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: The broadcasting bros are back, but that's not the name of the show, though maybe we can start our own podcast. I don't know. I'm Brian Perez, host of New Life Live. Welcome. If you are stuck in the past or have lost hope for the future, the best time to get back on track is right now. Call us at 1-800-229-3000 and let us help you either this hour or next. We've got two licensed marriage and family therapists to help you today. They are JJ West and author Mark Cameron. Mark, how would you like to start us off today?

Mark Cameron: I would love to start us off today, but this is a very serious topic I want to talk about. It's about how does a relationship heal after betrayal. I see many people who get stuck in this place in therapy, just not knowing how to move forward. In the betrayal recovery community, that initial discovery is often called D-Day because it's just so destabilizing for the betrayed partner to hear and understand and absorb. It's very disorienting because their whole world just comes completely crashing down. Everything that they believed was true about their relationship, unfortunately, is untrue.

They can get stuck in this state of hypervigilance where they're really just obsessing about where is their partner. Most people, their partners are gone from them throughout the day, and you're not even questioning that. But this person questions this all the time, and they can get stuck in this obsessive checking where they check the spouse's location, they check their text, they check their social media, bank charges, location services, just to make sure that they're not being betrayed. But it makes them feel crazy at the same time.

It's called safety-seeking behavior, even if they feel guilty about it or they feel like they're snooping. When trust has been shattered, it's actually normal for our nervous system to try and protect ourselves from further harm. But here's where I see people get really stuck, and that is when there is a spouse who is unrepentant or unwilling to make the recovery efforts, and people then stall because they're stuck in this survival place.

So here's three major steps a truly repentant partner must take to become safe after betrayal. First, there must be a full therapeutic disclosure for total transparency. This is a structured process that happens with a trained therapist where the unfaithful partner lists a complete timeline of their acting out. Everything that was hidden, who was involved, money that was spent, everything. This is about explaining what happened. It's not about blaming their partner for why they had the affair. It's about just putting everything out on the table. This is necessary because the betrayed partner can't fully forgive what they don't know. So it has to all get out there. Recovery actually starts with disclosure. It doesn't start in discovery.

Next, the unfaithful spouse must take full responsibility for the betrayal. They've probably got legitimate complaints about the relationship and about unmet needs, and I see people get stuck here where they start defending why they did what they did. But that was their choice. Their choice to act out was their choice alone. They could have confronted it in a healthy way, but they didn't do that. Even if their spouse was unaware, they actually need to take responsibility for sabotaging any intimacy that could have occurred once they began their affair because that's where their allegiance shifted.

Thirdly, they've got to hold themselves accountable for recovery. That's joining a recovery group, getting a mentor who meets with them several times a week, working a structured plan. It's only when they hold themselves accountable and they make themselves safe can the betrayed partner feel like their nervous system settles down so that they can work recovery. A relationship doesn't recover until both of those individuals begin to recover. If you're stuck in this place, give us a call today. We'll help you make your next step whether you're the unfaithful partner or whether you're the betrayed partner. We know it's hard, but we also believe in a Healer and we believe that healing is possible.

Brian Perez: We have a betrayal webinar this coming Thursday for men and women. You can find out more about it by texting the word webinar to 28950. We would love to see you there. We'll be back with your calls in just a moment.

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: An episode of our Every Man's Battle podcast dropped today. In it, JJ West talks with Eric Thomas, who's one of our workshop facilitators. Eric's story includes NFL dreams shattered by a shooting, which took him down a path of isolation and shame until God's patient grace met him in an RV and redeemed his brokenness. Wow, you don't want to miss this one. You can find the podcast and hear Eric's story on our YouTube channel, your favorite podcast platform, at newlife.com, or on the New Life app. 1-800-229-3000 is the number to call us today in the studio. We're going to be here for two hours. We'd love to talk to you.

You might be listening and you want to call in, but you're thinking, "I don't want to use my name." You can use a different name, a fake name. It's okay. We just want to get you the help you need. Even a fake city, whatever. Just tell us your real story when you call in to 1-800-229-3000. Let's begin our time on the phones with John in Chicago, watching us on SiriusXM Channel 131. Welcome, John, to New Life Live.

