When You Hurt

On today's episode Dale discusses important parts of his book, The Daily Survival Guide for Divorced Men. Specifically Dale discusses what happens when you hurt during the divorce process. He looks at what happens to you mentally and physically when we are hurting, what we can expect during this phase of recovery, and what we can do about it to not sink too far. 

Resources: www.MensDivorceRecovery.org 

Transcript

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Hey guys, this is Dale coming in today with a solo podcast for you guys, and I'm thrilled to do this. Chris and I kind of share this task, and sometimes we're able to get great guests on here, and and then sometimes we uh just do this ourselves, and sometimes we get together and do it. So this one's gonna be just me this uh this evening talking to you guys about um some issues related to actually when you're going through your hardest part of divorce. So I want to point you to the book I wrote um called Daily Survival Guide for Divorced Men. The subtitle is Surviving and Thriving Beyond Your Divorce, Days 1 through 91. So this book I wrote, I really feel like God just gave it to me in my own kind of serious pain. Um and um it's days one through 91, which means it's a devotional. So each day you get a little uh snippet of wisdom, uh maybe two to three pages of things that came to mind when I was going through my divorce. Um the format is you know, I have a scripture there. Each day starts with a scripture, then there's a thought for the day that comes from some great, um, you know, great person, um, and then just some reflections about that topic for the day. So if you don't have the book, I would encourage you to get it. It's available in paperback, it's available um on Amazon and on Apple, uh, and then through uh Barnes and Noble's it's it has a lot wide availability on on Amazon. You can get it as an audiobook as well. And I've heard that it is uh is helpful in that format. I I have to say I love audiobooks. Reading sometimes it's got to be a challenge, but audiobooks are good. I have about 30 minutes each way back and forth to my work on the in the road, and so I really enjoy the uh the audiobooks that I able to download and and listen to. But this this on this podcast, I just want to share with you a section of this book that I wrote, and it is specifically days 32 through 37. And this little section came to me when I when I thought about the impact of uh on our lives of when we're going through that divorce. You know, what do you what are you actually going through in your mind and your heart and your soul and your spirit as you uh go through this agony of divorce? And and man, it is it can be so agonizing. Some people it's not, but I think for most people, divorce is uh really a challenging time. And I think the reason it's so difficult, even if you want that divorce, it's just that the way God set us up is in the social universe. Uh, the fabric of that social universe for us as human beings and the heartbeat of that universe is a marriage, one man, one woman committed to each other in a life of fidelity for a lifetime. And then out of that strong union, husband and wife, then they bear children, and those children enjoy the security of this one-man, one-woman uh relationship. And that is just the way it is. I don't know of any other way, other other way to say it. You know, sometimes we rebel against these uh laws that God give us, uh gives us, but none of us argues with physical laws. We know gravity is real, we don't fight about it, we don't disagree with it, we don't feel like it's set against us. We just accept this law of gravity as it is, uh as we do all the scientific laws. Amazing we can discover those laws, but we don't dispute whether those laws are true. We don't let our feelings dictate whether we obey these laws, we just understand them to be reality. Um, and I uh compare that to my truck that I drive. You know, I may want to be able to put water in the gas tank, and I may be really angry if this truck that I drive is is not able to take water in the gas tank. It can't run on water, and I may be really upset and think that the system's against me or whatever. But the reality is, and I know it, and everybody knows it. My truck takes gas. And whether I like it or not, that's why that's what it takes, and I'm gonna put it in there because I don't want my truck to fail. I don't want to pay for a brand new engine for my truck or whatever it happened if I put water in there. For some reason, we we forget and and that God is a God of laws, physical and moral. We step outside those laws. There are um certainly uh payments that we have to make to um to uh I shouldn't say payments, that's not the right word. They're just consequences to those uh uh laws when we when we step outside what God has designed for us to function best in our world. And when we do step out those uh of those laws and we live life mostly for ourselves, we make bad decisions, we just flat out rebel and sin, um, then a great pain visits us. And I love what Richard Roar said that um pain that's not transformed is transmitted. Um, and so when you're going through your divorce, you're gonna be feeling some pain and hurt. And man, that pain can just be intense. You know, for me, I think I've said it before, I, you know, by the time we divorced, uh, I was not terribly in love with my now ex-wife. I didn't really enjoy being around her. I felt like there's a lot of criticism, negativity that I was just sort of constant. Um, but even with that, the pain was extremely sharp. And I think again, that goes back to the fact that when we step outside of God's uh rules for living, guidelines, then