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: Hello and welcome to day number two of us broadcasting from our new New Life LIVE studio. You can see our new look on our YouTube channel. While you're there, be sure to like today's episode and subscribe and leave us an encouraging comment. I'm Brian Perez, by the way. Nice to meet you.

Lines are now open and will remain open for two hours, meaning we have time for your call today. We can talk about your relationships, betrayal, anything. No topic is off the table. When you call, you'll be met with biblical wisdom, clinical insight, and compassionate guidance from licensed marriage and family therapists JJ West and Chris—what's he going to confess today—Williams. So give us a call at 1-800-229-3000. Hi JJ. Hi Chris. What's up, guys?

JJ West: Hey, good to be with you guys today.

Chris Williams: Always.

JJ West: So what's on your mind, Chris?

Chris Williams: Okay, so here is a bad habit I have and I've had most of my life.

JJ West: Another bad habit? I thought you had gotten them all out of the way.

Chris Williams: No, I've got a few, man. I've got a storehouse of them. So I tend to be quick to speak, slow to listen, and quick to become angry. There are these moments, especially in parenting or sometimes in my marriage, that I have something that's really important. I want to say it. I want to get it out. I'm not hearing what anyone else is saying, and I'm really frustrated. What I have found in this bad habit is it's not conducive to healthy relationships. In fact, it's a setup for hurt feelings and ruptured relationships.

And so what I'm learning and convicted of today is what James is trying to tell us when he says, "My dear brothers and sisters—he gets it really—my dear Chris, take note of this: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry." Now, here's what's remarkable about this statement is it actually reverse engineers our neurology. Because when we feel threatened or when we feel hurt or when we feel frustrated, our mind speeds up, and it becomes very quick to react. And it actually shuts down our ability to hear, and anger and frustration are right at the surface.

And so part of our spiritual growth, part of my relational health growth, is learning, one, to understand what triggers inside of me. Understand what is happening inside of me so that I can manage myself well enough to be a person who listens well and who leads with listening, who chooses to speak in wisdom, and who knows that my angry responses are really not helping us and not helping me. And so I just think that there is a tremendous, tremendous amount of wisdom here, but it's very, very difficult. We have to understand that there is so much inside of us, again, like myself, that gets us to be quick to speak, quick to make our point, quick to be right, slow to understand other people, slow to empathy, slow to listening and attuning to another person with anger right at the surface.

If you're a person that struggles with that like I do at times, understand this: there is something going on underneath that needs to be addressed. Some sort of discontent, some sort of disturbance, because I find it in me all the time. There's always some sort of disturbance inside of me that I need to resolve so I can get back to relating like God wants me to relate.

Brian Perez: What happens, though, if you are right? Like you know a hundred percent, and I don't mean that your opinion is better, I mean that you're talking about facts here and you are right. How do you deal with that without getting angry?

Chris Williams: Well, I think that being right, you can be assured without having to be angry about it. People see things differently. But I would much rather be connected well than right all the time.

Brian Perez: Humility goes a long way there.

JJ West: Yes, indeed.

Brian Perez: Give us a call. We're going to be here for two hours. You can change your name and remain anonymous if you'd like. 1-800-229-3000.

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.

Who will be our first caller of the day? Well, it might be you. Phone lines are now open at 1-800-229-3000. Father's Day is coming up, and for a lot of men, it brings mixed emotions. Some are grateful and proud. Others feel shame, regret, or the pressure of trying to be the husband and father they want to be. Lots of men carry secret struggles: pornography, shame, isolation, unhealthy patterns. But they think they can just deal with it.

What if this Father's Day becomes the gift nobody sees, but everyone around you experiences? Becoming a better husband starts by becoming a healthier man. And we're not just talking about physically healthy, right JJ West?

JJ West: Yes, indeed. If only it were just that. It would be so easy if it were just, "Oh, I just need to hit the gym or go for another run, eat a little healthier." Boy, that would be great and it would be so much simpler. But as Chris and I know from the experience of being dads, the changes and the challenges of being a dad require doing that internal work on the heart.

