Marriage Health with James & Teri Craft
With backgrounds in therapy and coaching, James and Teri Craft help your marriage through issues with communication, intimacy, conflict, or if you're just fighting to fall back in love with your partner. Aside from their certifications, the reason why James and Teri are so passionate about helping your marriage through challenges is because they've walked through the hardest things in their marriage and they wouldn't have made it if it weren't for help.
If you are fighting for your marriage, don’t face this fight alone.
Marriage Health with James & Teri Craft
Marriage Therapist: Couples That Faced HUGE Problems Are HAPPIER
Join the conversation as we explore the resilience of marriage amid adversity and the profound intimacy that can be forged in its wake. Discover the secrets of couples who've not only weathered the storm of crises such as infidelity but have emerged with a connection deeper and more robust than ever before. This heartfelt discussion peels back the layers on what it truly means to be "all in" for the long haul, the art of relinquishing control, and the transformative growth that follows a commitment to repair and rebuild together. We weave through inspiring success stories, sharing our personal insights on the journey from hardship to healing, and how these experiences illuminate the path to a remarkable union.
Step into a space of understanding as we navigate the complexities of crisis within relationships, emphasizing the crucial phase of stabilization and the dangers of making hasty decisions. Learn how curiosity and commitment can reshape a bond in the aftermath of betrayal, without ignoring the essential individual healing each partner must undertake. We delve into the dual perspectives in the aftermath of an affair and how couples can work towards a 'new DNA line' within their relationship, acknowledging that while things will never be the same, they can indeed be better. If you're seeking a beacon of hope for your marriage, this episode promises guidance, support, and the revelation that with intentionality and a sprinkle of everyday miracles, a flourishing future is more than just possible—it's within reach.
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Are couples who survive really big challenges truly happier? The reason why we created this podcast was to help couples build healthy relationships, happy marriages and overcome really hard things. We asked a dear friend of ours, dr Jenna Mountain, to come talk with us about intimacy, and this statement came up that left us stunned about intimacy, and this statement came up that left us stunned. Are you saying that couples that experience big problems and then work through those problems are happier, from your point of view, than couples who never experienced problems?
Jenna Mountain:Yeah, those couples who really go all chips in to fix it. Their marriages are more glorious and beautiful and intimate and astonishing than any average couple with a really great marriage. Because they get forced into work by the pain and the not giving up. It's because we don't choose hard work unless we're forced to. That's right. I don't know a young married couple who opts into doing the level of work that my sexual pain and affair cases do.
Producer:We shared this moment on social media and what happened next shocked us. Our humble social media account, with 100 followers, reached millions of people, millions of people. A massive amount of stories came in of couples having faced the pain of cancer, navigating, having children with disabilities, loss, but, most of all, couples sharing stories of walking through affairs. It's one of the most painful things a couple can experience. It also happens to be the story of James and Teri and why marriage health exists. Walking through challenges like this might seem impossible unless you have someone to walk with you.
Producer: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 is because they've been through it themselves and they came through the other side. The greatest marriage podcast ever Marriage Health with James and Teri Craft. So can a marriage heal after cheating?
James Craft:Those who make it are all in, as if they're willing to cash in all their chips and they're saying this is my last resort to deal with this once and for all. I'll do whatever it takes, all in. And they could have been controlling in the past a manipulator, a liar, cheater but now they're done and they're all in and they're not dictating what the next steps are. They're submitted to a process and they're saying hey, I'm out of control, so I'm giving all the control away. They give it up. They're the ones who make it. They've given up the way they've always done it because it hasn't worked, and they allow themselves to go on a journey of healing, do whatever it takes.
James Craft:The other ones who don't make it are the ones who continue to try to be in control. I'll sit down with a husband and I'll say I need you to put covenant eyes or something like that on your phone. And you're like well, you know, that kind of slows my computer down, so would you rather have a slower computer and have a healthy marriage? I mean, what kind of sacrifice. I mean that's minute, it's nothing. Well, you know, I don't want to have to meet every week, okay. Well then, what do you want. You want it your way. Well, look where that's got you. Do you want to stay there? Those are the ones who don't make it, because they always want to be in control. And you got to give up control. You got to give up control.
Producer:Well, I'll ask you can a marriage heal after cheating?
Teri Craft:Can't a marriage heal after cheating.
James Craft:Can't a marriage heal after cheating? What did he say? There is hope. You can do it. I say it this way the pain on the outside has to increase more than the pain on the inside for change to take place.
Producer:He said yes.
Teri Craft:Well, obviously, yes, I believe that I'll probably bring a fair bit of our story in there too. Can a marriage heal after there's been cheating, infidelity, betrayal? Of course I'm going to say yes, there's a possibility, because I've seen that miracle in my own life and marriage. So yes, yes and yes, because that's always, you know, our desire to see that. Does that happen all the time? Sometimes not.
