331 - Happily Even After w/ Dannah Gresh

Welcome to the Pure Desire Podcast, helping you take back your life from unwanted sexual behavior and betrayal trauma. Hello. Hello. I am your host, Trevor Windsor, and you're listening to episode 331 of the Pure Desire podcast. Here, joining me as always, my co host, Nick Stumbo.

This little light of mine singing again I'm gonna let it shine this little light of mine I'm gonna let it.

Shine okay, go down.

This little light of my. How long you let me go here?

I listen. I try to cut you off sometimes and do this.

You just won't stop. Okay. Yep.

That's like a throwback to when I was like three singing in bed with my parents. Do you like, know who originally wrote the song? Or.

I think it gets, you know, this is not a racist term, but I think it gets quantified as a negro spiritual that it came out of that era.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Slave songs that were sung and got kind of kept in the songbooks and now we just kind of know it. There's actually like. I think Swing Low, Sweet Chariot is one of those. I think that's where it's from. But don't. Don't quote me.

Don't quote. You got it.

Okay. But I just did say it on a podcast that people could quote forever.

So I won't quote you because you quoted yourself.

Okay.

So today we had Dana Gresh on the podcast and I'm just gonna read a bio. It's pretty impressive. She's the best selling author and as a speaker, her best selling titles include and the Bride Wore White Lies, Young Women Believe and Lies Girls Believe. She's the co host of Revive Our Hearts podcast and the founder of True Girl, which provides mom and daughter connection tools including the True Girl podcast. She sold over 2 million books and has reached women and girls in over 100 countries. And specifically today we had her on to talk about her newest book right here, which is Happ Happily Even After.

Yeah, great conversation. Great guest. You know, love getting to meet Dana today. What made me think of that intro? You know, my favorite verse, when I was a kid in Sunday school, we'd sing this one and they would do the actions where you'd hold your finger like a candle and you do the Hide it under a bushel. No. Hide it under a bushel. No. And I was thinking about that when it comes to brokenness in our marriage, especially if we're the betrayed spouse, and I think maybe particularly for couples that have any kind of notoriety, they're known in their community, their husband or wife who's the struggler is a doctor, pastor, lawyer, just someone of repute. It's like it would be really easy just to hide this under a bushel and not deal with it, not talk about it, not get into it. And yet, kind of the point of that song, I'm going to let my little light shine, that there's something that happens when we're willing to share our story, tell our story, that does push back the darkness in other people's lives. And so I think it's just beautiful the way she kind of processes that and their willingness to face their story and to tell it and now obviously to use it to impact many, many people, I think is a huge encouragement. And to all of us, a reminder that that temptation to hide it under a bushel is real and there's fears around it that we need to navigate. But when we face those and tell our story, God uses it to push back darkness. And I think everyone will be encouraged to hear Diana's story today.

Yeah, she was great, an excellent guest, and we will have her book link in the show notes as well. Before we get to it, subscribe to the podcast and say, how about we share this with somebody? That's a new thing. We're gonna start throwing this in more. How about you send this podcast to someone? Even right now, you haven't even listened to the episode yet. You're like, hey, this is a great podcast episode. Listen to this.

So do we have enough reviews then? Cause that used to be the push. Like, review it. Leave us a review.

I'm glad you said it. We don't have enough reviews. We can never have enough reviews. And so if you want to love us forever, review for sure. And share and share, Review and share and follow us on social media. PureDesirePDMI and with that, here's our conversation with Dana Gre, talking about her book, happily, even after Dana Gresh. Thank you so much for being here and welcome to the Pure Desire podcast for the first time.

My absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.

We are excited to have you. And I'm just guessing, even before we started recording our conversation, we're probably gonna have you on again at some point. I just have a feeling like this is gonna be a regular thing. So I had the privilege. And this has been something recently over in the last, I don't know, six months or so where publishers will reach out and be like, hey, we'd love to explore having authors on the podcast. And besides feeling like I'm important, you know, when that happens, that's kind of cool. But they sent me your book and said that you'd be a great guest for our audience. And I agree. I read through your book happily, even after which we have right here in the center, Let God Redeem youm Marriage. And we're all about redeeming marriages here and that for that reason, we're just excited to talk to you about the book. And you're excited?

Well, I'm excited. I actually told my publisher I said that my top five. And you were on my top five. Of all the podcasts I wanted to be on, I was like, I want on the Pure Desire podcast. You guys are doing some great stuff for men and women in marriages.

That's awesome. Thank you. Nick wants to know, where are we on the top five?

Yeah, I wasn't going to ask.

I don't know that it would be great for your ego. So we'll just leave it at the top five.

