I think I'm Ready, But I Need to be Patient

For those of you who are separated from your spouse and family and want desperately to go home, this one's for you...

Boy, am I ready to go home and be with my wife. I may even fool myself into thinking I'm ready to do so. But I am glad that she has drawn a line to ensure that I am fully recovered from my addiction. I am not certain that I will ever be fully 'healed', but I am certain that I am going to have a great relationship with God, and that I'll have some great tools to combat my issues so that I won't slip back into habitual sin. I also want to make sure that I don't objectify my family members, and that I love them to a greater extent and in a Godly way.

I'm not ready.

I realize that there are some foundational issues that I have to meet head-on in my psyche, baggage that I just don't want to carry back into my marriage again. Although I have been clean of porn for a long time, and I am taking the sensuality and lust part of it very seriously now, I realize that I still stare at my wife's body like it was a ribeye steak. And I realize that I would hop in the sack with her in an instant if she needed a 'fix'. The problem with all of this obsessing with sex, even with my wife, is that it lacks intent, purpose, and discipline, things that I desperately need if my marriage and family are going to go well moving forward. I need to learn to never objectify my wife, to not treat her like a thing, to cherish and respect her as a co-equal heir of the kingdom of God. She is my sister in Christ and the mother of my children and the caretaker of our home and my friend before she is my scrumping partner.

Weird as that may sound to some guys, it has to be true. We have to be willing to submit ourselves "one to another" and "consider others as greater than ourselves" before all of the other relationship things can work. I have to desire her heart and her intimate thoughts before I desire her body. It has to be important to me to listen to her because I value what she has to say, not because I think it's going to earn me her respect or time in bed.

I'm working on it. I'm glad for this time, and I pray that God will continue to change my perspective so that I can come back home a more complete man, ready to serve and lead at the same time.

Thank you, Lord for the opportunities to spend time with my family and to serve them. Thank you for the ability to talk with my wife about what is important to her. Help me to value that talk more than sex. Help me to value my wife more for the whole person she is, not the fact that I find her body pleasing. I pray that I would be able to go home before too much longer, but that I would have embedded in my spirit the desire to respect, honor, and cherish my wife. Help me to value playing with my kids and helping prepare them for life in your kingdom above any other form of entertainment. Amen.

Emotional Anorexia

Emotional Anorexia is a seemingly new definition to the addiction scene, and it essentially means this: that you withhold love, affection, and/or intimacy from your loved ones. There are a number of symptoms that are evidenced with this issue, wherein the "withholdings" can vary over time.

I don't think I'd yet be able to provide the best explanation for this issue, so I'm going to send you over to an article at Transformed Hearts that gives it a complete treatment:

http://transformedhearts.com/intimacy-obstacle-2-intimacy-anorexia/

I will say that though one spouse (the one that usually plays the part of judge/jury/executioner) will moreso withhold love than the other, there will invariably be symptoms on both sides of an unhealthy relationship. For example, a wife may exhibit all of the symptoms toward a husband caught in an addiction, but the very addiction itself may be a way to escape the pain and frustration of one's own failures or the failed relationship itself, and the addict is withholding the love and affection that should be due their loved one as a result. Porn addicts, for example, lack the ability to engage in true intimacy with their spouses, because they don't need to navigate the possibilities of conflict, pain, or disappointment if they can select and control all of the fantasies they want in their own little world. So the true relationship suffers while they live for their own pleasure.

Addicts in general have a way of numbing and medicating their pain, avoiding the conflict that might arise from it in relationships. Without healing in the relationship, it will stagnate and die, so both spouses need to find ways to connect, and the folks over at Transformed Hearts have some advice on where to start.

To Love, Even When it Hurts

Imagine Jesus on the cross, in immeasurable pain, bearing fully the wrath and burdens of the world's sin, and enduring the mockery and abuse of not only the religious and political leaders of that age, but those that only days before were singing Hallelujahs to Him as He rode a donkey into town. Now imagine that some of the people that are abusing Him will later be named as Christians and come to know His Love, even after the most extreme level of hatred toward Him. Peter later says these people he is addressing in Acts 2 are the ones who crucified Jesus, as they had demanded crucifixion in the Romans' court. His future children are there, killing Him. And yet Jesus looks with pity upon these mockers, haters, and extreme assailants and prays, "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do."