John: Hi, how are you? This is John from Chicago. I've got a big problem with lying. My background is I went to the EMB intensive, my wife went to Restore, we've been to Intimacy in Marriage together, and I'm a member of SB. I attend that, the follow-on after Every Man's Battle. We're at the point of divorce with our marriage. My wife cannot believe a word I say. Lies come out, and it's all about my horrible acting out. It's not really the big things or something like that. It's just, "Did you do it here or..." It's just lying is a horrible part of me and I just want it done. I wish I could take a pill and it's gone.

JJ West: John, thanks for calling in. You're doing a lot of things right. You went to the EMB intensive, your wife went to Restore, you guys went to Intimacy in Marriage together. Fantastic. You're doing recovery, you're doing sustained victory. I'm really glad to hear all of that. I think the first thing that jumps out to me is a question for you. When you are in a situation where you can either tell the truth or lie, what is it about telling the truth? What feelings pop up for you when you think about telling the truth?

John: I would say the biggest one is there's fear and there's shame.

JJ West: Okay, fear of what? And what's the shame attached to?

John: Shame is just another episode of my usually in regards to the sexual acting out, or there's also like a loss of control, too. I want to control the outcome. The fear is just I want to confront it and just not do it. Fear is just what I just want to get rid of, too. That's another thing that's been overriding where I'm afraid of how it's going to be perceived.

JJ West: It sounds like you're saying fear of the response, fear of what's going to happen next. I want to be able to control this, and if I tell the truth, the reaction may be such that I can't control it. So I tell a lie in order to somehow navigate this where I feel like I'm in more control.

John: Yes.

JJ West: There is an important aspect here that you're still needing to wrestle with. There's a great old book by Ed Welch called When People Are Big and God Is Small. It's this whole idea of believing that this person, if they know the truth and they then reject me in some way, they move away from me, they make my life hard, that they have so much power. They have so much control of my life that I need to lie in order to maintain that position of control.

There's two problems with that. Number one is it's a false idea. It's an illusion that somehow if I am the holder of the secret, if I'm the one who is hiding the truth, that I'm somehow more in control, which isn't true. Then two, it's presuming that I know how this is going to go. It's presuming that there's a bad outcome that I have to navigate away from, and the best way for me to navigate away from that is to tell a lie so that they're less in the know, they're less in control.

So there's two things that I want you to work on then. One is I want to live in reality. So God, help me to see that I'm not actually in control, that telling lies doesn't actually help me have more control. Then two, something my co-host on the podcast Doug Barnes always says, which is "fire your mind reader." You need to get in the habit of firing your mind reader. When you're in that situation where you think this is going to lead to a bad outcome, fire your mind reader and instead trust that God is going to be with me even if this person gives me a bad response. Even if they reject me, even if they hurt me, even if they move away from me, God has promised over and over and proved this promise over and over that He's never going to leave me nor forsake me. So I can step into that unknown because of what is known, which is that God is faithful.

John: Yes. Okay.

JJ West: But that takes work. That's a process because we're trying to change our mindset. We're trying to change the way we think. Remember at EMB we talk about that repentance, part of repentance is changing the way I think about things, not just behavior. So this is part of your repentant activity, John, is to change the way you think that somehow I have to stay in control.

Mark Cameron: John, lying is a learned behavior. So who modeled for you lying or who couldn't you tell the truth to if you were to think back into your deep history?

John: I would say my parents. By the way I was raised, really no connection with my father even though he was around. With my mother, I really remember younger being interested in this or interested in the military or interested in doing other things that weren't... My parents were from Ireland. They were immigrants to this country. So a little bit different there growing up, but if I felt this then I was shut down. Like, "Oh, you don't want to..." So I kind of just went along and if I decided to do something, I was just going to figure it out on my own.

Mark Cameron: And what if you got in trouble? What was the... Did you have fear and shame over the consequences?

John: Yeah, I didn't want any. I wanted to get out of there. So lying was a safety valve to change it around or do it.