Great.

So we're fifth is what I heard.

Of course. You were the number one spot.

That's awesome.

Awesome.

Okay.

Wink, wink, nod, nod.

Seriously. Okay. So to start before we even get into your book, I mean, I. After doing some research, I've seen you have other resources as well. I was not familiar with your work and so there may be some out there like me that didn't know about this book or other resources you've done. So will you just describe maybe a little bit about you even before we get into the first question? Just you, your background a little bit. And then if you want to start into what discovery like was for you in your own story?

Yeah, sure. Love, discovery. Tough subject, but it sure does. It is a doorway to freedom. I wrote my first book about 25 years ago, almost 25 years ago, to really kind of break the ice in the Christian world that if you had not embraced the true love weights movement and signed a pledge card and if you had messed up, there was still room at the table for you to be a part of the conversation. I didn't want to continue to perpetuate as a young youth leader that whole making girls feel like they were the trampled rose or, you know, the chewed up bubble gum. God is a redeemer. And I had a hard time believing that. I could see myself as cleansed in him past my sexual sin because of the message of purity, not containing some, you know, fresh starts and healing. So I wrote that book. It kind of went crazy. It became a bestseller just because women, young women were like, wow, I'm not alone. And so I entered the whole publishing world with a testimony of freedom on my heart. And it catapulted into lots of other testimonies, which, as you can imagine, having written about sexual integrity and healing, when we hit disclosure Day, that was an extra big bummer. I'm out there teaching this message of sexual integrity, and then the enemy is saying, oh, yeah, let's just, if I can't get to you, let me get to your husband. So disclosure day had a little bit of an extra ouch to it in that respect. But thankfully, I already knew this isn't going to be a secret. Like, you go ahead. And I should say, as most women do, I knew. I knew something was wrong. You know, my husband had told me that he struggled with pornography before we were married. And he had gotten a lot of help and counsel and walked in a lot of sexual integrity for a lot of years. Some relapses here and there, but nothing really significant. And then a big relapse, a really big one. And as he sat down and disclosed that to me, he said, dana, I've tried to find my way back to God's heart without breaking yours, but I can't figure it out. And then he did. He broke my heart.

Wow.

And so I did not get a chance to read the book yet. For our listeners that are in the same boat as me, I imagine this is some of what you unpack in the book that we're talking about today. So to give listeners a feel for that, like, hey, if you want to get this story, that's why you should grab the book. But in the book, as Trevor read through, you do talk about relationships a lot. And so in your experience, why are community and relationships so vital after disclosure? And I think in particular, this question is important because for so many people, disclosure and discovery is something they want to, like, keep quiet. Let's deal with it silently with, maybe with a counselor or maybe with a pastor that we trust. But outside of that, like, there can almost be, like, a no talk rule. And I think you would say the opposite is what we need. So talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, I would counsel highly against keeping it a secret. Now, that doesn't mean you go out and tell everybody. Telling too many people can really distract you from the work that you're doing because you end up doing PR management instead of getting the help that you need. But let's start with this. Christianity isn't a solo sport. Somebody led you to Christ. Somebody discipled you and taught you how to be a Christian. Somebody is there with you in the celebrations. And if you do it right, somebody is there with you in the trenches when you get it wrong. James 5:16 says, Confess your sins one to another, and then you will be healed. Forgiveness comes from God and God alone, but the work of healing is worked out in, among us, the body of Christ, the community of Christ. And so if you want to experience that the way that Bible says we do, in the way that God designed us to, you can't keep this a secret. And, you know, it's just counterintuitive to what we know about pornography, where secrecy breeds. Yes, the temptation. Secrecy increases the temptation. And so that this. Going back to my disclosure day, one of the things I knew about my own healing on my journey was that telling people brought waves of healing. My first. The first. First person I confessed to was my husband. That brought healing. And then I was a young adult married woman. But I told my mom, and that brought incredible healing. Just ripped open the floodgates of shame. And they just didn't have any place anything to hold them in, you know. And then, as I told my closest friend, so I knew that the first thing I needed to do when Bob disclosed to me, even though it's not what I wanted, was to call a girlfriend. And I did. Within probably 30 minutes, I was on the phone. I thought, who can I tell that I trust? And also that it's scary for me to tell because I want to break this wall down. This is. I want to get this out of the way. And you will find that there are people out there who's who. Either their stories are very similar, and so they can empathize and they can advise you because they've walked that story, that trail. I mean, we're talking 70% of men struggling in the church, roughly. I feel like the statistics are all over the place, but that's kind of a generally agreed upon area. And 30% of women struggling with pornography, we are not alone. And so when we drag that sin into the light and we talk about it, we begin that journey of healing that the book of James teaches us about.