And just like you talked about, we're so often either afraid that we're not going to measure up in some way, we're not going to measure up to the expectations that people have of us, or we are hiding something about ourselves. We're trying to keep secrets, and both of those things get in the way of us showing up.

And the thing that I see so often—and Chris, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as well—the people in my office who grew up and dads were not present for some reason. If the dad was humble enough to admit his wrongs and try to work on repair, those people do far better later in life than the ones who rule with the iron fist. "I'm the dad, you're the kid, you do what I say. It doesn't matter that I missed this, that, or the other thing in your life. I'm the dad, I'm in charge." And so it's that humility that helps us navigate even when we make mistakes, even when we're trying but we fail. And I think a huge part of even doing EMB is learning humility. When we talk about the Every Man's Battle Intensive, it's not about, "Oh, you better get your act together." We're not trying to shame people into a new way of behaving. We are trying to help people learn to be humble and love them into a new identity.

Chris Williams: I think that that's really, really key there. Because, JJ, it's like me growing up without my dad around, I also had this view of dad as Superman. But what I realized in my own parenting is exactly what you said: my boys don't need a hero. In fact, my boys, more than anything else, need me to point them to God as their ultimate source. They need me to be a real person and to show up the best way that I can.

As well as showing up the best way I can is, to your point, admitting when I don't. I think that's one of the strongest aspects of recovery. Speaking of Every Man's Battle, when we break through shame, we don't hold the burden of having to be perfect. We don't hold the burden of having to be right or having to get it right all the time. We hold the grace of moving through life with strength, with resiliency, and ultimately with the confidence that comes with humility. There is just a different confidence on the other side of humility that you can't really explain until you've been there and done that. But it is so freeing and it is so—the best way I can say it is it's relaxing. Meaning that, okay, I don't have to prove anything.

JJ West: Right, yeah. You get to take that breath.

Chris Williams: And I believe what that teaches our children is they don't have to get it right and perfect all the time either. And the confidence of acceptance and the irony of that, or the backside of that, maybe even the paradox of that, is that when you don't have to get it perfect, you tend to get it better over and over and over again.

JJ West: Exactly. And the flip side is when I refuse to be humble, I put on a mask that I'm perfect. I've got it together. I'm doing everything well. And that actually prevents me from being present, from showing up in the ways that I need to, because I am presenting this false image of myself. We all do it to varying degrees, we put on these masks, and that's one of the main things—one of the first things we talk about at the intensive are some of the masks that we wear.

But when I put on this mask of the perfect father, the perfect husband, the perfect Christian, the perfect neighbor, whatever it is, when I'm putting on that mask, I am not showing up as my authentic self, which is what my world needs. My kids need, my wife needs, my neighbor and people at church need me to show up as my authentic self, not this caricature, not this mask. And that's what moving from shame into conviction does for us.

When I'm living in shame, I have to put on the mask and pretend to be something that I'm not because I can't let you see the real me. If I let you see the real me, that will be disastrous. But when I move into conviction, I'm able to own who I am and that allows me, just like you said, to move into sanctification, not perfection, but sanctification where I'm gradually changing into who God's called me to be.

Chris Williams: And I also want to go back to the process of whether it be sexually acting out or addictive processes, is that they create what I call emotional deafness. Meaning that they shut us down to our own emotional experiences because we're medicating and escaping from them, and that also shuts us down to the emotional experiences of those around us. I can't over-explain the damage that that causes.

And so one of the best things that we can do as fathers is be emotionally aware. A lot of times we call it emotional intelligence, but the ability to feel and deal and move into our own and our kids' and our family's emotional worlds and help navigate that and move through it and show them what that's like. My goodness, that opens up a richness of relationship, again, going back to strength and confidence. What I want my boys to have in the world is that humble confidence to move through life with resilience and faith over and over and over again.

