Recovering After Porn In Marriage: A Wife's Story with Dannah Gresh | Ep. 563

[00:00:00] < Intro >

Lindsay: Welcome to The Awesome Marriage Podcast. A place for honest conversations and practical advice on how to build an awesome marriage. I am your podcast producer and co-host, Lindsay Few. On the show will be our host, Dr. Kim Kimberling. Dr. Kim is a marriage counselor and has been married for over 50 years. His passion is to help you strengthen your most intimate relationship.

Dr. Kim: Welcome to today's Awesome Marriage, podcast. I'm so excited, today, that we have Dannah Gresh with us. She's an author. She's a speaker. She's the founder of True Grit, which is a Christian event for mothers and tween daughters, ages eight to twelve. She's also the founder of Pure Freedom, a ministry, which focuses on sexual theology, purity, and holiness for teens. Her new book is Happily Even After: Let God Redeem Your Marriage. 

It's her story with her and her husband, Bob. The battle of pornography. This is an incredible interview. Let's go to the studio right now. Well, Dannah, welcome so much to The Awesome Marriage podcast. It's so good to see you. Great to have you come and be a part of our podcast today.

Dannah: My privilege. You know what I think? It's just awesome.

Dr. Kim: I love that. It is, and it's awesome having you here, too. Happily Even After is the book we're going to talk about. It comes out of a really difficult time that was in your life and your marriage. Let's talk about that story.

Dannah: Sure. Well, interestingly enough, my husband and I, when we were dating, were very aware that pornography was a growing problem, and this was back in the day. And, so, we're talking magazines. And he had confessed to me that it had been a problem in his life. But we both naively believed that if a man is having real sex, why would he want to look at sex?

Dr. Kim: Sure.

Dannah: And Bob was a virgin. He had waited. He had fought through that and, unfortunately, that's not the way the story went. And when we got on the other side of our wedding, we realized that we were going to have to have help. And we got help, and we walked in some beautiful years of sobriety. 

But at a certain point, in the story, many years down the road, Bob pulled me aside. We sat on the red leather chairs in our living room and he said, "I don't know how to make my way back to God without breaking your heart." And then he broke my heart; and shared with me how his pornography problem had resurfaced, and escalated, and that he needed intervention, he needed help.

Dr. Kim: There came no suspicion of you at all, that just blindsided you?

Dannah: Actually, I did have a suspicion. In hindsight, I had more of a knowing than I realized, at the time. About 18 months before he shared this with me, which was about the time the problem was resurfacing. I started to notice that he wasn't making eye contact. He didn't seem emotionally present. 

He was in the room, but not really mentally there. Not really emotionally there. And a really weird thing that happened is I became sick, during that time, with a lot of joint and inflammation. Joint pain and inflammation. 

I have had a lifetime of asthma. But, usually, I can control it with food and diet, and it was resurfacing really badly, and I just wasn't well. I was going from doctor to doctor, and they're like, "We just can't figure out what's wrong with you. There's not a specific diagnosis we can give you." They were looking at things like lupus and really scary autoimmune things.

Dr. Kim: Yes.

Dannah: What I now know, in hindsight, is that my eyes were noticing the changes and sending signals to me that everything's not okay. And one of the things the body does when everything's not okay is it creates inflammation to create protection, and that is really at the root of a lot of our chronic problems. 

Chronic health problems, for one reason or another. And I'm not saying that every woman out there that has joint or muscle pain or asthma flare up, their husband is doing silly things. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying maybe they aren't unrelated. Your body is sending you a message that something's not right, and it's inviting you to pay attention to what's on the horizon.

Dr. Kim: Absolutely, just use that, and I'm so glad you shared that. Because, I think, sometimes they notice a difference and they don't know where to pinpoint it. And, so, if your body... what was the book that came out a couple of years ago, The Body Keeps the Score, that just talks so much about what our body does and the messages it gives us. 

And, so, when you see a difference, which you did in him, then, you started getting some of the symptoms, and, then, finally, pinpointing it. So it wasn't a total surprise when he told you. How did you react?

Dannah: Pretty calmly. It was like getting the last piece of a puzzle and, finally, figuring out how all the other pieces fit together because it was such a significant piece. And, so, it didn't shock me. I felt like my brain had, finally, figured something out and returned to me. 

Dr. Kim: Yes, that makes sense.

