The #1 Reason for Separation or Divorce (HINT: It’s EXTREMELY Common)

Bearing my soul, I share a story of struggle that nearly cost me my marriage: the fight against deceit from pornography to infidelity. Terry and I peel back layers of our own marital strife to expose the raw and often overlooked signals that point to dishonesty within the sacred bond of marriage. Our conversation navigates the complex interplay between the gut's 'enteric system' and the heart's yearning for truth, inviting listeners to consider the profound impact that honesty has on a relationship's foundation.

This heartfelt exchange also forges into the territory of personal growth and the courage it takes to confront our darkest moments for the sake of healing. We examine how individual weaknesses can strain the ties that bind, and the importance of acknowledging these truths to deepen intimacy and trust. By sharing our journey of recovery and the brain's remarkable ability to heal, we hope to inspire those on a similar path towards personal transformation and a more resilient union with their partner. Join us as we unravel the delicate threads of trust, truth, and the enduring power of love that can triumph over life's greatest challenges.

If you feel like you might need coaching our counseling, please visit https://www.livelifeunplugged.org/contact

Chapters

• 0:00 Importance of Truth in Marriage
• 6:40 Navigating Truth and Healing in Relationships
• 18:15 Navigating Marriage Challenges and Healing

Transcript

Producer: 0:00

In every relationship or marriage, the single most important factor that determines success or failure, happiness or divorce is one thing Honesty, but what would you do if you found out everything you believed about your husband or your wife is a lie? If that's been your experience, then you already know that feels like the end. What is it? These are the crafts, james and Teri. They don't know how the internet works, anything about YouTube, tiktok or social media, and that's okay, because they know a bit about something else Marriage. In fact, they've helped some of the most influential couples in the world, and they've also helped couples going through the hardest situations imaginable. The reason why James and Teri are able to help couples go through really hard things it's because they've been through it themselves and they came through the other side Presenting the greatest marriage podcast ever Marriage Health with James and Teri Craft.

James Craft: 1:17

The number one thing that will kill a marriage is the lack of truth. With truth you can build a healthy marriage. The truth is scary. Most people say, james I don't know if I can say this, because what will my spouse say? They're afraid of abandonment, they're afraid of being alone and they're afraid of failure. It will look like this A husband is struggling the beginning stages of a pornography addiction, but in his mind it's not bad, I'm not doing anything with this, it's not impacting anybody, it's this kind of innocent play.

James Craft: 1:51

But all of a sudden his wife starts to realize hmm, you're acting different. Are you looking at anything? Is there something going on? And the husband goes no, I'm doing fine. And she doesn't feel safe, not even unsafe where she was like hit or beaten it's not that but unsafe where she can't trust her husband. Husband would feel like, if I tell you the truth, you're going to be upset with me. And then the marriage just continues to pull away. How did we get like this? Because truth was broken. I'm just telling you right now. Wives pick up on things. They have this sixth sense that picks up on things. It's like crazy. Right now. Wives pick up on things. They have this sixth sense that picks up on things.

Producer: 2:26

It's like crazy that sixth sense is actually completely real. It's called the enteric system. It's the neurons that line the wall of the length of your gut or your intestines, and it might feel things your brain can't. This is how you identify red flags in a relationship.

Teri Craft: 2:45

You're in, maybe, a conversation and all of a sudden your body feels really off. That might, for you, be. Your chest starts to get tight, you feel like you can't breathe, your stomach, your jaw, clenches up. You feel like you got to run. Most people will say I just didn't feel right. So you've got to slow down enough and listen to your body. You know, when we ignore our body, our enteric system, eventually, honestly, we just we're numb and then we have no way of reading ourselves and listening and being honest about what's going on inside, and so we sort of let everybody else tell us what's okay and what's not okay.

Producer: 3:27

But here is what you need to know. If you feel like you have to constantly be looking out for red or green flags in your relationship, you're probably sensing a lack of truth or dishonesty. I'm sorry, I'm processing because there's a lot of heaviness here for me.

Teri Craft: 3:51

Hang in there. Do you need a?

James Craft: 3:53

hug, no, no, and this is marriage health, and this is marriage health. Okay, hi guys, my name is James. Oh, my gosh, what Hi? This is James. Hi guys, this is James.

Teri Craft: 4:01

Hi, I'm Teri and welcome to Marriage Health.

