Part 1: In 2020, life had never been worse for Greg and Paloma. Greg had been addicted to porn for over two decades and had lost all hope of being free. One day, he decided to give himself over to his fantasies and pay for sex. When Greg’s sin came to light, Paloma was absolutely crushed. Their marriage…was over. At least, that’s what they both thought.

Resources

• At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry (Book) by Steve Gallagher

When a husband is truly trying to overcome his sin, his wife may wonder at times whether or not he is truly changing. In this short interview from our archives, Kathy talks about how to navigate this difficult position.

‍

Host: Kathy. We want to talk today about a letter you received from Janet. She was facing what so many women have to face. And that is, how does she know whether or not to confront her husband when she's dealing with suspicions about him?

Kathy: That's a very touchy situation for a lot of wives because I think most women that have been through this with their husbands are suspicious. So, when do you decide to take some of those suspicions and actually deal with them? One of the things that I would say to a woman who has suspicions and is concerned that there's something going on is to first of all pray and try to get the heart and mind of God for her own life. I know for myself when I was going through this, I was so paranoid all the time that Steve was up to no good. I had already conditioned my mind to think suspiciously of him.

    So, when he started doing well, I couldn't believe he was doing well because I had carved these ruts in my mind so deeply. So, I really tried to pray and ask the Lord to help me to believe the best about my husband. There are some questions that a wife can ask herself once she has prayed through some of these things where she can try to get her own heart and mind in a neutral position, which is very hard. First she can look back at the last six months. Look at his track record. Is there some legitimate fruit of repentance in his life? Is he in the Word of God daily? Is he praying? Is he interacting with the family in a good way? Is he in fellowship with other believers? Is there a desire for the things of God? Those are really good telltale signs of where he's at and how he's doing.
      If those things are kind of weak and lacking then there may be a reason to be suspicious. But always when you confront it has to be in a spirit of gentleness and kindness. Also, I would go into it with a little bit of fear and trepidation because the one thing a wife doesn't want to do is to spew her suspicions on her husband who is trying to obey the Lord and leave him feeling defeated amidst the efforts he's making. It's very discouraging to be trying so hard and then have your wife come along and basically say, “I don't believe you and I don't trust you.”

Host: One of the things you said in your response to Janet was that a wife has to walk a fine line between trust and caution. What happens if you go too far in either direction?

{{blog-bsecret="/blog-ads-storage"}}

Kathy: Well, some women will stick their head in the sand and just assume everything's great because they don't want to deal with reality. And that's very detrimental to her family and her husband because she's not going to be there to help hold his feet to the fire. The opposite extreme of that is the woman who doesn't believe anything the guy says. And it's very discouraging for a man who is trying to obey the Lord to have a wife that won't cut him any slack. I would like to also say to the wives who have been through a lot with their husbands that trust takes time to build.

   I don't recommend that any woman immediately run into a place of giving superficial trust that isn’t real. If he's a week or a month out of sexual sin, I do not feel like a woman should be in a position where she is throwing the gates wide open and saying “I completely trust you.” Trust has to be earned and for the time being he has forfeited it. He has to prove his trustworthiness. That is healthy for both the husband and the wife. Trust is not something that we just offer out freely. And when I talk about being suspicious, being suspicious and not trusting are different. You can be suspicious and be thinking all kinds of things are going on that are not going on. Not trusting him is a merited reaction to bad or sinful behavior. But you don't punish that person. You've got to give it time. You've got to wait for that person to walk it out.

Host: Is it true that ultimately whatever evidence she sees, whether it shows he is doing well or not, that she still needs to leave things in God's hands?