Yeah, I think that that's something I've experienced too, being, you know, year eight of recovery, that not everyone is safe enough to hear my story. Even some of my closest friends that I have, they're just not like. And I know, I know that if I say this to them, they're gonna minimize it or diminish it or compare it or like, oh, you'll be fine. Just gloss over it. And I've realized, too, in My own story. And I think you would say the same thing that you don't need to tell everyone. I've had conversations with some friends recently about we have a three circles tool that we use in our resources, but even more so, thinking of relationship in three circles, like you've got an outer circle that can generally know about you, maybe a middle circle who knows more of the details, but you have a smaller inner circle of people who know it all because you know that they're safe.

And absolutely, I've experienced a little bit of that.

Share your story outside that inner circle, sometimes it can burn you pretty bad.

Finding the right people. And I really encourage that. There were two kind of women I needed as a wife. I needed my inner circle girlfriends to know. So I had about three of them, Lynn, Susie and Donna. And they. These were my friends I could trust. I knew they were going to love Bob. I didn't want my girlfriends to bash my husband. I wanted them to love my husband and to teach me how to love him through this, even though I was infuriated at the same time. I needed them to coach me up in that as well as to help me with my healing. But the other kind of woman I needed is I needed women who'd walk the path that I was walking. And none of those three women had walked that path. So that was harder for me. I love some of the women's groups and ministries groups that you guys have. Like, it helps people find that core community. For me, what was a little bit unique was that I was an author with, you know, I'm not a Billy Graham or a Beth Moore, but I'm not a. You know, I have a circle of influence that I, I, yeah, I wanted to protect my husb. The desire to protect your reputation is an honorable one. If you are telling some people, if you're telling nobody, I don't think that's honorable. I think that you are just setting him up to continue to fail. But I wanted to be careful with that. So I found through Dr. Julie Slattery, who's a really close friend of mine, we've co written some books together. I said I need a woman who maybe is an author or a pastor's wife that understands what I'm going through that I can talk to. And she connected me to a couple of women that kind of had a life like mine and could guide me through that. But I wasn't about to walk through it alone. I needed somebody who was a little bit further ahead in the footpath.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is, you know, so much our story that, you know, I was a pastor. My struggle with pornography was known to my wife, but not many others. And so we find pure desire. And of course, they tell her early on, you need a group, too. And she's like, wow, you know, the typical wife. Why? It's not my struggle. But we started going to a group that was outside of our community. That really helped. There's a little feel of anonymity and for her to walk into a setting with other women who were walking the same road and really on a spectrum, because it was so helpful for her. Yes. To know I'm not alone. These women can relate to my story. But also seeing a few women that were ahead in the process and were finding healing, like, oh, this can get a lot better. And I would say also there were a few women that were further behind in the process in terms of their. Their husband's story was much messier, much more advanced. They were older couples. And so it kind of gave her this sense, like, wow, I'm glad we didn't wait for it to get to that point, because that's really ugly. But I'm also hopeful that we could get to the point of these women that are making progress, because I'm seeing hope. And it just. It gave her, I think, some perspective, and then just that shared sense of vision for what it could be. And she didn't expect any of that heading into it, but that's what community did for her. And then for our relationship just became a real connection point because we both had safe people to talk to that weren't each other, and we both needed that.

Your story fascinates me. So let me ask you a question. Let me be the interviewer.

Yeah, let's go.

We don't get this too much. Yeah, go ahead.

So obviously, you have broadened the circle because you're recording a podcast and you're telling your story right there. Right. So at some point, as a pastor, did you go back and share that or, like, I guess my. Here's what I want to get to. Here's the heart for me. Eventually, Bob and I decided, as leaders, our healing is far enough along that we're going to tell our story because other people need to hear our story. It's time for us to start to put faces and names and addresses with this epidemic of sin, because until we do that, people aren't going to get the help that they need. And so we started to tell our story. I think you probably are the same way in some Respects.

Yeah, I was, you know, initially, I was very much that we're going to sweep it under the rug, like, this will be the thing that we get better with on the side, but our church doesn't need to know. But that was actually, you know, a vision that Dr. Ted Roberts had at Pure Desire. And he was my counselor. And at about the end of our one year program of counseling and groups, he was the one to say, hey, you're ready and you need to tell your church. And my initial reaction was, hell, no, I'm not doing that. But that was exactly the vision he cast. What you just said, he's like, nick, if you don't share this story, how many people in your church do you think are struggling? And you will present an image that, hey, everything is good. I don't struggle with this. And they'll feel like your church isn't safe, but if you're willing to tell your story, it will unlock the door of healing for so many others. And so that's what got to be our story in sharing that from the pulpit as part of a sermon. Just watching the floodgates kind of open for people getting to say, oh, it's. If the pastor can talk about it, then it's safe for us too. And it just really transformed the entire culture of our church.

