This is the second video in a nine part series entitled “True Betrayal: Overcoming the Betrayal of Your Spouse’s Sexual Sin.” True Betrayal has a complementing seminar entitled “False Love: Overcoming Sexual Sin from Pornography to Adultery.” For more information on either seminar, please follow the links provided.
True Betrayal: Step 2 from Equip on Vimeo.
The follow quotes are part of the teaching notes being referenced.
STEP 2.
ACKNOWLEDGE the specific history and realness of my suffering.
“A spouse may be the last one to accept this evidence. A part of them doesn’t want the pain of accepting the truth. The spouse may even become involved in elaborate explanations of why it can’t be true. You may have heard the phrase, ‘the family is the last to know.’ Families often aren’t the last to know, but they may be the last to accept the facts (p. 69).” Mark Laaser in Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction
“A hurting, motivated wife came to me for counseling and said she had practiced submission, hoping to help her husband make some needed changes. I replied that submission was not God’s tool for accomplishing change. Confrontation was that needed skill. She needed to assertively confront her husband, not angrily, but rather with ‘great patience and careful instruction (2 Tim. 4:3 NIV) (p. 338).” Doug Rosenau in A Celebration of Sex
“No matter how many details you know about your partner’s acting out, the ultimate choice to change his behavior lies with him or her, not with you. Having more information won’t give you more control. On the contrary, sometimes too much information can cause you additional problems. You may end up obsessing even more about your partner’s behavior… The formal disclosure may take up to two hours or more… Many couples consider this session to be a turning point in their relationship, an opportunity to establish a healthier marriage (p. 29). (p. 26).” Stephanie Carnes in Mending a Shattered Heart
“I knew the next question before I heard it. I knew that answer before he said it. There was no satisfaction here, no new information to be had. I searched for a way to elicit new information, trying to figure out what I need to know now. And then the thought crossed my mind. I don’t care. But it wasn’t the I don’t care because there’s nothing in me to care with thought. This was the plain I don’t care to know any more thought—because I’d heard it all. Because I was bored (p. 145-146)!” Gary & Mona Shriver in Unfaithful
“Whether your marriage survives or not, you will have to forgive and let go of bitterness. But you can’t forgive a wound you haven’t acknowledged—you won’t even know what you have to forgive. You are laying a foundation for forgiveness by being honest about how you’ve been wounded (p. 6)… For your marriage to become better, you have to talk about what happened and why (p. 19).” Winston Smith in Help! My Spouse Committed Adultery