Our addictive processes, sexual acting out, the use of pornography—it shuts that down. It does it in such subtle and powerful ways that often times we don't even recognize it's happening while it's happening. But trust me, it's happening. And so getting into recovery again wakes us back up, wakes us to ourselves, wakes us to the world around us. And I'm telling you, if you're struggling with this, it is the best Father's Day gift you can give to yourself, your kids, and everyone around you to get to Every Man's Battle.

Brian Perez: Yep, the next one is the weekend of June 5th. If you sign up by this Friday, you'll get a discount. You can get all the details at NewLife.com/EMB. We would love to see you there. Yeah, great point. Instead of wanting to get a gift or to give a gift to your dad, just going to this intensive—people will notice a difference. And we want you to come out.

You can also call us at 1-800-NEW-LIFE or just get the details online at NewLife.com. And maybe you're a dad who feels like you messed up your kids' childhood. Maybe that was decades ago. Maybe you're a new dad. We would love to hear from you as well. We're going to be in the studio for the rest of this hour and all of next at 1-800-229-3000. Let's go to the phones.

JJ West: Can I say real quick, Brian, that if you're not a new dad, you're an older dad—we've had it many times where a dad comes with his adult sons. And it's a powerful experience. So that's something else just to consider.

Brian Perez: For sure. All right, to the phones we go. 1-800-229-3000. Michelle in Rochester, you're first up today. You're listening to us on SiriusXM Channel 131. Thanks so much for calling in. How can Chris and JJ help you today?

Michelle: Hello. I wanted a male perspective—a married male perspective—on dealing with menopause.

Brian Perez: Okay. Tell us more, Michelle.

JJ West: Did you want to say more, Michelle, or do you just want us to jump right in? Could you share a little bit more of what your experience so far has been?

Michelle: Later stages of menopause and the marriage, and my husband is trying to understand and deal with it, but it's really not happening. The idea of going to counseling for the issue with the menopause, talking to the OB-GYN doctor, medication on top of the spiritual part of it between the two of us, the counseling is just—it's not there. He's hesitant to do it, and I'm just trying to figure out how to navigate this to be able to be okay or to just try to get some kind of resolve because it's pulling us apart.

That's not something that I want, I don't think that he wants this, but just the lack of, I guess he's saying the intimacy physically, the emotional part of it, because it's not that I don't want that, but it's just not there. And I need a male perspective or some kind of encouragement for him and myself to be able to see, you know what, there is light at the end of the tunnel. It's just not happening.

Chris Williams: Well, first off, Michelle, that is a painful and frustrating experience, that body changes and outside of our control. I honestly believe that we have such a profound lack of information, understanding, and really what it comes down to is value to understand how our bodies change over time.

This goes all the way back to where I believe we have missed the mark in our sex education when it comes to couples and marriage. When I'm working with younger couples, I'm saying like, "Hey, sex isn't just this thing you go into and it's sort of like the 4th of July or it's this great thing. It's learning yourselves and each other for the rest of your entire life." Because circumstances change all the time. Stress has an effect. Age has an effect. Kids have an effect. Our bodies are affected by so many things, and the female body even more so.

And I think as a result of that, my challenge and my encouragement to men is: learn, grow, figure this stuff out. We have to learn that as rich and amazing and as connecting as sexual intimacy can be in the marriage, there's two people involved here. Kind of like if I can revert back to what we were just talking about, one of the things that sexual acting out and especially pornography create is such an unbelievably unhealthy selfish perspective on it and expectation around it.

Where this is a mutual thing that our bodies are again changing and reacting in very, very different ways, and so it requires us to go back and not just rework things physically, but like you said, Michelle, rework things emotionally. What I want your husband to be able to do is to understand you and understand what's happening inside of you and understand what's happening with your body. My wife and I have had this conversation many times over the last few years. We're also a little bit frustrated about the lack of information around perimenopause and menopause and postmenopause just out there in the culture at large.

And so you guys are one: you're not alone. You are facing an uphill battle, but I want you guys to move back into great—and I'd love to hear more from JJ on this—other aspects of intimacy in your relationship.