Dannah: And, so, I didn't feel crazy. I felt crazy the day before, now I didn't feel crazy anymore. So that was a gift. But I just said, "Okay, I need to go for a walk." And I went for a walk. I was numb. I didn't cry. I wasn't upset, I wasn't mad, I just was stunned, and I called a girlfriend. Which years ago, I had struggled through my own shame from sexual sin, when I was a teenager, and that shame carried me long past the sin. 

And, so, I knew tell someone, that's how you fight shame. You tell someone? So I did, I got on the phone. I was like, "I'm not going to give this shame anytime to grow grass under my feet. I'm going to call a friend." And she just said, "Dannah, it sounds like you're stunned and you don't know what to do."

I said, "I have no idea what to do. When I walk back in that house, I don't know what to say, and I don't know what to do." And she began to pray over me. She said, "Lord, Dannah doesn't know what to do. But your Word says that it's a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Would you invite her into your Word to know what the next step is?" And then it broke the stunned shock and I started to cry, which was a good thing. And she said, "Dannah, do you know how much light a lamp gives you?"

And I was like, "No, I don't, tell me."

And she's like, "Just enough for the next step. So you don't need to know what comes next week, or what comes next month, or what comes next year. You need to know what comes this next hour, and let's ask the Lord for that." So that's how I proceeded through the next many weeks of decisions, and treatment, clinical care, biblical care, until we really started to stabilize.

Dr. Kim: I'm so glad you said that you reached out to a friend because that's important. If you've got somebody, I think, we all need somebody in our life that in those times that we can contact. Because she really helped you and God just, totally, used her.

Dannah: Oh, yes, and walked with me for the weeks and months of the hardest days. And invited me into her home for scones and walked with me, literally, as we talked and prayed. It's so important that you have friends to do that with. A lot of times, shame keeps us from telling our stories. And when it comes to our husband's sinning, we believe the lie that shame tells us that "I'm protecting his reputation."

"I'm being kind to him."

"I shouldn't say this because what would my friends think of him?" All that does is feed the shame in his life and in your life. And if you can just rip the Band-Aid off and it's a real painful rip, and tell someone, you'll find that James 5:16 is true. "Confess your sins one to another, and then you will be healed." 

God gives the work of redemption and forgiveness to His son Jesus. That's the only one that can do that work in our lives. But He gives the work of healing and sorting through the truth and the lies to the body of Christ. And you're not going to start that work until you tell someone, 

Dr. Kim: Don't you think another lie that some women face is "I wasn't good enough as a wife."

"I wasn't good enough as a sexual partner in marriage." That's another shame thing, I think, the enemy uses and it's just-

Dannah: Oh, yes, you think, "How can I compete with that?" And the reality is you can't compete with what they're seeing because it's not anything close to real. Lots of times, even what they're seeing in pornography is props and it's not real bodies. So you can't compete with the photoshops, the lighting filters, all that stuff, it's not real. So we're trying to compete with something that doesn't exist and it's not fair. And it's okay for a woman to be, righteously, angry about that because it's evil and God hates it. 

But at the same time, we have to get to a place in our hearts where we realize, "Uh, I'm not going to play this competition game. If his mind is there, and his mind is unwell enough that it's there. Then I'm going to do what I need to do to be a partner in his wellness so that he comes out of that place. 

But I'm not going to go there and play that victim game." It's really interesting, in the Bible there's a passage, I'm so bad with the addresses. But there's a passage that talks about if a husband is not walking with the Lord, a wife can win him with her conduct. 

And right next to those verses, it says, "Your adorning should not be with braided hair, or fine jewels, or gold. It should be that of an inner spirit." And I find it so thorough that the God of the universe ordained that in this verse where He says, "Hey, your husband's not in the right place. You can win him with your conduct." And He says, "Guess what, it's not going to be with getting your boy-getter outfit on." There is nothing you can do to look the right way to fix what's broken in him. 

Dr. Kim: Absolutely.

Dannah: So it's not a new problem. Even though the modern world has created new ways for us to experience that problem, it's an ancient problem. And we don't need to respond to it by worrying about how we look. That doesn't mean we don't care about how we look. I do care about how I look for my husband, and for others, and for me. But I don't have to be obsessed with it and compare myself to anything that would be luring his eyes away from me.

Dr. Kim: Absolutely. I think, every woman that I talk to in that situation, I just want them to know that they are enough. God equipped them to be the partner that their spouse needs completely. You're not lacking in any way. But it is interesting, what you talked about, I really don't know how far back it does go in Scripture. And, even, I guess, really, what David was doing, looking back, with Bathsheba that was kind of live porn for him, and he took that step.

