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I Don’t Want To …

Originally posted at: http://p0rnaddictswife.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/i-dont-want-to/
by p0rnaddictswife

…feel
…hurt
…stop drinking
…hear him say that I’m pretty
…be hopeful
…be lonely
…go anywhere in the car with him
…have him look at me
…tell him anything
…lose sleep because he is sleeping soundly beside me
…clean the house
…engage in meaningful conversation with anyone
…do my job
…have him touch me
…listen to him blather about his “plan”
…expect anything
…talk about/plan for the future
…cry everyday
…worry about upsetting him
…apologize for my behavior
…forget that there was something good, once
…forget that I am good
…teach my daughter that bad behavior is acceptable
…cause conflict
…exercise
…be here, again

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4 Secrets To Set Boundaries That Succeed

Although this is written for teenagers, I believe we can use these secrets with other loved ones.

Proverbs 29:17 – “Discipline your children, and they will give you peace; they will bring you the delights you desire.”

I don’t know if this boundary stuff really works for me,” Jill told me (Dr. Townsend). She was having problems with her 14-year-old daughter. Holly was skipping classes at school and had been caught drinking. Things were definitely headed in the wrong direction, and Jill wanted to act before it was too late.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well, I sat down and told her, ‘Things are going to have to change around here. I’m going to set some boundaries with you. This is for your own good. You need to stop the ditching and drinking.’”

“What happened then?”

“She got mad at me, yelled, and left the room. The next weekend she was drinking again. I guess the next step is to send her to some adolescent rehab center—”

“Slow down, Jill. That may be in the cards, but you’re ahead of yourself. I don’t think you’ve given Holly or yourself a real go in setting boundaries. Boundaries aren’t about just giving someone their marching orders and then expecting them to salute. Especially teens.”

Jill had thought that simply being direct and honest was all that was needed to set boundaries. But it isn’t. There are four necessary principles that must be used in order make boundaries succeed in difficult situations:

Principle #1 – Love: I Am on Your Side
Always begin with love. To the best of your ability, convey to your teen (or anyone else) that you care about her welfare and have her best interests at heart.

Boundaries separate people, at least at first. Because of this, setting boundaries often causes conflict. Teens get mad and feel persecuted. They resist boundaries, because boundaries seem harsh and uncaring.

Love will help your teen hear what you are saying, accept the boundaries, and tolerate the consequences. This is true for all of us. When we hear hard truths from someone who cares about us, we need to know that the person is on our side. Otherwise, we are liable to feel hated, bad, worthless, unloved, offended, or victimized. Those feelings don’t lead to a happy ending.

To demonstrate love to your teen, tell her something like this: “I am on your side. I am not doing this because I’m mad, or want to punish you, or don’t care about you. I am doing this because I want your best.” You may not be feeling especially close to your teen when you set a limit, but love is greater than momentary feelings. Love is a stance, an attitude to take: you are on your teen’s side and for her good.

Principle #2 – Truth: I Have Some Rules and Requirements
Love opens the door to change but is not enough. Truth provides guidance, wisdom, information, and correction. Truth exists in the form of rules, requirements, and expectations for your teen. They are the dos and don’ts that spell out what your teen needs to do and what he needs to avoid.

Why is this important? Because your teen needs to know what the line is, so that he can choose whether or not to cross it. If there is no line, you won’t be able to blame your teen for crossing it. Sometimes a boundary doesn’t work because the parent didn’t clearly define the boundary.

By the way, if you feel weird or mean about having rules and expectations for your teens, you should see that feeling as a problem! It is not cruel and unloving for parents to have requirements for their teen’s behavior and attitude. Teens who have reasonable expectations for their behavior tend to do better in life, because boundaries are part of life. Adults can’t show up for work late, nor should they yell at their spouse when they’ve had a bad day. As long as the rules are appropriate for the situation, when you bring them into the relationship, you are helping your child see that structure and responsibility are normal and expected in life.

