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One Simple Thing You Can do to Protect Your Marriage

Originally posted at: https://drlorischade.wordpress.com/2016/07/22/one-simple-thing-you-can-do-to-protect-your-marriage/

I was on a hike with another couple a few nights ago, and the husband asked me to identify the number one thing I would tell people to keep their marriages strong.  I’m not usually asked to reduce marital tips down to one dimension, but I was intrigued by the challenge.  I thought for a minute and realized I had a definite answer, informed by the cases I have had over the last 5 years.

“I would say,” I replied, “To realize that when you are texting someone, you are in essence entering a private room with that person.”  I’m expanding on the image here.  The room has no windows.  The social response is in real time, so it is as if you are right next to the person having an actual conversation.  If you text daily, you are entering that room daily.  If you text on and off all day long, you are in that room most of the day.  Everyday.

I see a lot of infidelity cases.  One hundred percent of them in the last few years have all developed through texting.  In most cases, a romantic interest did not precede the texting relationship.  Most of them started in a benign way between co-workers, church members working together on projects, neighbors and best friends of the couple.  Here’s the typical developmental course (IMHO):

  1. Begin texting to communicate practical information.
  2. Increase frequency of texting, still to communicate practical information.
  3. Add a joke to your text, making it more conversational in nature.
  4. Get a response to your joke, and continue the playful banter.
  5. Feel a positive chemical boost after a text exchange.
  6. Find yourself checking your phone to see if the person texted.
  7. Realize that you are starting to look forward to getting texts from that person.
  8. Tell yourself that since you aren’t seeing that person face-to-face, you are fine and not being disloyal to your spouse.
  9. Increase casual and playful texting.
  10. Shift from playful banter to deeper emotional disclosures.
  11. Experience an increase in the euphoric chemical boost.
  12. Find yourself hiding your phone from your spouse, because you don’t want the texts to be “misinterpreted.”  (ALERT: Tipping Point)
  13. Continue to tell yourself that nothing is going to happen, because you still aren’t in this person’s physical presence, so you are still in control.
  14. Realize you have an emotional yearning for this individual.
  15. As you increase the need to hide your texts, begin to see your spouse as the enemy.
  16. Find yourself disconnecting from your spouse to find a place to text this person more often and privately.
  17. Hide more.
  18. Declare your deepest feelings and yearnings for this person and plan to meet in a private location.
  19. Engage in physical affection.
  20. Bam!
  21. Feel as if you have “fallen,” in love with this person and want him/her more than your spouse.
  22. Tell yourself this is your true love connection…otherwise you wouldn’t have “fallen,” in love, and you wouldn’t have these feelings.
  23. See your spouse as the one thing standing between you and true love and happiness.
  24. Destabilize your family.
  25. Make an appointment with [a therapist].

This may sound harsh to some readers…definitely to those who see themselves somewhere on this continuum.  I’m not changing my story.  If you would not repeatedly enter a private room with someone without a window where someone can see in, frequently enough that you start to share feelings with someone that you wouldn’t share with your spouse, don’t do it on a cell phone.

Here’s one more thing that should not surprise you:  If your texting partner is an old boyfriend or girlfriend, you can expect to immediately resurrect the same emotions you felt when you were dating that person.  You will exaggerate all the good memories you had and minimize the negative memories you had from that relationship.  That’s not unique.  Your texting affair is not unique, and the effect is as if you are on drugs.  I’ve written this before, and I stand by it.

Lastly, realize that no matter how great you think your marriage is, this can happen to you.  It is the failure to be watchful and set boundaries that gets people into trouble.  If you think you could never end up having an affair, you’re kidding yourself—FWIW.

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This Is What It’s Like To Date An Actual Narcissist (And You Never Want To Do It)

Originally posted at: http://thoughtcatalog.com/%tc-coauthor%/2016/07/this-is-what-its-like-to-date-an-actual-narcissist-and-you-never-want-to-do-it/

Last winter, I ended a relationship with a man who I came to realize was narcissistically abusive.

Our six-month partnership began with the “love bombing” that characterizes any relationship with a narcissist. He lavished me with constant attention, meals, and gifts. Within a matter of weeks, we developed an emotional connection that made me feel as if I had known him forever.

Although I had always been a skeptic when it came to romance and relationships, he insisted we were soul mates.

But in textbook fashion, the love-bombing phase ultimately gave way to one of gradual and inevitable “devaluation.”

When disagreements arose, he would increasingly erupt in anger, unleashing a torrent of often alcohol-fuelled verbal abuse against me.

During one argument, I remember realizing with matter-of-fact detachment that the man who claimed to care so much about me was willing to say absolutely anything – maybe even do anything – in order to hurt me, in order to “win.”

