FamilyLife Today®

Speaker 1

Okay. I think people might be surprised. As a pastor for 30 years, the number one call that I would get for someone that wanted to meet with me is on what now.

You know what the answer is because of what we're talking about today. But if you didn't have any idea, what do you think my assistant would come in and say?

Speaker 2

If it's a couple, I would say an affair. If it's a guy, I would say porn. To family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

Speaker 1

And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at Family life today.com. this is family Life Today, man. My wife knows everything. You've been married to me too long.

Speaker 2

Because I've been married to you a long time.

Speaker 1

I mean, would you have thought that though, if you didn't know what we're talking about today?

Speaker 2

I might think that just based on friendships and relationships with women and the pain that I've seen in marriages.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Well. And as I think about that, I'm Talking about late 80s, 90s to today. Affairs have been a part of marriage from the beginning, and people want to figure out, can we make it? Can we save this thing?

Speaker 2

And how do I not fall into this? Can my marriage be protected from an affair?

Speaker 1

Yeah. We're going to talk about that today with Dave Carter.

Dave Carter is, in my mind, the expert on this. Not because he's had an affair, but you've written about this and studied this, and, man, your books have helped so many couples.

Dave, welcome to Family Life today.

Speaker 3

Oh, thanks a lot. I'm looking forward to this.

Speaker 2

We are, too.

Speaker 1

I mean, you've been talking about this.

Speaker 3

Subject since when I started in 77 when I tracked down my senior pastor who ran off with another woman.

Speaker 2

Wow.

Speaker 1

Really?

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Tell us that story.

Speaker 3

You want to hear the story?

Speaker 1

Yeah. I mean, I read it in your book, and I found it fascinating because you had several stories like that that got you to say, I've got to start jumping into this.

Speaker 3

I would never have decided to do what I'm doing today or what I've done. So actually, I was on a road trip with a bunch of Christian teenagers doing backyard Bible studies and evangelism, that kind of stuff. I came back on a Saturday and went to church early on Sunday morning to run youth ministries and stuff like that.

All through the day, I went home Sunday night after the service broadcast and got a phone call from my senior pastor's wife, who was crying hysterically on the phone. I drove over to the parsonage and walked into the house. Three teenagers were over on that couch hugging themselves, just sobbing. The wife was at the kitchen table with her head in her hands. Two of those kids had been with me on this missions trip.

So we talked for a while, and basically, I began to think to myself, I know more about this than I think I do. I didn't know that I knew anything about it. But from there, about 11:00 that night, I drove to an apartment building where I used to have Bible studies in the bottom floor every other Thursday night with all the boys in the apartment complex. I crawled on my hands and knees up to the first-floor plate glass window because I was so afraid of being seen and being viewed as something.

Speaker 2

So you're sneaky.

Speaker 3

I'm sneaky over there. And I get up that window and look up in that window and look inside, and there's not a stitch of furniture in there. I'd just been there two weeks ago. And that was an apartment that a single mom had with two teenage boys. And that began to put pieces together in my head.

So I went home that night, went to bed, got up early the next morning, and went to the school bus stop. Sure enough, there were some of my boys from my Bible study there asking what happened to such and such. Oh, they moved. What do you mean they moved? Well, they moved. Well, how'd they move? Where'd they go? They said, well, they wouldn't tell us where they were going, but they had a big U-Haul truck up here. So I immediately knew where. The only U-Haul truck store was in town.

So I get in my car and I drive to the U-Haul truck store. And basically, you're like a spy. No, I'm mad. I'm really angry at this guy if this is the truth. And so I go to the U-Haul truck store. I said, I think my senior pastor has rented a U-Haul truck. Can I look at the invoice and make sure all the details are correct? And he gave them to me. I looked, sure enough, Dallas, Texas. He rented a U-Haul truck to Dallas, Texas.

Speaker 1

Just took off?

