My Two Cents…
Dave and I were recent podcast guests (no, not Laura and Carls 
which by the way is absolute gold 
) We were guests with the amazing Ali Box from New Community Ringwood in Victoria. Ali is an Associate Pastor who’s not afraid of tackling the difficult topics in her series “Unwanted Sexual Behaviours”. What a pleasure it was to speak with someone who is genuinely interested in the truth of problematic sexual behaviours and has an understanding of the wider impact Deceptive, Compartmentalised, Sexual-relational Reality. has on families and communities.
I’ll share the link when it’s up however we were asked if we had any final words of encouragement and for what it’s worth–here’s my two cents…
You don’t have to do this alone, find a safe trusted resource, reach out, the entire reason we wrote our story was to validate the intensity of this relational tornado in the hope that others, even if only one other, would feel less isolated and crazy.
The full truth must be the foundation of safety and there’s no building trust without safety first see the Intimacy Pyramid
To be fully known is to be fully loved.
Recovery is a marathon not a sprint, pace yourself.
You’re not going to get everything right, you’ll make mistakes, be kind to yourself, extend grace and compassion to self and others.
It is simple but it is not easy. There’s no magic cookie cutter formula, recovery takes rigorous honesty, courage and tenacity.
Learning everything you can about healthy values based boundaries will be your superpower.
God does not want you to stay in an abusive relationship and infidelity/sex addiction/pornography addiction is an integrity abuse disorder
Please don’t over spiritualise this whole thing. The devil didn’t make him/her do it, mostly there is a core belief and sense of entitlement which is rooted in shame, power and control, more often than not there is trauma/unhealed wounds from childhood… Yes, it is sinful but please don’t sanitise the language nor minimise the impact, choice is involved. Prayer will not repair where our input is required, it does not replace our work… Spiritual Bypassing is a form of defense mechanism and can be extremely damaging in the long run.
We can’t just pray it away, respond to alter calls, confess our struggle in meetings and expect that it all magically disappears, we need our higher power no doubt, but without doing the required deeper transformative work resulting in changed behaviours and mindset, utilising skilful professional support and committing to 100% accountability–we are kidding ourselves. Repentance is not just rinse and repeat–an apology without changed behaviour is pure manipulation!
The “sorry” is a start but it’s the actions that follow that reveal the true intention of an unfaithful partner. Consistency in living amends and empathy sustained over time builds trust.
If we don’t do our part, at best we’ll be living a pretend normal existence, with the strong likelihood of repeating dysfunctional destructive patterns which will guarantee to be lacking in authenticity, robbing ourselves the beautiful depth of intimacy that is possible when we courageously do the hard work.
All things are possible if we are willing to do the hard yards and go the distance!
Can I get an Amen?