Dannah: Oh, yes, absolutely. And you see a progression there and pornography always progresses. It did for David and it will for your husband, and a lot of times women believe the lie of "It's just porn, it's not going to get worse."

Well, the problem is really we know the science is that it's one of the most addictive substances because of the neurochemicals it creates in your brain. When you look at the brain of a porn addict and put it next to a heroin addict, and functionally they're very similar. Instead of a smooth surface, to the brain, you see pockmarks. Almost like the brain has become Swiss cheese functionally and, yet, we're saying, in our culture, "Oh, it's just porn."

But because of how damaged the brain becomes from it, and because you can't get the same high from looking at the same thing. With heroin, with alcohol, you need more of something. With porn, you need different of something. So escalation is guaranteed, it is promised. I want to just jump on my soapbox for any woman believing the lie that, "Oh, it's just porn." It will escalate into something if you don't do something about it.

Dr. Kim: I completely agree. It's just a dark path that gets darker because the deeper someone gets into it, the darker it is.

Dannah: Yes, their hearts become more and more hardened.

Dr. Kim: I've had a couple of ladies I've worked with and said, "I just can't believe my husband did that, he is a Christian." So how prevalent is this problem in Christian marriages?

Dannah: Well, that's the thing is Bob and I have been telling this story, which isn't easy. We're years down the road, almost a decade, down the road for our healing. But it's still really scary to talk about. And what we know is that we are not the minority in the church, we are the majority. About 70% of men in the church are struggling cyclically or addictively with pornography, and about 30% of women. It's not always the man that's causing the heartache, sometimes it's the wife. 

And, so, I guess, Bob and I made the decision that it's time to stop giving the enemy the power of our silence. Because as long as we're silent about it, it's only going to allow the problem to perpetuate, and we're not willing to participate in that anymore. Jesus is a redeemer; marriages are able to heal from this. 

But for that to be believable and for it to happen, some of us have to start to put our faces, our names, and our addresses to the stories and the stats. And, so, that's why we've decided to tell our story, so that other stories can find that redemption and start to tell theirs.

Dr. Kim: Exactly, that's the way we fight this. People have to see what God's done and really acknowledge the problem that it really is in so many marriages. And it's so interesting; I would guess the stats aren't a whole lot different between guys that say they're Christian and guys that say they're not in the percentages of people that-

Dannah: Sadly, not. I've been studying the stats of sexual behavior for about three decades now. And there's hardly ever any statistical difference that's worth mentioning, in the sexual behavior of Christians versus non-Christians. One of the things that is scary, though, is one of the anomalies is that the more legalistic churches, where these issues aren't talked about, there is a bigger pornography problem. 

You see a much higher percentage of men who are struggling. It's more like 90% rather than 70%. Which only goes to show that when we don't talk about it, and we don't talk about the redemption stories that God can write in our lives, it feeds the monster.

Dr. Kim: Absolutely. I want to go back to one thing, and just to ask you a question because you talked about 30% of women. What is different in porn use for a man and a woman? Is there a difference?

Dannah: Yes, there is a difference not always, of course. Stereotypes can be really scary, so we don't want to do that. But women tend to be more responsive to erotica or written pornography where there's a storyline and, sometimes, that includes video. Whereas men, more often their gateway is visual. But there's not a lot of research on erotica to show the same damage, in terms of the brain damage. 

But what we do know is that the grip, and the addiction, and the cycle, and the ability to get out, the storylines are very similar. So I would suspect that if we had the same amount of brain scans, functional brain imaging scans, and those things, that we would see that the impact is very similar.

Dr. Kim: A lot of similarities there. I would think so, too. I think it makes total sense.

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Dr. Kim: It's a battle for men. Why do men have a hard time winning that battle? Do they not want to or are there other things that go into that?

Dannah: Yes, what was really helpful for me as a wife was to begin to understand the science of pornography addiction and lust. And what you look at, the neurochemical created in the brain by looking at pornography is dopamine. And dopamine is just a chemical that we experience when something feels good. So when we go for a run or we eat a pizza, we're going to get a little download of dopamine. But it's a values-neutral chemical. So if I use heroin, I'm also going to get dopamine. If I have sex with a partner that I'm not married to, I'm going to get a hit of dopamine. 