Producer:Making it through a crisis is one thing, but going back to Dr Jenna Mountain's statement, for those who decide to go, all in, those who make it, how can a couple actually reach the point where their marriage is more beautiful after something so hard?
James Craft:But, Teri, you have a good perspective on that, because you'd said to me as we were going through that process that something like it was healing. And this is the man I always prayed for. It was the potential of, even though I still had areas of flaw. I was flawed. You're always going to have people say to you you know, are you sure you want to do?
Teri Craft:this Because of their own pain, their own fear, and so they're actually speaking to you through their own crisis or their own pain rather than speaking, what actually hope actually was driving you forward For sure, if you're with somebody who's willing to try to do something different. I always encourage people if it feels safe and if they are in a hundred percent, then it's good to to walk through what you can because you're you're going to be able to witness and be a part of a cool transformational growth between yourself and them. And what if? That's better than you ever thought Right, and I only say that because you and I, and again we were a hundred percent whole in right. But, um, I remember you looking at me and I looking at you and we're like, hi, my name is Teri and you're like, hi, my name is James, and we felt so different.
Teri Craft:We felt so, so undone, but yet rebuilt that it was almost as if there was an exhilaration of us first meeting for the first time. Now, it doesn't mean that there wasn't scars, there wasn't pain.
James Craft:Oh, there's scars and there's limbs and there's yeah, I mean just the reminders, Appreciating yeah.
Teri Craft:And I'm like gosh, I'm so glad that we stuck it out.
James Craft:Can I say thank you.
Teri Craft:You're welcome.
James Craft:Yeah, it's one of the best gifts you gave me.
Teri Craft:I think at the end of the day I gave it to myself and I, I know you did. And I partnered with God.
James Craft:Yeah, I remember when you told me you said, james, I'll give you one year, give you one year and we'll see what happens at the end of that year. And that was putting a healthy boundary up, that I'm going to give you one year to see what happens and you can steward that year well, and something really cool can come out of this, or you can squander it and you'll lose me. That's pretty much what you said to me.
Teri Craft:I got to this day I'm like where did I get that strength back then? I can definitely see me doing that now.
James Craft:That was pretty awesome, though, because I said I want to steward that year well.
Teri Craft:And I can also remember partway through looking at you going James, I don't need you anymore but I want you, you want me, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, start crying again.
Producer:This is the first time James and Teri have really shared about their journey in this kind of way, and they haven't made the journey alone, because they've walked back, found thousands of other couples and walked with them in their journeys. Too Many of those couples have gone on to have beautiful families. Some James and Teri have advised to go separate ways. It's an all-or-nothing journey that's not fit for everyone. This is what the journey looks like.
Teri Craft:We work with so many couples that are walking through crisis. I know that you and I have developed a way to approach it, in sort of what we would consider taking steps, like we get that there's so much pain and there's so much confusion right now and it's easy to make really long-term decisions right now. But how about we don't make really long-term decisions? As long as you can get to the point where you feel stabilized, you both feel safe enough to walk another step. But it's not like we go from this to complete divorce and separation or whatever it's like. If you think you can hold out for a little bit more, maybe we get to the truth. Let's get to the whole truth. Can you tolerate the whole truth for something like cheating? We call it betrayal trauma, you know I mean there's many words for it in infidelity affairs. There's a huge story that oftentimes leads up to this, and so you've got this. We call it a crash scene. It's literally like there's just mangled wreckage everywhere, and oftentimes you know there's just mangled wreckage everywhere, and oftentimes you know there's this need for us to figure out right away whose fault it was that this accident, this crash scene, occurred, what we really want our listeners to understand if you're sitting out there and you're going, what do I do next? When we're dealing with a crisis like this, we have to move first to stabilization. We want to be able to have the conversations of well, you didn't do this and that's why I did this. Really, honestly. No one makes somebody lie. No one makes someone go out and have an affair or find someone to meet needs that you feel like aren't being met. No one makes somebody do that. There's a huge amount of space that's in between marital problems and then lying and cheating. So the most important thing at the beginning is stabilization. So sometimes we don't dive into the under the water line. You'll hear me talk about that. A lot under the water line that's like the stuff that sort of creates some of the problem that maybe we've come to our childhood traumas, our adaptive strategies, the way that we see the world, um, maybe our own health and challenges. There's a lot of stuff underneath the surface that we'll get to, but we can't get to that yet. We're going to be working at the what's like the top, right above the waterline, and that's like the stuff we can see, and at that point it's like okay, first we've got to understand do you both want to repair this, do you both want to work on this, even if it's messy and hard? And so we'll kind of push into that. I know it's scary and I know it's difficult, but are you willing to be curious? Right?
Teri Craft:And if there's abuse structure, if there's things that are unsafe, of course we're going to be really, really careful with the partner who's gone through the betrayal trauma. It's like, hey, like if you don't feel safe for your physical safety, your emotional safety, your family, I mean, if there's some safety issues and we're going to say, wow, just right now, we need to create safety, and that might mean that you need to remove yourself from the situation immediately. So of course we're going to always, you know, work toward stable, to stabilizing and getting safety, but we always just want to establish, you know what's the level of, you know, sort of desire to see this, this walk out. Now, of course, there's two different spectrums here. One person's like I'm so angry, I'm so hurt, I'm so devastated, I don't know what I want. I feel like my body's gone through an F5 tornado.