Mark Cameron: So this is a learned behavior that you're carrying forward and you have carried forward with you into adulthood. Your first reaction when you get in trouble is, "Say it wasn't me. I didn't do it." You know there's a reason for this. So that's what's happening. Just notice that that's the default thing that's coming out right now. It's almost subconscious for you. It's the first thing that happens is you lie.

So here's what I want you to start to learn to do. I want you to start to learn to pause. When somebody asks you a question and you want to tell a lie, just pause for a second and say, "Can you give me a moment? I just want to consider my response here." Especially it sounds like it's happening first with your wife. That gives you that chance to take inventory and say, "Okay, how can I word this in a truthful way here?" and do a check-in with yourself of, "Oh, there's my fear, there's my shame coming up again."

Because default reactions are very hard to change, we default to them. That's why we call them default reactions. So here's what I want you to do. As soon as you recognize that you've told a lie, I want you just to pause and admit it and ask for a do-over. It's only when you do this will you change that default behavior and you'll start to get used to telling the truth. That's what will build trust again back with your wife. Does that make sense?

JJ West: Mark, that's so important. I just want to add on to that. It's progressive. So what's starting off right now where the lie is automatic and then it's maybe hours or days or weeks or months before I admit to the lie. If you start to shorten that time frame from when the lie is told to when I admit and then tell the truth, eventually you get it so small that just like you said, you catch yourself in it. "Oh, wait, I need to start over. I was not going to tell the truth or I was starting to not tell the truth." And then eventually you get to the place where you can recognize it ahead of time. "Oh, this is a situation where I would likely try to hide, I would likely try to cover up, I would likely try to lie. I want to make sure that I pause." Pause so that I tell the truth, so that I don't have to admit to the lie later.

Mark Cameron: Because the longer you stay in that space of the lie, the more the shame will exacerbate here. Then here's the other thing that I want you to do too is I want you to consider getting individual help if you're not already in individual therapy and work through where the root cause of this is. Why you had to lie and the fear and the shame around the consequences.

Brian Perez: I'm thinking that pause is going to be not traumatic, but it's just going to be because John is not used to that and neither are the people that he's talking to, primarily his wife. It's just going to be uncomfortable. Maybe that's a better word where because especially like me, being in broadcasting for so long, dead air is something we don't want. Silence is something that it just... "Wait, what's going on here? Something's broken." So in a conversation with someone when there's that uncomfortable silence...

JJ West: It can be disruptive. I just want to speak to that too because I get that sometimes from family members where I'm pausing. Sometimes it's pausing to make sure that I'm telling the truth. Sometimes it's pausing to make sure that I don't say something hurtful that I'm going to regret later. Sometimes I'll get that response from family members saying, "Would you just answer me? Don't think about it, just tell me." And I have to say, "Well, I appreciate why you're saying that, but it's important for me to take this pause. It's part of my growth, it's part of my healing." So yes, it is disruptive, it is uncomfortable, but the more you do something, the more comfortable you can get with it.

Mark Cameron: Silence is not good on live radio, but it's often necessary in conversations and in therapy. I allow people to own the silence because there's something powerful that happens when people get to think. What I'm asking John to do is something that we all have to do. We all have default reactions and we all have to learn how to pause and consider so that we can do something different.

Brian Perez: John, thank you so much for calling in today to New Life Live. 1-800-229-3000 is the number to speak with JJ West and Mark Cameron. We're going to be in the studio for the rest of this hour and all of next, so call in, grab an open line at 1-800-229-3000. Let's go to Cindy who is in New York, watching on DirectTV Channel 378, that's NRB TV. Hello, Cindy. Welcome.

Cindy: Hello. Thank you so much for your services. I'm a believer and we brought our 51-year-old son home to live with us because after 20 years of extreme alcoholism, he destroyed not only his mind, liver, and his whole health, he couldn't walk. He had to recuperate and rehab for nine months in a nursing home. He's lived with us for three and a half years and been recovering. He's done well for long periods, but he's fallen back into the alcohol and he drinks two times a week. He was told alcohol is never permitted here. He's not supposed to come here drinking, but he has. When he is in a blackout, the demons in him take full control and they verbally attack me. They stand right next to my face, two inches from my face, screaming and shouting obscenities, and I feel very threatened. I have delivered him in the past six months ago and he fell into a grand mal seizure with that deliverance and he was fine for a while after that, but he's introduced the alcohol back into his life and I cannot seem to deliver these demons now. I've used the name of Jesus and I've used the name of Yahweh and Jehovah, but they're very forceful and I need help on how to respond now.