there's like a space-time rip in the social fabric of the universe and it causes a lot of hurt. When we hurt, we may be tempted to uh do some stuff and things that are self-destructive, things that will hold back our recovery. Um, and depending on your situation, you know, if you're really angry, uh you may lash out. Uh, if you're just sad, uh you may get discouraged and despairing and feel suicidal. And I think when it comes to divorce, one thing I'm noticed is that uh, especially the guys that we work with, is that the pain is is so intense that sometimes guys are feeling emotions at an intensity that they've never experienced before. So if you have been angry, then when you go through this divorce, you know, especially if you're not the cause and and there's a lot of injustice involved, well, then your anger will be really ramped up. In fact, there's a study that shows that about uh 25% of divorced men still feel the same intensity of anger 10 years later after the divorce is final. So the anger can really be there. All that said, whatever emotion is there, it can really uh be exacerbated and pushed to an intensity that you perhaps have never felt before. And that will be a different experience and can lead to some real kind of fright about whatever what am I capable of doing here? Why am I uh what actions could I take based on my the way I'm thinking right now that could really be dangerous? Um, and I think uh another emotion that just is there is just despair. We just give up through this pain, and that can lead us right into Satan's trap of giving up on God, giving up on ourselves, giving into those short-term uh like treatments that we apply to ourselves, self-medicated things of drugs, alcohol, pornography, sex, uh, you know, another relationship, um, a lot of things that can just be super damaging to us and hurt not just us, but so many around us. So I'm just gonna go through each one of these um these days, days it's days 32 through 37 in my book. And it's all of them start off when you hurt. So when you hurt, some things start to happen. And day 32 is this when you hurt, your world shrinks. When you hurt, your world shrinks. And what I mean by that is is that pain shrinks time and space. It takes our our our time that we that we thought we had, it pulls the sometimes the past into this moment in a way we didn't really ask for. It shortens our future. So when it comes to time, within pain can shrink uh our our past and our future. And for me, I know when I went through this divorce, then I'd been through a lot up to this point, and I had dreams, I had a new job, I was looking forward to you know pushing into a new uh area as a pastor in Texas, and I was all ramped up about that and thought, okay, God, you're you're doing this, I'm all in, and I could see a future, and I could I could plan out, you know, where I thought I would be in two years and five years and perhaps ten years. But when this divorce happened, well then all that future was just went away. I mean, the pain was so intense I couldn't even hardly think about the next day, much less, oh wow, where am I going to go on vacation this week? Or I mean, sorry, this year. Um, and so time really does shrink up uh when we go through uh when we go through uh this kind of pain. The other thing that really shrinks up is space. I mean, literally, your space will shrink. I mean, if you're living in a three-bedroom, two-bath, nice house like I was in New Hampshire, beautiful house in the woods of New Hampshire. Then all of a sudden uh we're reduced to a smaller house as we move from New Hampshire back to Austin. And then with the divorce, I'm reduced down to a one-bedroom apartment. And as you've heard me say before, it's just stunning to think I went through this beautiful home in the woods of New Hampshire, pastoring a large church to a one-bedroom apartment in about a 15 to 18 month period. And I was stunned and couldn't just could not wrap my mind around what had happened in that short period of time. This really hit me when I was a pastor in New England, and I was asked by a family to go visit their 32-year-old son who was dying from a rare form of cancer. And bless their hearts, this family had another son who had died from the very same uh cancer a couple of years before that, about around the same age. These guys were in their early 30s. So I went to the hospital and tried to introduce myself. Um I could tell he wasn't listening, he was very disengaged. And then as I stood, uh I sat by his bed, he just stood up. I mean, he's pretty wobbly because he was really sick. He just pulled up his hospital gown and peed into a plastic urinal as if I wasn't even there. And what I realized is that for this young man who should have been in the prime of his life, time and space had shrunk literally to this bed. I mean, this was his whole world, was this bed, and all he knew how to do was just I gotta pee. I'm just gonna get out of bed, pee, get back in bed. And he literally died within two days. So his time and space really shrunk down to that bed. And eventually for all of us, that is what will happen. Um, you know, in Job chapter 2, verse 8, uh, the Old Testament figure of Job, it says that when life had really hammered Job, and he's famous for all the terrible things that happened to him. It says in chapter 2, verse 8, that then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. So for Job, he had it all, and then all that was taken away, and he found himself just at a place where where he was sitting, that little broken piece of pottery was all he had to bring some comfort in him in his misery. So if that's the way you feel, and if you feel like your time and space has shrunk, where you