So it doesn't tell me that what I'm doing is good for me or bad for me. It just tells me it felt good, and it creates a craving for me to do that thing again. And what we know about the dopamine download for pornography is that it behaves very differently from almost anything that I've studied. 

So for anything from food, to sex with your married partner, to heroin, you're going to see a different level of an uptake in terms of how high the download is. How much dopamine they got. But you're also going to see that within about an hour, the brain returns to a normalcy. The level of normal for that individual. Everybody has their own baseline for dopamine. For pornography, however, that baseline doesn't show up until four, or five, or six hours later. 

So that whole period of time you're medicated, essentially. Everything does that; coffee medicates us, cake medicates us, sex medicates us. I call sex the rose-colored glasses of marriage because you're very forgiving if your sex life is active. And, then, you tend to get frustrated about things like your husband leaving your socks in the middle of the floor, when that's not happening. So it's a really great thing to just give you rose-colored glasses. 

But with pornography, that dopamine hit is really lasting a long time. And almost always, not always, but almost always, people that have struggled with pornography tell me, and the stats bear this out, that the problem started when they were 13, 12, 10, 11. And we don't have any knowledge at all that we were medicating because our parents just got a divorce, or we were medicating because we're being bullied at school. But that's the pattern that started to be learned when we were little, when we struggled with those things.

And, so, you fast forward to 30, 40, 50 years old, and that individual may still be medicating and not even be aware that that's what they're doing. But by that point, that dopamine has such an addictive grip on their behaviors. That what started as a moral problem is now a brain problem, also.

Dr. Kim: Yes, and so you've got to continue to get that hit. You got to get your dopamine hit. I agree. It seems like so many men, that I've talked to, that either they did this when something was going on their family, or they stumbled along something. I can remember growing up when we were 10, and my best friend down the block, his dad subscribed to Playboy, and he left it on the table. The coffee table, just like you would Good Housekeeping or something. 

And, so, a lot of times we've been exposed. I was exposed to some of that at a very early age. Sure, we have curiosity, I get that, all those things. Through prayer and work I was able to not let that become something that controlled my life. 

But it seems like with some people that hit or whatever happens there, or, maybe, they're using that, too, because there's trauma going on, parents are divorcing or whatever. So it becomes a way of coping. 

And, so, then, you get in situations through your whole life, and that becomes your escape, your coping mechanism.

Dannah: Yes, that's what you learned. And there's really some good research that for people who aren't able to escape the grip without a lot of intervention and help. There's one of five traumas, and I don't know all of them, but they're really significant. Like experiencing childhood sexual abuse is one of them. 

Having a family system that was extremely legalistic and didn't talk about emotions, and feelings, and problems, but appeared picture perfect. That perfection and that legalism can really be a trauma to a heart. Because that person was never able to be real about what they were struggling with. So when there is trauma in childhood and porn is introduced. It can become a lifelong medication, and they don't even really realize that that's what they've done. Until they step back, and they get some intervention, and they get some help.

Dr. Kim: It's just so addictive.

Dannah: Yes.

Dr. Kim: So addictive. So in your marriage; how long did this battle go on and what changed things for you?

Dannah: Well, it's interesting because Bob would tell you that the battle isn't over. And he would tell you that those years where he walked in sobriety, that it was like a dry drunk sobriety. That it wasn't, "I'm totally free, I'm totally healed." A lot of the same patterns were there. But it was coming out with food, or it was coming out with screens. It just found different outlets to work in, and he would say that he doesn't trust himself. 

We were on a podcast the other day, and the guy said, "Oh, I don't trust myself either. I don't trust myself so that my wife can trust me." And what a gift, so he falls in that camp. He would tell you that the battle shifted when he took his accountability from once a week to once a day and that's when he really started to win. When he realized that he was so helpless that he needed God's help and the help of God's people, every single day to walk in integrity.

Dr. Kim: I agree. I think for a guy, we've got to have people, guys, to walk with us through that. To be accountable to, that love us enough to get in our face and every day if that's what it takes to do that. I agree. I tell guys this all the time, anytime you think you're not vulnerable, you're kidding yourself and you're setting yourself up. We have to realize we are vulnerable; no matter who we are or how close we are to the Lord. We're always vulnerable and the enemy is going to throw things at us.

Dannah: Well, the world we live in, our grandfathers didn't have to drive by a Hooters billboard or deal with the Victoria's Secret posters in the malls. And, certainly, didn't have to be afraid that they could type something completely innocent into a Google search and end up on a page that was, devastatingly, horrible. And you talked about that one guy whose dad had Playboy magazine on the coffee table. 