Brian Perez: All right, well, Cindy, we're coming up to a break, but stay on hold and we'll hear the advice that JJ and Mark will have for you. Man, what a situation, but so sad, too, that Cindy's son is 51 and all these things have happened to him. We just ask that you guys watching and listening will keep John in your prayers and Cindy as well as she goes through all this, but we'll be back to answer Cindy's question and we want to answer your questions as well. Call in to the show today. It's called New Life Live. If you're watching online, thanks for watching. Call in, participate. 1-800-229-3000.

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: Call in, we want to talk to you at 1-800-229-3000 just like we're talking to Cindy right now. You still with us, Cindy?

Cindy: Yes, I am.

Mark Cameron: Cindy, your son's 51 years old and he's living with you and you have said to him no drinking, but then he drinks. It sounds like there's been this moving of boundaries on your part where you're not responsible for his behavior, but you have allowed some of that behavior. You haven't enforced the boundaries. Why is that?

Cindy: I've tried to enforce them. He does not have references right now because the last one, he destroyed the apartment basically. Finding him a place to live has been very, very hard. We have tried ever since he's been recovering because he wants his independence back, but for the wrong reason. We have not been able to find him a place to live. We have put up "No Trespass" signs on the house that he should see, and I think in some occasions it stopped him from entering the house after drinking, but the signs are on now.

Mark Cameron: Has he been to any professional help? Has he been to rehab?

Cindy: We have tried that in the past and he would instantly stop as soon as the counseling would stop. So he never did stay in rehab.

Mark Cameron: Drinking is his problem, and I'm hearing you say "we." I love that you want to support your son, but you guys are owning his problem. "We need to help him. We need to stop him drinking. We need to find him a place to stay." He's 51 years old and he hasn't grown up yet. He's looking to Mommy and Daddy to continue to rescue him, to continue to support him, to enable this addiction. I know that this is incredibly hard, so I don't mean to minimize this. It is so hard to watch a loved one destroy their lives. It really is. But the tragedy is if they pull you along with it. Ultimately, Jesus gives us free will, God gives us free will, and so we must give free will to other people too. What that looks like is saying to them, "Listen, we love you, we care about you, and we're here for you, but we can't go down this path with you, and if you choose to go down this path, you need to own those consequences. But when you're ready for recovery, here we are." That's why it's called rock bottom in recovery because people have to hit all the way where they've got nowhere else to go but up. That's the hard part. That's the tension is watching someone struggle there. It's so hard, but if you don't do that, you're going to stay stuck in this cycle of codependency and enabling and trying to rescue him without him taking any responsibility. One day you're not going to be there, and what's he going to do?

Cindy: Yes. In our situation, he was born with extreme hyperactivity, dyslexia, at 20 years old, epilepsy. He was on disability since he was 20. He lost his life skills of conservation and heavy equipment the day he was 20. We've been fully in his life as a support and he's been a good son till he was 29 and living on his own and got into the alcoholism. His personality is caring, loving, kind, giving. He has a tremendous amount of friends, even as he walked and roamed the town because he has no license in his alcoholism. They've seen it. He still has a tremendous amount of friends and support and love. But from the time he was a child and crawled, he had a constant attention.

Mark Cameron: But here's what I also want you to do is I want you to integrate both those parts of your son because he probably is that in some ways, but then in other ways he gets blackout drunk and he yells and he screams at you in your face. There's these two things that are going on. The good news is he has capability to be loving and kind and he does have a lot of friends. But I think it's important for you to integrate those two pieces because you're looking at him through this lens of he's all good, and then there's these behaviors that need addressing. He needs professional help to address those behaviors.

