New Life LIVE

New Life: Welcome to the New Life Live podcast. We hope to provide help and hope in your life through God's Word, counselors, and psychologists as we answer questions from listeners who call with the challenges of life. Let's go to today's episode.

Brian Perez: Hey, thanks for joining us today on New Life Live. I'm your host, Brian Perez, and we've got some calls holding on the line right now. So we'll get to those as soon as I introduce who is on the panel with me.

We've got clinical psychologist Dr. Alice Benton. She's also an author. What's the name of your book again? You have it there.

Alice Benton: 100 Days of Biblical Family Engagement.

Brian Perez: Love it. We talked about it on Wednesday's show, so you can go back and listen to that and then order the book on Amazon. Becky Brown is here too. She's a licensed professional clinical counselor and the president of New Life Ministries. Becky, I bet you've got something on your mind.

Becky Brown: I'm going to talk about politics today. That may be shocking. I have a question for you. Are you the governor of the state of denial? Denial is one of those things that a lot of people like to live in, but we want to question that. I don't want you to be the governor of the state of denial.

Denial is often a natural trauma response. We see it in grief. It's that natural shock absorber when really hard things happen and it's just too much to take in. Denial is also an unconscious defense mechanism that can keep our minds stuck where we refuse to accept objective reality or painful facts. It's in order to protect ourselves, or so we think, from anxiety or emotional distress.

Denial can be a state where you live without recognizing that it's keeping you from where God wants you to be or what He has planned for you. Here's a quote from *Healing Is A Choice*. Everyone struggles with denial in some form. It blurs our vision to many things: troubled or destructive relationships, sins that we're unwilling to acknowledge, overly optimistic goals, financial irresponsibility, physical illness, unresolved character issues, self-righteousness, and any number of situations that we'd rather not see clearly.

Denial is so dangerous because it not only blinds us to the problems that we're trying to avoid, but it also blinds us to the consequences that our avoidance creates. The moment we open our eyes and see things clearly and accurately and truthfully, we also see the troubling results of the denial. So I want another question for you. Do you trust God's ability to move us out of the state of denial?

We do have control issues. I mean, not only denial, but control. I want you to think about for just a minute. Where have you experienced God's faithfulness? His ability to move in your life? Ephesians 3:20 says that God is able to do more than we can ask or imagine. I'm sure if you sat for just a minute and thought about the ways that God has been faithful to you, it would just encourage you.

But when we stay in a state of denial, we discount what God has done and what God is doing. Lamentations 3:22-23 says the faithful love of the Lord never ends. His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness. His mercies begin every morning. What a great truth for us to hold on to when we want to stay in the state of denial.

One quote from *Healing Is A Choice* from Steve Arterburn. The big lie is that if you just act as if the hard realities are not there, they will eventually go away. This lie is not something you keep up in your head or down in your heart. This lie becomes a way of life. You live it every day, and it keeps you from a life that is full of meaning, purpose, and connection.

So if you're going to move, you're going to hire somebody to help you move. You're going to read the reviews and the comments to get those five-star ratings. Guess what? The Word of God has many five-star ratings about God's ability to move you out of a state of denial into the new life that He has planned for you. We can help you get moving because it's not an individual task. It takes a village, and we're part of it. We want you to know that we're here. We've helped so many people over the years move into that new place. It's a new life.

Brian Perez: Cleopatra, Queen of Denial, if you're listening, call in.

New Life: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now, back to New Life Live.

Brian Perez: Thanks for watching and listening to New Life Live today. Kim, thank you for calling in. John and Joe, don't hang up. We want to talk to you guys as well. But Kim, welcome to New Life Live. How can we help you?

Kim: I have some emotional problems I need help with. I have depression really bad. I was wondering how to deal with those things.

Brian Perez: How long have you had depression, Kim?

Kim: I've had it since childhood.

Becky Brown: What have you done, Kim? Do you have a therapist? Have you had counseling? What has been your therapy?