Amen. Amen. It gives me chills.

We should just hand it over to Danish. Just interview.

Yeah, you can have the con back.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay, so the talking stick. Okay. So you say in your book, and I thought this was interesting because we use the language of recovery here at Pure Desire, recovery and healing. And you said in your book that your marriage does not need recovery. It needs redemption. So I just want to know if you could explain that to us and then maybe make that distinction for us, how you, you know, distinguish between recovery and redemption.

I think redemption is a more complete version of recovery. I don't. I'm not saying that you don't need recovery at all. I'm saying it's not a complete fix. There are a lot of recovery stories. There are a lot of recovery places out there that don't integrate the power of Jesus and the Holy Spirit and prayer into your work. And if you really. When I was writing the book, I said, I really want to research the stats. So we sent Bob to. If. If I told you the name of the inpatient treatment facility he went to, you would know the name it. The gold star standard in. In the industry. And we were also told that I would be involved and that there was a faith based track. We didn't expect them to be believers, but we were like, you know, we're strong enough believers that if we can, if he can just have something of faith to integrate it into it, didn't it. We left the program because without Jesus in the driver's seat, without the biblical truth in the driver's seat of what we know about behavioral science and psychology and recovery, those things are great at diagnosing what's wrong with you, but they fall very short of really helping you experience God's redemption. Recovery is. I'm. I'm not going to do that anymore. Redemption in my mind is Jesus has made something entirely different and new. And it's not just that I'm repaired or recovered. I'm better. I'm a better version of me because I went through the redemption of Jesus Christ. So I. We frequently reference pure desire as a place that you guys, I think are redemption ministry. I know you use the recovery language, but in my mind, you are not on par with some of these other recovery models that don't integrate the power in the blood of Jesus Christ. So I guess, does that make sense?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I think sometimes we use the terms interchangeable or the idea that recovery is, you know, you're in an accident, you break a bone, you need to recover the health of that bone. But you're exactly right in that if we're talking about our marriages, if we're talking about the ways we did life, we don't really want to just go back to that. Right. Like, we don't want to go back to where our marriage was. She didn't ask, I didn't tell. I'm struggling occasionally. She's fearful that I am, but not sure how to bring it up. Like, we don't want to go back to that. That would, in a sense, be recovery. We got back to where we. We want to be restored to something entirely new and different. And I think that's what's beautiful when we incorporate Christ, when we have a vision that this is more than something to just get over. It's something that God is going to use to create new life, is we're expecting something that is new and better. And we're always amazed when couples say that. They'll say, and they've said it on this podcast, if we could go back and change anything, we wouldn't. And it's like, what? Like you've been through these horrific, painful things. What do you mean you wouldn't change anything? And they say but that's the very thing God has used to give us what we have now to something new and better. And that is restoration. And it's beautiful when we see that happening.

Love it.

So you're kind of referencing this already or leading into the faith component, but we know that God is really the one in charge of redemption. And so when it comes to this kind of recovery, I think there can be maybe a temptation of we just need to use relationship tools. We need to have healthy boundaries. We need to understand the brain, and we can. Can almost disengage a little bit from our faith. How do we keep God central in this process of restoration?

Well, for us, the reason that we had Bob leave that in treatment program was because you do need clinical care. I have people all the time telling me, I'm just not convinced that a Christian who's struggling with pornography needs clinical care. But what we know about the brain and what we know about how addictive and damaging pornography is, not just to the husband or wife who's using pornography, but to the partner who's experiencing symptoms of betrayal, trauma, and brain fog, muscle fatigue, all those kinds of things. You need somebody that really understands the clinical aspects of this. The free counselor at church who's great at helping you figure out how to stop fighting about who's taking out the trash or why your husband leaves his socks in the middle of the living room floor. I don't know. Is that a little sensitive? Because I don't know if you guys do that, but is that a guy thing? All guys leave their socks in the.

Living room, I am glad to say. That's not a rhythm I'm currently in.

