20 Years of Secrets: The Discovery That Almost Destroyed Our Marriage

Hey everyone, we want to come on here and just say thank you for all your support. You saw the podcast, Red Hunt Marriage has been something that we've been dreaming of for so many years. Yes, absolutely, and now we get an opportunity to do it, so thank you so much. Welcome back. In today's episode we're going to cover the time of discovery. What's discovery? And discovery is one of the very hardest things that a couple of good experiences when it comes to the affair of men have with the screen, with the things that they see in the screen. And that is the moment that he's discovered that he has a problem. And many times this is part of an ongoing lie for many years, especially for Christian men, I'm a Christian, I've been a Christian for so many years. I've been a pastor for many years, and even through times in ministry, Meena Youth Pastor over, I don't know, 30 years ago, when all this became part of my life, this was an ongoing lie in my life that I could handle it, that I could be able to heal from it, to break free from it, that I didn't need no one's help, that I didn't want to tell my wife. I didn't want no one to know because of the shame that it happens. So we're sharing today part of our story that we've shared only in very private settings. And I know you've shared it openly with men a lot, you know, publicly. But this is part of the journey of what happened in our marriage that almost made it come to an end. So like we mentioned in the first episode that we have been married for 30 years, almost 30 years in December, but this happened at around year 20, the 20 year mark. So this is 20 years of not knowing a secret in a marriage that I would have never in a million years thought that was going to happening. So we will go back in time and kind of share a little bit of what our journey has been. So you talked about discovery and how discovery, you know, is the very moment that it comes to light. Right. And the way that it happened with us, because I remember that vividly was, you know, normally we don't we didn't have any kind of filters on our phones. I've always trusted you just always that's just there's no reason why I wouldn't trust you there. You know, I've always just you tell me that you're doing well. I believe you. That was the kind of marriage that I thought that we had up to that point. So I, you know, just I just felt that I needed to check your phone one one evening. It was just like a real weird feeling of just like check his phone. I have there's I don't even remember if it was disconnection or what it was that was going on, but. But now I know that it was definitely the Lord trying and stirring that in me. So ladies, whenever you have that inkling and all of that, there's something that you're it's telling you it's a deep knowing that something is off. I think part of the makeup, part of the makeup of women and and our wives, you know, for men that are married, the Lord has put something in our wives hard and mind and their makeup in the makeup. That whenever we're pulling away and and our disconnect our wives internal flags are going crazy inside. And they might not have the language to say they might not recognize it. But but this is part of it right here. Yeah, so I started feeling that and I was like, OK, final check it. I mean, I know the password and everything. Nothing right. No biggie. So I go and I check your phone and I remember opening it up and seeing a picture of a scantley dressed woman. And I was like, OK, interesting. All right. And put it away. Didn't tell you anything. And then the next day, I was like, OK, it has to be a one off because obviously, you know, he's telling me. Eric is perfect. Of course. Perfect. And every way. Right. So then I go the next day and I check your phone again. And then I find another picture. And it's not porn. It's not, you know, it's. It's just another scantley dressed woman. And I thought, OK, was this two for two. I need to say something because now I am just thinking, all right, what is happening here? Yeah. And what is happening? Right. I'm seeing you change and shift and just be a jerk at times, you know, just attitude and and I don't know what I did because I'm thinking something is wrong. Like I maybe did something. I don't even know. So I just confront you and I just ask you, Hey, babe, you know, I noticed that there was these pictures there on the phone. And is there a reason why they're there. And that was my question. Absolutely. And then at that point, what happened? At that point, I was like, I had a, I think for for many years, it had been a burden and that I carried. And part of like the reactions that I had a different times in in different conversations outside of this moment. That I responded a certain way that I my life was a certain way. It was because I carried the shame of this very moment that that ended up right here where we're talking about now that I had a decision to make a pivotal decision to make. And I could have gone with the thought of, oh, honey, it was just like an award show and this women are beautiful and and I was just came up my feet and I was looking at and and that was it. But there was a lot more to that. And in this moment, I decided to really just share with Diana, everything that was in my heart, everything that I had been lying to her about. All those questions that she would ask me, you know, because we we come since we're kids, we're in ministry. And we've gone to so many like classes, we taught marriage classes, marriage groups, all those different things that we do. And some of the teachers out there in the Christian environment, Christian world that teach about, you know, bouncing your eyes and don't look at this and say a little prayer here whenever you look at a woman, then the