My wife and I have both come from horrible childhoods before the authorities wanted to hear about it. Family matters were just that and no one touched them. We have had to do work out a lot of recovery of those damages psychologically along with becoming new creations in Christ spiritually. Our marriage of over 42 yrs has been a rough and hard-working relationship with a lot of pain in its wake; but it remains grounded in Christ. If you have time and a desire to read to find answers to your questions and the others you are not aware of yet which you will also be asking, maybe you could find something helpful here, we have:
- "Changes That Heal" by Dr. Henry Cloud (His intro is real good)
- "Life's Healing Choices" John Baker
- "Seven keys to Spiritual Renewal" Stephen Arterburn and David Stoop
- "Healing of Damaged Emotions" David A. Seamand
- "Boundaries: When to Say YES, When to Say NO, To Take Control of Your Life" Dr. Henry Cloud and
Dr. John Townsend
- "Addicted to "Love"" Stephen Arterbun
- "Every Man's Battle" Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker
The first five are more relative to personal growth, esp helpful for adult victims of child abuse and the last two includes the same audience plus others but focuses on inappropriate contentography and other addictions. Minereth/Meyer New life Clinics decades ago has transformed into just New Life Clinics and are a nation wide group of clinics with outpatient and inpatient counseling grounded in God's Word and Prayer. One can be referred there by a local counselor. They use or did use the seven step book above several years ago. If you or your wife are victims of sexual abuse from childhood, may I also suggest "The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse" Dr. B. Allander. A few of these books are designed to process through in a small group and have an accompanying workbook but one can use alone.
Please, please, remember that one cannot successfully work through an addiction without having one to be accountable to. Very, very few can do this without a human being one and not just the One. Also, maybe you should ask yourself if the reason that you have this obsession to know who he is is so that you can target your anger at him and not the real source of her feeling that she had to go outside of the marriage relationship to find that which was missing in the marriage. Knowing and hating him will do absolutely nothing to fix the problem. I am not advocating self-hate but hating THAT (behavior) which causes pain and damage/destruction to you and her. Even though we may be able to point at all kinds of major faults in the other we have ours, too. Part of a marriage relationship is realizing and accepting that. We each must account to God and have our own unique struggles or challenges which He will help us through. Some may last a lifetime but it does get better. But there ARE some which MUST be dealt with in order for the relationship to survive and stand; ones which affect trust, loyalty, and sexual intimacy. These must be accelerated and if need be, that is what New Life Ministries and other counseling (Christian) can help with. A lot of people who came from abused homes did not learn how to healthfully dialog, compromise, negotiate, examine one's self, and such and need outside professional help by one's trained with this. May I make a STRONG suggestion that you NOT go to anyone whose major degree was not in Psychology or Psychiatry. In our wake are several community social workers and fellow Christians at church and even staff at church who surely meant well but did more damage than good and caused serious set backs and one could have destroyed the marriage: he was accused of having "unprofessionally intimate relations" with my wife and another woman and was allowed to just resign from that community health board and go work at a private secular Psychiatrist's office a few miles away. A church staff member totally ignorant of what was involved with the internal damages and struggles and having given just a "simple" verse to follow and it would fix everything almost got one of us to leave the church. One terrible but true way too many times than not is a saying I used to hear, "The Church is Good at Shooting Its Wounded." Wanting to erroneously justify themselves people (everywhere, not just the church) feel a compulsion to seek out those worse off than them and point them out and judge them thinking that they have somehow thwarted notice of their sins. NOT! God sees and knows all. He is all-present and all-knowing along with all-powerful. There is none, no not one righteous and deserving of heaven. God says that for anyone to sin with one of the Commandments that they have violated them all. In God's eyes, a coveter is as bad as a murder. I have heard it said that the ground is level at the cross; we all come covered in sin. You may have harder struggles to battle but you have the same all powerful and redeeming Lord that any iconic Christian does and NOTHING is impossible for Him. And the apostle Paul did say that those who have to struggle and wrestle harder with sin have a closer or deeper relationship with God, the Loving and most Gracious Father. I'm sorry for rambling on. I hope something here is helpful. Jim
