercoaster ride that goes off the rails. Or you're on a rollercoaster ride, you didn't pay for that ticket, but you're stuck on it and you're suffering the damage. And, and really up until this book and some really times where I have looked into counseling for this kind of thing, counseling seems to be lacking, or therapy for the female who may be affected by this type of behavior in her husband's life, you know, in their marriage. And so that's why I found this book so helpful, because it addresses a lot of the things that the woman is feeling or dealing with or how they move forward that I don't think a lot of counselors know how to handle, because it's devastating and it's well you know he's not physically had an affair and sometimes they're minimized.

Speaker 1:

I think it's because of lack of understanding and just maybe just not knowing what to do with the situation when it's presented to the counselor and that's's why we do recommend specialized counseling, because there are a lot of kind of homespun remedies that are that are really make the problem worse over time and really well-meaning interventions that are really bad interventions. And so looking for someone who specializes in this Christian at christiancounselorsnetworkcom is a database you can look up that focus on the family has Christian counselors there and even among those, look at those who say they deal with pornography issues and even though they say they do, ask them questions. How many clients do you see a year? Are you certified? Do you have any continuing education in this topic? What books do you draw from and read and then make your decision about the services you get? There's also a clinical group that offers a certification CSAT, certified Sexual Addiction Therapist, csat. It is a secular designation so people that are not Christians will use that as well.

Speaker 1:

We at Focus on the Family encourage people to get Christian counseling match your worldview as well. We at Focus on the Family encourage people to get Christian counseling match your worldview. And if they additionally have training, clinical training as a CSAT, that's additionally helpful. And there's also an organization certified Christian sexual addiction specialist, csasi, c-s-a-s-i Christian Sexual Addiction Specialist International. They have some training courses. So these are some of the things you could look for if you're looking for an individual providing services that are Christian and that have additional training or at least a lot of experience. I've been doing this for a number of years, supervised by other professionals that were specialists in my early part of my career, you know, in my in my twenties, when I was just starting. So you just want to look for people that have experience and use really sound resources along with their biblical care.

Speaker 2:

So I read in Aftershock where Joanne Condie conveys a conversation she's had with a husband who is basically saying I've been pornography free for a month. I'm doing everything my wife wants me to do. How long is this process of rebuilding trust going to take? And she replies that well, it will take as long as it needs to take. Have you ever seen or I don't know in your own counseling experience, or maybe in you know, scenarios that are given to you? Is there a point where the wife is wrongly handling her husband's work towards building trust and maybe even hanging that over his head? And I know there are the three non-negotiables, but are there other things that she can do, aside from counseling for herself, to move forward in this rebuilding trust with her husband? Because it sounds like although he needs to do a lot of the work, she also needs to do some work too?

Speaker 1:

Sure, and we believe that to be the case, because sometimes we think of the restoration process in three areas, in three ways.

Speaker 2:

Is it the three bulls? Forgiveness, are we talking about that? The three bowls, right, okay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and there's a section in the book it's diagrammed where, forgiveness, think of it like nesting bowls, the bowls that you do, you know, the mixing bowls where one's the largest and the other one sits down in, when you stir it in.

Speaker 1:

So forgiveness is the biggest bowl, yes, but forgiveness some people will rush to forgiveness and say forgive and forget, and these wrong definitions of forgiveness. Right, but forgiveness is basically a first step and you do that yourself, even if you can forgive, but it doesn't mean you don't have boundaries, right, and you don't rush forgiveness. You actually need to acknowledge the pain, and that's a personal and vertical thing between you and God. Reconciliation is the second bowl that nestles in the forgiveness bowl, and that is to say, hey, we're reconciled in the sense that what you have said and what I have said, the events that happened, just like a bank account, reconciles. At the bank, my balance matches with the bank's balance, right, there is a matching of record, and that fits. You can't have reconciliation without forgiveness. It fits in there.

Speaker 1:

And then restoration, though, is the third bowl, which is I am now going to work to a place where my actions create enough safety and your availability to my accountability systems to create enough safety and confidence for you. But now we're in, and this is usually like restoration isn't. Even if forgiveness has happened, if all the history is out there, we're reconciled about what happened. Restoration is more of a long-term journey, like we're not even into that space until well beyond the year mark, sometimes the two-term journey. Like we're not even into that space until well beyond the year mark, sometimes the two-year mark, and it's a growing sense of safety. So people think you know, I'm going to beat this in six weeks and we're going to have it behind us. That's not the way the brain works.

Speaker 2:

The brain says alarm, alarm, alarm.

Speaker 1:

Am I safe? Am I safe? The brain says alarm, alarm, alarm. Am I safe? Am I safe? Can I trust? Can I trust? That's a good thing. I never tell a wife, just trust him. It's time to trust him. That is not the way to get. There is to look at behaviors over time and then think of trust, like the water that pours into those bowls, it's the water of actions. It's this thing that you're living in, you're seeing, you're swimming in this reality and the bowls are there. The reconciliation, using this metaphor, the restoration, the forgiveness, catches that water and it fills up and that's trust and that fills up over time. Here's the illustration where, if a wife has so much pain, so much fear, maybe it triggers something from her own past that the bowls, like the husband, made, maybe he is, you know, growing in sobriety, not acting out, trying to become more emotionally available. If she finds herself not able to hold the water that's being poured, like there's leakiness in the bowls, there could be something in her story or her history that needs help.

Speaker 1:

And so that's where, yes, I have seen instances where there is progress, but it triggered so much pain, maybe from the past early marriage, something she stuck in, maybe something her previous spouse did. If it's a second marriage, or maybe something happened in her childhood that this brings up, that she's not able to hold that trust. That's not to blame her. We never want to shame her. She got wounded, so please don't hear this as well, the wife needs to get it together.

Speaker 1:

Here's what I am saying. God uses everything and he knew, even though he didn't will this. It wasn't his design. He knew your D-Day was coming. He knew this would happen. It wasn't out of his sovereign sight, and he will even use the pain of this to create an opportunity for deeper healing for both parties. There's something better he wants to do. That's what he does. He never wastes pain. He's always saying we're on a journey together. I will never leave you, I will never forsake you and I'll walk with you. So how can this crash be turned on its head and be made something that we can discover? How God wants to make you more whole because of what got scraped off, the scab that got scraped off in your life, from this event, and God will even use your spouse's mistakes to build better things in both of us.

Speaker 2:

We are out of time and I have so much more I want to talk to you about, so I will make arrangements for us to have another conversation, but I so appreciate you sharing your heart for couples that are struggling through this and just ways for recovery. And once again, this book is called Aftershock. It's overcoming his secret life with pornography and it's a plan for recovery, and it is really, really a great resource for wives who are dealing with something like this in their husband's life and in their marriage and just really need some hope and some light at the end of the tunnel. This is a great resource for that. That's it for this episode of Upstream. Thank you for joining us as we navigate life's challenges together. Remember, no matter how rough the waters get, you don't have to face them alone. If you enjoyed today's episode of Upstream, take a second to leave us a review. It helps more than you know, and if someone in your life could use a little encouragement, go ahead and share this with them. We'll catch you next time.