Kathy: Yes. From beginning to end she has to leave things in God's hands, whether he's doing well or whether he's not doing well. Ultimately his change is going to come from heaven as he is willing and determined to walk a pure life. It really is between Him and God. It's not between the wife and him as much as it is between him and the Lord. If there was one thing I could get across to women, it is that this is not about you, even though you have been so devastated by his sin.
      I know what that feels like. It took me years to come to the revelation that he did not do this because of me. This is who he was before I came along. And this was definitely a thing between Him and God. So, when I began to understand that in my heart and mind, it changed the way I prayed. It changed the way I saw my husband. I didn't feel like a victim. I didn't feel like he was trying to hurt me or ruin me as a person. This was just a sin that he had harbored in his life for many, many years.

Host: Did that free you then to pray for him and be an advocate for him?

Kathy: Absolutely.

Darlene Deibler went to Indonesia to preach the gospel to cannibalistic tribes. But when war broke out, she found herself plunged into the horrors of a WWII prisoner-of-war camp. And yet, Darlene would spend the rest of her life telling about a God whose comfort outshined her sufferings, whose presence was more precious than her losses, and whose loving provision was as faithful as the morning sun.

Resources

• Evidence Not Seen: A Woman's Miraculous Faith in the Jungles of World War II (Book) By Darlene Deibler Rose

All believers must face a life-long battle against their fallen natures. These battles can be very different based on our personalities, our likes, dislikes and the sins of our past. So in this discussion, 3 of our staff sit down and share about their journeys in the Christian life and the battles they have faced along the way.

Resources

This series is based on the book Intoxicated with Babylon: The Seduction of God’s People in the Last Days by Steve Gallagher. You can find out more about that book by visiting our bookstore.

What are the most common issues a husband and wife deal with when reconciling after sexual sin? Jeff and Rose Colón share their thoughts in this interview.

Mike: Jeff and Rose. As we focus on couples today, I'd like to discuss a scenario where a man is in our Residential Program and his wife is going through the Wives Program at home. What kind of issues do these couples deal with as they come together and go through this experience?

Jeff: Typically, what we see is this couple having a hard time bearing one another through the different kinds of issues that they'll be dealing with as they go through their programs. And what I've seen with a husband a lot of times is that he is looking at everything he has sacrificed to come into the program. He is focused on everything that he has given up in order to get his life in order after he's been in sin for maybe 30 years. And now that he's been in the program for four weeks or so, he expects his wife to just come around and forgive him. He wants her to move on from the hurt he has caused her, and he thinks that she needs to start patting him on the back for doing well now.

Mike: And Rose, how is the wife looking at the current situation? Obviously, she's seeing it from a different perspective.

Rose: Usually for the wife, when the husband comes into the program, whether it's the Residential Program or the Overcomers At-Home Program, has certain expectations for her husband as far as him changing into a totally different person. And if she sees any sign of his old nature coming up, it sends her into a panic. And for her, she may wonder if her husband is really changing because she still sees remnants of his old nature. So, she may start to wonder if her expectations for him to change are realistic or not.

Mike: Ok. So Jeff, how do you begin to deal with this man? I mean I guess what you describes is fairly typical of how guys are. We deal with an issue as we see it come up and then we move on and we don't think about it again. How do you begin to help a man to see his wife's perspective? Or what is the real issue that you have to deal with there?

Jeff: The real issue is self-pity. He's feeling sorry for himself and he's looking for a little bit of recognition from his wife to make him feel better. What I try to help him understand is that he needs to be in sight of the mercy that God has had on him in the fact that he didn't die out there in his sin. He needs to see that it's the mercy of God that he's even in the program and he needs to have a grateful heart. And with that he also needs to understand that he must bear his wife through what she needs to go through. And if she has a hard time, maybe she doesn't speak nicely to him on the telephone, he needs to bear with her through that and be a little more understanding of what she's going through instead of focusing on how everything is affecting him.

Mike: I guess a lot of times for these guys, they may have been dealing with whatever the sin issue is for many years and this may just have been a sudden thing for the wife. And so, you can understand how she may not be as quick to forgive or quick to move on. Rose, what's the real issue you're dealing with when it comes to the wife?