had big dreams in the future, now those dreams are in jeopardy or are gone. Um, your space has shrunk all of a sudden you go from the house you're living in to a very small space or or some other sort of uh spatial restriction, then here's some things to keep in mind. Know that it is normal to feel like this. It's like time and space have shrunk to this moment in this tiny space, and that's just normal for this time as you go through your recovery. Um, you know that it would, you're not always going to feel like this. And what God will do is as you heal, he will re-expand your time and in larger space. And so for me, what that looked like, I mean, and all this is for me, is we're in right now, we're in June of 2025. And so 10 years ago, June of 2015, is when I was in the middle of all this mess. We're kind of on the 10th anniversary of when um I found out I was getting uh participating in an unchosen divorce. So all of it's kind of coming back right now. But I can look back on 10 years and see how in the healing process that God did enlarge my time. I have a great future now. I can actually look into the future and and potentially retirement. That part is not as scary as it was when you lose a bunch of your money. Um, now that's much better. And I physically live in just a wonderful space uh with a beautiful uh wife now. We're remarried, Kelly. You've heard us talk about her, and Chris and I did our little podcast with both of them on board to help us understand what it life is like from the woman's perspective. But we have a great relationship, and so my whole life really expanded in so many ways, and uh I can look back on that now and know that God did that. If you're right in the middle where everything is shrunken up, time and space, then though it will re-enlarge your space, your time, all that's gonna get bigger, and you're gonna you're gonna heal from that. So when you hurt, time uh pain causes everything to shrink up. On day 33, moving on, it says, when you hurt, you become super sensitive. You become super sensitive. Um, you know, I like what Eugene Peterson said. He said, We rarely start with God, we start with the immediate data of our lives: a messy house, a bulky car, a cranky spouse, a recalcitrant child. And so why are you saying there's a life usually is led by experience, not by um uh often our our spiritual lives, our Bible verses we've remembered, unless you're just really good. And I've been doing this Christian thing for over 40 years, and man, I have a long ways to go. When we hurt, it would be awesome to be able to say, Well, I believe God is gonna get us through this, get me through this. I trust in him completely. I am not gonna be anxious, I'm gonna sleep well, I'm not gonna be angry, I'm not gonna lash out at anybody. Um, you know, if you had 100% faith, that's that's the attitude you would have. But I don't know about you, but I live in this world and and my faith has a long way to go. So when we hurt, we really become sensitive to almost everything. Now I remember before I was divorced and pastoring a decently sized church, then I remember how my staff and I had worked with this couple and both were super high achievers, they're amazing people, but they just were going through divorce, and they really kind of came to Christ late in life, and it their faith just wasn't there enough to pull them through this uh marriage that had been bad for a long time. But I remember we worked with them, we met with them, we counseled them, we took food to them, we cared for their children, blah, blah, blah. We did everything uh to help them. But after it's kind of said and done, we got this. My one of my staff members and me got this scathing email um from one of the partners that's now recently divorced. It was like seven pages single space. And I was like, I remember she walked into my office and and said, This is the longest email I've ever received. And uh I said, I just got it too. And I, you know, I for me, I was angry at first because we'd put so much into this couple. But what I then realized was that she had just gone through so much pain through this divorce that she was just sensitive. Every little thing that normally she could have pushed away, little irritations, annoyances, all of a sudden those things became exacerbated in her life. And when you're just hurt, everything, every little poke can really intensify, intensify the pain. Um, and so don't be surprised if you're that way. You know, if you just uh recently I sliced my thumb, boy, I I'm not good with knives, and I've really done well without slicing myself up using a knife. But I was using a box cutter, I got in a hurry and and took a big old slice right right through my thumb. It was deep. I knew it was going to be a long healing process. And you know, for a long for about a week, man, that thumb it hurt. It just was not pleasant, and I knew it. Um, so when we're hurt, we shouldn't be surprised if the hurt part hurts and is sensitive to all sorts of pain that normally we wouldn't uh even think about. Um when your soul is in hurting, then then you really just got to be aware that you are gonna be super sensitive. Um, you're gonna be sensitive to people, you're gonna feel like they don't care. Um, for me, I was shocked that so few people reached out to me. I mean, there's a whole reason for that that we can go into in another podcast. But uh, but at that time, I was just like, wow, I was there for you, and were you here for me? And then when a few people did reach out to me, I nearly bit their heads off because I was just like a dog cornered. I really wanted to lash out, and that's kind of the next day we're coming to. But don't be surprised if if you have a super