That's not what you would need help with. All right, that's just us. But you need that clinical understanding. But as I said before, when I wrote the book, I tried to find really great credible data on the recovery rate of some of these secular programs. And the few that I did find numbers for were single digits. And my publisher ultimately decided you don't have enough data. And I said, that's because they don't have enough data. Yeah, yeah, right. And I even interviewed and asked some of these. These models, like, what is the recovery rate? They're like, it's pretty pathetic. It's pretty pathetic. But when you integrate the power of the Holy Spirit and you integrate scriptural truth into all those things, because all those things you just mentioned a moment ago matter. The disclosure matters. The. What else did you mention? You mentioned a bunch of things. Recovery groups, accountability, all. All those things. Matter, but they fall short when you haven't. Like, let's start with this shame. How do you overcome shame outside of the amazing grace of Jesus Christ and the words you find in scripture that eliminate and erase it. It's a man made effort unless you have Jesus in the driver's seat of it. So. So all that to say that programs like Pure Desire put Jesus in the driver's site, in the driver's seat with all that clinical understanding?

Y. Yeah.

And I think you can't divorce the two. I think they have to be done in tandem when it comes to the issue of pornography.

Yeah, I think, I mean, because we're on board with that. And I think another aspect of it too is, we already talked about it is staying in community. You know, you look at scripture like there's a lot of one anothers that we're called to and that's only done in relationship. That's where forgiveness actually takes place. That's where you learn to serve other people. That's where you learn humility, you know, you learn how to repent. And so I think that the only thing I would add is just that we also, yes, Jesus is absolutely in the driver's seat and we use clinical tools to help understand our brokenness. And then we also, to your point earlier, heal in relationship because that's where. And it's language we've used here and I still don't know who to credit it to. So sorry if it's you, Nick, and I'm not giving you the credit, but that God's vertical love is experienced on a horizontal plane with relationships with other people. And so it's that idea that as we're being like Christ because he's central in our life to other people, that's where they're experiencing him as well. And so I think that relationships absolutely have to be a part of it. And that's how God distributes that healing.

I think you're right that not every program will incorporate that. And so I think for Christ followers it is important to use some of the tools that Pure Desire has advocated for of like understanding God's promises to us and seeing experientially in our life. Where have I felt or experienced God's love, love, his affirmation of me in a way that as I'm learning about trauma or pain or connecting the dots to my painful childhood experiences that have created core lies in my belief system that then it's really the key of how am I replacing those with experiences of God's grace and love and truth and calling to mind experiences, not just words or Bible verses, but experiences that say, no, this is the truth of how God feels about me. And incorporating that into our thought process over time. And you could be going, going to a secular counselor that's helping you unpack your family of origin trauma. And then as a Christ follower, you could be taking that next step into, okay, and then where was God at? What is he saying to me? And thankfully, at Pure Desire and other places like us, we make that just part of the workbook. We make it part of the program itself, but I think it's kind of the other half of restoration. We can use all the tools to understand our trauma and our pain and the lies we believe, but if we have nothing else to replace it with with, I think there's a danger we'll just go into self help. Or as I've seen some people do, like, they get really healthy and exercise a lot and eat a lot because they don't really know what else to do for health other than work on their bodies. But health is really being reconnected to who we truly are in Christ. And then with others going deeper in that journey.

Love it. That's great. So true.

So we hear this all the time. And this is usually the front end where betrayed partners are saying, it's his problem, it's her problem, it is not mine. I don't need a group how or I don't need my own healing. I don't need my own experience. How do you respond to partners that say those kind of things?

Well, I think I probably was a partner like that. I wouldn't have recognized that I was. I thought that I was doing some work. But. But when we really got down to the root of it, it, I was waiting for Bob to show up on his white horse when he was better and well. And I wanted him to be my hero, my rescuer, my savior. Oh, that's like a red flag there, right? And I didn't realize it till we were. When Bob left that residential inpatient treatment, we both agreed. And that was such a cool God thing because he revealed it. God revealed it to us on the same day. So he was there at the program and I was here at home. And he called me that night and he said, baby, you're not going to like this, but I feel like God is leading me to leave here. And I said, well, that is exactly the sense that God gave me today too.

That's cool.

And. But we both agreed, you're not coming home you're going someplace else. So I spent, like, the next 48 hours, because he wasn't allowed to, researching places. We found a place and ended up in Colorado at this wonderful, wonderful clinic. And Pete Kuyper was our therapist. And he told me this story because I think he was recognizing that I thought that Bob needed to get better, and that would make me better if he could just fix himself. And he said, dana, if you were at a restaurant and you were walking to the ladies room, and you walk by one of those swinging doors to the kitchen, and the waiter happened to swing through it, the moment you walk past it and your nose is bloody, like it is, you need cauterize. It's not like, just a little bit. It's a big gush. You have a problem. And this waiter feels horrible and is so apologetic and says, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And, like, I'm gonna pay your bill. And can I drive you guys? Like, they. Everything, right? They do everything they can. But then he looked at me and he said, who needs to drive to the hospital to get their nose cauterized? And I was like, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. First you were like, I think I get it.