Rose: Well, a lot of times the wife is too focused on the husband and how he's not changing. And we really want her to get focused on the Lord and we want to encourage her that her husband's a work in progress just like she is. Sanctification is a process and it takes time for the Lord to change different attitudes in our hearts and our behavior as well. So, I would try to encourage her to get her eyes on the Lord and look to Him. I would also have her write down some things that she does see that are different in her husband and not be so focused on what she still sees is wrong with him. She needs to see what God is doing in her husband's life and encourage him in that way.

Jeff: That reminds me of what I told a husband to do recently that really goes along with what Rose is saying. I encouraged him to make a list and write down the things that he's grateful for about his wife. I told him was that he should be grateful that she's talking to him after 30 years of deceiving her and sinning against her. I told him that he should be able to come up with 50 things to be grateful for about his wife. The bottom line was that I told him he needs to get the focus off himself and how he is feeling and how maybe he’s not getting treated the way he would like. I told him instead that he needs to be focused on his wife’s needs and he needs to be praying for her and caring for her. And ultimately, he should be thanking God and he should be having a heart of gratitude for his wife.

Mike: Well, it sounds to me like the common thing I hear from both of you, whether you're dealing with the husband or the wife is that they need to bear one another. For both of them, much of the solution involves getting their eyes off of themselves and looking to meet the needs of others. So, this would be something we could all apply to our lives whether we are married or not. How many relationships would be transformed overnight if we would just bear with one another.

Here's a paradox: If you want to enjoy tremendous freedom in Christ, then cultivate a disciplined lifestyle. In today’s episode, Steve Gallagher joins us to take a look at why discipline is part and parcel with growth as a Christian.

Before God flooded the earth, the Bible tells us that man’s heart was continually thinking of only evil. This horrific condition is the extreme end of the “Spiral of Degradation” outlined in Romans 1, which still threatens the hearts of man today. In this week’s discussion, three of our staff members break down each step of the spiral and discuss how it played out in their own lives before coming to Pure Life. Yet they also share the hope of how God was able to bring them back up and out of that spiral of sin and into His marvelous light!

Resources

This series is based on the book Intoxicated with Babylon: The Seduction of God’s People in the Last Days by Steve Gallagher. You can find out more about that book by visiting our bookstore.

Austin Kropf and Josh Bergstrom had both tried numerous things in an attempt to find freedom from sexual sin. But instead of getting better, they had only grown worse. So when they came to Pure Life Ministries, they were exhausted, despairing and desperate for change. And then something happened that changed everything. They fell in love with Jesus.

Resources

The Love of Christ Constrains Me (Article) By Guest Author

It’s hard to build trust in a marriage when a man has spent years or even decades lying to his wife about his secret sexual sin. But Jeff and Rose can testify to the Lord’s great power to restore a broken relationship. In this brief segment, they discuss some simple lessons they’ve learned on how to rebuild trust in a marriage.

Host: Jeff and Rose, as we focus on couples this week, we want to talk about what is admittedly a difficult issue for anyone. And that is the betrayal of trust. Jeff, how does a couple begin to deal with this issue?

Jeff: Well, first of all, the husband needs to understand the impact that has come from lying to his wife for a long time. He has hurt his wife very deeply by lying to the point that some wives actually are more upset at the lies he's told rather than the actual sin that was committed. And the husband has to understand that and realize that trust is not going to be something that's going to come automatic for his wife. He's going to have to be willing to be truthful and to handle things differently so that he can build that trust back into his marriage. And it might take quite some time to do that.

{{blog-bsecret="/blog-ads-storage"}}

Host: So, do you find that sometimes the husbands think, “Well, ok. I've gotten all this out in the open. I've acknowledged everything that I did, so everything should be ok now.”

Jeff: Absolutely. That's what we see a lot of the time where the husband expects his wife to immediately begin to trust him as soon as he makes some visible changes. And really, I question whether that guy has really been broken over his sin if he is not willing to bear his wife through the process of building trust back into the marriage.