Don’t get mad. Get clear. Let your adolescent know what is expected and required in behavior and attitude. Write down your rules and regulations and post them on the refrigerator. Otherwise, when he feels you are being unfair in your discipline, he may be right.

Principle #3 – Freedom: You Can Choose to Respect or Reject the Rules
Your teen has probably exercised freedom to make some poor choices, and you haven’t seen much good come from that. But freedom is absolutely necessary, for a couple of reasons:

First, you can’t really make your teen choose the right thing. It can be scary to realize this, but realize it you must. There is a lot you can’t control in your teen. You aren’t present for much of her life, so you can’t control what she does in school and with her friends. Nor can you really control what she does at home, if you think about it.

Second, even if you could “make” your teen do the right thing, it wouldn’t help him develop into a mature, loving, responsible person. That is not how God designed the growth process. He orchestrated things so that we must be free to choose good or bad, to choose him or reject him. That is the only way we can learn from our mistakes, and the only way we can truly love each other from the heart.

Of course, freedom has a limit. If a problem is life-threatening or dangerous, you certainly should intervene. Intervention in the form of involuntary hospitalizations, arrests, or residential treatment programs sometimes has to happen in extreme cases. You want your child alive to be able to grow. But as much as possible, affirm and protect your teen’s freedom.

Principle #4 – Consequences: Here Is What Will Happen
Teens need consequences, because that’s how they experience a fundamental law of life: good behavior brings good results and bad behavior brings uncomfortable results. Depending on the situation, your teen may need to experience something small, such as having to do extra chores at home. Or the consequence may need to be a big deal, such as grounding for a long time with few privileges. But the idea is the same: consequences teach us how to be responsible.

Consequences should be both said and done. Your teen needs to know what will happen on the other side of the line. If you state consequences without enforcing them, you will train your teen to ignore you, because your bark has no bite. The next time you decide you need to have a boundary-setting conversation, be sure you say:

Love – “I love you and am on your side.”
Truth – “I have some rules and requirements for your behavior.”
Freedom – “You can choose to respect or reject these rules.”
Consequences – “Here is what will happen if you reject these rules.”

When you use these four principles, you are providing the stability, clarity, and motivation your teen needs to begin to learn self-control and responsibility.

Today’s content is drawn from Boundaries With Teens by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. Copyright 2014 by Zondervan; all rights reserved. Visit BoundariesBooks.com for more information.

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Journal Through Recovery Entry 08: Waiting for Disclosure

The directions for writing my disclosure and preparing for our intensive can be summarized as the following:

  • Construct a time line for every year up to now and fill in your entire sexual history (yes, from even before I married or dated my wife)
  • Your disclosure should be 12 to 20 double spaced typed pages and should take about 20 hours to write
  • Don’t include expressions of love or remorse or beg for forgiveness
  • Leave out extraneous details, just make it clinical
  • Don’t disclose ANYTHING ELSE until the clinical disclosure

Ok, that last part has been a major point of contention with my wife. She doesn’t understand it. Ok, well maybe she does she just doesn’t agree with it or want to follow it. She has been very angry that I get to know everything and she doesn’t. We have three more weeks until the intensive and disclosure. I don’t know if I am going to live through this part. No, seriously, I don’t know if she is going to allow me to live through this part.

Every day is a roller coaster ride of emotions. I am not sure how to respond. I yearn to retreat, go upstairs, turn on the tv, shut out her and the world. I cringe and withdraw when she yells and screams and rages. I make it even worse when I point out (probably sanctimoniously) how I am merely following directions and just can’t share any more details. See, I made that mistake already. I screwed up and let something slip I shouldn’t have let slip. Ok, I need to practice being honest. I told her something hoping to diffuse some of the anger and actually ignited a firestorm.