pulls on your hard pulls on your eyes or whatever. And in this moment, I had to share with Diana exactly what was happening. And I decided to just to tell her to be honest, to be to be honest for the first time. In other words, if you think about this moment, it's crazy to me, sorry, I'm honest, this microphone, but it's crazy to me because at this moment, I decided to be honest, yes. But to show a piece of me that I never showed you before, a piece of someone that you were married at this point for 20 years, they have known for maybe 24 years at this moment, a piece of me that you did not know. And that is crazy to me. And for me, it was that moment of all the times that I have asked you in those 20 years, I think, hey, how are you doing? And what did I do? I would always check in on it. I would always. I would always because I mean, hello, we live in the same world where people are walking around practically naked, right? And I would always check in and say, like, hey, how are you doing? How do you do it? How do you do it whenever, you know, you see a hot woman coming around? Well, let me give you the answer. Please give me the answer. Let me give you the answer. I bounce my eyes. I bounce my eyes so much. I just, I get angry just thinking about that. And I believed you because why would I? Absolutely. Of course. Of course. So that was a part of then step into the betrayal realm of then being told one thing. And even in times that I would, you know, feel disconnected and feel like you would pull away and everything. I'm here blaming myself that it's obviously maybe something that I said, maybe I didn't have enough respect. Yeah. Roll, I roll for days on that one. But maybe I was in honoring as a wife, maybe all the things that we've been taught as Christians that we should do as women. As women, yeah. All these things, right? And so I would just kind of play that in my mind, well, maybe I need to be a better, sure leader. I need to be a better individual. All these things were about me. Yeah. Right. And I felt I think in that moment when you told me that I was proud of you for saying get. And before I left for the day, I had a big day planned out. And before I left for the day, she goes, honey, I'm good. Thank you so much for telling me. Thank you for telling me because I've always played it in my mind. And the bomb went on. I'll take a head of the story because I just hear my part of the story. But no, but yeah, so that day, you had all these things planned everything. And I remember thinking all the time because I'm a planner. So I was saying, if everybody has been comes and tells me, you already have planned that. I had already planned out in my brain. I'm going to be, I'm going to be receptive. I'm going to be, I'm going to be a woman that listens. I'm going to be a wife that's understanding all the different things with the training with all the things that you told other women. I'm going to be a woman. of discovery of uncovering yourself right completely coming clean and unburdening yourself. And in that moment, my mind is racing, but I'm thinking of all the things that I have already planned to say in case that would ever to happen, right? But then in that split second, I just felt the Lord do something really supernatural in me. I just felt him say, "Diana, he reminded me of a picture of you when you were five. And maybe we can put that in here so you can see how cute the little blonde-- Get that picture there. It's going to be fun. Bond Eric wise. So he reminded me of that picture. And I just felt him ask me the question, "Can you be angry at that little boy?" In my mind, as you're crying and I'm holding you and all of this is playing, I'm hearing the Lord's voice is saying this to me. And I just thought like, "No Lord, I cannot be angry at that little boy." And I just felt God say, "I need you to see him as that five little year old for this time in this season." So okay, so that's why I said what I said. I'm like, "Okay honey, well, when you come back, we'll talk about it." All of that. The woman was ready. I was just ready with my answer. So you left. I stayed. And then it hit me. Because it was the impact of your words and I'm alone in our bedroom trying to process what you just told me. So in other words, for 20 years of our lives, you have been lying to me. In other words, when I would ask you, point blank, if you were looking at porn, how you risked a temptation, you had lied time and time again. And I had no idea what you had done because at that point, we had just talked about porn. I had no idea if I had to go get tested. I had no idea what it was that we were dealing with at that point. Those are the consequences of that conversation. Right? Like where your mind goes. And this is legit. Because you have no answers. Yeah, you have to go there. Your mind has to go there. And that is crazy that after knowing each other for 24 years and 20 years of marriage, like that your mind had to go there. Yeah. And just thinking like, okay, well, if he kept a secret for this long, what are there's secrets? Do I have, does he have a child out there? I mean, I had no idea that was the end of the conversation until you got home that day. So I remember immediately, like the only thing you can think of was going to the phone and calling, you know, a friend, calling my best friend and just telling her, hey, this is what I'm, would just happen. And I have, I'm like coming undone. And before I even call my best friend, I think I'm going to be a little bit more of a character. I think I even call prayer lines. I started just one by one, called three different prayer lines. And I was like, I have no idea what to do. You know, and thank the Lord that they got me off the ledge and kind of helped me get grounded. Right for you. And pray for you. Pray for me. Yeah, then and there. So