uh sensitivity in your spirit, it's just the way it is, and again, that's gonna go away. Your your uh thin skin is gonna get tougher as as you heal up, which leads us to day 34, which is when you hurt, you may lash out. Even at people, even at people who are trying to reach out to you. Um I compare this moment to a dog, right? So all of us have had a pet probably a dog, and when they are hurting and they feel cornered, even to their master, they may fight, they may reach out to to lash out, even even if you're trying to hurt them. So, you know, it's certainly true that hurt people hurt people. When I was hurting, then um, you know, I was I was super sensitive and I lashed out. I had a a Facebook messenger conversation I talk about in the book with a longtime friend, and um I started it by explaining what had happened in my life, you know, the past couple of years, and then my friend through text acknowledged the difficulty, and then he said this, and this is right after all this went down. I was really hurting, really sensitive. He said, I will remind you that our God is big, really big. He came to reconcile and leaves us with a ministry of reconciliation. He is most glorified when we are most like him. Well, my friends, that did not go over well with me. So I wrote back to him these very words. If I did not know God was big, I would have put a 40 caliber bullet through my head a few months ago. Having to go through this with you just brings it all back. So maybe I should just give the light answer when someone I know hasn't heard. Not surprisingly, he didn't reach out to me again. Perhaps this wasn't the best person to reach out to. He was not known for his empathy, um, that kind of thing. But uh but when he did reach out, then I really just chomped his head off. And and uh I don't we haven't really caught talked since then. And when the reason I the reason I was uh upset was because in my sensitivity, I felt like his answer was sort of what we call Sunday school answer, right? It's just a pat answer, just cut into the chase. Look, if you just believe this, you wouldn't be in pain. But when you're in pain, you are just in pain. Nobody can tell you, oh, just stop being in pain. And this made me angry, angrier as um as I thought about this insensitivity. Um, so you know, when we're in severe pain, we need to express it in ways that don't further alienate us from uh those around us who are trying to help. So you hear us, you hear us talk about guys the the need to build your team. Um, you know, when you are going through this, you have to get some energy up there and build your team. And we can do that, we can help you do it. If you uh get Chris or myself as a coach, divorce coach, the biggest one of the biggest things we do is we say, well, yeah, start putting your team together. Who are you gonna see for a counselor therapist? Who's your pastor? Who's your men's ministry leader? Who are two friends that are gonna walk it, walk you through it? Who's do you have a lawyer? Do you have a financial advisor? How about let's go to the medical doctor? That is your dream team right there. Um, and we can help you do that uh with the people in your life. Um, it takes some coaching because you're so sensitive, you're just like flailing around out there. And when you're really hurting, sometimes you don't make the best decisions on who is on your team. But it is critical that you do ask God to give you a couple guys, men, not women, but men who can absorb some of your pain without hurting uh further hurting you. And that just means that that you just that you find somebody who's willing to listen to you rage, tell your story again and again. I mean, we know from grief uh counseling, grief therapy, that it the way humans process loss is to tell that story over and over again. Like I can tell you, and you've heard me say it if you've been listening to this podcast much, I can tell you where I was when I, you know, how the circumstances when I found out that my now ex-wife had. Moved away out of the house while I was gone on a trip. And I know all those details, and it helps to process this in our souls by telling someone else the story. That's why people who have lost loved ones, husband or wife, they will go through the story. And that's just their way of getting it through out there one more time. The good thing is with time, you know, you don't have to tell your story so much. It's 10 years later, and I don't go around every day telling my story. But at first, the hurt is there so much that you just need to process it by telling it to someone who's willing to listen. And so if you're on the other end of this, the receiving end of someone who has been severely wounded, then the best thing you can do at first, truly, is to just absorb that pain. Just listen to them empathetically, say, man, that's got to really hurt. I haven't been through that, but you know, it sounds awful. You know, it even you know, you don't have to justify the other person's behavior. You don't have to justify the person who's your friend's talking to you behavior. You just listen, and by uh by offloading that pain to you, that's helping. And then they're gaining some strength from you too. When you listen and you're a strong, stable person, then that strength goes back to them. This is just the way God made us. Again, this is one of the laws of the social universe, the way that we heal. Uh, studies show time and time again, as effectively as many other things, including medication, and often it's just to talk it out. Talk it out. And that means having someone there willing to listen to your to your hurt. And then if you're the one who's listening, then absorb that pain. Don't give those