You were like, therapist. You suck, number one. Number two, I hear you.

I hated him that day. I hated him. But that was the day when I really started to get serious about, well, why am I. Why do I have brain fog? Because I didn't know about betrayal trauma at the time. I didn't know I was experiencing it. I was. I felt sick. The doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. They were testing me for autoimmune disorders like lupus. Well, my brain was experiencing trauma and sending all kinds of inflammatory signals to my body. And what my brain was really trying to say was, dana, take care of yourself. Take your nose to the hospital. Get cauterized, Bob. Can't do it for you. And when I started to do my own work, it changed the story. Not only did I start to get better and overcome some of those betrayal trauma symptoms, but, wow, it took the pressure off my husband. He was. He wanted to fix me. He felt responsible for his sin. He so wanted me to be well. But he. He is no more my savior than my dog is my savior. Jesus alone can do that. And he wants me to drag my own heart to community so that I can experience that.

Yeah, I love the metaphor. You got hit by a swinging door. You didn't cause it. You didn't want it. You weren't looking for it. You're not responsible for it, but you got hit by it. And there's going to be results of that, that if we ignore them, it's going to take a lot longer to recover. And I think that's what I'm hearing you say is like, I didn't maybe want to enter into it, but I've seen the good that's come of it. I've seen God at work, and we get to hear that a lot, thankfully, that when we lean in, even if it's not our fault, even if it's not our problem, there's some very rich learning and growth that God uses it for. And even, I would say, for some that are listening, even in those marriages that don't make it, because there are stories where the struggling or addicted or the spouse with the behavior flakes out or they don't make an effort, and sometimes those marriages don't make it even. And maybe especially in those cases, there are ways that God will use that horrific trauma way beyond what you expect. And when he does, you're equipped for the rest of your life. I mean, that's maybe not the life you thought you were going to have, but there's really good things that can come of it. And that doesn't necessarily make it easy or fun or desirable, but it's good. And if we can hear that from stories like Dana and others, it may give us the confidence to say, okay, I've avoided it for long enough, but I need to lean in and let God work in my story. Otherwise I'm just going to be sitting here for a long time with a bloody nose leaning on everyone else around.

Me, and it's just a mess. Yeah, absolutely.

So you talk in your book about the importance of emotion. So unpack that a little bit, maybe. Especially for those of us. I think there's a lot of church culture that kind of tries to suppress emotion or talk about emotion being bad or really treating emotion like a very secondary experience of like, no, we know truth, and so we live by the word of God and truth, and that's very good, obviously. But in those environments, we almost ignore emotion. But you talk about how important emotions are. So unpack that for us a little bit.

Well, let's start with this. God gave them to us, right? Right. He created emotions, and in Genesis, he looks at creation and says, it is good. So we had emotions before the fall, and he said, it is good. So what's their good purpose? Well, I like to say that emotions are messengers. And when we respond to the message they go away. So if I feel sad or grief or Let me take, take, let's, let's, let's do really easy one here. Let's take stress, right? If I feel stressed and it's because I'm overdoing it and saying, yes, too many things, I respond to that emotion by rescheduling things, getting the courage to make some phone calls or send some texts and say, no, that stress should go away. That's how emotions are supposed to work. But a lot of times we try to ignore them or suppress them rather than addressing them. And when we do that, they become what I call sticky emotions. They stick to us. They don't go away because you haven't gotten the message and responded to it. And what happens for us a lot of times when we're in the middle of the beginning of disclosure, the beginning of those ground zero days, I remember just a few days after Bob, I think it might have been the next day, we had guests coming in from the Dominican Republic. We had a wedding to go to. And I'm like putting on the red lipstick and the pretty dress and I'm just going to pretend everything's okay. And I'm thinking, what's wrong with this picture? I was suppressing my emotions. Now I couldn't of course, go to the wedding or pick my friends up a mess, but that is how we live a lot of times is we just, just push them down. Here's what I have found is so beautiful about it. As Bob was able to see my emotions, as he was able to express his emotions, we started to strangle the loneliness out of our marriage. And you find a couple that has pornography in the home, you will find there's a lot of loneliness in that house. It might not look like it. They might look pretty functional and pretty picture perfect. But there. You mentioned core lies a moment ago. There are secrets in hearts that have never been discussed and talked about. Because the shame, which is our deepest, most profound and hardest to handle emotion is keeping us from bringing that fear and that lie to the table. And when you can like just start to say, this is how I feel, and you're not throwing things, you're not being punitive, you're honestly saying, I need you to understand my emotion. And then the other person says, I need you to understand mine. And you do, you start to strangle the life out of the loneliness that is one of the feeders of pornography. And so I really think they're absolutely essential. Nobody wants to hurt, but pain is a messenger. And when you can figure out the message it's sending, it's kind of like a buoy on top of the surface of the emotions of your, your ocean of emotions, saying, here's where the pain is and you can follow that trail down to the lies, the core lies and beliefs that are down there at the bottom. When you address those and fix those, you really. That's when you start to win the battle.