Brian Perez: Now, we are coming up to our break, so Michelle, what do you think so far of what you've heard? And then we'll come back to you after the break.

Michelle: I understand what he's saying. I understand.

Brian Perez: Okay, well, stay on the phone because we want to continue the conversation and hear what JJ has to say.

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 Michelle in Rochester. You still with us, Michelle? JJ, go ahead.

JJ West: Hi Michelle. Thank you for calling in. And like Chris said, it is such a hard transition and one that as men we don't understand. Like Chris said before, there isn't a lot of information out there, but I will say that there is some, and it's growing.

And so I would say to your husband, and I would say to all the men out there: it is important, it's imperative that you do your own homework to learn about perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause. The changes are extraordinary. What women go through—the changes are absolutely extraordinary, and it's important that you educate yourself, and that you—again, we come back to humility a lot, but—that you have the humility to recognize "I don't know everything, I can't just go on my assumptions," and especially because a lot of my assumptions are based on my experience.

And my experience is different than my wife's experience. We're walking through the whole perimenopause/menopause phase now as a couple, and it does present challenges. Our friend Laura-Maggia McDonald says this all the time at the Restore Workshop: it's hard to not take personally what feels so personal. And when it comes to matters of sex, sex feels very personal, and rejection or postponement of sex can feel very personal.

And so what I want to encourage your husband and other husbands out there to do is to try not to take this personally. This isn't something that you're doing. You're not choosing—you didn't wake up one morning and go, "Well, I think what I'd like to do is experience a second puberty, that's what I would love right now." Nobody would choose something like that, that drastic of a change. But that's what's happening.

And so it's important for your husband to choose to educate himself, choose to, in humility, to not take personally what—you're not doing it to him. It's happening to you, and it's happening to you as a couple. And so it's important to walk through it together as a couple. And then you said something earlier before the break: it sounded like you said that there is some resistance or hesitancy on his part to go to counseling and talk through these things.

So what I would encourage you to do, Michelle, is to sit down with him and say, "Listen, I don't know if this is true. I'm perceiving, I'm experiencing that there's some hesitancy or resistance on your part to explore this in counseling. If that's true, what's that about? And if it's not, can we please get some counseling to walk us through this process? Because this is something that isn't going away. It's not going to just disappear. It's not like we can wait it out for a few weeks or a few months. This is something that's going to continue to happen." And like Chris said in his part, it's important that we are learning each other over a lifespan, not just in the first couple of years or first couple of even decades, but that we're continuing to learn each other over the lifespan. And that's going to require some good counsel.

Michelle: And you know what the thing is? He's said to me, "You know, my main problem is there's not enough—like you guys are saying—about the information out there that would support the feelings of the men or the husbands that are going through what they're going through." And it's like, okay, everybody is gung ho to fix what's going on—everybody just deal with what the wife is going through. And I'm like, "You know what? I understand that, but I'm not that person that's not trying to help you get through this." And it's just like this wall. So it's like, where do you go? Where do you go?

JJ West: You start to do some research. You do some searches on whatever device he might use for listening to podcasts. Do some searches on menopause and what the experience is. But also talk to some of your friends that you go to church with. "Hey, what have you found to be helpful? What have you found to not be helpful?" and use that as part of your guide. Sorry, Chris, I didn't mean to cut you off.

Chris Williams: No, no, that's exactly it, heading in that direction. And I just think from the guy's perspective, when things change in our lives, one of the things I don't think that we have enough respect for—and JJ you said it well, quoting our friend Laura—it's hard to not take things personally that feel personal. But I find that a lot of times behind that is subtle grief, and sometimes strong grief.

Life is this continual process of letting go of the old and embracing something new and going through seasons. Menopause is something for an individual but obviously for a couple. As things change, it's hard to let go of what things were like before and work through the hard work to then discover and cultivate something new in our lives.