That is the kind of love that we are called to.

Now we believers in Christ, full of sin ourselves, are called to be more Christlike with every breath we take. Our complete focus is supposed to be kingdom- and spirit-driven. And yet we fall completely short of that goal with just about every action, if we are completely honest with ourselves (yet we are abjured to press on to win the prize). We deserve hell because of our sin, and yet God has invested so much mercy and grace in us so that we can give the same to others. Freely you have taken, freely you should give. And so our goal, in being more Christ-like, is to love those that have committed horrendous evils against us. But it seems like we have this stacked deck against us, this sin nature against which we fight that keeps us from being that good, that merciful, that forgiving. We are met with the imperfect that is constantly reaching to be more like the perfect, that we are striving and reaching to be more like the One that we cannot possibly be like until we meet Him face to face.

If our highest priority is to Love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, soul, and strength, then our focus should be on Him first, and how He has loved all of His children down through time no matter how hard-hearted they were, and with a longsuffering to their sins and indifference. So, no matter what is going on with your relationships, you need to realize that the time and care you spend with Him is of the utmost importance. ALSO, the scripture is clear that we love Him by obeying His ways. And His ways tell us to love everyone with no preference to ourselves.

The second highest priority is to love our neighbor as ourselves, and we know from the scriptures that neighbors are basically everyone that we come into contact with, including our so-called enemies (Satan notwithstanding). This becomes especially tough when you have a loved one that makes them self into your enemy, refusing to show you love or respect. It becomes demoralizing, and it can hurt for those that have issues with abandonment or rejection (I know I do).

But the first priority is what empowers us on to the second. Without the first, you can't really continue in the second. You can't love others if you don't have a sense of what love really is, a love that is from God, a love that is longsuffering and doesn't look for returns from that love.

Love hurts, especially when it is not reciprocated and those that are supposed to love you the most let you down constantly. But I would posit that if your focus in your relationship is based on whether or not you feel valued or accepted in life or even by God as a result of how other people love you, then your priorities are way out of whack. Maybe you even have some symptoms of addictions such as co-dependency, relationship addiction, emotional dependence, or other similar relationship-bound mental or spiritual disorders that can plague a believer.

Some focus on their own boulevard of broken dreams, the family that they were hoping for laying in a shambles all around them. Again, your vision is based on a return, something you are hoping to get out of the relationship, rather than a selfless love that is based on the sacrifice that God made for us. The Father gave His son, the son gave up the peace He had in heaven to come in the lowly human form and suffer mightily, and the Holy Spirit suffers through our many continued sins to minister to us and carry our prayers heavenward. God continues on with us, sometimes without promise of any return. So we should also look to our relationships and realize that there may never be a return.

If your children rebel, pray that they would come to know, love, and serve Christ, not primarily that they would love you. Perhaps in their love for God they will learn to love. If your spouse has fallen out of love for you and can't muster a speck of respect for you, pray that their relationship with God would be greater, then continue to love and serve them; pray for your marriage for the sake of serving God in the family unit, and that your spouse would also learn to love when it hurts. But if your goal is to FEEL fulfilled in your relationship, your focus is off a bit. Men, God wants us to love our wives as Christ loves the church, washing her in the word. I'd say that Christ continues to love the church when that love isn't returned, reaching out to sinners while they are still dead in their sins and trespasses to generate a new life in their hearts.

Pray for the strength, brothers and sisters. It hurts, but God will help you to BE fulfilled, both in this life and the next, though you may not FEEL it. Take your pain to Him, pray for strength, and do your best to love all others, even when it hurts. Jesus did.

Thy Rod and Thy Staff, They Comfort Me

God chastises (punishes) those whom He loves.

I think that we as habitual sinners (my definition of the word 'addict', from a Christian point of view) need to learn to love God's ebb and flow in our lives. Certainly, there are a number of things in our life that have happened merely as a result of a fallen world and because of sin, whether our own or the influence of others. But it is also evident that God works directly in our lives at particular times, especially when the reset button needs to be set. Certainly He allows and even engineers all things to happen, and as a Christian we accept this and realize that all things work for good for those that love God.

