If the issue is pornography or other marriage betrayal, you might want to look at the online resources at Bloom for Women. TALK to your people.įor spouses: good boundaries will include being responsible for your education on sexuality or other addictions, for your emotional processing, for your choices about what is healthy and not healthy for you in the relationship have a plan for your own self care work the plan talk to your people. Have a plan for behavioral, emotional, spiritual aspects of your recovery work the plan. Good boundaries will be part of the healing process, for addicts and for spouses alike.įor addicts: good boundaries mean that you will be responsible for your own sobriety, whether from work, porn, or any other bad habit. Don’t sacrifice recovery on the altar of geography. If those aren’t available where you’re living, MOVE yourself to a place where they are available. Recovery is a long, slow process that requires real work and real support. The next step-for any kind of addiction–is to pursue healing opportunities through recovery groups, marriage seminars, and personal therapy. Being honest with others and turning toward others in true vulnerability is the purest opposite to any addiction. to safe people who will support us in recovery.ĭon’t think you can keep addiction a secret and still recover.The first step toward healing of addiction is honesty: telling the truth about what’s going on within our emotional selves All too often, ministry is a spiritually-sanctioned way to turn away from a spouse. It’s easy to see how a pornography habit is all about turning away from the emotional and sexual relationship between husband and wife in fact, it all too often becomes turning against as entitlement builds in the addict.īut the same is true of a ministry habit. You see, we have three choices when it comes to our relationships: John Gottman explains how this happens, slowly, over time. facing up to one’s own personal pain andĪll those seminary papers to grade, all those workshops to plan, all those sermons to prepare, all those emails to answer, all those visions to cast.Īll those wonderful activities that feel so good and earn so much praise? Those can cut the heart of emotional trust right out of a marriage.In the missionary world, ministry is a serious addictive substance, used by many to avoid the difficult work of I mean, the addiction of using comforting behaviors in order to avoid dealing with feelings like pain, distress, discomfort, insecurity, depression, anxiety.
And when you add addiction to the mix, you’ve complicated your simple problems with bigger ones.Īs soon as I say addiction, everybody thinks “pornography.” And it’s true, porn is a very real and present problem in today’s missionary world which needs to be addressed.Īddiction has been a problem for missionaries since time began. The thing is, though, that many missionary marriages today have a little speed bump called addiction. If you’re decent human beings who want to have a better marriage, buy this book and go through it together. It includes quizzes and exercises in each chapter. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work is the best research out there on the guts of a healthy relationship. Lucky for us, John Gottman has done all the hard work of research AND writing books that put his research into user-friendly form. and the right ways to invest, so you don’t waste your precious time and energy.two people willing to invest in the relationship,.
Let me tell you a bit about each pattern, and share some resources that can help.ĭisconnection is the easy one to deal with. I see missionary marriage dysfunction falling into three broad patterns:
0 kommentar(er)
