Focus on the Family Marriage Podcast

Narrator: If you are a pastor wanting to save and strengthen marriages in your congregation, we've got a great tool for you. Marriage 911 by Focus on the Family trains laypeople to mentor couples who may be on the verge of divorce or who want to strengthen what they already have.

The kit includes two leader guides, four workbooks, and all the training necessary to meet with and mentor men and women who need help. Visit marriage911.com. That's marriage, the numbers 911, .com.

John Fuller: How can you recover from trauma that happened long ago in your childhood, or maybe it's caused something really dramatic in your relationship today? I'm John Fuller along with Greg and Erin Smalley. Thanks for joining us. We're going to jump right into a conversation Jim Daly had with Justin and Trisha Davis. It was a really painful moment as they were talking about what happened after Justin admitted that he had had an affair with Trisha's best friend.

Jim Daly: Trisha, again, another question from last time and for those that are just picking up the conversation, I mean, you're hearing all this. You're hearing about his porn addiction. You're hearing about his sexual abuse as a child, which had to open and crack your heart open a bit.

But he also had an affair with your best friend. There are wives going, "Are you crazy, Trisha?" I mean, really. You probably had friends that were saying that. "Aren't you done? How could you go back?" Because it's a window into them. If this happened to them, they're expressing what they would do, the attitude they would have, I would think, and passing judgment on what you should do.

How did you manage those conversations and those even maybe moments of self-doubt through the counseling process, like am I really doing the right thing when you said, "God forgives you and I forgive you." You really meant that?

Trisha Davis: Yes, but forgiveness is free, trust is earned. So those are two totally different conversations. And we understand forgiveness almost as the finish line where forgiveness is the starting line. Forgiveness is really about us because you can offer forgiveness regardless of how the person receives it.

And what I was learning then that is true all these years later is that forgiveness doesn't excuse the person's behavior, it prevents their behavior from destroying your heart. And so it opens you to the possibilities of redemption. But trust is earned, and trust is built with truth.

And so the people that were struggling all these years later, I'm able to see exactly what you said. It's a mirror to either their understanding or lack of understanding or their own pain. And when you have that experience of breakthrough, it does one or two things to the people around you. It either inspires them that breakthrough is true for them, or it provides a mirror for where they feel stuck.

And so it's learning how to hold space for people that I couldn't change Justin all those years ago, and I certainly can't change my friends' responses. I always think of Job. Of all of the Bible, next to Leviticus, Job just frustrates me when I read the Bible because I'm like, y'all aren't even going through this stuff and you've got feels and thoughts that you're pouring on him. And it's like everybody's in process.

So part of that is I had to learn who were the right people to put around me. And the people I needed were those that were for us, that were for God, that were for the healing journey even when they didn't understand, but then also had the authority to say, "I'm not sure that that's a healthy choice right now." And it was messy. It wasn't clear every day, but because I allowed those voices to speak into me, it helped keep me on the right path.

Jim Daly: Both of you had obviously growing up you had parents. I want to touch into that because that was an "aha". And let's start with you, Trish. Your parents seemingly were really healthy and moving along and seemed like bedrock kind of people. What happened and how did you process what you saw as a younger woman, and then what happened with your parents' marriage and how did that impact you?

Trisha Davis: I always joke with my counselor. I'm like, is there something in me that God was like when He was shaping me, He was like, I'm just going to give her rose-colored glasses. And the way that I remember my childhood is this very strong narrative that my parents didn't know Jesus when they met. They went through horrible tragedy. My mom lost her parents, her dad in eighth grade and then her mom two years later, her sophomore year.

So my parents were like the breakthrough couple. They did drugs, they smoked marijuana when I was little and I had no idea. It was just they lived a party life. They were babies having babies, and then they found Jesus. And in my mind, when they found Jesus, everything changed. And it did change, but not to the level that I assumed it did.

And so we were a year into our marriage when my dad came out that he was a closet alcoholic and had been unfaithful to my mom. And it destroyed me. And it shaped my—it almost put another exclamation point on "I'm going to not be that" rather than "I'm going to be healthy, I'm going to learn from that." And so the first ten years of our marriage, I was operating as if Justin was going to have an affair, even though there was no indication at the time that he would.

Jim Daly: But attitudinally, that's the vibe you were giving.

Trisha Davis: Yes. Lack of trust.

Jim Daly: Yeah, I mean that's really what that is, is a lack of trust. And that comes out and then that comes over to you, Justin. I mean, dealing with all this, what were your parents and what was happening with your folks?

Justin Davis: Well, I think we don't understand the expectations and the things from our families that we bring into our marriage relationships when we get married. There's a lack of understanding in that. My parents also got married 15 days after I was born. My mom got pregnant in high school. And so I grew up really poor, very aware of the brokenness that my parents had.