Yet I struggled to reconcile this behavior with the person I believed I had fallen in love with.

How could such a charismatic and compassionate man – a health care professional who presented himself as a “healer” – become so angry and hurtful behind closed doors?

This cognitive dissonance ultimately made me doubt my own perception and even my memory of what had happened.

Besides, he would always apologize – sometimes even breaking down in tears – blaming the verbal assaults on his ADHD medication or the alcohol. Then he would accuse me of not being “supportive” enough.

I became convinced that if I just tried harder, things would go back to the way they were.

But, eventually, it seemed as if any perceived slight would upset him and even enrage him, especially if he had been drinking: a flat tire, misplaced keys, a client cancelling, the barista making his latte too slowly.

I walked on daily trails of eggshells, praying that nothing would happen to ruin his fragile mood.

I stopped confronting him with things I was unhappy about, knowing that he would either explode in anger or stonewall me by emotionally withdrawing or leaving his own apartment – once for hours.

By this point, we were practically living together, and I had become consumed with the relationship. I worked from home more often now (his home). I rarely saw friends or colleagues.

But the constant waiting for the other shoe to drop, the persistent feeling that things were never completely stable began to far outweigh the intermittent reinforcement that kept me tethered to him. I was finally able to end the relationship — on the third try.

Characteristically, he made more excuses and insisted I was to blame.
I should have made him give up alcohol. I should have spent more time with him instead of working on my damn Ph.D. I was too cold and heartless to “fight for love.”

But, the important thing was: I was free. Or so I thought.

As I entered therapy and began to pick up the pieces of my self-esteem and my heart, I naively expected everything to fall back into place.

Thus, it was especially painful for me to realize the first hard truth about narcissistic abuse: that an abuser will never, ever acknowledge or take responsibility for the pain they have caused you. Especially if they are a narcissist.

Although you thought you had left the crazy-making and emotional invalidation of the relationship behind, you get to experience it all over again once the relationship is over.

Because the only other individual in your toxic relationship – the only other person in the world who was “there” and saw it all unfold – absolutely refuses to accept your version of events.

Instead, they continue to make excuses and minimize their behavior, attempting to “hoover” you back into the relationship.

Despite blocking the narcissist from my phone and Facebook and never once responding, he continued to contact me for months after the relationship had ended – by email, letter, a different phone number, and even online sites it hadn’t occurred to me to protect, such as LinkedIn and Pandora.

But most insidiously of all? Eventually, the abuser pretends as if nothing ever happened.

Five months after the break-up, the narcissist announced in an email that he would finally leave me alone. He ended the message with: I love you.

Basically, it didn’t matter that this man’s behavior had constantly made me feel unstable and unsafe because he “loved” me.

And now he had finally decided to stop months of unwanted and unreciprocated contact…because he felt like it.

That is when I learned a second hard truth about narcissistic abuse: that the abuser always gets the last word. That the abuser is the one who gets to decide when the abuse stops.

Only they get to carry out the ultimate “discard.” Because they don’t just require the upper hand during the relationship, but all the way until its bitter end.

I wish I could say that I have moved past all of this, but I am still coming to terms with the realities of narcissistic abuse. And yet, I still have hope.

Just as I am a bit of a skeptic, I am also a rather stubborn optimist.

I am hopeful that someday, it really won’t matter that my abuser will never take responsibility and acknowledge the pain he caused – because I will be able to validate my feelings and perception of reality, for myself.

I am hopeful that someday I will get to the point where I get to decide that the abuse is over. That eventually it will all just be a memory, as will the constant fear of him unexpectedly showing up at my door.

I am hopeful that someday I will be able to trust people again.

Because, hard as it is, simply knowing the truth can also be beautifully freeing. And, for now, that will have to be enough freedom for me.

 

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Calling the Unqualified

Peter, Andrew, James, Nathanael. Never traveled farther than a week’s walk from home. Haven’t studied the ways of Asia or the culture of Greece. Their passports aren’t worn; their ways aren’t sophisticated. Do they have any formal education?

In fact, what do they have? Humility? They jockeyed for cabinet positions. Sound theology? Peter told Jesus to forget the cross. Sensitivity? John wanted to torch the Gentiles. Loyalty? When Jesus needed prayers, they snoozed. When Jesus was arrested, they ran.

Thanks to their cowardice, Christ had more enemies than friends at his execution.

Yet look at them six weeks later, crammed into the second floor of a Jerusalem house, abuzz as if they’d just won tickets to the World Cup Finals. High fives and wide eyes. Wondering what in the world Jesus had in mind with his final commission: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8 NIV).