Kim: I have a counselor, but my mom committed suicide when I was 12 or 13.

Becky Brown: That's hard. That's very hard. So even with the counseling, you're not finding relief from the depression from the grief?

Kim: No, it's really hard. I still struggle with it because I look around and I see parents together and my mom's not here. My mom's gone. It's hard.

Becky Brown: It's a lot to process. Do you have people around you, Kim? Do you have a family? Tell me about the community that's around you.

Kim: The community's pretty good about being around me. I have family, but sometimes family's hard to deal with. They don't seem to help as much as you want help with things, so it's hard.

Becky Brown: What you've experienced is traumatic. If you haven't had a trauma-trained therapist, I think that's going to be a really important part of your journey. I also don't want you to go too much longer with this overwhelming depression. It really is important for you to have that support.

When I talk about community, I'm talking about people who are real close to you, whom you trust and you feel safe with, and that you can do life with. I'm glad that you're seeking counseling. I just can't say enough about having the community to help us in these days of challenging feelings and not really sure how to move forward.

Alice Benton: Kim, when you said your family doesn't help much, what's one of the most important things you wish they would help with but they don't?

Kim: I get very emotional sometimes and they don't understand that. Some people think that's a problem when you're a really emotional person, but it's not because that's just the way I've been. That's who I am. It's hard for them to understand that sometimes.

Alice Benton: Are your closest family members your husband and children?

Kim: My husband, yes. I have other family too.

Alice Benton: When people are uncomfortable with big emotions, they usually try to quiet us down and try to get us into positivity too quickly. So you might get messages like, "Oh, come on, you're so over the top. Why are you making such a big deal out of this?" Even possibly about your mom's suicide, people might say, wrongly say, "It was so long ago. Why aren't you over this yet?"

These are well-meaning messages that cut your heart to pieces and probably shut you down emotionally because you learn these folks aren't safe for me to share my emotions with. So I'm not going to tell them I'm feeling poorly. I'm not going to show my tears to them. When we close ourselves down emotionally, even if we share those emotions with God, if we don't share them with another person, we're short-circuiting God's healing process.

You may know this: tears actually contain biotoxins. They're God's great cleanup system of getting the distress of tough emotions out of our body through tears. Strangely, they work best when those tears are witnessed by a loving listener, by someone who would say, "You can cry for as long as you need to. Go ahead, I'm just going to sit here with you. I'm not going to fix you. I'm not going to tell you you're over the top."

I'm just going to say things like, "Wow, this must be tough. You go ahead and cry. You go ahead and be angry about what your mom did. You can talk about it as much as you need to for as long as you need to." We humans are creatures of repetition. We replay things in our minds hundreds of times in a day, and we replay pain. God's answer and solution to that is sharing that pain with safe listeners.

So I would suggest couples therapy and possibly even family therapy because your husband and children don't seem to be able to understand the kind of comfort that you need. A good family therapist would be able to help teach them, train them, the value of expressing and receiving emotions.

Brian Perez: You said be angry with what your mom did. Is that the same as being angry at your mom for doing this?

Alice Benton: It certainly could be both. I've worked with clients whose parents committed suicide and I have some idea of what children of suicide come to believe about themselves. "What was wrong with me that my mom left? Why didn't she stick around to live for me? How could she have done this to me?"

Of course, your mom has her own story of awful pain for her to have gotten to the point of taking her life when she had a young child. It is righteous to let yourself both be angry at her choice, angry at her situation, and angry at the people who didn't intervene. By allowing yourself to feel and express that anger, we can release it, and that helps move us along in the healing journey. But we need to do it with safe listeners.

Becky Brown: One of the things that also happens is the neural pathways in your mind have built this highway. So without any off-ramps, to use that metaphor to an extreme, and the off-ramps can be... There are no good answers for why your mother did this. You're never going to have anybody tell you why that's going to make any sense, because it doesn't make sense. Suicide does not make sense.