trite answers. There's gonna be a time, you know, for for some pushback. You know, there's gonna be time for the challenge to forgiveness and the challenge to move on with life and all those kinds of things, but that has to come on down the road. Um, but uh when you're hurting, then find other ways to release your pain. You know, pain that's not transformed is transmitted. So certainly talking helps, talking with smart people, like a pastor, someone in your men's group, men's ministry leader, hopefully can do that, a therapist, most definitely. Um, it helps to get a lawyer so you can start down this process if that's where you're going. All these conversations will help you as you deal with this loss in your life. But then you also need some other outlets. And I highly recommend exercise as one of those outlets. For me, you know, my bike is my outlet. I mean, I when I was really angry, I would get out on a hot summer day and put my head down and just pump my pain from my from my soul down to my legs down into that pavement. Um, sweat it out, burn it out. Maybe if that doesn't work, do it again. You know, do a 20-mile ride, and if that doesn't work, then do a 10-mile ride again. But I cannot overemphasize the the value of just uh sweating and getting that pain physically released. I mean, literally, we are built to do that, especially men. We are built to uh release pain and stress through uh physical exertion. Um, so you know, for Chris, he loves boxing. That's his outlet. Uh, you need to find outlets for your pain that are as constructive and that are that are not self-destructive. You know, don't take shortcuts to pain relief like drugs, alcohol, sex, whatever. The two most uh greatest temptations for men is anger and then pornography. So we've got to figure out a way not to do those those things. So in the think about it section of this particular uh chapter in my book, I have some questions, and they are these what do you do when you are really hurt? Think back in a time when you were really hurt. What did you do back then? Did you cry? Did you yell and throw a timber tantrum? Did you, you know, drive your car really fast or buy some something that you didn't need? You know, how did you mitigate that pain? And then the second question is what are some physical ways you can let pain out that are legal and only moderately dangerous? Because we are made, guys, we're made to be dangerous. We are made to take risks, but this is not the time to uh take too big a risk. I mean, literally, I almost bought a crotch rocket, and if you guys don't know, that's like a cool motorcycle, and I'm like 55 years old going, I could just do that, you know, I could put that rocket between my legs and go flying down the highway at 85 miles an hour because I we'll talk about it in a minute coming up that sometimes when you're really hurting, you don't care and you take high-risk behaviors that could lead to death. I did skydive, you know, I wasn't trying to die, but I thought, hey, well, you know, I don't care about my life as much as I did, so I'm gonna jump out of an airplane. That was that was kind of cool. But anyway, a third question is who's the friend or counselor who is mature enough to sit with you in your pain? You've got to have that person. And then uh a fourth question for maybe not for you right now, if you're really in the midst of this thing, but for those of you who are stronger, then look around and ask yourself who in your life needs you to sit with them in their pain? Guys, we have got to notice other guys in pain. We really do. I think of Joseph when he was uh uh arrested and thrown in prison for his uh Potiphar's wife's accusation that Joseph was uh attempted to rape her, and in fact, he was actually running away from her, so he was doing the right thing, uh, which would be pretty hard to do if you're a guy to run away from a beautiful woman who's coming on to you. I mean, but he gets nailed with this and gets in prison. And while he's in prison in Egypt, then in the probably worst time of his life, then he still was hearing God speak to him. And there were two guys down in that prison, uh cupbearer and a baker, and he and the Bible says literally Joseph noticed their downcast faces. So he who was in himself, in a really bad place, literally noticed two men who were having troubles, and then he ministered to them. And that's what we got to do, guys. And no more is that needed than now. You gotta look around and look at people's faces and and see where they are, and just ask them, hey, what's going on in your life? You seem like you're kind of down today, or you know, your face looks like you're going through some painful stuff. So this invitation if they want to talk, excuse me, they can say no. If they do want to talk, though, then you have offered them life, perhaps something, a gift that will save their lives. Because a lot of people are taking their lives these days. That has suicide rate has really gone up, and it's because no one notices. And if you look at the research and you see the shooters in in our nation, and I'm a shooter, I enjoy guns and I'm trained with them and know how to use them. Um, but when you look at the guys who really the young men who shoot up other people, then they are lonely, they're isolated, and they're hurting. So they are not being big tough guys when they take a gun into a classroom or something. They're really little boys who are hurt and wounded and trying to figure out what to do with their pain. So it's you and I have got to look for those guys, young men, old men. It seems like right now, uh, just kind of looking back on some of those shootings, that a lot of these guys are really young, you know, 18 to 