James Craft: 4:05

You and I went through a traumatic experience where I wasn't truthful with you and so there was a period for most of our marriage. You know I was struggling with pornography and so I never let you know and you never knew. I was really good at hiding it.

Teri Craft: 4:21

I knew something was wrong, but you knew something, that's the key.

James Craft: 4:23

That's what I want to get to. But I knew something was wrong. But you knew something. That's the key, that's what I want to get to. But you knew something was wrong. But I wasn't being honest and truthful with what I was struggling with. There was some deep, deep wounds and trauma that I never. I didn't know how to deal with at that time so, but then I was unfaithful in the marriage and then that was a lie as well. So there was, there was no. I didn't tell you the truth, and I know that. I used a statement that you said years ago. I used it against you in our marriage. You said this if I ever found out you ever were viewing pornography, it would be a deal breaker. You didn't know. It's a weapon of like. I'm not going to tell you the truth because you know what? If I tell you this, you're going to do this to me.

Teri Craft: 5:04

And I always said that if I ever heard something like that, I wouldn't survive. I wouldn't, I wouldn't stick around. And for our situation, you were very, very committed to a process. You were very committed to counseling, therapy groups. If you weren't, then of course it would have been a different story, but I had more resilience than I was even giving myself credit for. We need to build resiliency in our own lives and in our marriages to be able to withstand what healthy truth looks like. If we're to look at truth in marriages and we look at the statistics that do exist of how much both male and female partaking of pornography, sexual addiction, sexual dysfunction, deceptive sexuality, trauma I mean the whole thing like when we kind of take a look at that then the amount of marriages that are really living in sort of the deprivation that we did is astronomical.

James Craft: 6:07

It really took for me to run off a cliff, and if you know our story, the cliff was pretty extreme. You know, I was exposed and all of a sudden I had to tell the truth, and I wish I would have been the person to tell the truth, rather than being exposed and then having to tell the truth. But I had a choice, though. I had a choice still to tell the truth rather than being exposed and then having to tell the truth Now. But I had a choice, though. I had a choice still to tell the truth and all the truth. You know, I could have watered it down, I could have said well, here's just kind of generalized ideas, but you required out of me is I want to know all the truth, and I did. I wrote it all out to you.

James Craft: 6:40

Now, at that point was I felt incredible? It like, oh my gosh, the first time in my life. I mean, I mean that first time in my life that I felt like there was no blemish on my life, there was complete transparency, and I don't know if I ever experienced that in my life.

Teri Craft: 6:58

If you sort of trace, you know where it is, that you've kind of got the idea that if I use my voice, that I'm not going to be loved, I'll be rejected or I'll be hurt. When I'm able to kind of figure that out, then all of a sudden I'm able to start to work through how do I, how do I make a different commitment to myself to make some different choices? And oftentimes I have to kind of work through first of all healing. Why did it look like that in the first place? But then it's like, how do I take some risks?

Teri Craft: 7:29

How do I start in a very careful environment be able to say, hey, this is okay and hey, this isn't okay. Or start to listen to my body, like when somebody says or does something that doesn't feel good or does kind of cross a line listening. For so many years I haven't even listened to my body, I've just kind of shut that part of me off. And then all of a sudden I can listen to my body. I can listen to the fact that every time someone says that or does that, my chest tightens up or my stomach completely just goes in knots and it's like, yeah, that's a signal that you're not okay with this and to start to trust yourself.

Producer: 8:10

The foundation of truth. Honesty. It's not just about whether or not you tell your partner everything or they tell you the truth. It's also about facing the truths of what's going on inside you, about your trauma, your family of origin and what you're feeling.

Teri Craft: 8:29

You know this is sort of my professional counseling background as well, as, you know, as my coaching, but there's a lot of really solid research and evidence that says that you know you really can't have a great coupleship if, if the individual and or individuals really aren't healthy to a degree.

Teri Craft: 8:49

So basically, the bottom line is is that your marriage is really only going to be able to to thrive and go as far as the limit of whoever and or both of your weaknesses, which we all have weaknesses. Let's be honest. No one has a perfect marriage, no one has a perfect life. But what we find is is that when we can take the time to do individual work, when we can like be honest and say, hey, like I have things in my life that need an alongsider, someone to help me, someone to have, you know, just the ability to hold space and feel like I can be truthful and not have to worry to dig deep into the bone and marrow of my past and really look for strategies on how to walk to the future, when we're able to do that individually, then we can really come together and make a better whole.