The pain that comes from it, it is a grieving process. How do I build a new pathway so that my life isn't looping in this pain? That sounds very simple to do, but that's why I was mentioning a trauma therapist. There are ways for you to get a new pathway built. EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, can help with that process because it will allow you to go through what has been stuck so long as a repeated feeling.

Depression makes us tired. It changes the way that we think. You have a good reason to feel that way. I'm not dismissing that, but I want you to be able to have the help and the support that you need in order to fully move in your current life as opposed to being tethered to the wound and the trauma. There is a way. It just takes a lot more work than we ever want it to, and it's worth doing.

Alice Benton: Your depression may be treatment-resistant depression. For that, traditional counseling might not be sufficient. I completely agree with Becky that adding EMDR, perhaps adding some time in an inpatient treatment, and if you're not taking medication, getting a psychiatrist on board your treatment team for an antidepressant, and perhaps increasing the amount of therapy that you're already doing if you are benefiting from it.

For people that are in the most intense pain, we recommend they go to regular group support. We say 90 meetings in 90 days. That's for people struggling with addiction, but it holds true for us struggling with severe depression, which it sounds like yours is. Having a group, having medication, and going to a higher level of care for a time, if need be.

Brian Perez: Kim, we have a tip sheet available called *Depression: Signs, Symptoms, and Solutions*. We're going to send that to you. We're also going to put that information in the show notes there. Anyone can call in and ask for it: 1-800-NEW-LIFE.

Kim, we also want to send you a registration for the webinar that Alice is going to be doing in a few weeks. It's on grief. That's happening on July 16th. You can find out more about that by texting the word "WEBINAR" to 28950, or you can go to NewLife.com to find out about it as well. It's 90 minutes. It's $24.99, and that includes 30 minutes of Q&A with Alice and Becky, who are going to be presenting the webinar that's happening next month. But thank you so much for calling in today to New Life Live.

Let's go to Joe, who is in Brilliant, Ohio. Brilliant, that is brilliant. SiriusXM Channel 131. Welcome, Joe, to New Life Live. How can we help you today?

Joe: Thank you. I was calling in today because when I was a young boy in my early teens, 13 or so, I came across some pornography and I have been addicted ever since that time. It's been over 40 years. I carried that addiction into my marriage. My wife was aware of it. I shared it with her, but I didn't continue to share it with her as I continued to struggle.

As such, we grew apart. Then recently, within the past six weeks or so, I revealed it again to her because I just couldn't find my way out. It was like it was the first time she had ever heard it, although she said, "Why didn't you just talk to me more frequently?" I just feel like it's destroyed my marriage.

I told her I would love her and care for her until my last breath, that I wouldn't let this stand in the way no matter what her decision was, but I really just want her back. I don't want to be narrowed down to just this one thing as how I'm known or remembered or identified. I don't want to make it about me, but I think there's just so much more to our marriage of almost 30 years now that I'm trying to find my way back to her.

When I heard the pain in her voice when it finally was revealed, that pain struck into me so deeply that I truly believe in my heart I was instantly healed from this. I do not ever want to hear that pain again and be the cause of it. I know one can't lose one's salvation. I don't want Him to harden my heart because I returned to this sin. I am done with it.

Alice Benton: Joe, we're so proud of you that you chose to disclose. Because to get honest like that is a necessary step in the healing journey. You said you want your wife back. Has she separated from you? Has she left the home? Is she talking about divorce?

Joe: No. What's really confusing to me is she's not left. We still live together. We've lived together like roommates for years. We've not been intimate. I was struck by your ad for the fixed. I want to run to this DC thing because I want a fix.

Alice Benton: And you should. Yes, you should.

Joe: If she would go, I would gladly go ten weekends in a row. But I don't want to force her to go through things faster than she is ready to go through. I want to patiently wait. We live at home. We speak civilly to one another. I make her coffee in the morning. She makes me dinner in the evening. We talk about various things very civilly in the house.