Speaker 3

Yeah, just took off. So I drove home, packed a suitcase, drove 90 miles to an airport, bought an airplane ticket, went down to Dallas, Fort Worth, and I waited a whole week in a hotel.

Stood on the Sat in the 14th floor with binoculars watching the U Haul truck store right down below me. He didn't show up and I had to go home for a week.

But I took his picture down to the U Haul truck guy and said he is bringing a truck in here. I know, and it'll probably be on Monday. And here's my address and phone number.

And I want you to call me when you see him. Tell him, you know, God will forgive you if you have to lie, lie. Just tell him you're going to send him some money. He's desperate for money. I know that. So get an address for me.

Speaker 1

Just.

Speaker 3

And call me. So I went back home.

Monday morning at 10 o'clock, I get a call from this guy down in Dallas, Texas. He said he's in my office. Okay. I said, how do you know? He's got the same picture on in my office as he has on in the picture? I know it's him. I said, okay, call me back.

So he called me back that afternoon. I flew back to Dallas, took a friend with me. We got a rental car, drove over to this house, walked up, knocked on the door, and this single mom screamed when she opened the door and saw me there.

To make a long story short, we tried to talk him into coming back. He wouldn't. I was crying so hard that I couldn't drive, and my buddy drove us back to the airport. We turned the car in, and as we pulled in, I said, you know, Paul, when we get home, I'm going back to graduate school and I'm going to figure this out because I've only worked for three pastors, and two of them have run off with other women in the church.

Speaker 2

How old were you at the time, Dave, when you said that?

Speaker 3

That was in 77, so I would have been 32.

Speaker 2

And how many years had you and Ronnie already been married?

Speaker 3

11.

Speaker 2

Okay.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

So that was it.

Speaker 3

It was it. I was gonna find this guy.

Speaker 2

And you're a good friend.

Speaker 3

Oh, we were great friends.

Speaker 2

So that's why you were so devastated.

Speaker 3

Yeah. So I went back to graduate school and started working on this and took courses to get into graduate school in the field of counseling psychology. And basically, long story short, here I am.

Speaker 1

So you've spent over 40 years, 40 years as a therapist. You've run a counseling center at EV Free in Fullerton, California.

You were in Detroit, where I was down the road for a while.

And all these decades, you've been helping couples navigate this topic. Is it different now than it was?

Speaker 3

Oh, yeah, it is quite a bit different.

Speaker 1

In what way?

Speaker 3

Well, in 1995, the new way started by reaching people on the Internet. So at that point, I would tell you that the old girlfriend and the old boyfriend became the most dangerous person in your life. Before that, it was pretty much a matter of. And we used to say it all the time.

First, affairs are always about comfort and distraction. And there are reasons why people get involved in adultery in most cases. So you have to find out what some of those reasons are. It didn't make them do it, but it certainly contributed to their wellness. I mean, to their wellness failure, I should say.

You know, back in Luke when Jesus was tempted after all those temptations, it says in Luke 4, the devil left him for a more opportune time. Meaning, you know, we're all strong most of the time, but sometimes we're not. So we gotta figure out what changed in you and what caused this vulnerability in you.

Speaker 1

Well, let's talk about. I mean, you write it in your books of the Anatomy of Affair Torn Asunder. I mean, I remember seeing these books.

Speaker 2

In the 90s too, Dave. I remember like, thank goodness somebody's written something.

Speaker 1

Yeah. And as a pastor, it was like something we needed in the church. So you just said many affairs result of comfort or distraction. Explain what that means.

Speaker 3

Well, it's very soothing. Sex is soothing. God designed five or six different chemicals that all they do is produce soothing, great experiences inside of you. They're built that way.

But people who are stressed out, burned out, empty—we use the HALT B acronym, et cetera—those people are vulnerable to someone being nice, kind, generous, loving, sensitive, et cetera.

