Beyond Broken Vows | Christian Marriage, Adultery, Pornography Addiction, Sexual Betrayal, Infidelity

Let us be the first to wish you a happy Valentine’s Day! Okay, how did that make you feel? Did you smile? Did it make you cringe? Did it bring up a feeling of excitement, or anger or even dread?   We’ve found that Valentine’s Day is a tricky holiday. Well, it’s not a public holiday, but it is a recognized day on the calendar for celebrating love between sweethearts. We’re going to be talking today...

Do you have a daily practice of self-reflection? Do you ever stop to take stock in how you act, think, and feel when relating to others? Most of us have heard the phrase - wash, rinse, repeat. And no, we aren’t talking about the latest greatest shampoo. Today as we talk about the 10th Step in SSA Recovery we will peel back the layers of what a daily personal inventory can look like and why we shou...

Last week we asked the question: Have you ever hurt someone and come to not only realize that you hurt them but understood exactly how you hurt them?   This week we want to ask: Have you felt any fear or intimidation when making the choice to go back and right that wrong?   We have a special guest today who is going to share with us his experience with Step 9 of the Sex Addicts Anonymous Recovery...

Have you ever hurt someone and come to not only realize that you had hurt them, but understood exactly how you hurt them? Today as we cover the 8th step of recovery of Sex Addicts Anonymous, it is time to do the work of making a list of those we've harmed through our destructive sexual behaviors and become willing to make amends.   Working this step means finding the willingness to bring resolutio...

Have you come to a place in life where you have been humbled by your own actions and are ready to move forward with hope and integrity? It is time to approach God humbly and ask him do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.   From the Green Book of Recovery: "We may wonder why it is necessary to ask humbly. Many of us have confused humility with humiliation. We were more familiar with pleading fo...

Have you come to a place where you understand that some of the things that you do are not beneficial for you? Or are even hurtful to others?   What do you do once you’ve discovered this? Do you say, “Well, that’s just me.” Or, do you decide that you want to change these behaviors for your own good and the good of those you love? If so, how do you go about making these changes?   From the Green Boo...

Have you noticed that New Year’s resolutions don’t last much past January for most people? Statistically, 91% of Americans fail at New Year’s resolutions. That’s not very encouraging.   We were going to talk about the reasons why resolutions are so hard to keep in today’s episode, but then Holy Spirit intervened. So, we threw out our outline and just had a candid conversation about our first New Y...

Before you got married, you had in your head an idea of what you wanted your marriage to look like. You had all kinds of hopes and dreams and they were all good, positive things and you made plans according to this picture in your mind.   But things didn’t go exactly as planned.   This is not the first time this story has played out. God made plans for how he wanted his relationship with mankind t...

Have you gotten to the point in your life where you are ready to tell someone else every terrible thing that you’ve done in your life?   If this thought doesn't excite you or possibly even terrifies you, then you’re in good company. Baring our souls to another person is not something we come by naturally. However, the longer we keep secrets locked behind the door of our minds, the longer we will s...

Have you turned your will and your life over to the care of God? Are you ready to gain an understanding of how you violated your personal moral boundaries and allowed addiction to set into your life? From the Green Book of Recovery: In taking the 4th step, we begin to know ourselves for who we really are. Building on the foundation of the first 3 steps, we take stock of the feelings and patterns t...

Is the holiday season hard for you after sexual betrayal? Or any date that reminds you of the devastation that sexual betrayal brings into a marriage? It sure was for us in the beginning.   What is a healthy way to deal with these triggers when they occur?   Today we are going to have a conversation about how these dubious dates affected our marriage and how we worked through them so that they are...

Have you admitted your powerlessness over your porn addiction? Have you come to believe that a power greater than yourself can restore you to sanity?   These two questions encapsulate steps 1 and 2 of the Sex Addicts Anonymous 12-step recovery program.  In today’s episode we will unpack Step 3. which focuses on surrendering our plans and path. Are you ready to turn EVERY part of your life over to...