Alice Benton: So it's almost as if things have continued as they were before. You're polite roommates to each other. As far as you know, she doesn't have big plans about what she's going to do because you revealed your pornography struggle to her.

Joe: Correct. I still tell her that I love her because I do. I always have, always will. But I've never longed to hear three words...

Becky Brown: Joe, I agree with Alice. Thank you for taking the step forward. You could have been delivered from the desire, but you've got some character building to do. That's what we say: you can be released immediately from whatever that drive is, but the character building is the work that you have now.

I would say absolutely you need to go to Every Man's Battle in DC on the 10th. But also, and we'll talk to you more, you can hear the music, but this is one step in a journey of thousands of steps. The key thing in your marriage: you guys lost your connection to each other and the pornography addiction, and how we do our lives together. It's not one thing that fixes everything, but we can help you get on a pathway towards reconnecting, if it is at all possible.

Brian Perez: We'll continue our conversation with Joe when we come back. But let me give you those dates really quick for Every Man's Battle: July 10th in Washington, DC, and Intimacy in Marriage: July 24th in Washington, DC. We'll come back to you, Joe. And John, don't hang up either.

New Life: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now, back to New Life Live.

Brian Perez: Back to Joe. You still with us, man?

Joe: Yes, sir.

Alice Benton: Joe, I'd like you to consider why you have hesitated over the years to get the level of treatment that you have needed. Because I hear your heart. You're a good guy. You love your wife. You've known this was a problem. You confessed it to her early on in your marriage.

I just hate the early exposure story, but it is the story of almost everyone struggling with addiction to pornography because you were an innocent victim and at some point, pornography came into your life. What has made you hesitate to get enough help before this point?

Joe: Well, I have pursued help in a variety of ways: through counselors at church, through groups at church, and even more recently as I've been studying this, I came across what's known as Adlerian psychology. I found myself basically over-associating with the idea that I'm just a victim of pornography and this is the way I am.

Instead of just breaking free of that and deciding that I was done with it, unfortunately it had to come at the pain of my relationship to my wife. I didn't want to cause her pain, but I knew I was in retrospect, I know I was causing us pain because we had grown apart through the years. There's a lot that we had dealt with, as you were mentioning.

Alice Benton: So Joe, I'm proud of you that you have made attempts to get help. I think you are now at the point that you will do whatever it takes because you may need a higher level of help in order to totally stay free. I want to caution you against the easy answer and magical thinking, which can seem like miraculous thinking.

Of course God can instantly heal you, but He rarely does that in this world. Usually, He gives us the path of sanctification and it's difficult and it's a very long path. Addiction trains us to go to the easy answer. So it's very difficult to develop that self-control muscle when we are active in addiction because addiction is easy coping that works well in the short term and does not work well in the long term.

Joe, I would have you get back again into individual counseling with a counselor trained in sexual addiction, and we have those in our network. You're right to want to go to our intensives, and Every Man's Battle, I think, should be your next intensive that you attend. Then at Every Man's Battle or with a trained therapist, they get you started on writing out a therapeutic disclosure to your wife.

Abrupt disclosure that is not combined with some sobriety under your belt already and the structured path that you've already been on for a while, disclosures are always disruptive, but there are more healing ways to make disclosures. Then there's the trust-rebuilding process that you have to walk through.

Your wife can't trust you right now and no flowery words will fix that. In fact, it helps more to say, "You don't have to trust me and you shouldn't trust me yet, but I'm going to take the actions so that you can see in my behavior that I am trustworthy." That can include, Joe, a polygraph test. It can include giving your wife access to your sponsor and to your therapist so that she gets feedback from them about the good work that you are doing.

Becky Brown: It's such a long journey, Joe, that you can't even begin to understand how God's going to change you and heal you as you step into this work. We've already mentioned all the ways that you can do it. I also want to let you know about our Every Man's Battle podcast, which could be a very simple way for you to begin to explore what has happened to you, what has happened to your relationship.