For me, I had been addicted to porn for 40+ years, the spiritual bondage starting back to when I was a small child, too young to understand right from wrong. Porn became so inculcated into my life, it became normal, just an average part of my life; and the deception to cover it up was as normal as my mother's deception to cover up her drug habits, or to lie to keep from getting in trouble when I broke the rules, lest I get beaten severely. As an adult, my heart had been hardened to the consequences of my sin because it was so ingrained in me, I didn't see the damage that it was truly doing. I'm not sure I even thought about it logically. There was some level of conviction that what I was doing was wrong, went against God's ways, but the rewards of the flesh at the time were outweighing the rewards of the Spirit - I hadn't learned enough about God's love to realize that there was so much more fulfillment in Him than the pixels on the screen.

So God crushed me. Many times over.

My relationship took many, many hits over the porn thing. My wife, who had an immediate hatred for porn before we were even married, made it clear that she would NOT accept a man that was looking at other women's naked bodies. We continued as a family unit, and I think that my wife held on to a hope that I would change as I matured, but our hearts became hardened toward each other 18 years ago. A handful of explosions happened over the years, and each time my wife cyclically caught me looking at porn it chipped away at any hope that she had for our relationship. My children became exposed to porn several times accidentally, and they sometimes drew pictures of what they saw. I lost a solid job of 5+ years (along with the great benefits, including pension) because I had no self control and viewed porn on the work network. It took very little after that to put my wife further and further into depression and apathy for our marriage, much less anything that needed to be done for our family.

In August 2015, my wife finally put her foot down and said NO MORE. She wanted separation, possibly divorce. In fact, she seemed to be hoping for divorce to be rid of the man that she hated so much. It took me a few months to realize that I shouldn't have blamed her, based on all of the crap that I put her through over the years, as my selfishness evidenced itself in so many other ways than just viewing porn.

I have errantly blamed God for my sin over the years, saying that surely I couldn't help being affected toward porn the way that I have. But I have been missing the boat entirely, realizing that He wants to affect a miraculous change in my heart and that He has so much more to offer me. I was making Him into my enemy, an oppressive tyrant, when He has always been the disciplining Father that was trying to get me to stop my bad behavior and allow Him to heal me.

So I have learned to accept His discipline. I am currently alone, more lonely in a physical sense than I have ever been; but I'm not nearly as lonely as I was in my broken marriage, having viewed my marriage as the center of my joy that had been so utterly destroyed. As I refocus my life on Christ, I am somehow more full and feeling less lonely than I did with a household of people (family of 10).

I take trips home to serve my family as best I can - watching kids while my wife gets chores done, doing some dishes when needed, making dinner, reading to the kids before they go to bed. I am glad that I am allowed to have this interaction. I love my kids. And I love my wife more than ever before. I look in her eyes more, though I feel a sense of guilt that I have taken the glimmer out of her eyes that she once had as a younger woman. I look at pictures of her all the time and think about how each year, her eyes seem to get more dull with the weight of her husband's sins. I hope and pray that God will put that light back in her heart and in her eyes.

There seems to be such a spiritual funk that hangs over my house. I knew it before, but it is even more evident now. I'm working to bring my family before the word of God each time I visit, but it seems to fall on indifferent ears. Nevertheless, God's word will not return void, and I trust that He will do His work in their lives in His own time. I am praying for their healing, that they would seek God and heal from all of the hurt, bitterness, and frustration.

My current societal purgatory and the associated eye-opening revelations as to the impact of my own sin are completely necessary for my repentance and growth. I'm learning not to seek penance to pay for my sins (tetelestai, it is finished), and I am realizing that God brings us low so He can build us back up again. There is no reason to shake my fist at the heavens anymore. Instead, my hands are open, and I hold them up in praise. And I sing songs openly with tears in my eyes. God is so good to me, his rod and his crook bring me back into line with His will for my life, and it has begun to bring comfort to my soul to know that He cares enough to discipline and train me. Glory be to the one true God, who deserves all praise and worship.

Yea, Though I Walk Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death

I confess, in the midst of my current walk, there are days where I am just beat down. As I sit in front of my (Covenant Eyes Filtered and Monitored) PC in an empty townhouse, separated from my family because of my own sin, I am exploring my pain, and trying to demonstrate how I am currently turning it over to God...