That's really what we're doing to our children when we don't have filters and software to mitigate the problem on our computers. It's just like putting Playboy on the dining room table for our kids. Except it's not Playboy; it's much more transgressive, it's much more violent. It's much more horrific, the things that these kids are going to see, today. It's an entirely different kind of pornography.

Dr. Kim: I agree. Parents have told me, "Well, but I trust my kids." And I just tell them you can't. They're kids and we just got to help them protect themselves until they're old enough to be adults, and then they've got to choose to do that themselves.

Dannah: That's right, and even if you trust your children and you've taught them, "Hey, there's good pictures, there's bad pictures. If you see a bad picture, I need you to come tell Mommy. I need you to come tell dad." Do you really trust the world? Because I don't anymore. 

Dr. Kim: No.

Dannah: That ship has sailed.

Dr. Kim: Exactly. Yes, I had a family a few years ago and they had a son, I think, he was 14, and he was on a soccer team. And after a game they noticed all the boys were standing around together. Which wasn't that unusual, but they noticed they were looking at something. And, so, when they got home, their son just burst out crying. He said, "I just saw things I shouldn't have seen."

So one of the guys, his big brother had shown him something and he had it on his phone. And, so, he was totally innocent, most of those kids there, but then they were exposed to that. I mean, we can't prevent everything, but we've got to keep our eyes open and be aware. 

Dannah: We do.

Dr. Kim: Very much so with our kids.

Dannah: Yes, we would never drop our kids off at Times Square, at one o'clock in the morning, on a Friday night. But that's what we do, if we don't have some filtering on the internet for our kids. I really recommend a ministry called protectyoungeyes.com. They have such great resources that really just help parents. They stay up to date on what software works on the phone. What software works in your family? At what age do you use software, accountability software versus blocking software? All that stuff has to be considered.

Dr. Kim: And we'll put that in the notes, protectyoungeyes.com. 

Dannah: protectyoungeyes.com. 

Dr. Kim: That's awesome because a lot of parents want to do something. And, so, to have a resource like that is awesome because it's a never-ending thing. Porn people want our kids to see porn.

Dannah: Yes.

Dr. Kim: So they're going to keep finding ways to try to get it to us. So we need people to help us to continue to plug those holes when they open up.

Dannah: Yes, they're looking for cradle-to-grave customers, and as early in their life as they can possibly get them using, they will do that. They don't care if it's good or bad for your child, and they are predatory.

Dr. Kim: A lot of money in it, which is horrible. So you've talked about this a little bit. You talked about, certainly, the friend that you called, and you said Bob had people that really surrounded him. So if someone is going through this; what help, guidance, community, from your experience, can you share with people that you think would be helpful for them?

Dannah: I think it's really wise to consider the complexities of whatever you want to call it; addiction stronghold, dopamine dependence. And understand that the same person at church; who's the free counselor, and really loves people, and really wants to help people. And has helped you and your husband stop fighting about which way the toilet paper goes on, they are not going to be able to help you through this. They're going to be in over their head if they don't understand the clinical complexities. 

On the other side of that, the clinical complexities of a brain traumatized by pornography is one side of the coin. But the other side of the coin is that you might be dealing with a partner who's experiencing betrayal trauma, and there's actually a term for it. Because when I talked about my physical symptoms, I had physical symptoms that I didn't understand that were a part of what I was experiencing. 

When Bob first confessed to me; I'm a perfectly confident, successful, professional woman. But I started to experience problems with claustrophobia that didn't exist before that. And I wasn't in my best mind, I wasn't in my right mind. And the stats really do indicate that a wife of a husband who's addictively using pornography has symptoms of PTSD, 70% of them do. So not all of them. I would classify myself as falling in that category. That's not to say I had PTSD. 

I don't want to downplay the severe trauma that those with diagnosis of PTSD experience. From trauma on the battlefield or trauma from childhood sexual addiction. But I did have symptoms of that and suffered from that for many months. 

And, so, for an example of why it's important to have clinical understanding on that. For me to just forgive my husband, in the early stages of my trauma, it wouldn't have been probably genuine or fruitful, and it could have even added to my trauma. And I've known lots of women who go to somebody at church and say, "You just need to forgive him. There's a lot of men struggling with this. If you just forgive him it would, probably, go well with your marriage."