What does Thanksgiving Day mean to you? Here in the United States, it is recognized as a national holiday on the 3rd Thursday of November each year. Today we want to look beyond what’s considered to be the traditional activities of this special day, such as gathering of family, turkey dinner with all the fixings, football, post dinner food comas, all the pies and of course, leftovers. And while al...

Do you see yourself in this vicious cycle of chaos?   When we utilize technology to view pornography and use it for our own sexual satisfaction, then walk away from our devices, it can give us the illusion that we are in control. But how quickly do we shift from promising ourselves that we’re not going to do it again to contemplating what we've seen then anticipating our next opportunity to view o...

Does pornography use have a hold on you or someone you love?   Today we are talking about Step 1 of the 12-Step Sex Addicts Anonymous recovery program. This is Johnny’s chosen recovery program so we will be sharing what this step entails, how he approached this step and why it is so imperative to start here. We will also be hearing from Emily on how she views the process and progress of Johnny’s 1...

What if you had been confronted with the fact that your life had become unmanageable and through this revelation you discovered that you were powerless over a major struggle in your life? And what if you came to believe that this major struggle in your life was an addiction? You may be asking, "How did I get here? What do I do about it and how do I get out of it?"      If there was a measurable wa...

Up until now, we’ve been talking a lot about taking steps to stabilize, grieve, heal, and renew our marriages after sexual betrayal. We've covered heavy topics like confession, boundaries, apologies, and forgiveness. and in our last episode even dipped our toes into the waters of reigniting sexual connection and what true intimacy looks like.   But today, we're switching gears. We're going to take...

Have you wrestled with this question? Can there still be a meaningful sexual relationship after experiencing sexual betrayal? The short answer is YES, but today, we're not diving into the world of makeup or guilt sex. Instead, we'll be delving into the realm of true intimacy.   Intimacy is often misunderstood as just being synonymous with love and sex. While sex is a part of it, there's a deeper l...

Hello Friend,   Have you experienced grief? We normally associate grief with the death and loss of someone we love, and we can also grieve the loss of something we are emotionally attached to like a job or home. But there is also a loss that occurs through betrayal. With this type of loss come the very same emotions that are common to losing someone or something dear to us.   After sexual betrayal...

The prevalence of sexually explicit content continues to surge, becoming increasingly accessible with each passing day. Who's it hurting? A better question might be, who isn't it hurting? Pornography affects everyone from innocent children to grandparents and there’s really no escaping it in our culture today. So, what can we do?   Today we are sharing a discussion we had with a young couple who e...

Hey Friend,   Have you ever been curious about the untold stories of those in the adult entertainment industry? Do you question the authenticity of what you've heard about or witnessed on the screen?   We've recently been talking a lot about the harmful impact of pornography on consumers and their loved ones, but only briefly explored the profound effects it has on those who take center stage.   T...

As a fallen human race, we tend to compare ourselves to others in many ways, the way people look, what kind of clothes they wear or car they drive, what job they have or what kind of house and neighborhood they live in. This comparison can lead to feelings of inadequacy or pridefulness.  I imagine most, if not all of us, have or have had some degree of comparison working against us in how we feel...

In our marriages when there is sexual betrayal fueled by pornography use or addiction, it is easy to only focus on the outward behaviors because they are so painful and destructive. But what if there is something deeper under the surface that you are unaware of? What if the addiction was only the evidence of an underlying problem.  Would you be willing to explore the possibility?   I’m a recoverin...

As the wife of a recovering addict, I’ve learned that there were clues displayed by my husband that pointed to addictive behavior. I was aware of his periodic pornography use but didn’t put it together with these behavioral clues to realize that there might be a serious issue. Now that we have been working on our recovery for several years, I have discovered what I either missed or ignored as sign...

If pornography is no big deal, why are so many marriages destroyed by it? If pornography is harmless, why are so many people around the world hurt by it? If pornography is no big deal, why do we hide it from our wives? If pornography is harmless, why do we hide it from our children?   How much do you know about porn and the pornography industry? I didn’t know much about it when I got married and I...