25. Um, and then you see guys in their eight and their 50s. Now, honestly, white guys in their 50s in America. I'm not sure how that is in other countries, but but something's going on there that we need to pay attention to. And I can tell you it is they're hurting, they feel isolated, they're angry. And the only way they know how to take out their pain, as we said, pain that's not transformed is transmitted. They're just transmitting their pain through an AR-15 or 9mm or something like that. And I shoot those guns, I have those guns, I'm not angry, I'm not going to get, I don't want to go kill anybody, right? Know how to use them for the right purpose. Um, but guys who are really hurting will take whatever they have at hand and and transmit that pain that way. So it really behooves us to look around and notice who's suffering. So on the way I set my book up is I have the the scripture verse, the think about it. I mean the uh a little quote from somebody, then I have the body of each day, which I've kind of gone over in this. Then I have uh think about it, which are some questions you ask yourself. And then lastly, I end up with a life commitment. And the life commitment for this day is this I commit to releasing my hurt in a in as constructive a way as possible. So I commit to releasing my hurt in as constructive a way as possible. When you hurt, you may lash out. You may lash out. Try not to get that pain distributed in the in less uh energy-dense ways, you know. Uh what is an explosion? It's a high uh compact, dense energy that's released suddenly, right? So uh we don't want to be that, we don't want to be a bomb. All right, so day 35 says this when you hurt, you may be willing to do anything to get out of the pain. You may be willing to do anything to get out of the pain. And what that means is simply that crises push us, push us to the edge, and perhaps places in pain that we have never had before, never been before. And so, you know, this is the time instead of trying to mitigate that pain through uh medic uh through drugs or alcohol or pornography, all these things that are very self-destructive, then uh it's really a time to slow down and let God do the work in your life, seek his wisdom. I'm just gonna read why I say say here at the bottom of page uh page 129 in my book. Um, let me see. In the book paper book, this is at the bottom of page 139. And it says this if there's ever a time when you need to slow down and seek God's wisdom and the wise direction of others, this is it. Don't make any huge decisions right now. Stop, pray, talk with wise friends, seek out a counselor. Don't make any major decisions where you're hurting the most. So, you know, really this comes down to the question of who's gonna be our source of strength, comfort, and healing. And if that answer to that question, those questions in your life is anything less than God, then you're just gonna end up being uh uh disappointed. If we seek to find our comfort, our identity, um, our pain relief in things that are horizontal, all those things are less than God, and they're gonna deliver less than what God can deliver. Um, and that's where addiction starts, right? You're looking to something to fill a God-shaped hole in your life. As Augustine said so you know, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, he was exactly right. Every addiction, everything that is less than God is trying to fill that hole that only God can fill. And those things are not big enough. Drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, work, hobbies, none of those things are going to make it happen for you. Only God can do that, uh, can make that happen for you. So, in your moment of crisis, then turn to God. And uh, my in the book I have an appendix uh that shows you how to do that. It is on page 367, appendix F, and it is called You Need Jesus, and you do need Jesus. He is the answer to all your healing issues, and it will give you the identity that you were meant to have, will give you that purpose that God made you to fulfill. Jesus is the answer. So when you hurt, you may be willing to do anything to get out of that pain. Uh, anything less than God is gonna end up being very disappoint uh disappointing for you. Um, so I say down here that uh the two most common ways men use to escape pain are pornography and alcohol. And and I would that that's just so true. I mean, I work in a jail, I'm a prison chaplain basically, and boy, so many of those guys are in gals are in there because of addiction, chemical addiction. But pornography is a shortcut way to pain relief. It pornography provides so many things for guys going through divorce. One thing uh gives you something to do, it feels good, it gives you a way to lash back at woman, you know, with no cost you think to you. It's a way to objectify woman in a period of time when you're really angry at woman, and it releases uh that that energy that you have, and it also is a way to get back at your um ex because now you're essentially having sex with another woman, uh, maybe on your TV or your phone or your computer, but in your own mind, that's kind of what you're thinking. So when guys go through divorce, you are just a candidate for a serious uh porn addiction. So we have some recommendations on uh ministries that can get you through this. Uh Be Broken Ministries, uh Faithful and True, there, those are all listed in the uh in the book. Um, but just Google Christian porn addiction and you will have tons of great ministries that can help you with that. So as you go through life and you're thinking about the pain that you're in, then just don't take shortcuts to get out of that pain. Uh day 36 is this when you hurt, you may question