CASTIMONIA

Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

pornstar

By

“Pastor, my husband’s addicted to pornography!”

Originally posted at: http://www.careleader.org/avoid-4-mistakes/

November 9, 2016 by

A recent study shared that 47 percent of Christian men struggle with pornography, many of whom have a full-blown addiction to it. That’s almost half of the men in each congregation. The number is shocking. And while the church is making some strides in ministering to those men, not much effort is being made in ministering to their wives.

For married men, the impact of an addiction to pornography can be astounding. When the addiction comes to light, the wife is oftentimes overwhelmed by the magnitude of the struggle. Additionally, she may be overcome with shame, fear, and uncertainty, but also left feeling betrayed and in pain over the lies that accompanied her husband’s addiction. In many ways, the effects are similar to finding out about an affair. Trust has been broken in the most intimate way.

Since these women often feel betrayed and as a result are often emotionally wounded and fragile, you don’t want to add to their pain by making missteps in providing care. Below, I share four key mistakes to avoid in order to better understand how to walk with the women in your flock on the path of healing.

Mistake #1: Rushing her healing

When it comes to ministering to women whose husbands are addicted to pornography, realize that this is a journey. As with any other addiction, and most other life struggles, her husband’s addiction to pornography hasn’t happened overnight. Her healing will be a process and a journey. Be patient with her. You aren’t going to cover everything the first time she walks in to see you, nor should you expect her to heal that quickly.

Paired with this, give her opportunities just to be heard. She needs to know that you as her pastor are hearing her, understanding her, and validating her. It’s easy to focus on the husband in this instance, the man addicted to pornography, and forget that she has been violated, that she needs help too. Even though her husband chose this road, it impacts her greatly. She’s part of the collateral damage. So she needs people who will hear her, whether that’s a counselor, a pastor, or a support group particularly for her.

Mistake #2: Underestimating her need to grieve

One of the most important things you can do as you minister to the wife is to allow her an opportunity to grieve. When a woman finds out that her husband is addicted to pornography, she’s just experienced a great loss. That loss may be obvious, like intimacy, trust, respect, and self-worth. Or it may be something more tangible: she may be experiencing financial loss as his addiction has progressed, or if he has lost his job. She may be experiencing a loss of health; I’ve recently spoken with a woman who now has a sexually transmitted disease because her husband’s pornography addiction progressed to the point that he was seeking out prostitutes. Give the wife an opportunity to grieve those losses. Sit and listen. Let her cry, and tell her that she’s not alone as she walks through this.

Ultimately, her husband’s addiction to pornography is not about her. A woman oftentimes tends to ask what she could have done to fix the situation or how she was insufficient for him. But this is not her fault. Her husband is using pornography to fill a hole, a God-sized hole, in his heart. People long for peace, comfort, and intimacy, but pornography brings a false sense of these. It has nothing to do with how she looks, or what she does or doesn’t do.

Mistake #3: Allowing yourself to be deceived

As you listen to both the husband and the wife, don’t be too quick to believe everything that the husband shares, particularly as he is describing the extent of his addiction. Understand that addicts lie. They lie repeatedly. They lie because for a long time they got away with it, and they lie because they want the best of both worlds. Pornography and sexual intimacy are completely different things, and they want both.

And when it comes to caring for the wife, understand that trust is something that must be rebuilt. When a woman realizes her husband is addicted to pornography, she will very likely begin questioning anything he says. Trust has been broken, and it takes time to rebuild. Where her inclination before this revelation was to trust his word, her inclination now will be to doubt it.

We know from Scripture that truth matters. Philippians 4:8 commands us to think about that which is true. This matters for the pastor as you seek to discover that which is true in the addict’s reports, but it matters also for the wife as she tries to wade through the things he says. Lead her, then, to encourage her husband to be truthful, even when it reveals his sin. This may be difficult, but we must live in light rather than darkness.

Mistake #4: Letting her be the porn police

This brings us to another important topic. Oftentimes, a woman will ask me if she should be her husband’s accountability partner—in other words, if she should be the porn police. This usually is motivated by a true desire to help her husband change, to help him recover from his addiction. But this isn’t a healthy dynamic to be setting up. Not only does he need to be reporting to more than one person, he should be accountable to other men, ones who are walking in purity and are mature in their faith.