I would invite your wife to join us at the Rescue webinar that we're going to have in the beginning of August. This is a long journey, but it's worth doing. The pain that you've experienced from this addiction, your brain has to be rewired. There's lots of work to do, but I can tell you because we've had testimony after testimony, when men get free, the relationship changes for the better. They feel like they're alive again. I just want you to know we'll be praying for you. We invite you into this journey. We know that God can help you.

Brian Perez: Joe, we've given you a lot of information today, so I hope you have pen and paper there or a really good memory. Or listen again. Go to NewLife.com. The podcast is there. You can just go to NewLife.com and find all of those.

For everyone else listening, the Every Man's Battle workshop for men struggling with sexual integrity, that is the weekend of July 10th in Washington, DC. Then two weeks later is the Intimacy in Marriage intensive, also in Washington, DC.

We mentioned the podcast, Every Man's Battle. A new episode drops every Monday, and you can catch up on past episodes there on our website or YouTube or the New Life app. So many ways to get that. For your wife, on August 4th, that is a one-day virtual gathering. It's called *Rescue: Your First Step Toward Healing*. Because your wife, when she found out about this 30 years ago and now she's hearing again all of a sudden that it's still a battle for you, a struggle, it's devastating.

She definitely needs to attend this. Again, it's called *Rescue*. You can find out more information about that at NewLife.com/rescue. But thank you so much for calling in today to New Life Live. We're going to take a quick break and then we will continue talking to you guys. We've got John and Ellen who want to talk to Becky Brown and Dr. Alice Benton.

Today could be the day that you look back on and say, "You know what? That was the day that I decided to make a difference in my life, to stop denying things, to come clean, and to just get the help that I need." So we're going to talk to you when we come back on New Life Live.

New Life: Every day we hear from people all over the world who are looking for hope. They've been lost in a relationship struggle, addiction, anxiety, depression, all kinds of ways. Wouldn't you love to be part of a rescue team?

Don't miss your opportunity to be part of something that changes lives every single day, because everyone matters. Your generosity helps find them. We've seen God work in the lives of so many people over the years here at New Life, and we want to invite you to be part of what God is doing. "99 For The 1" is our partner program that you can give to the ministry on a monthly basis to make sure that we continue to reach out to the lost. Call 1-800-NEW-LIFE, 1-800-639-5433, or NewLife.com/99forthe1. Join the mission. Rescue the one and restore the many.

Brian Perez: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now, back to New Life Live. We are in the middle of a $300,000 matching gift challenge. Becky Brown, how are we doing on that?

Becky Brown: We are doing so well, but there is still room for more. We have surpassed our original goal of $200,000 and because of your gifting and because of another donor who said, "Hey, let's raise the roof, we're going to $300,000."

We want you to be part of what God is doing through New Life in the lives of so many people. You hear the phone calls, you hear the pain, you hear the struggle. We've been helping people for close to 40 years find a way to their new life. You giving to New Life helps us do that in so many ways. So I want to say thank you in advance because I know you want to participate in what God is doing through New Life.

Brian Perez: Well, there's a few ways. They can do it online at NewLife.com/match, or they can call us at 1-800-NEW-LIFE, or text the word "MATCH" to 28950. Yes, thank you in advance for what you're going to do. Thank you to those of you who have already given. We so appreciate any gift, any gift. Your generosity is changing lives here at New Life Live.

Let's talk to John now. He is in Arizona, listening on KNLB. Welcome, KNLB. I feel really bad for the radio station out there because I know what that's like. I've been doing radio forever. If somebody gets the call letters mixed up, it is horrible. But my apologies to my friends there. How can we help you today?

John: Well, let's just say I'm kind of stuck in between situations and I'm going, "Okay, Lord, what's going on here?" As I was telling the operator, I'm the last one in my biological family to be alive because my mom passed away when I was a child, my dad passed away a little bit later in life, and then my brother committed suicide about four years ago.