Well, first of all, what are we forgiving? 

Has he been completely honest? 

Do I have all the details, yet? Those are really valid questions because when you forgive, you want it to be complete. And there's something called staggered disclosure, where you start to hear the story in pieces that can be further traumatizing. And if you forgive at each stage of that without really an awareness of how your heart is hurting, and how you're wounded. And where he's at in his process, and is he trustworthy, yet? 

I think you need someone with clinical care and biblical understanding. I'm, certainly, not saying that you throw biblical understanding and authority out the window. But it doesn't hurt to have someone who understands the deep complexities of this battle.

Dr. Kim: Yes, absolutely, that's so important, to be able to do that and to be able to walk with somebody through that, for sure. What's the first thing a woman should do when she feels her husband is slipping into pornography? Where it's more than where it's habitual, maybe, it's addictive, those things.

Dannah: Pray. I know that that sounds like the perfect Christian-ese answer. But our knee-jerk reaction is to react, and it's not always the right reaction. You may have a relationship and a husband where you can confront him right away and say, "Listen, I know that this has been a problem in your life before, and I see the symptoms. What's going on? Be real with me." And he's mentally well enough, and not in a grip of addiction to the point where he can't say, "You're right. I needed that intervention; let's talk, let's get help."

What I'm seeing a lot of, since this book came out, is women whose husbands are still lying to them. And they're confronting them and saying, "I see this."

And their husbands are like, "No, something's wrong with you. You are overreacting, that's a problem in my past." And the reality is that it's still a problem because a month down the road, weeks down the road, they finally do say, "You were right."

That's why I say prayer is important, and praying with other people. I did that when I suspected it was a problem for Bob. I didn't go to him and say, "Is this happening again?" I went to my clinically-informed, biblical care licensed counselor, my Christian counselor, and I said, "I'm not well, and I think Bob may have relapsed."

And she said, "Oh, Dannah, we have to pray. We can't lean on our own understanding, but we can trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean on His understanding because He'll guide us. He'll guide you in your path." So we prayed that verse over and over, and the funny thing about that is it says, "And it will be healing to your bones and strength to your flesh." That's how that verse ends. And I needed healing in my flesh. I needed strength in my bones. 

And, so, we went to prayer first. And what I love in my story, it's not everybody's story, but in my story, the Holy Spirit worked to convict Bob. My Christian therapist kept praying, "Lord, make Bob miserable." And Bob will tell you he was miserable. He said, "I was miserable. I knew I wanted to fix this without hurting you." And, so, I just kept trying not to do it but it wasn't working. My brain had been entrapped, again, and I had to get honest and clean with you. And there wasn't really another way for me." 

So the prayer worked in creating conviction in his heart, and that's not always the case. Sometimes you do need a good Godly friend, or a pastor, or a husband of your best friend to go with you and perform an intervention. That says, "We love you enough that we're going to confront you because we see that you're not well, and it's time for you to get honest with us." But if you don't pray, you're going to make the wrong calculated decision.

Dr. Kim: I completely agree. Sometimes, a woman will ask me, "Well, how do I know if he's really changed?"

And I say, "Pray. Pray that God will help you see his heart." If he's let Jesus change his heart and that comes through. I can trust Jesus in somebody, over just trusting them. And, so, the more that we can go to prayer and say, "God, is there anything else?" 

And for the guys that are listening to this or watching this, to know that if there's any way, when you confess, get it all out to start with. Don't dribble it out. Don't think, "Well, I'm just going to do this." 

Because, one, I don't think God's going to let you just do that. I think God wants it all on the table. And if you're really going to have the marriage you want, you got to know you can work through all that stuff. If you're holding something back you're always thinking, "Gosh, what if she finds out this; then what do we do? I bet we're back to square one." As hard as it may be, get it all out there.

Dannah: Yes, exactly, and I think that if we're really going to be one with each other, the way the Word tells us we are supposed to be one. There can't be secrets. There can't be things in our minds and our hearts held back. The good stuff and the bad stuff has to come to the forefront and you have to talk it through.

Dr. Kim: Absolutely. Yes, I can remember, Dannah, when I was first training, there were some counselors, even Christian counselors, that were saying, "No, you don't tell your wife those things. We'll work on it between you, and me, and God." And I just think that's so unhealthy.

Dannah: Yes, I agree.

Dr. Kim: Because you just can't keep secrets in a marriage.

Dannah: No.