JJ West: Cindy, you mentioned, "we brought him home and we've done this for him and we've tried that for him." Is the "we" you and your husband?

Cindy: Yes. I did remove him from the house for up to nine days and it was summertime and he was on his own and he went to hotel rooms and he was in blackouts and he was in seizure activity on the street.

JJ West: Okay, and what caused you to make that decision to remove him from your home?

Cindy: Because his behavior was so destructive. My husband has got leukemia and heart disease and lung disease. I just removed him from the house. I said, "You're out, you've got to go until you get your act together."

JJ West: And did he get his act together?

Cindy: He would be in desperately bad shape when someone would call me, but by the time I would come to him he would be sober, or the hospital would call me because he was there because of seizure activity. I wouldn't pick him up until he was sober and we would try again.

JJ West: But Cindy, did you notice how you sidestepped my question? I asked, "did he get his act together?"

Cindy: He would for an amount of time. It might be weeks.

JJ West: For an amount of time, but then he can't sustain it. Even though you're setting strong boundaries, "you can't drink here, you have to be in recovery, you have to get your act together to come back," you're setting the strong boundaries, but there's not a sustaining of those strong boundaries. I know the music's playing, we're probably going to have to take a short break here, but when we come back, we've got to talk about how do I not just set the strong boundary, but actually hold those strong boundaries.

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: Let's go back to Karen. You still with us, Karen? Oh, wait. JJ was in the middle of saying something to Cindy. Go ahead, JJ. Finish your thoughts.

JJ West: Cindy, a huge part of having boundaries is that I enforce those boundaries. That's the really hard part. I love the example from Mark where Jesus is speaking with the rich young ruler. They're having the conversation about what is required to be saved. Jesus asks him, "what have you read?" and he lists the law and he says, "okay, one thing you lack: go and sell all that you have, give it to the poor, and come follow me." It says that the rich young ruler walked away sorrowful because he had great wealth.

What the text does not say is that Jesus ran after him and said, "no, no, how about half? How about just a fourth?" He didn't negotiate with him, he didn't change the terms of the requirement. So often that's what we do with our boundaries. We say, "okay, I have a boundary of no alcohol in my home. You can only live here if you're not drinking." Then the person moves in and maybe for a little while they follow that boundary, but eventually they start pushing against it. They come home a little tipsy, then they come home drunk, and then they have alcohol in the house.

If I don't say to them, "this was a clear expectation from the start that there would be no alcohol in the home, so you chose to leave. You chose to move out because you chose to not honor the expectation, not honor the boundary," but what we often do is we overlook. We pull back on the consequences of those boundaries, and so what happens then is the people in our lives that we're trying to live with good boundaries recognize, "oh, that's not a boundary that I have to follow. It doesn't hold up. I can push against it all I want."

I know it's hard, Cindy. I can't imagine having an adult child who is making the choices that your son is making, putting himself in danger. I can't even imagine the pain that you would go through as parents. But that fear of what might happen to him because of his own choices keeps you from establishing and then maintaining those boundaries with him. Unfortunately, eventually that's either going to wear through to the point where he cannot live with you anymore because he's incarcerated because he's caused harm to yourself or your husband, or it's going to end in his own physical harm.

I hate that for you, but that's the path that you guys are on because he knows that consequence is never going to be enforced. It's a different kind of deliverance than what you were talking about before. You were talking about trying to pray for deliverance from the demonic oppression, but this is a different kind of deliverance. This is praying for and then moving him from this very childish way of living to an adult way of living where my choices have consequences and I have to live with those consequences.

Mark Cameron: And I think your next step, Cindy, is your support, your recovery. Let us get you connected with a recovery group. We have Life Recovery Groups, but there's also Al-Anon groups too. That is the support that we're talking about, not the hospital, not the state troopers. We're talking about this ongoing support for you and your husband who feel stuck in this situation.