James Craft: 9:42

And so it's important for us to realize when we don't have truth, we have no connection. Whether it's truth, even though it hurts sometimes, we can build into connection with one another.

Producer: 9:54

So if you desire for your relationship to heal, it's going to require truth. But what does that even look like With a husband?

James Craft: 10:02

in that same scenario. Let's just say he is looking at things, looking at pornography online, and he is not being honest about this. And all of a sudden he comes to the end of the road and he realizes I can't keep living like this. I got to do something different because this is killing me. But he's realizing if I say something, it might be hell to pay. If I got to do something different because this is killing me. But he's realizing if I say something, it might be hell to pay. If I don't say something, it's hell to pay. It's damned if you do, damned if you don't.

James Craft: 10:30

And so that is called a double bind in a man's or woman's life. And so for someone like that to move forward into that truth yeah, there is gonna be a risk to that because there might be a rupture or a blowout that takes place. But we can never move towards healing unless we pull the Band-Aid off and allow there to be a rupture, then repair. So we always wanted to see the repair work be done by somebody else. But the rupture has to take place and that truth sometimes is there. It is, there's the rupture, now what are we gonna do with it? And then we got to deal with that and we're bringing healing to that repair work and between the two and husband and wife in an environment where we do a lot of excavation, you have a very specific technique.

Teri Craft: 11:20

When we have a client who comes and maybe they've done some trauma work or maybe we've actually, through some exploration or conversations, unearthed some things that has been hidden, or, you know, underneath the surface for a while we look at that and go, hey, there's hope there. I mean you're sitting here, you're reaching out for help. I mean you're sitting here, you're reaching out for help. You're showing us, as you're a longsider, that you want help, that you want change, and that in and of itself is a beginning and there is hope there. Our brains are beautifully elastic. Our brains can heal Our perceptions, our memories. You know they can, we can, we can allow there to be a mismatching experience and have new information. Love, it covers, it heals, and it and it and it gives us inspiration for tomorrow. So when someone finds themselves in a sort of a process of transformation or healing, there's always hope. When you just keep coming, you just keep working, you just keep allowing yourself to take a look at what's right underneath that water level, look at what's right underneath that water level.

Producer: 12:42

Right underneath that water level, there is a lot of truth hiding within you or within your partner, but neither of you know it's there. Think of it like an iceberg what we can actually see through our actions, behavior, all of your craziness that comes out when you're in traffic, is probably only 10% of the whole truth. What's below the surface? Your trauma, your pain, things you've picked up without even realizing it?

Teri Craft: 13:20

Well, it's funny because people come and say I have no boundaries, I can't, I'm, I'm falling apart, I have no boundaries. And I usually look them straight in the eye and say absolutely not. You have great boundaries in a lot of areas of your life, but you have maybe not so great boundaries in some areas, and those areas are usually the areas that you've been wounded, that you have some brokenness from your past, some relational traumas. You have boundaries. You go out on the freeway and you're driving, you're staying in your lane, you pay your bills, you're an upstanding citizen. Somebody messes with your kid. It's like heck, no, you're not going to mess with my kid.

Teri Craft: 14:03

But then, all of a sudden, it could be a situation where I'm in a relationship and someone says or does something to me and I fall apart. I feel like I can't. My words are gone. I feel it in my body that I should say no or that this isn't okay. But I can't, I can't make that happen. And that's where we realize, wow, this has been there.

Teri Craft: 14:33

So it's not like all of a sudden I wake up one day and go yeah, I don't have very good relational boundaries. No, that's probably been there since you know that. You know this. This person was young, maybe when they were in elementary school, and something devastating happened to them.

Teri Craft: 14:50

And all of a sudden it's like if I have a boundary, I won't be loved. Or if I say no, then I will be rejected. Or if I'm if I'm not good enough will be rejected. Or if I'm if I'm not good enough, um, and if I, if I stand up for myself and I use my voice, then I'm going to be hurt or maybe even abused. So a lot of times it's like I don't even know how to use those skills because, honestly, I've been living in sort of a way to be safe, protect myself. So it's incredible when a woman is able to go okay, like I have some boundaries. First of all, thank you. And second of all, okay, I now have a pathway to realize. Okay, there might be some relational traumas in my life and I need to start exploring and looking at how they've impacted the way that I say yes or no in relationships.