Dr. Kim: No matter how bad they are; you've got to get them out.

Dannah: Right.

Dr. Kim: So what do you say to a man or a woman that's feeling lost right now? And just, "What are my next steps?" What would you tell them?

Dannah: Yes, I think the next step is always to get help. In conjunction with the book, we just released a limited series, an eight-episode podcast, called Happily Even After. To guide husbands and wives through each step of the process. So the first step is really getting honest with our emotions. The Bible says, Jesus said, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." And He was speaking of himself. He was saying, "I am the truth and I will set you free."

But there's also a matter of the factual truth of what's happening in your life and in your world. You'll experience great freedom when you start operating in those facts. And what one of our counselors told us is the hardest thing to be truthful about is your emotions. So your parents divorced when you were this old, or you were sexually abused when you were this old. How does that make you feel? Because you see, we can get to the facts of my parents divorced or I was abused. But until we get to "I felt rejected."

"I felt abused and used." Until we get to those words and grieve over those words, we don't really start to experience freedom because we don't know what to ask Jesus for healing in that. "Jesus, can you help me feel loved and accepted? Because I have finally realized that my whole life, since 7th grade, I have felt rejected. What is your truth about that, Jesus?"

And, so, the first step that we encourage couples to go through is emotions. And then we get to the next step is forgiveness. But we don't do forgiveness until we get honest about our emotions and how those things have made us feel. Because then we really know what we're forgiving, and it's authentic, and it's rich, and it's complete. 

So the steps are there on the podcast. They're also there in the book. And it's not like this is a one-shot-fix-all type thing because every couple is different. But this is what worked for Bob and I, and we wanted to share that.

Dr. Kim: Oh, that's so good, and people need to know that it is a process, it takes time. You kind of hit on this early, but I want go back to it how our culture wants us to accept porn or minimize it, "It's not as harmful." In my experience, it can be every bit as harmful as your spouse having an emotional affair or physical affair. Do you agree with that?

Dannah: Pornography?

Dr. Kim: Yes.

Dannah: Yes, I think the symptoms can be really similar. In fact, one of the kinds of women that you need, I felt like I needed two kinds of women when I was healing. One was my friends who already knew me and hadn't, necessarily, had this problem in their marriage. But they could look at me and say, "I know you, Dannah Gresh, and I still love you, and you're still strong, and you're going to be strong again. You might not feel that way right now." I needed those friends. 

But I also needed friends who had walked the path. And I didn't really, necessarily, connect to any woman whose husband said used pornography. But I was able to connect with a Christian author named Jill Savage. She's an author, so her life is a lot like mine. She travels and speaks. 

And, so, there were a lot of similarities in our world. And her husband actually had an affair where he left for six months and lived with the other woman. And they survived and they made it, and they're ministering to marriages today. And we were able to really put our pain parallel to one another and see they really were the same pain. Different stories, different ways of manifesting, but the journey for us was very similar.

Dr. Kim: I think so, and sometimes I've had women who just almost, "Should I be this upset about that?"

My answer is always, "Yes, absolutely, you've been betrayed." It wasn't another woman, but it really was she just happened to be in a movie or whatever.

Dannah: Yes, and it might have been many other women. And what's happening today is that the pornography, really, quickly, escalates to chats, and chat rooms, and virtual experiences, with live people. I'm not saying, necessarily, that was my husband's problem. But that's very common these days, and I'm terrified of virtual reality porn, as it starts to be developed. I don't think we have any idea how destructive it's going to be to lives and to marriages.

Dr. Kim: Absolutely, it is scary. And, yet, we know God's got answers that we don't have, and He'll help us fight that battle, just like He has where porn is so much more accessible. When I was growing up, I wouldn't go into one of those places and buy a magazine or something. I wouldn't be caught dead there. But, now, you don't have to worry about those things.

Dannah: Right.

Dr. Kim: So those who read the book一Happily Even After一what's your greatest hope for those people?

Dannah: Well, obviously, I want them to experience the overwhelming redemption of Jesus Christ, and here's why Jesus matters so much. At the end of the day, even though there's addiction, and clinical brain problems, and all that stuff, it started as a sin problem. And the only one, in all of history, who's ever been able to redeem a life from sin is Jesus. And as you face this sin, you might think, "Well, my marriage can be repaired, it can be restored, it can be recovered." But redemption does something better than all those things. 