I was listening to a song this morning that reminded me of my end-of-school-year kids are launching, kids are growing up. And as a parent, I'm going to have to learn how to grieve because my job is to work myself out of a job. I think that that happens in our seasons of marriage as well. So guys, we've got to learn how to work through our expectations, work through disappointment, but also know that that's not the end of the story. There is something more that God is calling us into and something more that we can experience as we may lose something in our previous season of life.

Brian Perez: We don't always think of it that way because we—I say it so often and I've been telling my own circle of friends about this—grief isn't just when we lose a person. It could just be a season of life, like you said, the kids are growing up.

Chris Williams: It's a significant loss, whatever that loss is.

Brian Perez: Michelle, thanks for your phone call. We've got to take a break. We will be back with more of your calls. 1-800-229-3000.

Becky Brown: Hello, it's Becky Brown, and I am so excited to launch our 99 for the 1 partner initiative. 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. And it reminds us of the story in Luke 15 where the shepherd leaves the 99 to go rescue the one. And you know, 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, 1-800-639-5533, or NewLife.com/9941.

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: When you don't know what to do in a world that constantly tells us who we should be, it's easy to feel confused about who we truly are. But scripture offers a clear and powerful answer: your identity is not defined by your past, your struggles, or the labels other people place on you. It's defined by God. JJ West is going to be talking about this in an upcoming webinar, a few weeks away, titled "Identity in Christ: What the Bible Says." JJ, what are some of these labels we identify as and why do we still wear those "Hello, My Name Is" stickers for years or decades later?

JJ West: A lot of it is because of the families of origin we grew up in and the different labels that we received, whether intentionally or inadvertently, while we were growing up there. So sometimes those labels are: you're not good enough, I can't count on you, you always mess it up, you always fail. Sometimes it's in the category of: you're not meeting the standard. This is the standard that we have and you're not meeting the standard for you have to be perfect all the time, you can't be upset, you can't talk back, you can't have an opinion of your own, you have to follow the rules here.

And then sometimes we grew up in a situation where we were heavily abused or neglected and we start to believe that we're really not worth noticing or paying attention to. And so it's important that we learn how to reject those labels and adopt what God says about us.

Brian Perez: Very true. You can find out more about this webinar by texting the word WEBINAR to 28950. We will text you back a free tip sheet called "Five Ways to Live Confidently in Your Identity in Christ." Again, this webinar is happening on June 11th. Sign up for it now. It's just $25 for a 90-minute webinar that includes 30 minutes of Q&A. Again, text WEBINAR to 28950 or go to NewLife.com or call us at 1-800-NEW-LIFE.

If you want to talk to JJ right now and Chris Williams, we're going to be in the studio for the rest of this hour and all of next. The number to call us directly here is 1-800-229-3000. Let's go to Daytona. Here is Emily, who is listening to us on the New Life app. Hi there, Emily. Welcome to New Life LIVE.

Emily: Hi, good afternoon.

Brian Perez: How can we help you today?

Emily: My husband and I are going to the Intimacy in Marriage New Life conference on the 24th of July.

Brian Perez: Great.

Emily: My daughter graduates sixth grade tomorrow and my son graduates high school his senior year on Saturday. God called me to do a sudden fast—He called me this past week to do a fast and it was to keep my mouth shut, and I definitely did not do a good job at that. And so then I feel like the Holy Spirit told me to do a water fast and that there would be a sudden breakthrough.

My question is: all those things going on—the grief of them graduating, the estrangement of my graduating son, marriage issues—when God says "fast for breakthrough," what does breakthrough look like if you don't know what breakthrough looks like? What's going to happen suddenly?

Chris Williams: Well, Emily, what is the barrier that you need to break through? What is on your side that is undesirable, that maybe is hurting or is frustrating to you?

Emily: Like the legal-sized yellow pad of lists that I need to get to you? I mean, it would just be a list of things that need breakthrough.

Brian Perez: What are maybe one or two on that list? Just the first two that come to mind.

Emily: Breakthrough would be the marriage and the estrangement with my graduating son. Those two things are the biggest things that I feel like need breakthrough. To restore the family. Because if you got the whole list together, the top of it would be fixing the whole family.

