The Gift of Excommunication: Sex Addiction and Divorce

"If forgiveness, fulfilled in reconciliation, is to occur, evil must repent with clarity and conviction...Reconciliation should not occur until there is repentance. Repentance on the part of the evil person will include a renunciation of rage and mockery. He will need to demonstrate a willingness to be humbled and broken by the weight of guilt for his use of shame and contempt. He will further desire to see wrongs righted and other relationships restored through a process of humbly asking forgiveness for the effect of his sin and through the process of carefully rebuilding trust. If such a deep change in direction does not occur, then there is a final good gift to give to an evil person - the grace of excommunication. No one can tell another with certainty when this gift should be offered."

Dan Allender, Bold Love, p. 252

There are times in life when, despite our desire to remain in relationship, we must give the gift of separation. Though it feels like death, our calling to follow Jesus must win out over our desire for companionship, for security, for preserving our image and influence in community, for preserving our nuclear family, for preserving our married state.

God gives us options and callings.  If I see any desire or effort towards transformation from my husband, then I have the option to stay and attempt reconciliation. If not, I have the option to stay married and swallow the pain of abuse and betrayal, in other words to shut down, in the hopes it will be better for my children. I have the option to leave the marriage on the grounds of sexual immorality.[1]  But Jesus continues calling through all these options; across the waves He calls our attention back to Him.  He calls us to put aside our earthly desires, and surrender fully.  He calls us to get out of the boat.[2]

I have decided, after much prayer, observation, and advice of counselors and companions, that to live a life of integrity and safety I must dissolve my marriage. I have been warned that the pain of divorce is greater than the loss of a spouse by sudden death.  Being only four weeks into this process, I heartily agree with that warning. We were joined as one flesh for decades and I am now cutting out a part of myself. Divorce is the emotional equivalent of severing your leg with a saw to escape a steel trap.

Where there is no true repentance, there can be no reconciliation. Sometimes we must follow Jesus by cutting ourselves off from that which is dead.  I truly hope my husband has a change of heart and decides to seek God; that he has an amazing conversion that is publicly known; and that someday he is transformed, healed, and freed from his bondage.  But my final good gift is to leave him in his deadness and follow where I am called.  Sometimes we must continue in our attempts to resuscitate what is dead, and sometimes we must leave that work behind. Indeed, Jesus says, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead." [3]

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[1] Matt 5:32 or Matt 19:19.
[2] Matt 14.
[3] Matt. 8:22; Luke 9:60.

 

Chicken & Egg: Sex Addiction & Verbal Abuse

"The outcome of lust is always some form of mis-use, absorption, and devaluation."

 Dan Allender, Bold Love, p. 106.  

Not long ago I asked my husband something every wife of a sex addict in recovery should ask: "how long since you talked to your sponsor?"  After pressing for an answer, he admitted it had been over five weeks.  I had previously set a parameter  -  three weeks without sponsor contact means you move out.  But of course I didn't know what to do. 

A man investing regularly in pornography must necessarily talk down to his wife and put her in her place; pornography trains a man’s mind to objectify and use others.[1] There is always an excuse for not connecting with a sponsor - work has been stressful, for example.  I came to understand this means: "I have been acting out at work and I didn't want to call my sponsor because he will make me uncomfortable." 

I asked, "were you going to tell me?"  My husband answered: "No, I was going to do something about it."  So I prayed for wisdom - seems like I am praying for that a lot lately!  What do I do here, Lord?  The word that came to me from a friend:  require my husband to make contact with his sponsor before the day ended. My husband left a phone message with his sponsor. 

The next day came. I waited all day for some word from my husband that he has spoken with his sponsor.  I hoped for a text, an e-mail, any drive-by would do.  My anxiety increased over the day - what would happen!??  We went to an evening event together and no word.  I did a late night grocery run, but no word.  I sat alone in a car filled with groceries in the dark driveway weeping and wondering what to do.  That's when I realized: I don't have the courage to go into the house and ask him to move out, and I don't have the courage to go into the house and allow him to stay. I am frozen.   

At 10 PM my husband mentions that he had a good talk with his sponsor that morning.
Me: "Well, did you think maybe I might be waiting to hear whether you called your sponsor?"
Him: "I didn't realize."  (Weeks later he admitted that not telling me was an intentional response to avoid interacting with me.)  
Me: "Did you realize I might be having a rough day worrying that everything would unravel tonight?"
Him: "You should have trusted me to call my sponsor because I said I would." 
Me: "Well, given the history of trust broken, that sounds a bit crazy to me."  
Him: "Now you are attacking me - you are calling me insane. Your treatment of me is so unfair." 

This, dear friends, is a script from the manual for verbal abuse - blame shifting and diverting.[2]  It was my fault that I was worried, because I didn't trust him.  It would be my fault if I asked him to move out.  I am being a bad person by not trusting that he would call his sponsor and I am being difficult by attacking him. I am unreasonable when I expect that he will communicate the status. There were no words that showed empathy - only defensiveness and blame. And yet it feels so natural to question my own words and motives when the one human being who knows me best explains how I have erred grievously and been so unfair to him.[3]

What comes first - the verbal abuse that allows the sex addict to act out because his wife seems so difficult to control, or the sexual acting out that requires an addict to devalue his wife in order to justify his shameful abandonment of vows. What do you think? Chicken or egg?

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[1] Laurie Hall, The Cleavers Don’t Live Here Any More, p. 135-38, also citing, Patricia Evans, The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize it and How to Respond (May 1992), New edition, Jan. 2010.
[2] See, e.g., The Verbally Abusive Man: Can He Change? P. Evans.
[3] Weeks later I learned that at the same time he was telling me I should have trusted him to call his sponsor, he was keeping vital information from me about his years of sexual acting out with prostitutes.