So I'm going, "Okay, what's going on?" Also, I'm having an issue with my wife. Right now, we're kind of separated because we're living on two different coasts because of COVID and schooling. We got together this last weekend and I didn't do anything right for her. She kept saying it. So I'm going, "Okay, what's going on? What am I doing wrong?"

Becky Brown: John, what have you done to deal with some of these things?

John: A lot of prayer, and I've talked with the pastors at the local church that I attend and just trying to deal with it day to day.

Becky Brown: Okay, and so you guys are separated because of your schooling, her schooling, your kids' schooling, your job... What is the cause? I mean, you're not kind of separated. You are when you live on two different coasts.

John: How it all started is right when COVID happened, my wife had purchased tickets to go somewhere, but that got canceled. So she used the money to purchase a little vacation place in Florida. Then my son started having problems in school where I'm located.

So she said, "Okay, we're just going to try a whole different part of the country." So she moved him over to the other part of the country and I stayed where I'm at because I'm only a few years away from retiring. So I didn't want to have to drop the job and try to start all over again.

Becky Brown: What you just described is very common with couples, with families. We had a call about this the other day. If you don't spend a lot of time connecting, when you do get together, it is the collision. So it can feel like you're not doing anything right when you and your wife were just together and you felt that way.

How do you manage the relationship because you are separated for whatever reason? People do this all the time, but there is a way that has to make that connection for the two of you. How do you connect during the week or between visits? How do you do that?

John: We call every once in a while, or we text, or do things over Facebook, things like that.

Becky Brown: Well, that's pretty disconnected, John. I think we've got to heal some of those connections.

Alice Benton: John, I think the circumstances of you two being separated by COVID, it actually revealed problems that were already brewing between the two of you. I suspect that as she maybe is kind of perfectionistic, critical, opinionated, when she criticizes you, I would think you withdraw. Is that true?

John: Yes.

Alice Benton: And you might be avoidant when you know there's a problem, but because she's going to be pretty negative about it, it's very difficult for you to get that conversation started. Is that also accurate?

John: Yes.

Alice Benton: I am also an avoider, John. It's our attachment style, where probably because of circumstances you grew up losing your mom so young and however your dad dealt with her loss, you probably did not have very warm, available parents to go to, and your mother was deceased at a young age.

So you dealt with life on your own. You figure things out on your own. You're a hard worker, you're driven, you've got good goals in your life. So you probably pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you just get the job done. There's not much time, energy, or room for emotion. Does that description kind of fit?

John: Yes.

Alice Benton: So the drift between you and your wife, it was already in place before she moved away. The drift was just revealed when COVID hit. So if you want to rescue this marriage, it's going to take working on your avoidant attachment style.

For myself, because I'm also an avoider, and the people I work with, having emotional discussions is one of the most terrifying things we can do because we usually feel really ill-equipped to do it. I don't know what to say, I don't know how to handle it, and if she goes all negative on me, I'm just going to get scared and shut down and freeze.

So John, we want to get you into emergency surgery therapy by getting you the help you need to become a securely attached, assertive person who's willing to enter into those tough conversations, willing to enter into some of that fear and negativity so that you can heal your marriage. Now, that probably sounds pretty intimidating. Are you willing, are you ready to do what it takes to rescue your marriage and your relationship with your son?

John: Yes.

Alice Benton: I sense that you are, because that's why you called. So John, we can get you connected with a therapist in our network who can help walk you through what it takes to become a securely attached person.

What you'll learn is one of the fastest ways to do it is to learn to do the comfort circle. Because us avoiders, we need to run to the roar rather than running away from the roar. So we do that by going to our spouse and saying something like, "It's pretty tough to talk with me. I know that, and you're really disappointed and frustrated with me. I can listen to you right now. I want us to take 5-10 minutes because I think that's what I can tolerate, and I'm going to be a listener. I'm just going to reflect back what I hear from you so that I can come to understand you."