So Bob and I, our hearts have been repaired, our marriage is in recovery, all of that stuff, and we've experienced redemption. Redemption is taking something that was very broken and making it useful and better than it was before. It's not just repairing it, it's redeeming it. There's no other category of language to help us understand it, it's redeeming it. 

For us, an example would be those red, leather, chairs, where Bob confessed to me, I hated those chairs. But they were expensive. They were one of those, "Let's make a lifetime investment in two really nice red, leather, chairs, and we'll have them forever." And after Bob confessed in them I hated them, and I moved them. I didn't have the courage to throw them to Facebook marketplace or a garage sale them, I mean, they were too expensive. 

But I put them in our offices, in a place where I wouldn't see them. And at certain part, in my journey, as we were experiencing healing, God was like, "I saw those chairs." 

And God was like, "Do you not think if I can redeem your heart, and Bob's heart and mind, I can't handle the chairs? Dannah, I can handle the chairs." And, so, I brought them back to our living room and I started to sit with Jesus every morning in them. And I would just talk to Him, imagining He was in the one next to me. 

Just a few years ago, my daughter-in-law wrote a foreword to a book I wrote for Moms, about raising their daughters. And she talked about bringing her twin girls to live with us for eleven weeks, and how every morning I would meet with her in those red leather chairs. She would feed one, I would feed the other, and I would pray over her and I would counsel her heart with truth. 

And she said, "Dear reader, when you read this book, I pray it feels like you are sitting in these red leather chairs with Dannah." And, of course, I'm bawling. She has no idea that I hated the chairs, and I've been asking God to redeem them. That's how thorough He is, and they're the chairs where we've welcomed grandkids. Where last night I sat there with my DC group and I discipled 20-something-year-old girls. God has made them better than they were before, and He's done that with my marriage, too. He's a thorough redeemer.

Dr. Kim: I love that. I love how God can redefine anything like that for us. And I agree, I think, where you guys are, where you and Bob are, and where I see couples that fight through these things. They would all say, "I hate what I went through, but my marriage is better than it's ever been." And I think that God gives us that hope, and what He can do when we're really open and transparent and get it all out. We're willing to let him work with it, He does miracles.

Dannah: Yes, there's a Sarah Groves song, I love Sara Groves, a Christian recording artist. A Different Kind of Happy is the name of the song, and she sings "Better than our promises are the day we got to keep them." And then she goes on to sing, "There are different kinds of happy, and there's a real happy on your wedding day of the hope and the future of what's ahead. But even after the happiness that you knew before brokenness, even after that, there is a happiness that comes from having hearts that are clean before each other." 

I really think that if marriage is a picture of Christ and the church. There's, probably, going to be some sin involved because He loves us in spite of our sin. And, so, there's going to be brokenness in your marriage. It's just a matter of what kind, and are you going to let God redeem it so that you can experience a different kind of happy.

Dr. Kim: And the joy that comes when He does redeem it, when you let Him in. That's so good. So, final question, with you and Bob right now, what are you guys loving about, or what are you loving about, your marriage right now, today?

Dannah: Well, we are having a blast together. We just celebrated 34 years, on Saturday. We celebrated by making homemade smash burgers and taking a nap. So I don't know if that sounds boring to you, but it was glorious.

Dr. Kim: It was great.

Dannah: But we're just having a sweet friendship that we didn't know before and partnering together to heal up other hearts has been a glorious unfolding. 

I know him, he knows me, we're in it. We're committed to each other, to be able to look in his eyes and, oh, what beautiful eye contact he shares with me now. When the shame has been erased, that sweet man began looking me in the eyes again, and what a gift that is. We're having fun and we love being grandparents. I would get out the pictures but we'd be here for hours.

Dr. Kim: I can totally identify, and if I get out mine it would be more hours, all that is. But I think so, and when God brings something full circle like that and makes something good out of something so bad. And I love that you guys are willing to share your story, to get that out there where it can help other people. And maybe God doesn't call everybody that goes through this to do that, at that level. 

But I just feel like if you've gone through it and God's healed that, God's going to bring somebody in your life, at some time, that needs to hear your story. And I say that to everybody that's listening today.

Dannah: Amen.

Dr. Kim: Thank you, Dannah, for being with us. The book is Happily Even After: Let God Redeem Your Marriage it's available everywhere. It's a great book. It will help so many people. Thank you for writing it and you and Bob sharing your story, and thanks for being a part of our podcast today.

Dannah: Thank you, my pleasure.

[00:48:58] < Outro >

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