JJ West: Restoring those broken relationships in our family. And the heartbreak that you feel in response to those broken relationships. Here's the thing about breakthroughs from God: they very rarely look like what we expect them to look like.

So when you think about the nation of Israel after they had left Egypt and they're on their way to the Promised Land, and all of a sudden Pharaoh changes his mind and now the Egyptian army, the most powerful force on the planet, is chasing after them. And they're scared, and they're praying for deliverance. We might think that deliverance is going to come through God giving them superhuman strength to overpower their enemy. But that's not how it came. It came through a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night and it came through the parting of the Red Sea. They were not expecting that. That was not on their bingo card for the day. They weren't expecting that God was going to come through that way.

When Jesus showed up on the scene, the whole nation of Israel was praying for a Messiah, but in their mind, the Messiah would come in and overthrow the Roman government and re-establish Israel as a nation. But God had a different plan for breakthrough. They did not have a concept for the Messiah coming and giving His life for them.

And so what I say that, why I say that is, Emily, I want you to be open to the fact that God's breakthrough will probably look very different than what you expect it's going to look like. The reason why that's important is we can get so caught up in looking for what I expect, and then when I don't see that, I think—I interpret—that God's not coming through for me, that God's not at work. But God is at work; He's just working in ways that I'm not expecting Him to.

Emily: That's so crazy because I just was ministering to a little girl today and I said that exact same thing. A young woman came into my life and I was telling her those exact words. It's funny that it's actually back for me.

Chris Williams: Well, Emily, when you were talking, what came to my mind was the mathematics of Mary and Martha. We often times think of the story of Mary and Martha as Mary chose better because she chose to be with Jesus. But that's not what the story says. Jesus's confrontation of Martha was this: "Martha, Martha, you are consumed with many things." It means that her internal world was just obsessed with a big list that she was probably living in a lot of distraction.

She wasn't challenged because she was preparing things; she was challenged because she was consumed. And it says that Mary chose one thing and therefore chose better. And I find that in breakthrough, what we're looking for, especially when we're trying to break through all of these things, there's usually just one thing. It's the one thing that's often times holding us back.

I always encourage, and sometimes challenge, the people I'm working with—myself included with that—is that you want to go in the direction of your greatest fear. The breakthrough's on the other side of your greatest fear. This is a line that I'm borrowing from my business partner on our consulting business. He always says this: "We have far less control than we ever feared, but we have far more influence than we ever imagined."

And I think that that's really, really important here. There is a lot of fear that you're not in control. You can't make your family restored. But I do believe that the influence of you working on what's going on in the inside of you is the pathway for the restoration. The breakthrough is an internal job inside of us. I can't live somebody else's breakthrough. So Emily, I want that to be a challenge, but I want it most importantly to be encouraging. Keep working. What do you fear? Move into that. And the fasting is great because it's a release, it's a surrender. Keep surrendering, and God will lead you through that and to your point, it will always be a surprise. We'll be back right after this.

Brian Perez: Thanks to a generous $250,000 matching gift, every dollar you give will be doubled, bringing new beginnings to more men and women in desperate need of healing and restoration. Double your impact by giving at NewLife.com/match or by texting the word MATCH to 28950. You can also call us at 1-800-NEW-LIFE. We're going to be in the studio for another hour. Keep those calls coming to the studio: 1-800-229-3000.

We're going to speak with Jane, who is in Pocono. Welcome, Jane, to New Life LIVE.

Jane: Hi, thank you. Thanks for taking my call. My question is: I'm having a hard time moving forward. My husband passed away last year. He was a functioning alcoholic, but towards the end, he wasn't functioning anymore. I had about 16 months where he wasn't working and then he passed away. When he drank, he was mean and he would accuse me of infidelity, and the thing is, I was a faithful wife. I never went outside my marriage. We were together almost 37 years. I'm just having a hard time moving forward.