Brian Perez: Cindy, thanks for calling in today. Stay on the phone and we'll put you in touch with somebody who can help you in a Life Recovery Group. There's also a couple of articles that I want to point you to on our website, newlife.com. These are good for you, Cindy, and for anybody else who's watching or listening right now who might be in a similar situation as Cindy. The articles are called "Four Tough Love Tips: How to Help a Loved One with Alcohol or Drug Addiction." The other one is "Understanding and Loving a Family Member with Alcohol or Drug Addiction." Those two articles are available at newlife.com.

1-800-229-3000 is the number to call us today. God's heart is for every individual who is hurting, broken, or lost. At New Life, we're committed to joining in that pursuit, ensuring that no one feels beyond reach. When you give, you're helping assure that we can continue to answer the call of the hurting with biblical resources. You can call one of our ministry service representatives to make a gift or text NLM to 28950 or give online at newlife.com where you can learn about our monthly giving program called 99for1 Partners. You can even mail us a check if you want. You can get our mailing address on our website newlife.com. Your generosity changes lives. Thank you for whatever you can do.

Here now is Karen, who is in Washington, DC, listening on SiriusXM Channel 131. Hello, Karen.

Karen: Hi. I went into my husband's phone and realized that he had pictures on his phone. I saw that he had a bunch of pictures of women on there half-dressed, and I think he's been self-gratifying himself to that. When I confronted him and showed him what I saw on his phone, actually he tried to flip the script on me, saying that I broke trust by going to his phone. I didn't tell him that I figured out the code on how to get on his phone, but a lot of times I know he likes to use a lot of deflection, avoidance, and diversion when you put him on the point.

I have been hypervigilant when it comes to him. Like when he leaves, I go into his man cave and I'm just searching, looking for everything that I might be able to find. I noticed that I didn't feel like he was remorseful from what I found. I felt like he was only feeling bad because he got exposed. I am going to go to that Thursday betrayal webinar that's coming up and I had mentioned something to him about Every Man's Battle. I noticed I found some books that he had ordered from you all also and I read some of those things when he was gone. He can be truthful with himself when he writes things down, but he can't be truthful when he's talking to me. I know that a lot of things he does is when anxiety hits in and he gets backed against the wall, he actually uses denying and lying, and I've been with him long enough to know that.

Brian Perez: How long have you guys been married, Karen?

Karen: Thirty-six years.

Brian Perez: Did you listen to our first caller of the day? His name was John. He was also calling because...

Karen: I did. Yes, I did, and he sounds just like my husband.

Mark Cameron: So he initially lies, but then he can be repentant? Is that what you're saying? Or he has ordered books?

Karen: He has ordered books from you all, but I personally... He didn't come to me and say, "Please forgive me, I'm sorry." He just said, "I'm sorry," but I don't feel like he's sorry because I still, when he's not around, I'll go into his phone and look and he still has all those pictures on there.

JJ West: Karen, a couple questions for you. Number one, how long have you been engaged in this hypervigilant behavior where you're checking your husband's phone, you're searching his man cave looking for evidence? How long have you been doing that?

Karen: Since last year in October.

JJ West: Since last year in October. Okay. What happened in October of last year that prompted this?

Karen: That's when I went into his phone because he took a picture and I said, "Oh, let me see the picture," and when he pulled the picture up, I noticed he turned his phone so there was something he didn't want me to see. So it gave me a reason to mistrust. Then I wanted to know what he was doing. So I kind of figured out... I went through a whole bunch of numbers and I figured out the code to get into his phone and that's when I actually found out not only that, texting other these dating sites.

JJ West: Prior to October when he was being secretive with his phone, prior to that, over the 35 years of marriage, has he given you any indication that you shouldn't trust him?

Karen: Yes. He actually told me I needed to step back and figure out how I contributed to...

Mark Cameron: So this is called gaslighting here, Karen. People who betray, they act out in the dark. They learn to hide their behaviors and so it becomes this default, like you said, this just slight turning away the phone so that you don't see. He's trained himself that his first thing to do is to hide his acting out. When he's saying to you, "Well, now you're snooping, now you don't trust me, you've broken trust with me," this is gaslighting. He has given you reason and now there's concrete evidence to show that he's been betraying you and he's shifting it and he's turning it around and saying you're the one with the problem.

