 always do the good times and the bad and we're so glad you're joining us on hope today because we love to give you a dose of hope no matter what circumstance or situation you're in. We are always here to uplift you and we love you so much. I'm here with Tom and Anna and Anna. We are going to take a deep dive into a conversation that is so important when it comes to the state of relationships. Yeah I want to just say well first of all we're so glad that you're with us on hope today and also just how proud I am of our team here and that our producers allow us to talk about these conversations that can be very difficult and today we want to bring hope for the marriage that has been ravished by betrayal, pornography, affair, or years of unhappiness. Our guest who is a friend of mine in ministry and I have so much respect for her, Dana Gresh wants you to know your story isn't over. You can experience the love that endures every hardship. She knows this from personal experience as she learned of her husband's sex addiction. Both she and her husband Bob have put in the individual hard work and she'll be sharing her story and how they found redemption for their marriage. There is hope in a situation where both where if there's one that is in sin owns that and is repentant and works towards that healing time. I think you said a key thing of puts in the hard work because a lot of times we want to ignore the problem or we're not if your pastor said hey next week next Sunday we're going to talk about sex addiction like half the church wouldn't come the following week but it's a conversation that needs to take place and it's something that instead of letting things just go on and go on and go on and try little things that it's better to bring things to light better to bring things to that hard work that needs to be done and I'm glad we're talking about it. You know we have to be real there's a lot of marriages that have been struggling you know especially when in wake of the pandemic there's just so many relationships so many people I feel like we try to say like oh happy and like oh everything's good and we're all everything's working out but deep down there's some serious issues and so every marriage hits its bumps and its roads there's a lot of people that go through these things so maybe you're watching today and you're like yeah I can relate that I've experienced a betrayal or there's things going on in our marriage and so we just want to take this time is just a moment just to encourage you to uplift you and let you know that there is hope and maybe today that you are struggling in your marriage and we always have our prayer line at any point during the show feel free to give us a call at 888-665-4483 because the one thing Anna that I know is that marriage is like that in the beginning God created marriage and the enemy loves to fight against marriages pull marriages apart because marriage is the pinnacle of where you see the love of Christ and the church it's such a reflection so I think there's no shame you know where the state of marriages are but I think this is so important that we're having this conversation today absolutely I think that we can as Christians we can get in this place where we feel like gosh Christians shouldn't have these very real struggles and so we keep our issues in the dark we don't go and seek help and then we just continue in that cycle that is just so destructive an interesting statistic it is estimated that 60 to 72 percent of men in the church are sex addicts and 70 percent of wives of sex addicts experience some symptoms of PTSD people are looking for hope but many are trapped in a cycle that never resolves in recovery well best-selling author and founder of pure freedom Dana Gresh and her husband Bob say they have personally experienced the devastation but now are stepping out to tell their story of hope and redemption for marriage so Dana it's so good to have you back with us on hope today my pleasure I love you guys it's so good to be with you again and before we dive into this conversation I just want to say publicly for all who's watching um Dana I just want to honor you and Bob for your courage your vulnerability your transparency to bring such a personal story out into the open with the heart purpose of wanting to set others free with your story um and also I also honor you know Anna the Lord the word says let the redeemed of the Lord say so and there's not a single one of us walking with Jesus who haven't been set free from shame and sin and addiction of some kind maybe it's food maybe it's shopping maybe it's work um for my husband it was pornography and for a very not the minority but the majority in the church pornography is a cyclical habit in either the husband or the wife's life and by every measure of the world standards that is addiction and we need to start talking about it the people that have been redeemed of it need to say so so that those that are still in bondage can be set free by Jesus Christ amen now I thought that statistic of 60 to 70 per 72 percent of men in the church our sex addicts was astounding can you define for us what is a sex addict well an addict of any type is someone who really is powerless over a habit that they really understand is destructive to them but whatever they do to try they can't stop um the bible might call that a stronghold and if you're more comfortable with that word that's totally fine but if you can't stop if there's a cycle in your life if you keep confessing a sin to someone reaching out for accountability and help but it just doesn't stop you probably need some intervention beyond the friend next door you need someone with some clinical understanding who will not back away from the bible of their authority and the spirit of god as the power that will release you from that but you probably need someone with some clinical understanding right absolutely and before we get into your personal story I do just want to note that right at the very beginning of your book you said that this book is for the woman who believes she is safe and hopes to rebuild trust and intimacy in her marriage after her husband has sinned a key component of restoration is humble authentic repentance and brokenness in your husband you are not safe in your relationship if you are