Host: So, are there any particular steps that he can take? What are the things that he needs to begin to do?

Jeff: Well, the Bible is pretty clear. In Ephesians 4:25 it says, “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” (Ephesians 4:25, ESV) And it pretty much comes down to learning how to speak the truth and being vulnerable. A lot of times a husband who is in sexual sin isn't honest about what is going on inside. So, the wife may sense that something's wrong, but he's lying and saying that everything's fine. But when a husband is honest, and he begins to speak truth from his heart and he's vulnerable to his wife then she can know that she can trust him. She can know that he is not putting a false front to her and that he is being honest about his struggles.

Host: Yea. And oftentimes, I would assume that a man is just looking at his own outward behavior, but God is wanting to do a deep inward work in his heart. And that's what the wife is looking for too. So, if a guy is just focusing on changing his behavior to make things right, he maybe won’t understand why his wife isn’t trusting him. What he'd be failing to understand is that she's looking to see if there's a heart change over a period of time.

Jeff: Absolutely. And sometimes the husband will fall into the trap of being lead to believe that she is just expecting perfectionism. So, in those cases the husband may fear that if he shares with his wife that he's struggling inside or that there's something not right inside then she's going to freak out. But really what he doesn't understand is it'll actually make her more secure if he is honest about his struggles. Our wives want to know what's going on inside of us and they're not looking for some spiritual superman. They're looking for a man that is honest and vulnerable and willing to open up his inside world with his wife.

Host: Rose, is there a different perspective that a wife in this situation has? How does a wife perceive this issue? Does she see it differently?

Rose: Usually the wife does not trust the husband at all. Even if he is someone who has gone through the Pure Life Ministries Residential Program and done all the right things, initially she still won’t trust him. And that's just where she's at in that point in time. Also, a wife will get frustrated a lot of times because the husband is in this mindset that he has proven himself to be trustworthy through the right things he has begun to do. But regardless of the outward acts, the husband still has a track record where he can't be trusted.
       So, I try to help the wife to see that her focus needs to be on the Lord. She needs to see that the Lord is the one that her husband is accountable to primarily and she needs to trust that God is able to deal with him. Overtime as she sees the Lord working in his life and dealing with his heart, then the wife starts seeing that trust can be built back into the marriage. It can come back, but it really depends on the husband and how vulnerable he's willing to be and how open and honest he is with his wife.                                                                                                                              

       That’s because you can trust someone that is honest and vulnerable. But someone that's been lying and deceiving – you can’t trust that person. And usually I'll ask the wife “When can you trust someone?” And the right answer is that you can trust someone when they're being honest with you. So, if they're not being honest, then they are hindering the Lord from working in the area of restoring trust in the marriage.

We wouldn’t think twice about trying to live without air, water, or food. So why do we think we can live spiritually without a daily intake of God’s word and a daily life of prayer? In this episode of Purity for Life, we’re going to talk about establishing and maintaining a devotional life—because, let’s face it, we will never stay on the road to freedom without keeping first things first.

Resources

• The Walk of Repentance (Bible Study) By Steve Gallagher

Although worldliness isn't only about what we watch and listen to, the kind of entertainment we engage with on a regular basis does have a very real impact on our spiritual life. In this discussion, three of our staff members talk about how their worldly lifestyles opened the door for sexual sin.

Resources

This series is based on the book Intoxicated with Babylon: The Seduction of God’s People in the Last Days by Steve Gallagher. You can find out more about that book by visiting our bookstore.

Imagine that for the first time in your life, you're leaving all the miserable consequences of sexual sin behind you and walking forward in real freedom. But then something devastating happens. You fail. Now what? In this episode, Steve and Kathy Gallagher join us to talk about what to do, and what not to do, when you fail so that you don't get fatally sidetracked on the road to freedom.

Resources

• Truth #18 - Failure is Not Defeat in Your Battle with Sexual Sin (Short Video) by Steve Gallagher