I reached out to people that I knew were safe people and got some help for me right away. But when you got home, that was a different person that you had left. So you want to talk a little bit about that. The bomb went off. It hit the fence. All of it hit the fence. Now we can, we can look back and see it from, you know, from a distance now and time and kind of make light about it. But also be able to talk about how serious that moment was. It was, it was hard. It was hard for a long time to navigate those conversations and the details of like my life, the doubts, the moments tracing back to when you and I got married and even like before and and the different chapters of our life and having to respond to some of those. It was, it was shameful. It was, it was hard to navigate that. For me, it was walking through the dishonesty and like from going from having someone that I fully trusted. Yeah. To someone that I did not want to be around at all. I was so afraid of what I was going to find out when you would get home and I didn't know what to even do. I remember the week that followed was like I stayed in bed. I did not want to get out. I did not want to do anything. I went on a crash diet course too because I thought, well, I didn't understand what addiction was. I didn't understand sexual addiction in any way, shape or form. So I blame me. I blame me for, you know, having cancer. I blame me for not having this perfect body. I blame me and it was like the world became terrifying to me. Women became terrifying and if you don't, I am an advocate of women. I am one that I will point out. I'm like, oh my gosh, that girl is so beautiful and I'm always telling people that. But now I was completely paralyzed in fear that it became everyone, everyone became a competition became, you know, a reminder of what I did not amount to and it was a very, very dark time for me. So when you came home and you found this completely different wife that you left, the one that you left before was understanding. We're so, so understanding. So grounded. So grounded. The ground is a sure of herself. Like, well, what's going to happen? Yeah. So confident in person too. So confident, yeah. And when you came back, when I came back, when I came back, it was completely different. It was a, you know, a woman, my wife that was broken, completely, beyond repair, broken. And I did not recognize that woman. So many doubts, so many insecurities, so much pain. But it was hard to understand. So now when we sit with couples and we see them navigating this and we see that, you can, the marriage was once this and then it has like completely crumbled. We get it because we were there. We were in that space of like, we don't know if we're going to come out of this. And I don't see that. That's the right, that's the right, an accurate statement. Yeah. We didn't know if we, if we were going to make it, we didn't know if we could mend the relationship. We didn't know that. Yeah. I remember in those few, you know, weeks that followed and days, we right away found, you know, someone to help us professionally. I found a therapist and because I didn't know what I was looking for to an therapist, the therapist I went to was incredibly just damaging to me. Yes. And had to ultimately find someone else that was trauma-informed, that actually knew what they were talking about. So that's also part of our story that we don't want people to fall into the hands of the incorrect help because that can then set them back on their healing. And I found that that's what happened to me. I am being told, all these things that are completely not trauma-informed. I think there's a couple of things out there that we had to face. Things like the sifting of through different types of therapy specialists to find the ones that can actually help you. And what are the research behind that? Which are the ones that can actually help you navigate something like this? If you're a believer in Jesus, if you're a Christian, there's a particular type of therapy that you need to get, someone that understands and that knows this path. The other part is also the availability of therapists. So two big barriers, the type, the unique skill set that it takes, and also the availability. And sometimes because you have people that are skilled in this area, it doesn't mean that they're available to help you in that moment that you need them the most. And that became a crucial challenge for us to overcome. We needed to overcome. Because ultimately, you needed to find someone that was trained to deal with you. So for that, you need a CESAT, which is a certified sex addiction therapist. And I needed someone that was trauma-informed on betrayal trauma specifically. And the therapist that I had chosen was not. It was not. So the advice that I was getting was completely opposite to someone that has that kind of specialty would even do. So that's why I say that it was harmful. But you, thankfully, did find someone that was able to help you and start that process for you. So it was months that followed during that season that we were disconnected, that we really could not even have conversations because what they would turn into, I would become a puddle of tears and I would go angry so quick. And then you would just shut down. I would shut down. I didn't know how to handle the emotions. I didn't have the tools. I didn't have the language that I needed to explain to you what was going on. going inside of me, what I was feeling, which is exactly the things that you needed to know for me. What was happening inside of me in my mind at that moment, and at the moments where I faced the addiction, and I had to see the screen that I had to be connected to the screen to navigate what was happening in me. And I didn't know, I didn't have the language to explain to you why I needed to go