You hillbillies will be my witnesses. You uneducated and simple folk will be my witnesses. You who once called me crazy, who shouted at me in the boat and doubted me in the Upper Room. You temperamental, parochial net casters and tax collectors. You will be my witnesses. You will spearhead a movement that will explode like a just-opened fire hydrant out of Jerusalem and spill into the ends of the earth: into the streets of Paris, the districts of Rome, and the ports of Athens, Istanbul, Shanghai, and Buenos Aires. You will be a part of something so mighty, controversial, and head spinning that two millennia from now a middle-aged, redheaded author riding in the exit row of a flight from Boston to Dallas will type this question on his laptop:

Does Jesus still do it? Does he still use simple folks like us to change the world?

God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called.

Don’t let Satan convince you otherwise. He will try. He will tell you that God has an IQ requirement or an entry fee. That he employs only specialists and experts, governments and high-powered personalities. When Satan whispers such lies, dismiss him with this truth: God stampeded the first-century society with swaybacks, not thoroughbreds. Before Jesus came along, the disciples were loading trucks, coaching soccer, and selling Slurpee drinks at the convenience store. Their collars were blue, and their hands were calloused, and there is no evidence that Jesus chose them because they were smarter or nicer than the guy next door. The one thing they had going for them was a willingness to take a step when Jesus said, “Follow me.”

Are you more dinghy than cruise ship? More stand-in than movie star? More plumber than executive? More blue jeans than blue blood? Congratulations. God changes the world with folks like you.

Today’s devotional is drawn from Max Lucado’s Second Chances.

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Anger in Relationships

SOURCE:  Larry Heath/Living Free

“Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.” (Hebrews 12:15 NLT)

Unresolved anger can lead to a “root of bitterness” and wreak havoc on a person’s emotional life and personal relationships. Unchecked resentment can grow into hatred and could even lead to physical or verbal abuse.
Genesis 4:1-8 tells about this happening between two of Adam and Eve’s sons, Cain and Abel. Cain was jealous of Abel and the resentment grew and festered to the point that anger became his master. The result? Cain killed Abel.

Of course, unchecked anger doesn’t always lead to murder but it can lead to other painful results. Angry words we can’t take back. Depression. Broken friendships. Divorce. Losing our focus on Jesus and what he wants us to do. The list is endless.

Are you having a problem dealing with anger? Is anger ruining a special relationship? Prayerfully consider these scriptures and others like them. What answers do they provide? How can you apply them to your situation?

  • Instead, be kind to each other, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32 NLT)
  • “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.” (Matthew 7:3-5 NLT)
  • Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. (James 5:16 NLT)
  • Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NLT)
  • Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. (James 1:19-20 NLT)
  • Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ. (Ephesians 4:15 NLT)

Father, I know my anger has affected my relationships. In fact, it seems to control my attitudes and behavior much of the time. Please help me apply the teaching in your Word to my life. Help me let go of the anger so your love can flow through me to others. In Jesus’ name . . .

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How to Resist Temptation’s Mirage Moment

Originally posted at: http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-to-resist-temptation-s-mirage-moment

Article by Jon Bloom

Temptation is not sin. We know this because Eve was tempted before she fell and Jesus was tempted, “yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

Temptation is a disorienting, defiling experience when evil is presented to us as good. Destruction comes dressed up to look like happiness. Sin only occurs when we believe that the destructive lie can actually grant happiness.

One key to resisting temptation is learning to recognize what I call the “mirage moment.”

The Mirage Moment

A mirage is that hallucination parched people sometimes experience in a hot desert. A real desire for water and the shimmering heat of the sand play disorienting games with the mind and emotions. A refreshing oasis seems to appear in the distance promising the happiness of a quenched desire.

A thirsty person might know that no oasis has previously existed in that location. But his desire to be happy, fueled by the hope that this time he just might find happiness there, or at least relief from misery, tempts him to believe the vision. If he yields, he discovers his hope was hopeless and his desire dashed because the oasis was a sham.

In temptation, the mirage moment occurs as we are tempted by a vision promising happiness. Some shimmering oasis of promised joy or relief from despair appears where God said it shouldn’t be.

The mirage’s appearance taps into our real desire to be happy. Our disoriented emotions begin to respond to this desire with a feeling of hope — hope that maybe this time, even if we’ve been disappointed many times before, the oasis will quench our desire. But we know that God has told us it is a false hope.

So we are faced with a choice between temptation’s compelling appearance and God’s promise. We are tempted, but have not yet succumbed to sin.

Learning from Eve’s Mirage Moment

The most notorious mirage moment in history is recorded in Genesis 3. And it illustrates a pattern consistent in all the temptations that we face.