There's an acronym called DARVO, D-A-R-V-O, and it stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse the Victim and Offender order. That's exactly what he's doing here to you. He's making you feel bad like you're guilty, like you're the one in the wrong. It's all designed smoke and mirrors to not look over here at the problem. So you're not crazy and you're not doing something wrong. That's exactly why I said in my opening is that this is called safety-seeking behavior. It's not controlling, it's not snooping. You're the one feeling like you have to police him so that you can feel safe, and that's a totally natural feeling.

But your relationship is not going to recover unless he does those three things that I mentioned. He needs to come clean. You don't even know what else there is. It's only through your researching that you found out there's people who he's been texting. We don't know how far and how deep this goes. We don't know if he goes to massage parlors. We don't know if he's had other types of betrayals. You only become safe when the person comes to you and gives you that full disclosure, takes responsibility, and holds themselves accountable for recovery because it's not enough just to say sorry. Repentance is a U-turn. So now you're faced here with, "what am I going to do with an unrepentant husband?" because it isn't repentance. Just saying sorry isn't repentance. If you continue to stay in this loop, he's going to continue to act out. So that's where comes the consequences, this is the line that I'm not willing to put up with any further.

I'm going to go seek my support and seek my help. It's not like I'm going to go and expose you, but this is your story to tell. So you get to go and seek support from the church, you get to go and seek support from the pastor. If you guys have kids and you ask your husband to move out, they may ask why you're asking Dad to move out and you get to be truthful with them to let them know. It's not until we're faced with the consequences of our actions because this is an addiction and addictions are hard to let go of. It's only when the cost of staying the same exceeds the cost of change do we shift into recovery mode here.

JJ West: That's so good. I'm really glad to hear, Karen, that you're planning to attend the betrayal seminar this week. I would also want you to even consider attending the Restore workshop that's coming up. It's going to be important, just like Mark said, your husband's done something in the church, a recovery course in the church, however, it wouldn't matter to remove everything off your phone because he can just reload it again. You've got so much access to a bunch of stuff on the internet that he can still reload it.

If he was in recovery, he would be taking full accountability. He would be acknowledging how hurtful this is to you. He would be transparent and open with everything that he has. He would be working a program. He's not in full recovery. He's stuck between discovery here where it's been revealed and that tension between "I don't want to let go of my addiction." So he's not in full recovery. I want you to find someone safe that you can disclose this to that they can help walk you through this because your recovery is not dependent on him doing his work. Obviously, in order for your marriage to recover, for your marriage to be healed, yes, your husband needs to do his work. But you, Karen, your recovery, your healing is not dependent on your husband actually doing the work. You can heal on your own because God knows you, loves you, wants good for you, and will walk with you through this process.

Just like Mark said, it's going to be important that you have a good support system, that you have some trusted people that can walk with you through this, and that you have some good resources in terms of things like the betrayal seminar as well as Restore or things like that to help you to put the pieces of your own life back together and not be just waiting for your husband to get his act together and do what he's supposed to do.

Mark Cameron: Have you read any books on this, Karen?

Karen: No.

Mark Cameron: Okay, so we've got a book in our library called Intimate Deception written by our friend Sherry Keffer, who's a co-host on the show. She describes what is required for somebody to do and she also describes her experience of betrayal, which I think you'll resonate with.

Brian Perez: That's at newlife.com in the store. Thank you so much for signing up for the betrayal webinar. It's this Thursday. Everyone else, you can still sign up. Text the word webinar to 28950 and we'll send you all the details and we will also send you a tip sheet on betrayal. Then next weekend, March 6th through the 8th, is the Restore: Healing After Betrayal intensive. It's three days, it's all weekend. Then this Saturday, I'm glad Karen that your husband has the Every Man's Battle book, but we have an Every Man's Battle one-day intensive and it's online. He doesn't have to go anywhere. He doesn't have to say, "well, I don't want to leave you alone for the weekend." You can tell him, "no, you're going to be here in the home with me." All the details are on our website newlife.com. Not too late to sign up. Keep calling in. We'll be back here on New Life Live. God bless you.

New Life: Thanks 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.