there. What was happening in my mind, what was happening in my heart, in my body that I needed to go there. Right? And that was just not where I didn't have the language. I didn't have the language. I didn't know how to use it. I didn't have the emotional language to even do that. And for me, it was like, okay, and I was looking for safety. That's all that I'm looking for. So anytime that a wife comes and they're asking you these questions, it's because she's seeking safety. Like, are you going to go back to this? Like, what is going on in my mind? But when your husband is shut down and doesn't even know how to tap into that part of him, it is incredibly frustrating. And you feel crazy for crazy. So I remember asking you questions over and over again and wanting to know every single detail of things that I should have not even wanted to know, but I wanted to know because I'm seeking safety at that point. I remember one of the times that I would just, like I said, I got into a fitness rage, too bad I didn't keep it, but I would go and I would run and I would go to that treadmill, go to the rec center and just start running. And I would just run until I couldn't even, like, couldn't feel my legs anymore. But it was like me punishing myself, also trying to run away from the life that had just imploded on me. And I remember doing that. So I remember one of the times that I was going to be going to the park late at night, you wanted to come along. And I was like, sure, just come. And we're walking the trail and we're running the trail, walking the trail, doing all that. And then we come, we're listening to this podcast on addiction. And I asked you something, I don't even remember what it was because it's so long ago. And I saw you become like a little boy, just really, power and just kind of get really, really small. And when I saw that, I was reminded of the five year old that God had told me to remember who would I be angry at him, but I was so angry at you already that I was like, look at me. Why are you acting like a little boy? Look at me. Like don't do that. Look at my eyes. I like a mother because I was so pissed. I was just so angry that there had been other things that I had asked you. And then you would kind of go back and retract like you were giving me just enough information, but not the full picture. And I was pressing you for more details. I was trying to you knew that there had to be more, there had to be more. And I couldn't shake it off. He's lying. He's not telling me everything here. And at this point, when discovery happens, and this is like month three, and what you become, you become very skeptical. You become like you're waiting for the next thing, the next year to drop. The next thing that I'm not saying, the next thing that I'm hiding from you. And understand the world. Right? Because all truth had been broken. The trust has been broken 20 years of marriage. And here we are, right? In this moment in time. And I remember the part of that was like me. And it's hard to explain because you saw me as a child, but I didn't have the ability to to process like your emotions. Like what you were sending my way, I could not handle it. So what I would do, I would just shut down. I would collapse within myself. Yeah, that's good. And I had, and I had no words to share, but just to experience that shame. That's exactly what I saw. It was a collapse of self. Yeah. That it was, and that's all that I could see you, just full of shame. So when you're full of shame, there's no way that you can see outside of that. And we've learned that now, through counseling and therapy, right? That you can't do that. You cannot empathize. So you did not, you didn't even know how to empathize. Yeah. And that's something that I didn't realize that that you could not experience. I, you know, in thinking back, there were very few times that you cried, that you would express like deep, deep sorrow. Like you didn't even have that type of emotion. No, because you were so disconnected from life and people, right? The only emotion that I had was anger, anger, happy and sad. That's it. And hungry. Yeah. But anything else was absent. Right. Right. And until we've gone through this process, we realized now that that had been missing in your life forever. Right. And, and I think that in, in, in that time, men need to find someone that they can, that they can be able to talk to, to help them navigate that very intense time. And, and I think that part of our, you know, part of red hot marriage, we want to do that. I want to do that for men that if they're navigating anyone out there that is navigating, disappointing in their life right now, there are a Christian couple. If they're a couple, maybe you're not a Christian, maybe you're just struggling through this. Like you need someone and, and I want, I want to be, I want to be there for you, you know, for the men. Yeah. I want to help you navigate the season in your life because it's going to make all the difference. How you heal. So, so now this has hit your life. And now you don't have the privilege of saying, wait a minute, I cannot deal with this. No, as a grown man, you need to face it. Man up. You need to face it. But to face it, you need someone to be in your corner. Because your wife is, you cannot put this on your wife. No. Your wife wants to be as far away from you as possible. But, but, but she's open to hearing what's happening in your life. And maybe you taking that step could create another step and another step. I think that the biggest thing for me, and we would have these conversations, I wanted for you to be accountable. Yeah. Because I couldn't take it. I could not be dealing with, I didn't want to be your accountability partner. I don't want for you to come and tell me, oh, well, you know, I've had this, I couldn't deal with it. I