And then the other thing is distraction. You know, there's nothing to distract you as much as being interested in somebody else. Infatuation is a crazy thing to go through. We all know after us and adolescent. That's why we married that person. You know, we're crazy about them, so we look for those things.

In taking a history of a couple with adultery, that's one of the first things you want to find out: what drove this vulnerability. Think in terms of grains of sand that wore down the boundaries that normally would have protected them. Every one of those contributing factors would be insufficient by itself. But clustered together, they take you down. So the more of those you can find, the more likely you can figure out why this happened at this time with this person.

Speaker 2

Wow, interesting. So you and Ronnie have been married 54 years. How many kids?

Speaker 3

Four.

Speaker 2

And so as you watch this happen around you, with so many friends having affairs, I'm assuming that you started implementing safeguards in your own marri.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

What did that look like?

Speaker 3

Well, I've always said graduate school helped my marriage more than anything else I've ever done. I think one of the things Ronnie was always good about, and that I was too, but I could get distracted sometimes, was having these really great moments together.

We get away with four kids; you gotta get away. I began to realize and developed a mantra that really kind of began to manage our behavior. And that is: spend money on your marriage. You know, you'll spend it on retirement.

Speaker 2

Did you hear that, hun?

Speaker 3

And shoes.

Speaker 1

Hey, hey. I do spend money on our marriage, don't we?

Speaker 2

We do this. We didn't used to, but we do now.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And you know, it's interesting. When we do a marriage weekend, whether it's a weekend with Family Life or we do Vertical Marriage weekends, couples will come up and say, "This is the first time we've been away in 25 years."

And we're like, that's not a good thing. I mean, I'm glad you got away.

Speaker 3

You need to do this every year. And I would say at certain seasons of life, you might even need to do it more frequently. In some seasons of life, maybe not as much.

Not so much like, yeah, well, let's just say you're able to do things without the kids just because of the nature of the beast. Maybe you have teenagers, or they're off to college, or you're kind of an empty nester, so you might not need as many of those breaks.

But when you've got little ones and you both are chugging along 24/7, you know, you have got to say no to this and go away. You’ve got to find yourselves again. You get lost in trying to raise your children. You're teaching them all the wrong things. They think they're the most important thing in this marriage, and they're not.

Speaker 1

Okay, so they're close, but they're not the most amount.

Speaker 2

Especially as a mom, it's easy to make them the priority.

Speaker 3

Oh, it is one.

Speaker 2

They're so demanding. And then you feel guilty if you're gone. And if you're a working mom, then you're gonna leave again. You feel even more guilty. But I think you're right to spend money. I love that.

Speaker 3

Get out.

Speaker 2

Go on a date, go away.

Speaker 3

Exactly.

Speaker 1

Here's a great example. You don't know this Dave, but sitting behind you is Justin Adams at our audio board. He, in fact he built the whole thing in there. But Bruce Goff is normally sitting there. Guess what?

Speaker 2

He's our audio engineer.

Speaker 1

He is away with his wife, little kids, they're gone.

Speaker 2

In their home, three young daughters and.

Speaker 1

They'Re away for five days. It is a great thing for them to be doing right.

Speaker 3

It is a great thing for them to be doing.

Speaker 1

I mean, every marriage needs to do that. And I know a lot of us say, we can't do it. It's going to cost too much. I can't get it. I'm not going to leave my kids.

Speaker 3

You have to. When your memories end, your memories together end. When your first baby's born, you're done.

Speaker 2

Wow.

Speaker 1

You're done.

Speaker 3

You're done. You will go through the next few years raising your kids and probably becoming great parents. But come the time the last child leaves, you'll sit down at the breakfast table and look across and say, who are you?

Speaker 2

Or even, I don't even know you or like you.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

On our 25th wedding anniversary. David.

Speaker 1

Oh, no. Are we gonna talk about this?

Speaker 2

David prayed for a free trip to Mexico, and God answered that prayer. We had a free trip to Mexico. Someone got married, wanted us to go, asked me to go, too.