experiencing sexual physical and verbal abuse or repeated trauma from flagrant sin for which your husband is not repentant if that's you put this book down and call someone who help will help you get into a safe place and so it's I just so appreciate that you note that um as we dig into this conversation so if you could um share with us the story of you and Bob well my husband came to me before we were married and told me that pornography was a problem for him and um was just so convinced that as a virgin when he started having sex it would go away when we got married and I meet so many couples who believe that lie and pornography has almost nothing to do with real intimate sex God created it to be a physical and emotional knowing and pornography divorces the emotion from the component of sex and and really the emotion is the point to be connected and to know God the Old Testament uses the word yada for sex to know to be known to be deeply respected it also uses that word yada to know God it's about the intimacy it's about the emotional connection and Satan has used pornography to divorce the entire point of sex from the physical act and so um we faced that battle in the early years of our marriage and my husband walked in great victory but there came a point where he came to me we sat in our red leather chairs in our living room and he said baby I've been trying to find my way back to the Lord and back to your heart without breaking your heart but I can't seem to do it I need to confess to you that the cycle of pornography unless has returned in my life and then he broke my heart totally devastated me but the Lord has put us back together he has redeemed us and so dana what were some of your first steps after that confession did you find steps that took you in the right direction or was there some hit and miss well one of the the things for me that I have had an advantage of is you know I have immersed myself in sexual theology and helping the church heal from sexual brokenness for three decades so I know this territory and the first thing I did after Bob confessed to me as I went for a walk and I called a girlfriend and many people don't don't tell someone they hide in shame they're embarrassed of their husband's behavior they're embarrassed of their wife's behavior if she's the one that sinned sexually and so they think we can handle this that's not true James 5 16 says confess your sins one to another and then you will be healed salvation and forgiveness comes from confessing our sins to God alone okay but he's given us the body for the work of healing and there's nothing Christianity is not a solo sport you didn't come to Jesus on your own someone led you to him you didn't get discipled in the disciplines of the faith alone someone led you to him when you are in a spiritual crisis when you're in a sin crisis and pornography is sin you need somebody in the body of Christ to take your hand and shepherd you and what would you say to that woman who sought out maybe Christian counseling and she was told well just have more sex with your husband and then it will help him be free of this like this is something that you can do as a wife to help him you're just trying to tick me off today right and that's what you're doing okay so um I'll get on my soap box here and say one more time that pornography and real sex have nothing to do with each other um they are not the same thing pornography is a distorted twisted version of what God created to bring a husband and wife into a one flesh relationship and so more sex with your wife isn't going to fix that because that could be very non intimate sex um generally a husband who has a pornography problem has an intimacy problem and so they're not even having a lot of sex that's a really real thing but let me explain to you so that you can have some clinical understanding to strap on to your biblical truth and the power of the Holy Spirit that a man who's in a cycle of pornography use has a very damaged brain if you could take a functional scan of a man's brain who's healthy you would see that it's very smooth but a man who is caught in a cycle and that might be every day every hour it might be once a week it might be I hear a lot of once a month cycles that too you're going to see that brain is pockmarked it looks like swiss cheese you could actually put that brain next to a heroin addict and they're going to look very similar that's because dopamine washes over the brain when somebody uses pornography and um just as it does with heroin dopamine is a feel good chemical but it also has a very powerful impact on the brain and for a heroin addict or a sugar addict or um a food addict that dopamine will last for about an hour but for a porn addict it lasts five or six hours that individual needs clinical intervention for the physiological unwellness in their body as well as do not divorce it from the power of the Holy Spirit and the word of God you know dana I mean I was going to ask you why does it seem like so many men struggle with this because we see the statistics and we we uh you know know how this is struggle cause struggles and marriages and and men's spiritual lives but let me ask you about you said clinical and uh sometimes uh with with guys we think well I'll just talk to a friend and and there's some power in that certainly there's some strength in that but not like getting clinical help could you explain that a little bit more when does that step need to take place anytime there's a cycle and when that cycle is apparent and I mean we're talking with couples all the time these men are repentant they hate their sin they love the Lord they love their wives but they cannot stop that's because this is a chemical dependency and what started out as a sin problem has now become a brain problem I don't know anybody who would be suffering from cancer and who's a Christian that wouldn't go to the church and be anointed with oil and prayed for for healing but also would get themselves to the doctor for the physiological care that they need and I think when your brain is in this kind of trauma this kind of damage you need someone who understands that that can apply some of the um components of um behavioral science that is put in check with the word of God um but let me say this don't only rely on the clinical