was already dealing with all the hurt and the pain that this had, you know, caused that I couldn't carry that for you. And that was necessary that you needed someone. And that's what we need to have when we're facing this. That's why our passion is this because we wish that we really would have known like, Oh, okay, well, this is going to happen. Then, then this is going to happen. Okay, let me, let me help you walk this out. I think that what we've seen happen with couples that don't get help is that they get stuck in this one in this place. And they live there for 10 years, 15, 20 years. Like, and they just become that place where their marriage goes to die. And that is our passion to help people that are right here on the, at the beginning, the genesis of their relationship crumbling. Yes. Or coming into, you know, being discovered like this. Right. So the other part to this, to remember, not knowing where we were as a couple that there was days, I became a totally different person. Just like you said, very angry, very just started cussing, which was something that I have never in my life done. But it was like, that was the only way that I could express how angry I was. So now in looking back and like understanding the trauma, understanding what your brain goes through and everything, we see now that that is part of what actually happens. Right. Because your brain goes off like the injury and the injury. It is, it is so much hurt that is there that there is no other way to express it. But to actually do this, right. And I'm not saying that that's good or that's healthy. But I'm just saying that there's something that is part of our story that happens. So I became this different woman. There was moments that I was in, I wanted to be close to you. And I wanted to be intimate with you. And I wanted to, I thought, well, maybe he started doing this because I'm boring. And bad. Maybe. And again, it was all about me. You're blaming yourself. I was blaming myself of all these different things. So I became into a different person too. That was not that at all. Right. And then there was times that I would just retreat into me and say like, do not touch me. Do not breathe next to me. Like, I don't want to have anything to go to sleep downstairs. Go downstairs. I cannot be next to you. That was part of the two. Yeah. Yeah. But that one, the one of downstairs, I remember what happened without one where you were kicked out of the bedroom was because we had gone out. We were trying really hard to norm to just kind of push through, right. So we went on an date. Yeah. And I remember. And we're sitting outside of the movie theater. And we're out there talking. And then we went to go and sit outside of some restaurant. somewhere. I think Starbucks, but it was close to already to talk. And we're sitting out there. And I asked you a question and you lied to me. And I knew that you were lying to me. And I was live-zid because we had talked about complete honesty. And when we got home, I was like, I don't want you anymore. I remember that. Yeah, I remember. Get out of my room. Like, do not come near me. You need to be honest. You need to be honest with me. And yeah, you had light. So this is a pattern too for men that is very hard to break because it's self-protection. That's what it is. It's self-protection. So, you know, that was the reason why you were a cake dot. It wasn't just because I was in a bad mood. It was because you did that that time. And that's what, you know, happened. But it's getting to a place of honesty. That's why we call it hot, right, hot marriage. It has to be honest, open, and transparent kind of conversations. And we couldn't have those because we didn't know how to have those conversations. And now we've grown and learned into how to do that. But it was, man, it was hell. Yeah, that's all that. That part of our marriage was hell. I remember talking to to then my good therapist now, thank you, Michelle. And talking about these things and how I didn't want to forgive. I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to be open again to getting hurt, right? And I think so many wives are in that place too. That if I forgive, then that gives him the okay. Right. Does this make it okay? What he's done? Like you're putting your heart at risk again. Exactly. That's so well said. Yeah. Yeah. That's hard. Yeah. Yeah. And okay, if I do it again, and he does this again. And I think for, and I think for men, I think a lot of men, the way they see it, and the addiction that you have by seeing the screen, by watching and being there, whenever we think about that, I think another men would think about this would say, well, it's just that, it's what it is. I'm not sleeping with his women. I'm not as what it is. But they don't so they defer to that. I didn't have a fair and they don't acknowledge the devastation that that has happened, right? That that that has caused in their wives. And I think that whenever, whenever my heart started to to turn my heart started to get healthy again, like your pain was a key to my healing. Because I was able to to say like, man, this caused that. Yeah. What I'm doing is, is like, I don't want to do this anymore. Like this is horrible if it causes that in my wife, right? And that was a step for me into the, in the right direction, to have more clarity to where I needed to be, where I needed to go in my healing process. And when I understood that, then I could start getting empathy for the pain that that had caused you. I was able to be more sincere with my apologies with what I had done to hurt you that I think that a lot of men would maybe say, well, it's just this, right? Minimization. There's nothing. Why are you acting this way? And we've heard that before. We've heard that before. It's like, I didn't have an affair. I didn't go to the strip