Yeah, yeah. I love what you say that emotions are sticky. Because I think that's what I missed growing up was I learned kind of at a professional level to suppress emotions. It was thinking like, oh, I felt all that anger and I managed to suppress it. So now it goes away. And the truth is it doesn't. It's just sticky. And what's happening is it's kind of building for the next time. And then when the anger's stronger and it's like, whoa, until something would happen where I would blow up or maybe if it was anxiety and stress, until I would just get into kind of full blown fear and panic mode mode. Like that's the buildup of unaddressed emotions. And so I think we can all grasp, like, the things I'm feeling are sticky and I'm being given a choice to either pay attention to them, process them, understand where they're coming from, what's driving them, and maybe deal with them at the lowest possible level, if I could put it that way, or to ignore it and have it stick there and it's going to come back again in another form and it's probably going to be a little more intense and a little more difficult to deal with. I can wait. And so if we see it that way, maybe we'd get the courage to go, you know what? I'd like to deal with it now because otherwise it will be sticky and it's just going to come back again.

And you talk about it in your book as an essential ingredient to intimacy. And intimacy is like knowing and being known. And so, you know, it's that interesting thing. There's a connection I'm making in my mind to the loneliness. It's like you don't know what your spouse, your partner is going through and they don't know what you're going through. And so there's this fear that can I actually share what I'm experiencing or the emotions or some of the fears or some experiences I'm having? And it's easy to talk yourself out of sharing that if it's not an open environment where like, oh, I know that My partner struggles with anxiety. And so if I'm feeling anxious, I know I have that empathy on the other side. And so I think that that's what's so cool about. And I loved how you addressed it in the book, that it's something that if you really do want to have intimacy, it has to include our emotions so we truly know where each other is at.

And when you get to a place where you can communicate really honestly about your emotions, it starts. Things don't get what I call. They don't become a volcano waiting to explode because they don't build up. Months ago, I mean, months ago, my husband still, it's been many, many years and he still sees his therapist once a week. He's still in a men's accountability group. And he goes to 12 steps steps groups because those have been a place where he's actually been able to do some ministry. And it's beautiful and it's good for him. It keeps him grounded because there's real honesty there. And so I guess maybe six or nine months ago he said to me, maybe I haven't been to 12 step groups for a really long time and I'm going to start, start, I think I want to go for a while. And I was like, oh, awesome. That makes me feel so safe. And he was like, what? And I, I thought you were going to be like, what's wrong? Did you slip? Like, have you relapsed again? And I was like, no, you would, you would tell me if you did. He said, yeah, I just have felt a lot of stress and anxiety and that's always the pathway that leads me to the wrong thing. And I just feel like I need extra cover right now, but I haven't slipped. And so just, just. We couldn't have had that conversation before we learned how to talk about emotions.

Yeah.

So good.

And at first, conversations like that were messy, but when we learned the skill of talking about it, talking about your emotions in a non emotional way, you know, for him to be like, I was afraid this would hurt you and me to say, oh, that makes me feel safe. It's just a whole different Bob and Dana. Yeah, you've got, you got to do the emotion thing. It's good for you.

Yeah. That is such an important distinction that I just want to pause and maybe underscore for listeners that when we talk about our emotions, I think some of us are maybe feeling like, oh, that means vent them, or like, I've got to lean into them and feel them fully and through the emotion. Tell people how I'm feeling. And someone might say there's a time and a place for that. But I think what I hear you saying and what I found valuable about emotions is when we kind of figure out that I'm taking a little bit of this observer role of my own emotions and I'm asking that these kind of third party observation questions of what am I feeling right now? Where might this be coming from? What might this be connecting to? What did it trigger in me of other past fears or concerns? And so now I'm analyzing my emotions and understanding them, not just venting them. So when we talk about how important our emotions are to relationship, we don't just mean go home and like have those drag out fights with your spouse, because that's the only way to get through the emotion. I mean, in some people that's maybe their pattern. That's not me, but go for it. I think it's more having that ability with your spouse. Say here's what I'm feeling and here's where I think it might be coming from. And what do you. And when you can invite conversation around that man. I know for my wife and I, that is what makes us feel like, well, I feel like I'm getting to know you better. I have an understanding of you that I maybe didn't before. And so if that's helpful for anyone. I just wanted to make that observation because I think we maybe miss that when we talk about emotions.