everything. When you hurt, you may question everything. Uh also Chambers said years ago, we say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow. I love that. There is sorrow. And we have to accept and receive ourselves in its fires. Man, this was so hard for me because I felt like I was very unjustly treated and was did not deserve the incredible pain that was visited upon me. So I was angry, I mean serious angry. Um, I never did question God, but I sure did question a lot of other things. Um, and you know, that's okay as long as you just don't carry it all the way to the extreme. If you question stuff, but then find somebody who can give you some good answers, um, and just keep pursuing those answers. Um, I love apologetics, Christian apologetics. I've studied widely on the subject and philosophy and especially science and theology, these the intersection there, and and uh in if our Bible can hold up to scrutiny. And it's so cool being I'm 63 now, just having that certainty now that, yeah, you know what, the Bible's true. I it is I can have confidence in it. Um, I'm not gonna deconstruct. I mean, I know God. This is not just like I know about God, but I have experienced God's amazing presence in my life, and I do that daily. Then why would I want to get rid of the one being in my life who has supported me and gotten me through this horrible time? Um, that's the advantage of really getting close to God, is you will never want to get away because it's like it's like uh leaving a cruise ship to jump on a on a life ring and saying, Hey, I'm gonna be saved by this life ring. Nope, the ship is where you're safest, and God is that ship. Um, but the pain is trying to teach you something, and hopefully that pain will point you to God. Um, but you have to come to God on his terms, not your terms. I tell a story in the book of when I was at Children's Medical Center chaplain there. Then I remember there was a man there who was dealing with um his daughter who was about 10, 12 years old, and she had diabetes, but she wasn't critically ill. She was, it was a serious illness, but it certainly wasn't life-threatening. And but just a few feet a hundred feet away in another unit was a liver transplant unit. And in that unit, the kids were fighting for every moment of life. I mean, there was literally a mother who had not left the waiting room of the intensive care, the intensive care waiting room of that hospital for nine months. So I would say the most intense place in the world is the intensive care waiting room of a children's hospital. It is unbelievable. But this dad of the of his child who had a disease far less serious, uh, he was so angry and upset. And the reason was because he said, he literally said, I don't get it. I start going to church, I start giving money, lots of money, and my daughter's still sick. So he was bargaining with God. He was saying, God, if I go to church, if I give you money, this guy had money. If I give you money, then my daughter should be well. Well, this is not the way God works. God is not manipulated by our attempts to uh to get what we want. Um and so this is an immature faith that he had, and part of the challenge was to help him grow in his faith. Um, so when it comes to questioning everything, question, but don't just stop there. You got to pursue the answers. And I'm just saying there are tons of great answers. Especially when it comes to Christianity, you have all these guys on YouTube that uh act like they they know what they're talking about, and um they pretty much don't. They act like they've just discovered some big question of Christianity that can't be answered, like can God make a rock so big that it can't hold it? I mean, these things have been asked for literally 2,000 years, and people way smarter than me and you have um have figured out those questions. And part of the deal, though, I think, with questioning God is simply you have to ask yourself, what kind of evidence are you looking for? There are different kinds of evidence uh that we base our decisions on. Uh the firmest kind of evidence would be I will believe anything that I know absolutely without with total certainty to be true. And that's where Descartes went, right? And he kind of came to the conclusion, I think there I or I am. So when he went that route, then it was, I only know that I'm thinking, therefore I only think things can think, therefore I am because I'm thinking. Well, you're never going to find that certainty, but that's not the certainty we deal with anyway. Um, when we're trying to make a decision, do we have absolute certainty? Usually we're looking for what we'd call the preponderance of evidence. What makes most sense? Where does the evidence point us to most likely? Um, where where is uh you know, where does this evidence lead and explain the situation I'm in or the world as it is, most among all the options out there? And um I can tell you after lots of study and just plain experience and heartache and heartbreaking experience with God that uh the Bible gives us the best answers as to how this world is, why it's the way it is, and the answer, the solution in God. Are all your questions answered? Absolutely not. The Bible answers more questions than any other worldview, but it is like all worldviews, it is incomplete on the side of heaven. But I'm gonna cast my lot with God. And that is just amazing. So, what are your foundational beliefs that you've questioned through this painful process? That's in the Think About It uh section on this uh on this chapter. And then a second question: how can you know what beliefs should be ditched and which should be kept? Maybe this is a time to ditch some of those uh incorrect beliefs