club. I didn't do these things. I just watched a little bit of porn. Yeah. And that is that is a way to minimize is that's a way to to not put it on you and to put it on her the way her reaction the way she is, you know, taking this what you did and that is very devastating. And no, it needs to shift towards like the pain that you caused. And you owning that I cost that pain that I did this, right? And now I want to turn away from that. And I don't want to do that. I want to get the help that I need. And I'm so sorry for what I cost in you. Not the way you react. I'm so sorry for the way you react into this. No, it's for what I cost in you. What my actions cost in you. For breaking my vows cost in you. For betraying your trust cost, you know, cost. This is the cost of it. What that cost in you. And that is the true, the true words and language that women that are navigating now this because of something that you did. That's what their their hard is yearning to hear from you. Yeah. That you're willing to take, that you're willing to take ownership ownership and the steps to get well. And responsible. Yeah. For that. I'm thinking as you're talking about how when you told me you finally became free of a 20 year secret, right? And God's word says that, that the truth will set you free. And it did set you free. But then there's another scripture that says the wages of sin is death. And that's a scripture that then I took on that the wages of your sin of your secrets then became my death. And it became the death of our relationship. It almost became the death of our marriage. It became the death of dreams together. I remember when we were navigating this, I couldn't see any pictures of our of us period, you know, for a long time because I was like, I would see them like, it's a lie. It's a lie. He was lying there. He was watching porn. He was in everything became tainted with a nasty porn world that everything was about that. And I couldn't I couldn't tap into happiness anymore. So in that time, I became a shell of myself. I was a woman that could walk into rooms and feel confident and beautiful and just like full of just being present. And I became a ghost that I wanted to hide. I wanted to be like not I didn't want to be seen. I wanted to be invisible in rooms. And that was completely the opposite of who I had been all my life. Because that's how much harm it caused. So when we're talking about yes men thinking, well, it's just the screen. It's just a little bit of porn. It's just a little bit of entertainment, whatever, whatever. I was bored. I was bored. I was you know, whatever. Right. And now we know that all of this is an attachment, you know issue and it comes from trauma many times and we'll go into that those parts of our story and later on. But we know a lot more than it's not just a lust issue. And that's what I think we need to make sure that men that are in this in this space understand that so much of this comes from a place of trauma. So much of it comes from places in in the men's heart that have been deeply wounded. That need to be restored. That's why we believe that yes the Lord can do miracles. Yes he can come in and you can pray and fast and do all the things that that you know we tell you that are good for you that we should be doing in the first place. But there is a deeper level of help that you need. When you find yourself with a porn addiction with a sexual addiction, there needs to be more to that. And that's what we're we're here to help couples hopefully navigate in the future. What we can tell you though is that this is part of our story and we have seen God come in redeem restore do those things still a work in progress. I think one of the things that somebody asked me one time like will you ever trust Eric again? Have you ever one thing that we would do is in our inner group sessions that we we've had we would always do an open open questions right the women can ask questions the men can ask questions and I would go speak to the men and then you would go and speak to the women and they could ask any question that they wanted to anything. But one of the questions of the lady said will you ever trust Eric again fully and completely and I had heard a therapist say this that him himself had been through recovery. It's like I have asked my wife to never trust me again because this is an area in my life that I have to work on every single day. So she has to have access to all of my everything all the passwords all my life and I have to be saying like honey don't trust me with this ask me about it all the time ask me about it. That's honesty. It is honest and it is brutal. Brute honesty. Yeah and after you go through something like this. Yeah. You learn then that this is something that it's okay for you to. I think the next level that said the sets men free and the the the other level that had that said me free is the ability to own my story. Yeah. Like this is my story no one else's story. So I had made horrible decisions in the past that caused great devastation in you but because I own my story I was also able to make great decisions. The led to health the led to me continuing to build and be a man of integrity have life back in my own life and that brings me freedom because now I can tell you and you know I can tell you there's something in TV that we're watching that that might be hurtful or it's a beautiful woman I can tell you and I don't feel shame because before you wouldn't even tell me that I would not even admit it and I'm pointing out all the hot girls I'm like oh my gosh you so hot she's beautiful because it was because it was shame yeah it was part I didn't want to I didn't want to say so so now the the part of taking responsibility for your choices for your life right for the wrong and the good not gives you the opportunity to be honest