The satanic serpent showed up in the garden and questioned Eve about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve’s explanation shows that she clearly understood God’s promise and warning (Genesis 3:1–3).

Then came Eve’s mirage moment. The serpent replied:

“You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw . . . (Genesis 3:4–6)

There it is: the mirage. Eve saw something she had not seen before:

[Eve] saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise. (Genesis 3:6)

Eve was experiencing the defilement of evil temptation. She was being told something very different about the tree from what God had told her, and so the tree suddenly looked different to her and she felt different about it.

God created Eve (and all of us) so that the meaning of her sensory impressions was shaped by what she believed to be true. Satan knew this. He knew that if he could change the meaning of the tree for Eve from the curse of death (Genesis 2:17) to the key to a happy life (Genesis 3:5), the tree would cease to look dangerous and begin to look desirable. It would tempt her to hope in something different than God’s promise and she might fall for it.

Satan manipulated Eve’s God-given desire to be happy and used it against her. He enticed her to corrupt this holy desire by pursuing it outside of God. And Eve indeed fell for it, which corrupted her desire by believing the mirage, which furthermore gave birth to sin and death (James 1:14–15):

[Eve] took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3:6)

Learning from Jesus’s Mirage Moment

Satan employed the same tactic when tempting Jesus (Matthew 4:1–11; Mark 1:12–13; Luke 4:1–13). Whether using food (Luke 4:3), or a cross-less path to power (Luke 4:5–7), or a public demonstration (test) of his divinity (Luke 4:9–11), Satan was trying to corrupt Jesus’s holy, God-given desires.

Satan knew (as the apostle Paul later wrote) that “everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Timothy 4:4). But he also knew that what made these things holy was “the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:5) and that “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). So Satan set before Jesus mirages to tempt him with faithless promises of divine happiness.

We who live with indwelling sin don’t know the levels to which the sinless God-man was affected. But we do know that what Jesus experienced were temptations. Jesus was given a choice between compelling deceptive appearances and God’s promises. And to each temptation, Jesus responded, “It is written. . . . ” He refused to believe Satan’s deceptive mirages or the emotions they roused. He kept food, power, the revelation of his divinity, and everything else holy by receiving them only through the word of God and prayer.

Recognize and Resist the Mirage Moment

Satan employs the same temptation tactics with us. And one key to not letting him outwit us (2 Corinthians 2:11) is to be on the alert to our mirage moments.

Identify the hope tempting mirages offer. The reason temptations are hard to resist is because hope is hard to resist. Temptations threaten us with missing out on happiness or less misery. We must ask ourselves what the mirage is really promising? Sometimes just saying it out loud breaks its spell.

Declare, like Jesus, “It is written” and take your stand on a promise God has made to make you happy. Don’t fight hope merely with denial. Fight false hope with true hope. Determine to hope in the God of hope (Psalm 42:11; Romans 15:13), not a shimmering hopeless mirage.

Expect the mirage to be tempting. God made you to want to be happy and the mirage has promised you happiness. So of course your emotions, which have responded to the initial deceptive vision, will want the happiness. They will feel demanding, but denying them won’t kill you. In this case, gratifying them just might kill you. Don’t allow your passions to be your dictators (Romans 6:12). Remember, emotions are gauges, not guides. They are indicatives not imperatives. They are to be directed, not to be directors.

To be tempted is not a sin. To yield to temptation is sin. Temptations are never truly as strong as they feel. Their power lies solely in the false hope they produce in us. Remember, it is hope that is powerful. God created us to hope in him (Psalm 43:5).

In temptation, Satan is just trying to use our God-given desire for hopeful happiness against us. If we can identify his false promise of hope, declare the true promise of hope, and expect to weather some disorienting emotional urges, the mirage will dissipate and our hope in God’s promised happiness will strengthen.

More from Desiring God

  • How to Endure Common to Man Temptations | Our most common temptations are generally the most dangerous temptations we face, because Satan knows us and aims at where we are weakest: our profound, pathological fallen selfishness.
  • Your Emotions Are a Gauge, Not a Guide | Remember, your emotions are gauges, not guides. Let them tell you where the spiritual attack is being made so you can fight it with the right promises.
  • Can Jesus Really Understand My Temptations? | John Piper responds to a listener’s question, “Can Jesus really identify with me when he doesn’t know the experience of indwelling sin raging war against the Spirit?”

Jon Bloom serves as author, board chair, and co-founder of Desiring God and has penned three books, Not by Sight (2013), Things Not Seen (2015), and Don’t Follow Your Heart (2015). He lives in the Twin Cities with his wife, Pam, their five children, and one naughty dog.