you had about God, like this man in the hospital. He thought that if he just gave money, his daughter would be healed. That was a pretty immature view of God. Um and so through this he grew to to really uh in his faith and understanding of God. So through your painful experience, perhaps you can do the same thing. All right, the last day from days 32 to 37, when you hurt, we're filling in the blanks here. Day 37 is this when you hurt, I write seven years ago I wrote You Don't Care, but I could have written and should have written, When you hurt, you may not care. Because people can hurt and still care. But when you stop caring, that's bad. And I would think that anybody who is reading this book is still caring. Anybody's listening to this podcast, you still care. But if you get to a place where you don't feel your pain, when you don't have any fight in you, when you stop questioning, when you stop struggling, then that is a place of not caring. And uh there's nothing more than uh dangerous than a man who doesn't care. So when you feel like that, then you need help. You need to get some friends in your life, you need to get somebody in your life that can uh walk you through this thing. And they're just like we pay doctors uh physically to help us get through physical problems. I highly recommend spending money on good, smart people who know about the soul, know about how our minds work, therapists, pastors, uh pastoral counselors. Uh that money is well spent. If you're at this place, seek somebody else and say, hey, look, I need some help. They will, they will respond to you. Um, and then if you're just in this place and you know your appointment is like two weeks away, then here's some things you can do. Just push back. Push back and realize that, man, Satan wants you not to care. That's where he wants you. And so if you're gonna win this fight, the fight is a it's for it's worth winning. And secondly, you can do it. God's on your side. Um, so don't let that pain, we talked about, we start off this whole podcast, don't let your pain shrink your time and space. You know, I mean, if you keep shrinking your time and space to nothing, that's what suicide is. It's your despair shrinks up everything you say, I'm just done. And you take away your time and you exit out of this earth spatially. And that's just not an answer, guys. If you're thinking about that, 988 is the number to call. Um, I fervently believe that it is a big mistake to to uh to to take make this choice to take your life. Whatever your pain uh is in your life you're experiencing, it is going to pass. You will get out of this pain. There are answers out there, there are solutions out there. They are usually not quick, they take some time. Just like if you have open heart surgery, healing takes some time. You've had surgery on your heart, it's going to take some time to get to get back, but you can do it. And as Chris and I say on this podcast, uh, if you hang in there, it's like 99.9% sure that you will get through this. And you can't say that about everything. You know, you can't say, hey, your job is secure for the rest of your life, or your favorite NFL team, or your favorite football team in England, Mansfield, whatever they all call it. I'm I can't get in all, I don't know all that stuff. But you cannot say that team's gonna win the championship. If you get some diagnosis like cancer, you cannot say for sure, okay, I'm gonna, I am gonna be okay. But when it comes to divorce, even though the pain is so excruciating, if you hang in there, you will get well. And Chris and I have gotten well ourselves, and we've seen hundreds of guys get through divorce to the other side. So when you hurt, you may not care. If you get to that not caring space, then really pay attention to that and reach out and get some help. That is a true alarm bells. So let's just go back over and look at this real quickly. We start off is when you hurt, then your world shrinks. Day 32. We talked about time and space. When you hurt, you may become super sensitive. Um, don't be surprised if man, you are just all buttons. When you hurt, you may lash out. Um, try not to find some people who can really absorb some of that pain and and don't lash out at them. When you hurt, you may be willing to do anything to get out of the pain. Find the right ways. People and exercise and other ways of getting rid of your dissipating your pain are constructive. Day 36, when you hurt, you may question everything. It's okay, just find the answers. I promise you, there are plenty of answers out there to support your faith. And then uh this last day, when you hurt, you don't, you may not care. And I encourage you, if you are in that place, you've got to really uh come on and get some help. And we're here to help you. Chris and I are happy to coach you uh through it. Uh, we are excited about helping men. We were there, we know what it's like, and so we really would like to help you get through your divorce. It's really a pleasure to uh have you listen. It's an honor for Chris and me to participate in your recovery. Um, send us an email, send us a text. Uh, the website is men's divorce recovery.org. You'll find some awesome resources there. I I wrote my book for you. I the way I talk about my book is that I say it's a book I wish I had, and um I hope it's a book you'll never need. But I knew there'd be a bunch of guys that are out there with that needed, and and so far the book uh daily survival guide for divorce men has really been helpful for uh for guys out there. But I'm happy to talk to you. You know, phone numbers there, everything's there. We want to help you get through it, guys. Thank you so much, and we'll see you the next podcast.