Speaker 1

Wanted us to do their wedding.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And they didn't know I'd been praying for months.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Because I'm a cheapie. So I was.

Speaker 3

You need both.

Speaker 1

You gotta make this free. And we ended up in the best.

Speaker 2

But I remember we sat on that beach, looking out over the ocean, holding hands.

And I remember saying to Dave, "I would marry you again, knowing everything about you, going through everything we've gone through, I would still choose you."

And we also said, "We need to do this every year."

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And we've done it every year since.

Speaker 2

Yeah. And I think we all know that marriage is not easy.

And we have resources here at Family Life that I think they'll really help you. I hope, and I really pray that you will just take advantage of the resources that we have for you.

You can go to familylife.com/marriagehelp. Again, that's familylife.com/marriagehelp.

I know there's couples.

Speaker 1

Listening, and they're like, I wanna protect my marriage. So you've already given me some things I need to do. You mentioned earlier, and you use an acrostic. Halt. I know what you mean. Hungry. Angry.

Speaker 3

Lonely. Tired. Tired and bored.

Speaker 1

And never heard the beat.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Oh.

Speaker 1

So talk about that a little bit. Because couples need to understand that's when they're going to be weak.

Speaker 3

Right. That's when you're vulnerable. That's when Jesus was vulnerable in temptation. So hunger, the sense of emptiness, the urge to do something. I got to find something. A craving, if you will. The feeling that I got to fill something up.

Angry. When you're irritated, frustrated. You have nobody to share it with. You keep it all inside. It kind of... You lay awake at night, et cetera. Lonely when you're all alone. You know, alcoholics call the bottle a woman. I heard that in AA for years. So it's a sense of comfort for you when you're exhausted, tired, worn out at your wit's end, hanging by a thread. You know, if somebody can rescue you, great. And you tell yourself, I can't do this, I need somebody, or something.

Or when you're bored, plain old bored. We started adding bored to that list when the Internet came in because that is one of the big drivers in pornography today. It's a click away. That's the thing that's so disgusting and disappointing and disturbing. Really?

Speaker 1

Yeah. One of the things you said in both your books about affairs is a lot of affairs happen because the marriage loses fun, loses joy. What does that mean?

Because, I mean, I love what you said, because I've always said, Dan, I'm going to write a book someday called "You Need to Have an Affair with Your Spouse." And I remember I pitched that once to a publisher, and they said, "That's a terrible book."

I don't know. With your spouse. Because the things that an affair brings, I don't know this, but I've heard, are the things you lack in your marriage. So I read that in your book, and I'm like, okay, you wrote that years ago. Explain that.

Speaker 3

Okay, so let me kind of do it from the back door. One of the things that we forget to do and need to do is to build experiences in our relationship that generate infatuation and generate feelings for each other. Love is a feeling, and we try to make it go away. We say, "Well, it passes. It's not necessary." It is necessary. It's the icing, it's the energy—whatever you want to call it on the marriage.

I'll give you a little exercise, but the key to it in the recovery from the affair is the time, you know, when you begin to do this. When couples are on the downhill side of recovery from an affair, and certainly for couples who haven't been involved in an affair, here's a great, fun exercise. We call them "eight greats." You each privately make a list of your eight greatest experiences apart from your children and without friends.

Speaker 2

Oh, this is good.

Speaker 3

Okay, you can't include your marriage, but you can include your honeymoon. Now, if you're on a family vacation and your kids are with you, but you had a dinner alone, like at Disney where we are, that's fine. No kids, no kids can be available.

After you each have made your list, do it in pencil because you will change it. After you each are finished, you get together and you merge the list. The ones that match, three or four, pretty common. Then she gets five, you get six, she gets seven, you get eight.

Now, Orange County, three years ago, the average cost for a divorce was $36,000. So divide eight into 36. You could spend $4,500 on each one of those eight items and you will be miles ahead of what you end up with after going through them.