Teri Craft:Then you've got another person who might be feeling all sorts of other feelings. You know, maybe it's oh gosh, I've just been found out and there could be some self-preservation, there could be some kind of maybe it's a victimization, like they made me do this. This is all these years of X, y, z, and that's why and it's their fault, you know I mean there's there's all these things that might be happening on that spectrum too, that are often a result of a lot of things that are underneath the water, but we can't deal with all those yet. We have to first say do you want to do this? If you do, then we're going to, you're going to show up here again next week and we're going to work through this and we're going to get to the truth.
James Craft:It was unfaithful. My marriage and I had an addiction to pornography and now I'm able to, after many years of just really working in my life. It's to be able to say that's what I did, it's not who I am Big difference, because so many people will say this no, that's who you are. You're a cheater and you'll always be a cheater. We have to get on a different path and start the restorative work you know and really allow ourselves to reestablish a new DNA line in our lives. That new DNA line becomes the new reality. You might be thinking but guy, all I can see him or her as is a cheater. Yeah, because that's what they did. But ultimately, if there's a path being pursued for healing, you'll start to see them differently, because you start to see that new person being lived out and that becomes that new dna line and that new dna line becomes the new reality.
James Craft:You have family members that are just pissed off and and they're throwing judgment. They're like you know what? This will never be the same again and I'll just tell you this. You're right, it will never be the same again. How do you feel about that? Because you could hear that terminology. It will never be the same again. How do you feel about that? Because you could hear that terminology.
James Craft:It will never be the same in two different ways. One, it's never going to be the same again because it's hell to pay and that's our punishment. Or you can see it this way, man it's never going to be the same again because we're on a path that's going to lead us into a place of healing and we've never experienced this before because we've always been in our hurt and our trauma and our pain. And so you're right, it's never going to be the same again. It's going to be a different experience. It's going to be something that's filled with hope, maybe, right, yes, that's the reality. So you can see things in two different ways. It's never going to be the same again. Or it's never going to be the same again, or it's never going to be the same again. The second is going to take a lot of work, it's going to take time, it's going to take a miracle on a daily basis. But, man, when you work through that and you get on the other side of that, you can look back and say look at this, man, it's never going to be the same again. This is so much better because, man, I dealt with all the pain, I dealt with all the trauma, I dealt with all the hurt of my past and, man, I'm able to give you something that I've never been able to give you before.
James Craft:You know, I've had conversations with people where they use this terminology Cheaters will cheat again. And yeah, they will, they sure will, and they'll continue to do it over and over and over again, unless they're continue to do it over and over and over again, unless they're willing to dive deep into the inner workings of their life and deal with the reason and the root of why they're cheating. See, we don't just wake up one day and say, hey, I want to be a cheater today and I want to destroy my wife's life, and you know what? I just want to lose my whole family and I'm going to lose everything I have. It's the last thing someone wakes up thinking, and it's a slow fade that people find themselves into this place, because when a couple is married or they come together for the first time, there's a deep love and compassion and connection that they have with one another.
James Craft:They have behavior systems that they have developed from their childhood and all of a sudden, that behavior system, you know, when the honeymoon phase is over, that that behavior system becomes the primary focus. They start to self-preserve, they just they start to protect themselves from being hurt. That could be in the relationship, in their marriage, or that could be in a relationship with their work and and their success in their careers and they start to deal with that pain. Then they start to slowly fade away Without dealing with that. It's like you're off 1%. Well, if I was to leave from New York and I wanted to go to London and I'm on a ship to go over there and I'm off 1%, where do I end up at? Is it down by Spain? And I'm off completely, and then find yourself in a whole nother world.
James Craft:Here's the bottom line. If you continue to be 1% off in your life, yeah, you're gonna cheat again. Because you never dealt with the course correction to stay on course to where you're supposed to be. You never dealt with the internal issues, the pain, the hurt, the rejection, the failure, those wounds, those traumas. And it's hard work, yes, it's hard work If a couple comes to us, let's say, the husband cheated.
James Craft:And you know and I just use that for an example because I'm speaking because that was my story and all of a sudden they're faced with this reality of the wife is like man. Is my husband going to do this again If there is not an intentional, deliberate and aggressive I say aggressive in a positive way plan to bring healing to one's life? I say yes, percentages are very high and statistics will support that. But if someone is willing and then has a great support team or she does and they have an intentional strategic plan and they have God doing a miracle in their life on a daily basis, man, miracles can happen and I can tell you this right now. I've seen it many, many, many times where couples can be restored and have an incredible life together. But it takes a lot of intentionality and a lot of work.
Producer: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. Link is in the description.