Then they found Christ and we started going to church all the time. But looking back now as a 50-year-old person, my dad didn't tell me how to be deceitful. He didn't teach me how to lie. But when I was in high school, I would go to my dad and he would say, "Hey, do you have enough money for tonight?" And I would say, "I could always use more."

And he would take a five-dollar bill out of his wallet, it was all folded up, and he would say, "Here's five dollars, don't tell your mom I gave it to you." And so there was this awareness that I had that my dad was hiding things from my mom, and that if I let her know that, at minimum she would be disappointed or it would cause conflict.

Well, as we started our marriage relationship, that shaped not wanting to have conflict, shaped how I interacted with Trish. And so she had suspicions about not just me, but about marriage in general, about faithfulness. And I had this propensity to avoid conflict at all costs, which caused hiddenness. And so we were operating out of this dysfunction that we didn't even know we had that became a part of our marriage equation that ended up obviously revealing itself when everything hit rock bottom.

Jim Daly: And so often we refer to these things in the Christian community as generational sins. These are just things that we pick up so astutely as children and we inculcate them into our behavior. I mean, it's why we have sayings like "people don't fall far from the tree," right? And because we do pick up a lot of our behavior from our parents, good and bad.

John Fuller: Some big stuff there that they've gone through and they're still together, thank the Lord. And Erin, as you counsel couples, honesty about their own failings and about their parents' failings and about the family of origin, I mean there's just so much there. How do you help somebody get through? Well, the past happened and it's done. Now you've got to move on.

Erin Smalley: But going back and analyzing how did it impact me? What did I bring with me into the present? And I always say when we look back at our family of origin, specifically our parents, I say do that just with curiosity. Like how did their choices impact me? And I will often say, I don't know a set of parents that they have this newborn baby and they go, "We can't wait to mess this child up more than anyone has ever been messed up."

So it's not intentional. It does not excuse poor behavior or choices, neglect, abandonment, all of that. But it's looking at even understanding what they came from through the eyes of compassion. As well as how did that then transfer to you as an individual? Because often when we hold on to this stuff, then somehow some way we begin transferring it to our spouse even and it shows up in the marriage.

John Fuller: So there's that, there's the victimhood mentality that well, my parents messed up and that's why I'm this way. So look at it honestly, candidly, probably with the help of a counselor if you've got major stuff that you've been through because any trauma can be dealt with. I know people, you know people who have overcome tremendous trauma.

Erin Smalley: Yes. And if you have parents—because we've been in this seat—that our adult children have come back and said, "Man, when this happened through this season, this is how I felt." And being able as a parent to lean in and just hear them, which part of me was like, "Um, that's not exactly how it happened," but it doesn't matter.

This is their experience and their feelings. And they have every right to feel what they're feeling. So I can lean in as a parent in compassionate listening and care about what their experience was and is and where they've landed, because that brings so much healing. And I say the same thing is true between a husband and a wife. When you're seeing these behaviors that you're like, "Where did these come from?" and understanding where did they pick up the message, where did they pick up the behavior and the belief, and then compassionately leaning in and caring about where that came from. It goes a long way.

John Fuller: Well, we recognize that the past influences today and you really have to understand what those cycles of dealing with it look like. And so often, as Erin pointed out, we have conflict in our marriage because of something that we're not even aware of. But looking at the conflict cycle and understanding what's going on is a key part of moving forward.

And that's why we're happy to point you to the free reactive cycle assessment that we have. It's been developed to help you understand what's going on when I get triggered and then I trigger her and then she triggers me back. That's the reactive cycle. Learn how to stop that and how to make it a productive conversation, and that assessment will help you start to take those steps.

It's free, the link is in the notes, and also in the notes is a link to the book from Justin and Trisha called *One Choice Away From Change: Break the Cycles That Hurt Your Relationship and Hold You Back*. That's available for a donation of any amount and the details are in the notes.

And then lastly, we've got something that'll help you stay centered on the mind of Christ. It's a new online radio station featuring Christian music and elements of talk woven throughout, all designed to help you be the best you to show up in your relationship. It's called Focus Life and you'll find it on the Godcaster app.

Thanks for joining us today. On behalf of Greg and Erin Smalley, I'm John Fuller and join us next time for the Focus on the Family Marriage Podcast.

Narrator: If you are a pastor wanting to save and strengthen marriages in your congregation, we've got a great tool for you. Marriage 911 by Focus on the Family trains laypeople to mentor couples who may be on the verge of divorce or who want to strengthen what they already have.

The kit includes two leader guides, four workbooks, and all the training necessary to meet with and mentor men and women who need help. Visit marriage911.com. That's marriage, the numbers 911, .com.