So one of the recovery points is when you leave counseling, I want you to do one of those every so many months. And most of them are not expensive items. Many times they're very simple things. You can include even experiences in your dating relationships as you look back. So just come up through your list of eight greats.

And the reason we do this is the very same reason why girlfriends and boyfriends are so dangerous is because the infatuation is stored in your brain from the first time you did that experience. And we're trying to stimulate that and bring that to your conscious thought. So when you go back and do something that was really a highlight in your relationship and you sit on that beach or whatever it is, you think back to the first time and it's refreshing, it's invigorating, and you experience those feelings again.

Speaker 2

You do give us an example what one of yours and Ronnie's would be.

Speaker 3

One time when we were dating, we did a walk on a railroad track that was kind of in disarray; they weren't using it. We walked into a park. When I was a boy scout, I was the quartermaster, so I got used to cooking for the group and troop and everything else.

So anyway, I put two steaks and baked potatoes wrapped in foil, and took the lighter along. We found a place, built a little fireplace, a little wood place. I had one of these portable fold-out grates.

Long story short, I cooked us two baked potatoes and two steaks on that grill out in the middle of nowhere. And it sealed it, baby. She married me.

Speaker 1

It worked.

Speaker 2

I would too. That's kind of this cool, romantic, rustic.

Speaker 1

I mean, what one comes to your mind if you think of eight grades for us? Do it right now.

Speaker 2

Like before we were married, anytime. This is last four years, first year of our marriage, we went up into the mountains in Colorado. We were being trained for crew.

Speaker 1

This is seriously a memory.

Speaker 2

Yeah. And we decided, we decided to Go up in the mountains with a tent. We borrowed a tent.

Speaker 3

Oh, I got some of those.

Speaker 1

You're going to love this. You know what I decided to do? Let's fast.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

While we're up in 10,000ft altitude, the.

Speaker 2

Best part of camping is eating.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

So we're not even eating, but I can remember we're starving. It's beautiful. It was cold.

Speaker 1

And then we decided we're breaking the fast.

Speaker 2

We are so bored.

Speaker 1

So we go fishing because it's the only way we're going to get any food.

Speaker 2

Here's my memory.

Speaker 1

And I caught nothing. That's what I remember. I caught nothing. And we got in the car and drove home.

Speaker 2

But here's my memory. I remember sitting on a rock in the absolutely gorgeous mountains with this big lake.

And you had your guitar, and I remember you just worshiping.

And I was like, look at our life. This is amazing.

And that was just this great.

What's one of yours?

Speaker 1

That was not even close to top eight. I'm like, that is what you remember. I remember driving to Manhattan from Detroit.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Right before a football season. Because, you know, with the Lions, I had a lot of work coming up and just going to Broadway plays and eating in restaurants and driving home.

Speaker 2

Oh, so fun.

Speaker 1

And a lot of it was, you know, the drive.

Speaker 2

But we had to spend some money.

Speaker 1

Let me ask you this, Dave, because that's one side of it, you know, bringing joy and fun back. The other side, because I'm thinking there's couples listening, is: how do we protect ourselves, especially in this day and age?

We’ve got the Internet. You get like, old boyfriends, girlfriends, Facebook, you name it. Not saying those things are bad, but social media has created a different world that we need to protect ourselves from.

Let me ask you this real quick: the Billy Graham rule.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

You agree with it or not? I mean, men not really spending time alone with women that aren't their wife.

Speaker 2

That doesn't fly today, you know?

Speaker 3

I know, but remember, every Monday, men and women who are colleagues at work get on planes, drive to a customer in another city, take them out to expensive restaurants and have all the alcohol you want. You take them to sporting events and concerts and everything else, and then you go back to the same hotel. That is corporate dating.

