Worthy of Her Trust Quotes

“God*Stories by Andrew Wilson”
― Stephen F. Arterburn, Worthy of Her Trust: What You Need to Do to Rebuild Sexual Integrity and Win Her Back

“But Paul had an intensely personal encounter with the living God that changed him radically, forever.”
― Stephen Arterburn, Worthy of Her Trust: What You Need to Do to Rebuild Sexual Integrity and Win Her Back

“Usually when a husband expresses that he doesn’t love his wife, he is making a statement about his own shame. He is grasping at straws and trying to make sense of his own behavior. This particular logic says, “If I am willing to hurt her this badly, over and over again, then I must not love her.” For some guys it’s easier to stomach the explanation of “falling out of love” or “I must not have truly loved her anyway” than”
― Stephen Arterburn, Worthy of Her Trust: What You Need to Do to Rebuild Sexual Integrity and Win Her Back

“So if you feel like your wife is controlling you, I encourage you to do two things. First, surrender your right to control. Isn’t that ironic? You want her to stop being so controlling, so you try your best to control her. Shelve your entitlement to be the decision maker, especially on things pertaining to the healing process. And please, don’t play the “head of the house” card. You relinquished that position when you chose to behave in a way that violated your wife’s heart. Second, focus on security. Or maybe better to say, providing security. Investigate what your wife needs to feel safe emotionally, physically, and mentally. Yes, her ultimate security must be found in God, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be a conduit of his grace to her.”
― Stephen Arterburn, Worthy of Her Trust: What You Need to Do to Rebuild Sexual Integrity and Win Her Back

“It can come across in many ways; for instance, stealing compliments. Have you ever felt like your wife nags you to notice her? Or it could take the form of her looking for compliments from someone other than you, like an ex-boyfriend or an ex-husband. If your wife is receiving abundant compliments from you, she won’t be tempted to steal affection or affirmation from other men. Or from your kids. Or from television. And she won’t have to manufacture significance from you by putting you down in order to build herself up. In her darker moments, she won’t have to steal your happiness by constantly bringing up the past and using it against you.”
― Stephen Arterburn, Worthy of Her Trust: What You Need to Do to Rebuild Sexual Integrity and Win Her Back

“Recently a wife whose husband struggled with masturbation and had an emotional affair said, “I want to move past this stuff, but it seems like everywhere I turn, I’m reminded of infidelity and how rampant it is!” This observation is so common. We can’t live in a cave to avoid life. And moving to a faraway country is not an option for most people. Further, we really don’t want to live in a faraway country or a cave. We want to be in our life but without these reminders, without all this pain. We don’t want to have to escape and get away; we want it to go away! I want to reframe your view of time as it pertains to this journey. Instead of looking at time as healing in itself, look at time as the context in which you find new opportunities to build trust. Lamentations 3:22–23 says that the Lord’s mercies are “new every morning.” If you are trying to rebuild trust, I encourage you to look at every morning as a new beginning, a new day to seize every opportunity to build trust. Time alone will not heal your wounds. But time filled with sincere attempts to build trust—paving the way toward the future while amending the past (which we’ll discuss later)—will heal your wounds. We must be active participants in the time we have, not just observers watching time go by.”
― Stephen Arterburn, Worthy of Her Trust: What You Need to Do to Rebuild Sexual Integrity and Win Her Back

“And I accepted the job without consulting Shelley. Yeah, I’m a slow learner! Fast-forward to today. It’s been an incredible ride. It took the better part of five years to feel like we were stabilized. It took seven years for Shelley to say she actually respected me. It took eight years for her to say that if we had to go through it all over again, she would still choose me. It took nine years for her to say that my sexual addiction was one of the best things that ever happened to her. My jaw hit the floor when she said that. Today, as I write this, it’s a little over ten years since the mocha hit the fan. We have seen God’s amazing redemption play out, and our marriage is special. We’re still trying to figure out intimacy, still working through painful memories of the past, still leaning into conflict. And trust, well, trust has been and is still being restored. It’s an ongoing thing, which is exactly what prompted my penning this book. This book is in so many ways a “don’t do what I did” manuscript. It is the culmination of a decade of trial and error. My hope is that it will give you the courage you need to lean into the trials and make fewer errors than I did.”
― Stephen Arterburn, Worthy of Her Trust: What You Need to Do to Rebuild Sexual Integrity and Win Her Back

“Like Shelley, in order to change and engage the process of trust building, I, too, needed to come to terms with the truth that God was ultimately the change agent and healer. He is the true trust builder. He is the master architect and artist shaping any sculpture. If both Shelley and I lean on him for our journey of rebuilding our relationship, then neither of us must lean against each other.”
― Stephen Arterburn, Worthy of Her Trust: What You Need to Do to Rebuild Sexual Integrity and Win Her Back

“Building trust back in a relationship damaged by sexual integrity issues is a culmination of all the aforementioned things—and then some. It is like building a sculpture out of Legos. Some of the pieces include time, energy, planning, vision, willingness, creativity, persistence, patience, intentionality, hope, failure, and commitment. That’s a lot of Legos! Trust building is an ongoing process that consists of multiple intentional factors divinely pieced together over the course of time with a heart attitude of humility and commitment. In”
― Stephen Arterburn, Worthy of Her Trust: What You Need to Do to Rebuild Sexual Integrity and Win Her Back