James Craft: 15:47

As you're hearing this and you're realizing, okay, I'm gonna have to face this truth, and when I hear it it's not gonna feel good, but if I surround myself with good, healthy people, I can do this. And I just want to say this very clearly there is hope and you are not alone, and so many times you have found yourself alone in this darkness. This is where God wants you to know you are not alone. He'll never leave you, nor forsake you. So, in the midst of your despair and your hopelessness, he wants to bring life, hope and peace to your life, no matter what truth you receive from those you love.

Producer: 16:31

When you meet a couple, are you able to look at them even within the first hour, pick up on their patterns, engage their health as a marriage.

James Craft: 16:41

Yeah, that's probably why we don't have a lot of people knocking on our door to be our best friend, Because they're like, well, I think you can read pretty much anybody like a book a lot of times as they come to you. I want to talk about the two different scenarios. One is, uh, sharing truth with your spouse. And then the second part is receiving truth, uh from your spouse. And so it's important for to realize the two different uh scenarios. One is there might be a spouse that you have something that you've been hiding and you've been kind of living a double life, or this was secret sin and you need to share this. You've been living this whole way. You're like I can't live this way any longer. I want my wife or my husband to know what's going on. And so you go and decide to share this and you vomit all over them and you tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and you realize, wow, that felt so wonderful, it's all out, now I'm free. But then you look across the room and you look at your spouse and they have vomit all over them. I know that's a horrible analogy, gross, but here's the bottom line. That's what happens when there is a there's no structure or a system support and you just go and vomit on your spouse. You cause more damage. There's no support system, there's no avenue of restoration, but you got it all out and good for you. But what about them? And this is important for you to realize as you navigate this is to tell the truth. You got to have a support system in doing so, because in doing that, there is a journey following that to go through healing and restoration. And if you don't have that, then what happens? It just breaks the marriage.

James Craft: 18:15

Typically, this is what breaks the marriage. Apart is that you vomit, you get the truth out. There's betrayal, there's addiction, whatever it is, and there's no support. And then, all of a sudden, you too find yourselves in this lonely place and not knowing what to do. That's called hopelessness. So my encouragement is this you get your support, you start working through this truth, you start developing yourself in a healthy way of becoming the true person you're called to be, who you are in Christ, who you are as a healthy man, inward and outward, and then, as you do, your wife or your husband will start to see the difference in you and say, hey, man, inward and outward, and then, as you do, your wife or your husband will start to see the difference in you and say, hey, I trust that guy or I trust that woman, that's the person I love deeply. And then you start to go into a place of navigating in truth, of realizing all right, we have a stability here and we have a support system of other people that can help navigate this truth with us. That's when you can experience some deeper healing, when you're not alone.

James Craft: 19:16

Now you're on the other side, receiving that and you know there's something off and you realize, hmm, I know there's something breaking down our relationship and our marriage. What do we do here? It's the same thing.

James Craft: 19:28

If you don't go and start pursuing health for yourself, then you're never going to be able to have the health with your spouse, because when they come and receive, you receive truth, no matter what it is it might be catastrophic or it might be minor and all of a sudden you're not in a place of stability and strength because you continue to, you're growing and developing who you are. Then you're not going to be able to receive, no matter what they give you. So you need to develop yourself and your health and your development as a person, and grow in that health. Then you're able to receive what they have, that they give you. But you can't do it alone. The bottom line is I'm a broken record in this. You cannot do this journey on your own. You've got to have other people alongside of you to navigate this territory, this uncharted territory of your life, and discover what truth is.

Teri Craft: 20:22

We first have to get connected with our story. Hey, I have a story and you have a story and we have lots of pain and memories that are connected to why we don't hold boundaries again because we want to be safe or we want to want to be loved, we want to be accepted. So connecting with our story and finding peace with that, with another person, a safe person, is the first step. I have to be able to start walking with somebody, with community, with safe people, and have them hold my story with me enough to be able to go like that was so hard and that was so painful and that's why I don't hold boundaries. But I want to do something different. I really want to do something different and I need someone to walk alongside of me as I start to take some risks. That's the first step.

Producer: 21:28

Marriage Health with James and Teri Craft. If you feel like you need someone to come alongside you, a coach or a counselor, reach out to us. The link is in the description.