like that gentleman don't you know don't don't don't don't trust me no ask me yeah ask me about it and and whenever you have questions things that come up from time and you I tell you ask me tell me tell me because I'm not hiding anything yeah and because I'm not hiding anything I'm hard is open like I you can ask me and before I think that you would you would get angry I would like if I were to question this like why would you mind you would resist it yeah you would and then you would gas like me so dirty so I forgive you that sounds bad I know I was I gas lit yeah I was bad you were what a liar a liar yes for sure but I'm not a liar anymore not anymore not anymore so we're keeping you accountable but no that's part of healing is true is like being honest with yourself and not meeting to hide those things you know you know that if Henry Caval will walk into this room we would have issues here we would have issues I don't know if your wife would be able to just look away and just like bounce my eyes I don't think that I could do that but you know that and and I think that we can have honest conversations that are playful that are open that are just like that it is what it is you know we know that we live in a world where there's people that are gonna be really attractive we know that we live in a world where it is sexualized everywhere that you got but can you live a life that is honest before God first and foremost first and foremost for the person that you have vowed yes to be faithful to yeah not only faithful with you know ourselves but with faithful with our heart you know and I think that when men fall into porn and they've been caught in this web for so many years their heart is not at home their heart is so far because they're there what's happening there what what happens in those moments is that men pour their emotions into the screen because they don't they don't have a language how to do with their family with their kids so whatever they're feeling they're rather just look at the screen and pour their emotions there and those are the things that connects men to their wives and to their families so by them pouring it there they don't have to expose their heart of being weak or show but the men consider being weak showing emotion showing concern or showing maybe some soft parts of you with your wife with your kids and whenever your heart turns now you're able to express those beautiful things and you leave behind the screen and you're able to pour those things on your wife those beautiful feelings of that are hard to man today it was a tough day I feel like defeated I don't I don't know what to do had a bad day had a bad day you can share with your kids you can listen to do their hard days and not have to make them like hardest nails or hardest steel and but you can sit there and being there in those hard moments and help them navigate those hard moments because now as a healthy man you're able to carry those things and we'll talk more into what got you here yeah because every man that walks this path there's always a beginning to where why even they landed in this place and why addiction specifically sexual addiction but we have so much more to share and we could be talking here for days and we will just sharing tools and just more and how you can get free from this and really how to create a marriage that is open on us and transparent and that it would be something that you're proud of and yours to come yeah you continue to build a red hot marriage yeah so if you know someone out there is facing this moment in their life a couple they're having a hard time I'm gonna say to the men men find a place to reach out through any of the social media channels here and I'll be happy to get in a phone get enough zoom call with you and explore how I can help you navigate this you know the holidays around the corner yeah these person this presents a very unique hard situation to walk through especially if you go into this so you need someone in your corner and I tell you that you need a mentor that knows how to navigate this thing that has been there before that has climbed the mountain and falling several tears down and has knows the trail how to how to continue to navigate this in a healthy way and I've told the men that you've coached in the past too that I can't think of a better man than you I'm so proud of the work that you've done and who you've become in this process that it's not the same husband that I had when I first married and I can look at you and be proud of you and know that my heart is safe with you because you've done the work they you've done the work in the toughest thing that I've ever done and I ever will do probably yeah well we got to talk about later on but we'll leave that for maybe the cliffhanger yeah of how the recovery began and maybe we'll talk a little bit about the process because yeah you could talk about being strapped down to that machine and all it's leave as a cliffhanger but on my end I would love to work and I this is my passion to work with women that find themselves at the point of discovery where your world has just crumbled where you have no idea how you're even gonna get up to go to work the next day or if you're even gonna make it out of this marriage what's gonna happen with your kids with you with all the things that you have to handle when this comes and done in your life so that's my passion to work with women that are in this place and to pull them up and say come on baby you can make it you can make it we're gonna make it together because that's a lifeline for someone's heart so that's our passion and we're so excited that we're here talking about this and just opening up a piece in a part of our story that we know that can help people yeah until next time until next time yeah yeah love you honey I love you baby [BLANK_AUDIO]