I had to this point only disclosed one affair partner. I had not admitted to any other instances of acting out in the past. She kept questioning me about why couldn’t I just verify and validate some things to give her some peace. Sounds reasonable, right? I took the easy way out. I didn’t stand up and follow directions. I tried to make things easier on me by not lying but by only telling a little bit in hopes that would appease her and I could get some peace and she would be satisfied for a while. So I told her that I had seen someone I met over the internet before we had kids, it didn’t mean anything, and it wasn’t anyone she knew. I reasoned that I would be preparing her for what was to come in disclosure, that my sexual sin was greater than one instance and that this would get her used to the idea.

That didn’t work the way I intended. I obviously don’t know what the hell I am doing. She melted down, threw me out of the house, and has been inconsolable for three days. I don’t know if she will continue with me. I have that my judgment sucks. I know I am stating the obvious but I think I am just now realizing that my decision making is terrible and obviously damaging. Oh yeah, I am a sex addict. I am destructive. Thank you God for allowing me to have paid therapists in my life who know what they are doing. I obviously don’t.

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Set Free

Deep Jedi Thoughts

set-free

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The Man by the Pool

Only God knows what happened to this man the rest of his life but there is a lesson to be learned from this.  To be transformed or be in the process of healing without gratitude will eventually lead us back into our sin.

His work: Since the man by the pool was an invalid, he may have made his living by begging. His character: His role in the story seems almost entirely passive, perhaps in keeping with his character. He showed evidence neither of faith nor gratitude after the miracle of his healing and even went so far as to give evidence against Jesus to men who were hostile toward Jesus. Sin appears to have played a role in his condition. His sorrow: To have been paralyzed for nearly forty years. His triumph: To have been instantly healed. Key Scriptures: John 5

A Look at the Man

“Do you want to be healed?”

It was an outrageous question to ask a man who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years, a man forced to beg for a living.

But there was a reason for the question. Perhaps, in fact, the paralyzed man wasn’t happy about the prospect of being healed. Maybe his disability offered a certain kind of security, enabling him at least to make a living as a beggar. His sudden cure would have undermined his many dependencies, his familiar routine, his ingrained view of himself. He would have had to start life all over again.

Or maybe he was offended by Jesus’ warning against sin. Perhaps he thought it would do Jesus good to receive his comeuppance at the hands of the religious leaders.

The story of the man by the pool reminds us that displays of God’s power are not enough to create faith in a person’s heart. Though the man had suffered for many years, he showed no evidence of gratitude and no evidence of belief. We expect him to fall on his knees when he is miraculously healed. But he doesn’t. We expect him to show some kind of curiosity about the person who healed him. But he doesn’t even ask Jesus his name until their second encounter. We expect him to protect Jesus against his detractors, to be scandalized by their blindness and self-righteousness. Instead, he reports Jesus to men he knew to be hostile toward Jesus.

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus denounces the cities that had witnessed most of his miracles, because the vast majority of people there had failed to repent (Matthew 11:20). His words remind us that, even though miracles are evidence of God’s power and compassion, without faith we are still free to reject them, still free to conclude that his offer of mercy is irrelevant or unnecessary.

Though none of us know what went on in the heart of the man who was healed, we are troubled by the way he responded and the way he failed to respond to the miracle he experienced. We may even wonder if by his own choice he finally succeeded in placing himself beyond the reach of God’s mercy. Only God knows.

Reflect On: Psalm 86:1–8 Praise God: For his grace, mercy, and the faith to believe. Offer Thanks: For the blessings of healing and wholeness. Confess: Any tendency you may have to blame others rather than to admit your own sinfulness and receive Christ’s pardon. Ask God: To give you courage to stand, face those crippling hurts, and live with freedom and hope.

Today’s devotional is drawn from Men of the Bible: A One-Year Devotional Study of Men in Scripture by Ann Spangler and Robert Wolgemuth. Visit AnnSpangler.com to learn more about Ann’s writing and ministry.