John, that protects us from that defensiveness and the withdrawal that we're so drawn to. When we start having those "run to the roar" conversations, our spouse's negativity decreases. She's negative because she's hurt and she's scared and she wants you to come towards her, not run away from her. She's not treating you like that, but I bet you anything that is her true heart's desire, and we can help you get there.

Brian Perez: That's such a game changer if he were to say that to her. Just that phrase, I mean I can already see it just working. But Becky, what would you add?

Becky Brown: I think whenever you have questions about your relationship, there has to be some sort of story that you're both working off of. If I were talking to your wife, I would wonder, and maybe you can tell me this, what would she say is the problem? What have you heard her say?

John: I've heard her say that I don't do things right, that I don't listen, stuff like that.

Becky Brown: Is that pretty common since you have been married, since you separated? What's the story of your marriage?

John: She always complains about how much money I spend all the time and when I don't think I spend that much money. It's just different things like that and the way I handle things different than how she handles them.

Becky Brown: Sure. I mean, that's the way most couples do. But the goal is for us to have the same story, even though we both play different parts and we're both working towards the same goal. I would encourage you, John, to invite her to join you at the Intimacy in Marriage intensive. This can be corrected. It just has to have some attention and some focus. I would love to see where God can take you. You've been praying; let's put some action into the prayers.

Brian Perez: Yep, and the book *Understanding Your Attachment Style* from the NewLife.com store would help as well.

New Life: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now, back to New Life Live.

Brian Perez: We've got another round of New Life Courses beginning August 10th. You can get all the details about them at NewLife.com. They are called *Lose It For Life*, *Healing Is A Choice*, and *Take Your Life Back*. Becky, wanted to tell us a little bit about each one?

Becky Brown: If you need a change in your life, if you need a new life, any of these courses will be the next right step for you. What we have done for so many years, we've led people to understand where the places are that they're stuck, the things that they're resistant to trying, or even the blind spots.

I opened the show today with a talk about denial. Denial is one of those places that we live, and any of these courses literally will help you through it. *Lose It For Life*, of course, is about weight and eating issues. It is about what are you feeding, what is eating you. Then *Take Your Life Back* is based on the idea of codependency. What are you doing to help everybody else but not yourself? Take your life back.

Then *Healing Is A Choice* is foundational to everything that we do here at New Life. It is understanding the lies that we believe, and we want to know the truth. So I want to encourage you: it is led by a therapist, it's met weekly, it is a great next step for you to join and change your life.

Brian Perez: Yep, it's an hour a week for 12 weeks. The courses begin on August 10th and you can sign up or get more information on our website, NewLife.com, or call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Let's go to Denver and talk to Ellen, who listens to us on NewLife.com. Welcome, Ellen, to New Life Live. Ellen, are you there?

Ellen: Yes, I'm so sorry. I accidentally had my mute button on. That happens so much. No problem. I am calling because I am very stressed out because of my marriage. A little background: my husband and I have been married for 20 years. We have been raising grandchildren for 17 of those years, and everything became totally focused on them.

They are all autistic. Now they are 21, 20, and 16. Eighteen months ago, my husband told me he hadn't been in love with me for 10 years, which was devastating. Then every few weeks or months after that, he would say something much worse. He kept distancing himself. Even before he said that, he was only coming home for approximately three hours a day.

He would be saying he's working and he has a job where there are times where he has to work more, but nobody that much. Of course I knew something was wrong. The other element is that he hasn't touched or looked at me sexually for 16 years out of the 20. I was focused on the kids. I was trying my best to give him space and doing what I tried everything and then I finally gave up on that because of course our lives are very, very full with all the issues of the kids.