I am constantly dwelling on the fact that I'm sick, have been sick for 42 days. I picked up various symptoms, including a cough that has persisted and become pneumonia (which I think I am finally kicking), an ear infection that is leaving me deaf in my right ear, vertigo for most of that time, throwing up for two days because of a reaction to medication (?), nausea if I don't fill my stomach with something shortly after taking my medication, and minor flu-like symptoms like achiness and heavy sweating (though this is not influenza) and insomnia on some nights (probably due to the pseudoephedrine in the Mucinex D). Fun, fun. But it doesn't stop there...

I think of yesterday how I vicariously experienced my roommate's agony of receiving final divorce papers. There is a cloud over this household, and every time I walk past the small bookshelf that has the divorce papers sitting on top of it, I am reminded of my own precarious marriage.

My wife wrote an email to me the other day that confronted me with the landscape of destruction that I have caused in our marriage (19+ years of porn addiction and associated bad behavior), and how I had no right to ask her to focus on our relationship at all at this point. So I am faced with having to go visit our house, see the kids, pretend that I don't desire my wife, and just do my best to serve. I often feel that with the years of self destruction and with my wife's hardened heart, which she has fortified against me because of my sins, that there is little hope. And her resistance toward rebuilding our marriage, though merited, puts a dagger in my heart. She is not committed to divorce (yet, or as far as I know), but she is not committed to our marriage. So I am in a purgatory of depression and fear, trying desperately to connect with God, and keep myself pure. I guess I now know what my wife felt like after I lost my job due to porn. In no way do I want to justify my sin, as a disclaimer here, I am just sharing all of the thoughts that put me in this current despair.

But in the midst of this, I realize some major problems with my own thinking, that I am definitely not aligned with God when I focus on the tidal waves of my problems - that didn't work too well for Peter while walking on water; when he took his eyes off Christ, he began to sink into the water. Thankfully Jesus was there to rescue him.

So, what do I do? Well, I wanted to write this while I am in the midst of my struggle, and similar to a Davidic Psalm, I will explore the range of my sin/emotion versus God's perfect way. David had a way of starting psalms off by asking where God was, why He was rejecting him, what in the world could he do to pull himself out of the pit of despair. He all too often finished by talking about entering into the house of worship, or calling on the Lord, and then focusing on who God was - His nature and His promises, upon which all of our hopes rest.

So here is my plan:

1. Pray out loud. Like David, I want to turn my hurt and frustration over to God, share and explore with Him what is ailing me to the point of realizing that it is likely a rejection of God's sovereignty and redeeming power that causes me to lose hope. Nothing is random, and everything works for good for those that love God. I need to worship Him and dedicate myself to Him no matter what is going on. It is in the act of actually praying and opening my mind and heart to Him that I begin to realize these things, and I become a bit stronger.
2. Repent. Realize that there is a difference between Godly sorrow that leads to repentance, and fleshly sorrow that leads to death. I will CHOOSE to face up to God, bring Him all of the things that cause me sorrow, and ask Him to help me sort through it all. I will refuse to enter into a pity party, practically bathing luxuriously in my sorrow.
3. Re-focus. Realize that my relationship with my wife has been a major trigger to reject God and act out in evil, such as looking at porn. This relationship addiction, or co-dependency, or idolatry is getting in the way of a right relationship with God. So I guess I need to ensure that I am putting away fears about my relationship with my wife, and right now focus on my relationship with God, and just serving others in His name. I will continue to lift up my marriage in prayer, but give it over to God.
4. Love my children no matter what. They have been too negatively affected by all of this as it is. I need to pray that we can find some way to bring God into the household 
5. Pray for my wife's heart, that she would be healed and softened toward a better relationship with God. I hope that she will not find God culpable for my sins. I rejected God at times to perform my sins, and it is therefore against His will that I sinned against her.
6. Meditate on God's Word. Get into the psalms, the gospels. Examine how God has loved me so much, is reaching out to me for a full and lively relationship.

My prayer will always be that my wife will love me like she never has before. I pray that the harm that I have done will recede with time, and that my wife and children will be healed. I pray that I can come back home, and that we can learn together how to do battle against the darkness that threatens to tear us apart. But in all things I will realize that my God is Lord, and all things are in His hands. HIS will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.