One of the things to remember about that, and I'm going to come back to your question, is this behavior is called ego dystonic, meaning it's contrary to a person's individual values and stated beliefs. Now, in some cultures it's not. But in a Christian man or woman, most of them would say adultery is wrong, and it is on God's top ten list. Okay.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 3

So when they act out like that, it really fractures them very, very deeply on the inside.

So how can you protect yourself is the question. Well, you have to be honest with yourself. A lot of this starts with texting, going back, getting in touch.

I wonder whatever happened to Susie. My wife is Jesus, and she'll tell you Susie is an old high school girlfriend. So I always use Susie.

Speaker 1

Is that a real name or made up?

Speaker 3

No, it's not real name. Okay. So you get on the Internet and you start looking for them. Pretty soon it's just kind of casual. And you're texting and they got three kids. I got three kids. Oh, yeah. No, no, no.

Speaker 2

So it starts innocently.

Speaker 3

It starts innocently. But that infatuation you had for that person is locked into your brain. You never forget the person you kiss passionately unless you are really promiscuous. Made out with you. It's there. It's all there. Are you a car guy?

Speaker 1

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3

Okay. So I seen you in high school. I drove a 426 Plymouth. Okay. Okay. I sold. I hate myself. But anyway, it was a great car.

And so here, Barrett Jackson, maybe, I don't know, six, seven years ago, something like that. After the 2008 crash, I'm watching the auction, and here comes this Plymouth Belvedere across the auction block. Just almost identical to what I drove.

And I thought that car sold for almost $200,000. And the guy that bought it, when he got in that car and started that up and drove that off, that car was rocking with that big cam in it. He was 16 Dragon Main Street.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Speaker 3

That's what he was doing. Okay. He just paid a lot for it.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

Okay. Now, that's what happens with old girlfriends and boyfriends. And if you stay in touch with them for 30 days, you will feel confused about the person that you married because your spouse had stopped generating those kinds of feelings in you.

Speaker 1

And if you stay with them another 30 days. I've heard you say this.

Speaker 3

You find ways to meet and have sex. It'll sweep you right off your feet.

Speaker 1

That's why I didn't let Ann's old boyfriend, who ended up playing for the Detroit Lions, come to the Detroit Lions Bible study. He came to our front door.

Speaker 2

He told me.

Speaker 1

I'm like, you're not coming into this house. You know? I let him in. But I did have a thought as he got to the front door. Like, I don't want this guy in my Bible study. Fortunately, he was only with the team two weeks, and they cut him, but that was fine.

But I had that feeling like, of course I love him. I want to lead him to Christ. But there was a protective part of me like, you don't need to be around this guy, and I don't need to be around my old girlfriends.

Speaker 3

All of us have downturns in our marriage. I mean, and that might be in one of those vulnerable times. Just like the devil come back and try to tempt Jesus.

Speaker 1

So, yeah, I cut you off. What were you gonna say?

Speaker 2

This will be a great podcast to share with your spouse.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Just to say, hey, I listened to this today. Let's talk about this when we get home. Or sometime let's go on a date and talk about how we're doing. Do we have any protection going on in our marriage? And have we had fun or have we spent money?

Speaker 1

Yeah, there's two sides.

Speaker 2

Have we spent money?

Speaker 1

Let's make a list and say, what are we gonna do to add some of the feelings we had before? And what are we going to do to protect?

Speaker 2

Is that right?

Speaker 3

Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

This is Family Life Today, and we're Anna Dave Wilson, and we've been talking with Dave Carter.

Speaker 1

Yeah. I mean, his book, Anatomy of an Affair. Man, you talk about irrelevant stuff. That was a great conversation.

Speaker 2

I think we all need to be reminded of these simple truths.

Speaker 1

Yeah. And if you want to get a copy of Dave's book, you can go right now online to familylifetoday.com and order your book there.

Or if you'd like to give us a call, just call us at 1-800-358-6329. That's 800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today.

Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a Cru ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.