help because if you look at the recovery world statistics the recovery rates are in single digits outside of the power of the Holy Spirit you aren't going to recover from this and that is because it's a sin problem and the only one capable of handling a sin problem is Jesus Christ he is our redeemer and a man who is caught in a cycle in a stronghold of pornography and sin that escalates out of that needs the redeeming power of Jesus Christ and I just love how you're breaking down just the clinical need to like handle when it comes to pornography addiction and I just wanted to ask you from your personal experience or just somebody who's watching out there because I know there's so many that can relate how did you put boundaries in place in your marriage and then to get to that place of rebuilding intimacy because pornography does destroy so much trust in a relationship so just want to know from your personal experience what boundaries did you put in place and when do you know it's sort of it is time to re-enter into that place of intimacy yeah so boundaries are something that God gives us right from the very beginning in the garden of Eden he says you know this is the boundary um don't eat that tree right and then when they sin he says this is the boundary you can't go into that garden and then when it comes to marriage he says thou shalt not um commit adultery thou shalt not fornicate there are boundaries on our marriages and on sex and when a marriage is compromised by unfaithfulness of any type whether it's pornography or an affair um you need to sometimes implement special boundaries to restore the holiness and the sacredness of the marriage bed and that's what happened in our marriage um I had to get to a point where I sort of got detached if you will emotionally less emotional about how I responded to Bob when he would confess to me and I wrote a list of boundaries I said these are the boundaries if you cross this line the consequence will be and I wrote down the consequence and um I had to enforce those consequences and there were times when we weren't sleeping in the same room in our house there was one point where he wasn't sleeping in the house I had to get to that point because Bob's brain needed help and I liken it to this I have a very damaged disc in my back and every now and then Bob needs to help me walk because I can't do it by myself um it's like that with your husband's brain when he his brain is damaged by pornography I have helped Bob walk by setting up boundaries I've known many women who Anna you read that disclaimer in the beginning of my book that if you're in a cycle of abuse where your husband continues to do whatever um you need to get help and you may need to set a boundary such as I am leaving okay I love marriage I hate divorce God hates divorce and I you and I have talked about this it's a heartbreaking thing when somebody experiences that and it breaks God's heart but if a woman is continually abused sometimes sometimes when she sets that boundary it says if you continue to have this behavior I'm leaving that is the wake-up call and the boundary that brings him to repentance and what a joy it is to see that when that marriage is restored amen and I just so appreciate too that you really speak of these hard boundaries that it's okay to set do not let anybody put shame on you for doing that or make you feel less than like this is for the protection of your heart and mind your healing his healing and um so the protection of the reputation of Jesus Christ because marriage is a picture of the love of Christ for the bride and so let's not forget that when we're setting these boundaries we're protecting the reputation of the church and the reputation of the bridegroom Jesus amen and so would you recommend that the couple enter into marriage counseling or is it important that the woman get individual therapy and the man his own okay so let me describe it this way I for years struggled through just thinking Bob needs help Bob needs help Bob needs help but my therapist said to me well Dana if Bob was about to run which Bob doesn't run except there's a bear chasing him but if Bob was about to go for a jog and he was like stretching and you came around the corner and he like stretched his elbow right into your nose and it was bloody and it needed cauterized and Bob says I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry baby I didn't mean to hurt you and you say I forgive you but your nose is still bleeding who needs to go to the hospital get their nose cauterized I do it's like that when there's unfaithfulness in marriage okay 70 percent of women whose husbands have had affairs or have you know pornography these days leads very quickly to an escalation of chat rooms online cyber sex things like that women who have experienced that have often symptoms of PTSD and that doesn't mean they have PTSD that means they're experiencing some brain trauma because they don't know what's real they don't know what they can trust and so they need to go get counseling on their own he needs to get counseling on his own and then they need to come together and if you are like us you might have to ask family members or the church for some financial help with that but if you really want to be well you will do that for your children for your heart for the generations behind you and as I said for the reputation of Jesus and his church amen so Dana give us an update what is the state of your marriage today uh I'm I'm about hold it together Jesus has redeemed my man he is not the same he is a safe man the man I prayed for has become the man I prayed with he there's not a night that he doesn't pray over me the bible says that a husband is supposed to wash his wife in the water of the word like I have that man now instead of the man who is acting like an addict and um I do believe you know it does take work Tom you said it takes work this is a couple you're looking at a woman who has stood beside her man we have done the hard work of cooperating with God's spirit for redemption and I can't emphasize enough that it takes God's spirit strengthening you to do that hard work but he will if you ask him Dana that is good news good to hear what about the person who's watching right now they feel lost they don't they don't know where to turn they've