Further, a wife acting as her husband’s accountability partner is putting herself in a position to have her emotions continually damaged. It is allowing her to be hurt over and over again. Whereas her intentions may be to repair the emotional damage, asking her husband to share each and every lapse only exposes her to more pain.

Help her understand the difference between a lapse and a relapse

Being an accountability partner to her husband also doesn’t help to build trust in their relationship. She needs hope that he will have victory over this addiction. But he will slip; he may relapse. This is an addiction, and like other addictions, lapses and relapses happen, typically more often than we are aware. But if the wife is the accountability partner, it’s much more difficult for her to discern the difference between a slip and a total relapse. And she may allow her already overwhelming emotions to become hysterical. She may question if he really wants to change or be angry that they’re “going down this path again.” Her emotions may cloud her ability to see the difference between a momentary slip that was brought to light and a full-blown relapse.

It may be helpful for you, as a pastor, to help the wife understand the difference between a lapse and a relapse. While a lapse is a momentary slipup, such as a lingering look at a woman walking by or a glance at the woman on the front of a magazine, a relapse is a recurring pattern of the addiction. A lapse is temporary; a relapse lasts. And while a lapse is much more likely to be brought out into the open, a relapse is usually shrouded in the same secrecy that hid the addiction originally.

Where churches often fall short

To conclude, don’t assume that this isn’t a very real issue in your own church. Around 47 percent of Christian men are struggling with pornography, yet only about 7 percent of churches offer any kind of support for men struggling with pornography. So there’s a huge deficit there. Additionally, if 7 percent of churches are offering something to men, the percentage of churches offering something for their wives didn’t even make the radar because there’s already such a deficit for the men. So if you are offering something for the men, you need to be offering support to those women as well. That may be individual counseling, or it may be support groups for women as they walk through this with their husbands. Understand the impact of pornography addiction on women, and seek to minister to them also.

If you’d like additional information on this topic, please see my article 4 Myths About the Wives of Porn Addicts. Also read How to Help the Spouse Who Stays in a Marriage After an Affair by Cindy Beall. She shares the story of how she chose to stay in the marriage after discovering her husband’s infidelity and pornography addiction, and she provides insight on how to minister well to the betrayed spouse. Each of these articles may be helpful to you as you work to help the wives of porn addicts.

Vicki Tiede, MEd, MMin, is a Bible teacher, conference speaker, and author. Vicki is uniquely qualified to minister to women whose husbands are addicted to pornography because of her own experience of being that wife in her first marriage. Vicki has written Your Husband is Addicted to Porn (mini-book) and When Your Husband is Addicted to Pornography: Healing Your Wounded Heart in addition to writing and contributing to six other books. Through her ministry, Vicki offers online, video-conferencing support groups for wives. You can find further resources at www.vickitiede.com or follow her blog at www.vickitiede.com/blog.

By

When Your Marriage Needs Help

SOURCE:  Taken from the series — When Your Marriage Needs Help/Focus on the Family

Is My Marriage Worth Saving?

Without a doubt, your marriage is worth saving!

Though all marriages can’t be saved, divorce does not typically solve personal or relational dysfunctions. For couples with children, it is important to understand that research validates the fact that most children do not want their parents to divorce, in spite of their parents’ arguments and basic problems. In fact, one of the number one fears of children in the United States, ages 4 to 16, is the fear that their parents will divorce.1

Dr. Judith Wallerstein, a psychologist and one of the nation’s premier divorce researchers, conducted a 25-year research study following 131 children of divorce. She states:

Twenty-five years after their parents’ divorce, children remembered loneliness, fear and terror! Adults like to believe that children are aware of their parents’ unhappiness, expect the divorce and are relieved when it happens. However, that is a myth; and what children actually conclude is if one parent can leave another, then they both could leave me. As a society we like to think that divorce is a transient grief, a minor upheaval in a child’s life. This is also a myth; and as divorcing parents go through transition, their children live in transition.2

Dr. John Gottman provides interesting research findings that suggest why it is important to save your marriage. He states, “The chance of a first marriage ending in divorce over a 40-year period is 67 percent. Half of all divorces will occur in the first seven years. The divorce rate for second marriages is as much as 10 percent higher than for first-timers.”

 He goes on to explain:

Numerous research projects show that happily married couples have a far lower rate for physical problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, anxiety, depression, psychosis, addictions, etc. and live four years longer than people who end their marriages. The chance of getting divorced remains so high that it makes sense for all married couples to put extra effort into their marriages to keep them strong.3

According to a national study (the National Fatherhood Initiative Marriage Survey), more than three-fifths of divorced Americans say they wish they or their spouses had worked harder to save their marriages (see fatherhood.org).

Findings from a study of unhappy marriages conducted by the Institute for American Values showed that there was no evidence that unhappily married adults who divorced were typically any happier than unhappily married people who stayed married. Even more dramatically, the researchers also found that two-thirds of unhappily married spouses who stayed together reported that their marriages were happy five years later.4

When people hear about these findings, their response typically is:

All that research is well and good; but I have tried everything I know to do, and my spouse simply will not agree to get help. I have cried, begged, threatened and pleaded, but nothing works. So what do I do? I can’t do it on my own. There is nothing else I can do.

Maybe there is.

  1. Schachter, Dr. Robert and Carole McCauley, When Your Child Is Afraid, (Simon and Schuster, 1988). ↩
  2. Wallerstein, Judith, Julia M. Lewis and Sandra Blakeslee, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce – The 25 Year Landmark Study, (Hyperion Publishers, 2000). ↩
  3. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (Three Rivers Press, 1999). ↩
  4. “Does Divorce Make People Happy?” (Institute for American Values, 2002). ↩

When a Spouse Won’t Get Help

Three of the most common reasons one spouse gives the other for not seeking help in the marriage follow:

  • “We don’t have that kind of problem” or “Our problems are really not that bad.” That’s the denial response. The fact is, if your spouse requests counseling, your marriage is probably worse off than you think. Your spouse is apparently in enough pain to seek relief from it in some way. If your spouse is hurting to the point of taking this action, you need to join him or her in solving the problem. If your spouse has a problem, you have a problem.
  • “We can’t afford it.” Most Americans can afford whatever they really want. If we can afford cell phones, hobbies, cable TV, eating out, health club memberships, daily visits to Starbuck’s and designer clothes, we can afford marriage counseling or an intensive designed to save our marriage. A question to seriously consider is: “Can I/we afford not to go to counseling?” If you don’t go to counseling, what will be the outcome? Can you live for the rest of your married life with the outcome?
  • Another common reason your spouse might reject counseling is that he or she simply is not hurting as much as you are. Your spouse is not where you are on the pain scale. The typical response shown by the motivated spouse is a sense of frustration or unhealthy responses such as nagging, pouting, arguing, accusing, angry outbursts or simply being bitter. But unhealthy responses like these only cause wounds to deepen and the other spouse to move further away from the relationship. You can’t “nag” your spouse into getting help.

On the spiritual side, a possible factor that could prevent you or your spouse from getting needed help is pride. Many marriages are failing and are eventually destroyed because one or both partners are too prideful to admit that they have a problem and may be wrong. The same tenacity and stubbornness that often keeps a person in a marriage can lead to a level of pride that prevents that person from receiving the proper help when in trouble. If you think you are too proud to ask for help or feel too proud to face the embarrassment, you are too proud. Pride can stand in the way of progress like a sentry guarding a castle. Nothing can get past it or move beyond it.

One of the greatest things you can do for a troubled marriage is to be willing to say, “I’m wrong. I’m sorry and I realize this problem has a lot to do with me.” This attitude is the opposite of a prideful attitude. It says, “I know I must be willing to change if I expect my spouse to change. I will do whatever it takes to save and change my marriage.” This could mean committing time, money and energy to a counseling relationship that will hold you accountable for your growth and progress.

A heart dominated by pride says, “I would rather allow my marriage to die than admit I am wrong.” A heart driven by biblical love and commitment says:

I will do whatever it takes to salvage and rebuild my marriage. I will give up everything I own. I will change jobs. I will mortgage the house. I will do whatever it takes, because I know my marriage is that important to our children and our children’s children.

 Can You Do It Alone?

What if one spouse is willing to go to counseling and the other is not? Should the willing spouse go to counseling or seek help without the other? In most cases, the answer is definitely yes. Your marriage can be helped immensely if you initiate change.

When one spouse stops trying to change his or her partner and stops pointing fingers, making accusations, and withholding affection and attention, the energy often shifts to self-improvement. When you make positive changes, it allows positive changes to occur in your spouse.

The fact is, you cannot change your spouse, but you can change yourself. Often the most obvious point of movement in a conflicted marriage is self-movement. Changes you make to improve yourself and marriage can effectively produce healthy responses in the other spouse.

Sometimes the best way to change your spouse is to model positive change in your own life. You can encourage your spouse to communicate better by learning to communicate better yourself. You can coach your spouse to respect you by respecting him or her first. You can teach your spouse to stop complaining with a bitter spirit by breaking a pattern of complaining and developing a new spirit.

Your husband or wife may not be willing to read books, go to seminars or go to counseling at this stage; but if you take the first step, your changes may positively influence him or her.

Think of your decision in practical economic terms. Ask yourself: If I take no course of action or even pursue divorce, how economically advantageous will that be? The cost of divorce in the United States can average anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000. A majority of couples who divorce find themselves living on half of their pre-divorce income. After divorce, many single women are forced to live below the poverty line while attempting to raise their children.

Divorce is not the answer to most problems. Divorce is not the best solution to being unhappy or unfulfilled. It typically creates more problems than you can ever imagine and will have a long-term effect on your children, as well as generations to come. Therefore, the question is: “Can you afford not to go to counseling?” From a practical standpoint, it may be like asking, “Should I have heart surgery if I know that I will die if I don’t have it?” If your doctor says you will live in pain the rest of your life or that you will die, can you afford not to have the surgery?

Common Mistakes in Approaching Your Spouse

  • Showing disrespect. As Sharon realized, you can’t change a person by tearing him or her down. There’s only one response for that kind of approach: negative. Think about it. How do you feel when others treat you disrespectfully? Does it make you want to do something for them? Does it make you want to show affection? No. Showing disrespect will only alienate your spouse to the idea of seeking help.
  • Losing control of your anger. Anger is often a way of punishing your spouse when he or she does not give you what you want. It’s not only ineffective in producing a long-term change in how your spouse behaves, it also destroys any threads of love or feelings that may still be evident. Sure, if your spouse doesn’t respond to your requests, the temptation exists to respond in anger; but if you don’t get the response you want, getting angry and sparking a heated argument won’t help.
  • Blaming your spouse. Don’t accuse or point fingers. Don’t resort to exaggerated or over-generalized language such as: “You always act like this! You never do what I ask you to do. You just don’t care anymore. It’s always your fault. You always do this or always do that.” That type of language isn’t valuable in solving the problem. It only creates more issues to deal with and more wounds to heal in the future.

Approaching Your Spouse the Right Way

  • Begin by approaching your spouse at the right time and in the right manner. Choose a time when he or she is not distracted or too stressed or tired.
  • Approach your spouse in a non-confrontational manner. An angry tone of voice or condescending “parent to child” approach will only cause him or her to shut down.
  • Make sure you bring up the topic in a non-threatening way. If your communication pattern has digressed to the point that when you bring up this topic, your spouse becomes defensive and “blows up,” you may consider writing him or her a letter to be read when you are not present. This gives your spouse time to think about what was said and respond without all the emotions.
  • Don’t say, “You need counseling.” Recognize and admit that “we” have a problem, and it must be addressed as a team.

You may try statements like the following to encourage your mate to join you in getting help for your marriage:

  • I’m concerned that if we allow this problem to continue, it will only get worse. I can’t go on like we have been. I need the help more than anything. I know you are uncomfortable with this, but so am I. It’s embarrassing and even frightening to me. I realize, however, that if we keep doing the same things in our marriage, we’ll get the same results.
  • We need outside intervention and direction. It’s like being in a strange city and asking others for directions. Locals know the area. They know the correct path to take, and which roads are easy ones and which roads are dangerous and difficult. A trained Christian therapist knows the way around, has been trained and is capable of helping with issues and dangers that we can’t deal with on our own.
  • I know God wants us to do better in our marriage, and our children deserve a more stable home environment than this. It’s obvious that if we don’t get help, we are making the decision to continue in a painful marriage. I believe there is hope for us and it is possible to have a healthy marriage like we used to.
  • I love you with all my heart, but I am tired and need your help and support on this. If you won’t go for yourself, would you go with me? Let’s talk about it after dinner tonight.

These non-threatening approaches take some of the pressure and blame off the other partner. They typically open doors to the possibility of getting help instead of closing doors by using negative approaches.

By

Castimonia’s PARATUS Men’s Retreat 2018 – REGISTRATION EXTENDED!!!

Although the Castimonia retreat for this weekend is technically full, due to popular demand we are keeping registration open a few more days so that men who want to attend can sign up!  Sign up NOW before we close registration!  If you cannot register, please send an e-mail to retreat@castimonia.org

Also, there is ONE FREE admission up for grabs for the first person who contacts the retreat committee.  One of the registered attendees cannot attend and is donating his paid spot! Thanks Keith!!!!!

Castimonia’s Paratus Retreat is a retreat for any man who struggles with any type of sexual purity.  Paratus, Latin for “equipped”.

If you are wondering about whether to attend this retreat, ask yourself these questions:

  • Are you fully equipped for the spiritual battle that is raging around us right now?
  • Are you a man who strives for biblical sexual purity?
  • Are you a man who struggles with maintaining that sexual purity?
  • Do you want a circle of brothers helping you in your sexual purity journey?

Join us for a weekend dedicated to equipping adult men of all ages, all walks of life, and various levels of struggle with the tools necessary to wage this spiritual battle and emerge on the other side as the sexually pure men that God intended us to be.

At the Paratus Retreat, we will discuss strategies for equipping ourselves with tactics necessary for battling the enemy. We will discover the true meaning of brotherhood and fellowship. The leaders of the Paratus Retreat will set the example of vulnerability and accountability. We hope to pave the way for all men to be fully equipped to wage war against Satan’s tempting assaults and emerge VICTORIOUS.

The ultimate affirmation for all men is to hear at the end of days, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

A wise man is strong, And a man of knowledge increases power. For by wise guidance you will wage war, And in abundance of counselors there is victory.
Proverbs 24:5-6

Start: November 16 – 04:30 pm
End: November 18 – 12:00 pm

Organizer: Castimonia Restoration Ministry, Inc.

Email: Retreat@Castimonia.org
Website: http://castimonia.org/retreat
Venue:

Cat Spring Retreat Center
14852 Hall Road
Cat Spring, TX, US, 78933

To view information on the Cat Spring Retreat Center, please visit this website:

http://thecatspringretreat.com/index.html

*Refunds are as follows:

Full refund minus fees up to September 15th.
50% refund minus fees after September 15th and up to November 1st.
No refunds after November 1st (retreat credit only).

Any Refund can be applied to a future retreat after November 1st.

By

Flee Baby flee

Originally posted at: https://manliveup.wordpress.com/2016/11/02/flee-baby-flee/

by LiveUP1

Remember a guardrail is a system designed to keep us from drifting into dangerous or off limit areas.  There is a line out there for me that once I cross it, I violate my standards and realize there is a consequence that will hurt the people I love the most.

In every area of your life where there is desire, you need a guardrail.  With sexual intimacy, you need reinforced steel.

You can recover from other disasters.  Financial disaster, if given enough time and discipline, you can recover and prosper and it’s a lesson learned.  Education – you can flunk out but get back in school, go to summer school, graduate and then it’s just a funny story you tell your kids about.  Professional disaster – you can get fired, go bankrupt but you can recover.

But in sexuality, those are the stories no one laughs about now.  The damage done in this area stays with you.

Because intuitively, we know, that sex is not just physical.  It’s way deeper than that.  When we cross certain lines in physical intimacy, there are things we can carry with us the rest of our lives.  Culture says that sex is just physical and no one gets hurt but we know better.  The damage, the guilt and the memories follow us through our lives.

1 Corinthians 6:18, Paul gives us a strong but simple command, “Flee from sexual immorality.”

Flee.  Not “be careful”.  Not “watch out”.  Not get as close to the line as you can without going over.  No.  It says “flee”.  And let’s be honest, this is what you want your wife to do.  For goodness sakes, it’s what you want your daughter doing.  Don’t kid yourself, it’s what you should be doing.  But when it comes to “me”, I don’t flee.  I flirt.

Culture will bait you right up to the line and then mock you if you take the bait and cross the line.  So, guard yourself.  Have that line you will not cross.  Don’t play with this.

For Christians, there is an even greater incentive – “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?”  I Cor 6:19

“You are not your own: you were bought at a price”.  You have been purchased from sin.  You don’t have to give into your desires and appetites.  I am the master of my body because my body is now under the authority of God.

“Therefore honor God with your bodies.”  The litmus test – whenever you’re about to act, ask yourself “Is this dishonoring to God?”  Ask it.  The Holy Spirit indwells you.  Whatever you’re about to do, you’re bringing it in alongside the Spirit.  Ask Him.  Listen for that “voice clearing” He’ll warn you if you listen.  If it doesn’t honor God … don’t even think about it.  Don’t look at it.  Don’t ponder it.  Decide to honor God daily in all you do with your body.

You will not regret these guardrails.  They are not extreme at all in this culture.  They should be your standard operating procedure.  It’s more possible than you think – once you’ve made your mind up.

Married folks

  1.  Don’t travel alone with members of the opposite sex.
  2.  Don’t eat alone with members of the opposite sex. Every affair he’s dealt with, except one, began with a meal.
  3.  Don’t hire cute members of the opposite sex because you want to help them. Don’t deceive yourself.
  4.  Don’t confide in/counsel members of the opposite sex. “They need me”.    They need help.  They don’t need you.  When your emotional world gets entwined with her emotional world, you’re in trouble.  Intimacy begins with the emotional.  Watch out.
  5.  When you feel your heart/desire drifting to another woman, tell someone. Find a man you trust and tell him.  By speaking this out, you’re bringing it out of the darkness and into the light.  (hard to do but perhaps is your most powerful guardrail)

Your guardrails – your wife needs to know what they are and she needs to be comfortable with your guardrails and standards.

Single people

  1.  Same rules as the married people – except you are not to do these things with married people i.e. not travel with a married woman, not counsel a married woman, not eat a meal with a married woman.
  2.  No sleep overs.  Remember sex is not just a physical act.  It bonds you to that woman.  Even if it’s “just a date” or “just having fun”, you are bonding with her and very importantly, she is bonding with you.  You’re creating a soul tie.  Don’t kid yourself.  Women don’t hook up.  They bond.  Sex is like glue for them emotionally.  So while you might be “just hooking up”, she’s bonding to you and you’re responsible for the pain a future breakup might do to her.  Remember a guardrail is there to protect you from that thing you’ll regret the most.
  3.  Take a relationship break. Take a year off.  If “date” has become synonymous for “sex”, you need to stop dating.  Take a break.  Give God a year to renew your mind and heart.

I will promise you, you will not look back in five years and regret these guardrails.  Intimacy in marriage is fueled by exclusivity.  If your wife knows you only have eyes for her and if she can trust you completely, your intimacy will grow.  After all, it isn’t sex you want, it is intimacy.  You want to be known.  Intimacy starts with guardrails.  Learn to honor God with your body and He will reward you with a relationship of intimacy. 

By

The Man in the Arena

For all of those that choose to criticize or condemn the ministry, our leaders, or the people in the program:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.“ – Theodore Roosevelt