Absolutely.

Yeah. And healthy emotions aren't uncontrolled old.

Right.

Healthy emotions are emotions you acknowledge and understand. And then you say, all right, that's great, but you're not the boss of me. You know, Jesus tells us to take every thought captive, to be obedient to Christ. Right. And our emotions are something we can dwell on and think about or we can respond to. I think God created them for us to respond to them and for us to be in the driver's seat of them, not the other way around. And so it really does require some learning because we've learned so many bad habits in our culture of just like. Can we just talk about triggers for a second? Because this is my. It's an emotion, I think. But what I have learned is that a trigger where it used. I mean, they're real. Oh, I've had them. Every wife porn addict has under understands triggers. They're very painful, they're very, They're a rough ride. But what I. When I learned to handle my emotions, I started to see triggers as an invitation from the Holy Spirit. Because there was a place that I wasn't yet healed, and that trigger was alerting me, oh, let's go deep here. Because with God's help, I don't have to be controlled by this trigger anymore. I've been alerted to where a problem is. Let's go figure out what it is. And what a beautiful. You know, people are so afraid of triggers. And honestly, let me be empathetic for a minute. There were times in my journey where I did have to avoid them because they were too painful and I wasn't well enough at the time to handle them. But don't stay there. I invite you to come away from that space. Come to a place where you're in the driver's seat of your emotions.

And if you look at emotions as information, but not the driver, then there's something that you can act like upon. It's something you can move toward and figure out. But if it's something that's taking control, there's not really much you can do. It's kind of running amok. Okay, so other than buy your book, which is excellent, and we'll make sure it's in the show notes, and we'll even ask you to plug it a little bit more here in a second, but what final encouragements would you give to men and women navigating sexual brokenness and betrayal that really want that redemption and restoration?

Yeah, well, get in a group at Pure Desire. That's something we say frequently. In addition to the book that I wrote for wives, Bob and I did a limited series podcast. It's only eight episodes. It's probably never going to be more than that because we just wanted to put our story down in podcast form so that the wives could say, hey, I read this book. And the husband kind of shares his story on a podcast. And we recommend those groups on the podcast as well as in the book. That's so important. Start there. Tell someone. That's my number one piece of advice. That's Bob's number one piece of advice. Tell someone and get into a place where you're telling the story actively.

Yeah, well, I want to check out that podcast now. Glad you guys did that. And I think telling stories, you know, we've just found over and over is so key into people's, you know, into their hearts or maybe behind their objections. You know, if a husband can hear another guy talking and sharing openly about, yeah, this is what I did, and this is the damage it caused. And here's steps I took, and here's why it made a difference. Here's why. It wasn't just one more time around the merry go round. Because I think a lot of people feel it's like, well, this just. We got to get better again. And I'll try harder not to, but we're just on the merry go round. It's like, no, there's actually a way to step off of that. And when you hear it in someone's story, it gives you hope. And so I appreciate you guys doing that and writing the book. How can people keep up with you? How could they connect with you? And where would you recommend they go to get your book or one of the other, what did you say, 27 books? Where could they get all of those to connect with you?

Yeah, most of my books are for teenage girls and tween girls. That's where my ministry heart is. But I have a few for adult women, including this one Happily even after. You can learn more about all of Those things@danagrush.com spelled like Hannah Dana or buy the book anywhere books are sold.

Yeah, that's awesome. Dana. This has been great. I mean, I love just your heart. It comes out so clearly and I. You just seem so intentional and I appreciate that. Like, you know what you're going after and you know how important this is and you're tackling it head on. And I really appreciated your book.

I.

We both just really appreciate your time and are excited to get this out into the world for people to get into this resource and connect with you guys too. So thank you again for all your work and just your time with us today.

My pleasure. God bless guys.

And we're and wherever you're at on your journey, Pure Desire is here to help you take back your life from unwanted sexual behavior and betrayal trauma. If you or someone you know needs recovery and healing, go to PureDesire.org and begin the journey today. If you like this episode or a fan of the podcast, please share it with others. And make sure to check out the full episode on YouTube as well, because the video quality is prime. And lastly, top five.

Your top five on that one.

Not going to tell you where, but your top five. And lastly, never stop being healthy.

It.