Chris Williams: And Jane, when you say a hard time moving forward, what is the experience inside of you? What's keeping you stuck? Is it fear? Is it grief? Is it negative voices inside?

Jane: It's probably a combination of different things because the words he would say would be rude and then he would have like this dismissive gesture that he would do when he would go into the bedroom. He'd just kind of flap his hand backward, like you were worth nothing. When he drank, it was like he became a different person in some respects. And I'm trying to make the house mine, but it seems like I'm bombarded by clutter. From what I've been trying to learn about that is it's not that I'm lazy; there's been trauma that that could be the part that's a little debilitating.

Chris Williams: Because as you're talking about it, the emphasis wasn't on his passing, even though we know that that is traumatic, but the emphasis was the impact of his cruelty, the impact of his dismissiveness on your life. And that is the thing that gets inside of us that another person put on you is now you're wearing. I love the verses in the beginning of Colossians where it says take off these certain things about life, take off these characteristics and put on something new. And what he put on you was shame—that you're unworthy, that you don't deserve, unlovable. And so as you had that relational experience, it's now an experience even though he's not there anymore that you have with yourself. And that's what you want to work on.

JJ West: The core message of shame is that I'm worthless, that I'm unlovable, and I'm unforgivable. That's the core message of shame. Some combination of those, and that's certainly some of what you experienced through the words and actions of your late husband. And I'm so sorry, Jane, that you felt those things.

To Chris's point, it's not just a human phenomenon. There's a spiritual component to this because we have an enemy of our soul who wants nothing more than for us to believe that we are worthless or unlovable or unforgivable. And so God comes to rescue us from this painful reality. You're dealing with a complex trauma. There are multiple losses here. There's certainly the loss of your husband when he died. But even prior to that, there's a grieving that you have to do over the loss of the dream that you had for your marriage—what you hoped it would be, but it wasn't.

When parents lose a child, they grieve over the loss of that child. But the couple who longs to have a child and can't, they grieve as well. They grieve over the loss of the dream of having that child, and that's what you're needing to grieve as well: the loss of what you wished that never came true. What you longed for: to be loved, to be accepted, to be seen for who you are. Those things were stolen; they didn't come true largely due to your husband's alcoholism and his treatment of you when he was drinking.

And so it's going to be important—I do think it would be really helpful for you to attend the Identity in Christ webinar, I think that would be really helpful—but also in addition to that, I want you to consider if you haven't already looking into a GriefShare group. Continue to do that.

But one other thing that I'm going to encourage you to do, if you haven't already, is to speak with a therapist specifically about grieving. Because one of the challenges is there were some labels put on you by your late husband that, yes, you have to take off, but there's also a need to speak to his treatment of you. And because he died, you can't do that directly, and so you need to do what in therapy we call the "empty chair technique." Where there's an opportunity to have a conversation or write a letter to someone who's not there. I think that's going to be an important part of the healing process for you, Jane: to be able to express the things that you needed to say, to confront these lies, even though he's already dead and you can't do it directly.

Brian Perez: Jane, thanks for calling in today to New Life LIVE. We have a webinar called "Grief: Hope and Healing After Loss." That's coming up July 16th, so you might want to register for that. But just for calling today, we're going to give you a registration for JJ's webinar. That's the one that's coming up in just a few weeks, June 11th, "Identity in Christ: What the Bible Says." And man, when you shared your story of the dismissive hand gesture that your husband did when he'd walk away from you—I mean, I don't know if it was the same one that came to my mind, but our heart breaks for you.

So everyone watching and listening, please pray for Jane as she navigates through all this. Jane, we'll see you at that webinar coming up June 11th. Anybody can sign up for that. You can text the word WEBINAR to 28950. We will text you back a registration link as well as a tip sheet about identity in Christ. Joel, Claudia, Sydney, everyone else who wants to talk to JJ and Chris, we're going to be here for another hour, so keep calling in to New Life LIVE. 1-800-229-3000 is our number, and we will talk to you next time here on New Life LIVE.

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. 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.