But I am coming to you because now it's been escalated. There's been a really severe problem in our house that has caused us all to be in different places. So one child is in a residential home, one child is sent back to his mother because we have no choice. The third child is with me and my husband refuses to spend even a few minutes with him, much less a whole night. He'd rather go back to our house which is compromised and being tried to be rebuilt.

One of my questions is, number one, I was in domestic violence a long time ago and I got out of that, but this is different. It's more like ostracizing me when I am at home, like even locking me out of the house.

Brian Perez: Hold on, Ellen, we're kind of losing the connection here. But Alice, what would you say to Ellen based on what we've heard so far?

Alice Benton: It sounded like you were saying, Ellen, that there's been emotional abuse in this marriage and harsh treatment of you by your husband, but not physical violence. Oh, Ellen, your story, our hearts, my heart is so heavy for what you are going through and the sacrifice to raise your grandchildren through the entirety practically of your marriage. So I would guess that they are step-grandchildren to one of the two of you, perhaps.

When he broke your heart and said, "I haven't loved you for years," it's understandable that you would ask, "Well, then why are you still here?" I hear in that question a lot of accumulated emotional injury, accumulated pain. So I want you to think about, Ellen, whether or not you still want this marriage and whether or not you're willing to put effort in to save it.

He's staying for the kids, which hurt you further because he's not staying for you, at least that's what I would understand that to mean. He's staying for them. I'm going to gently challenge you on your question, "Well, then why are you still here?" That question is a knee-jerk reaction to pain and you have every right to ask it.

But the question I hope you'll consider asking is, "What has been hurting you in our marriage that has led to you distancing?" I want to be the kind of listener right now that seeks to understand you rather than me defending myself. Because, Ellen, of course you have been busy raising these grandchildren. So you couldn't give him the time and attention that I'm sure you wanted to.

So it perhaps has become more of a business relationship for many years than a romantic relationship. Both have their parts in why it got so distant. I think, Ellen, it might be difficult for you to hear that he's been lonely. My guess would be he might feel like you poured your time and attention into the grandkids and maybe he's been feeling really unattended to in the marriage, which isn't fair because you've been loving these grandkids. But if the marriage hasn't been nurtured, it may be what has led to this separation between the two of you. So while holding to the knowledge that you've been an amazing grandmother to these three kids, I want you to do some soul searching about whether there's perhaps been neglect of your husband.

Brian Perez: Becky, about 45 seconds.

Becky Brown: Do what Alice said. Check it out. Get to a counselor.

Brian Perez: Yes, for sure. We can put you in touch with one if you'll stay on the phone. We've got a network of counselors and coaches that can help you. You can go to NewLife.com or you can call us at 1-800-NEW-LIFE. We've also got the Intimacy in Marriage intensive that we would welcome you to come out to. It's in Washington, DC, July 24th that weekend.

The conversation that you were saying that Ellen should have with her husband, it's part of the comfort circle, right?

Alice Benton: It certainly is.

Brian Perez: Yes, and you can find out more about that on our website. It's a book called *How We Love*. Go to the NewLife.com store and find that book and get it and go through it and underline it and highlight it and everything else, and then work on it. Work on this marriage and see if it's worth saving.

Alice Benton: Because it will empower you, Ellen. Right now I think you feel powerless about your husband's state, but these questions we're suggesting and the comfort circle empower you.

Brian Perez: Yep. All right. Thanks so much for calling, Ellen. Everyone else, thanks for watching and listening, and we're going to see you at church on Sunday and then we'll talk to you again on Monday. So God bless you guys. Have a great weekend and pray for us. Pray for our listeners too and for the people who call in.

New Life: Thank you so much for listening. We hope something you heard will help you live in freedom today. If this content was helpful for you, we would love it if you would take a minute, leave a review, post about it, and rate it.

Remember, we have resources and workshops online for you as you continue your journey. Go to NewLife.com to find out more information. And thank you for being part of the New Life community. We know that God desires all of us to live a life of wholeness and healing and we're so glad that you're here.