maybe been down some roads of hope and and had their heart broken again what does that person do okay I want to tell you what my girlfriend told me to do when I called her when I got on the phone after Bob confessed to me I went for a walk in the woods I told my girlfriend I wasn't even crying I was such shock and trauma and she said Dana his word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path and how much light does a lamp give not a lot enough for the next step or the next three steps listen we we fight with different weapons as believers yes we need clinical care but we fight with different weapons we do not fight without first the word of God to light our way every step of the way we do not fight without the mind of Christ another woman who's hearing a confession doesn't have the mind of Jesus she might go crazy but the mind of Christ will release you from so many of the things that someone without Jesus won't so listen run to the word run to someone who can guide you through the word and run to Jesus that's such great counsel for those steps to take and Dana thank you again for your book it's called happily even after let God redeem your marriage you are a voice of hope you and Bob just so much appreciate the heart that you bring thank you so much for being with us Dana my pleasure thank you Anna well here on hope today we always love to bring you scripture to encourage your heart as you just heard Dana say it is a lamp unto your path and Tom I believe you have the scripture today I do have the scripture yes Isaiah 41 non-intendents from the English Standard Version it says you you who I took from the ends of the earth and called from its farthest corners saying to you you are my servant I have chosen you and not cast you off fear not for I'm with you be not dismayed for I'm your God I will strengthen you I will help you I will uphold you with my righteous right hand wow guys I love this verse it's ministered to me it's ministered to others I've used it in ministry but this is the thing of this is the God if you put it in its context I was reading in its context that I said in it it's even stronger he's even stronger about how he will fight for us and how he called us and how he loves us and and and we can I'll tell you what the world can try to watch that that belief away from you the devil can try to smoke and mirrors you out of that belief but that is the God you serve he fights for you he upholds you with his righteous right hand you know Thomas you're just speaking I just saw this vision really quickly of there's a couple right now and I can just see you're watching and you are drowning I just see you're in a big pool of water and you're like like trying to like guess for air and just know that God sees you struggling in the midst of your marriage and sometimes I know that in marriages it's just like sometimes you feel like you're drowning you feel very overwhelmed you feel like nobody sees you nobody hears you but God sees you and we just want to encourage you today maybe this has really hit home with Dana we're sharing about what their husband Bob that your marriage right now is in peril your marriage is about to like it's at its breaking point and the greatest thing that we know is that when we cry out to God when we reach out to him when we have community around us when we get the help that we need God does heal so maybe you are that wife you're that husband today that you are at the end of your rope and you don't know how God is going to save your marriage how God is going to intervene the first thing to do is just surrender and just know that his hand can reach down to the lowest valley to the deepest of pits and God will place community around you God will place people around you so that you can see him rework and change your marriage sometimes Anna the one thing I've just seen with like friends and even my own experiences God will allow to break you and to like cause certain things to happen so that he can heal and put you back together the way that he intended it for it to be yeah it's absolutely true and also I just love that this scripture says to fear not do not be dismayed and when we are in a marriage that has these patterns these toxic behaviors the sin that we can get so stuck in fear that we won't reach out for help we won't we start to it like affects our brain even Dana was saying how there's PTSD and we start to feel a little crazy we wonder if we're making a big deal out of it let me tell you you are not making a big deal and also don't be afraid to step out don't be afraid to put those hard boundaries in place because you know fight for your marriage we want to believe that God is going to restore it he's going to redeem it but also for the one out there who is not seeing that transformation in your husband know that God is still for you he is still fighting for you your heart your mind your healing your life and if that if that end game is not restoration know that you're still going to be okay as long as you draw close to Christ as long as you receive his healing and keep yourself placed at his feet friend you have nothing to fear there is life on the other side and we'll pray that it is for your marriage but also know that there's life for you regardless you know I just want to say I don't want to miss a couple of things that are real important yes it's great to have friends to talk to you need that you need to take care of yourself as well it's great to have pastors it's great to have accountability partners but clinical help is really necessary sometimes be sure to get that as well definitely the help is needed and so we just want to encourage you know one thing I just love is that in the bible that did you know God he says that he is first our husband he is the first the one that we look to and so today we just encourage you to look to him put your eyes on him and lay your burden down because there you'll find him have a great day on tomorrow's hope today discover how to be set free and released from the damage of trauma pastor and author j. Otis led better offers advice to those who are struggling from the pain of trauma as he provides biblical insight that will help you find freedom don't miss tomorrow's hope today cornerstone television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible