During Reclaiming Families Weekend, clients and their friends and families learn many things, and we teach a breakout session that looks at unhealthy ways people have grown to relate…
• Guilt
• Enabling “Helping”
• Rescuing
• Controlling
• Superstar/Hero
• Rebel
• Mascot
• Scapegoat
–Reclaiming Families Seminar Workbook
Right now my mind is being flooded with a bunch of questions I’ve heard women ask along the way. Let me list some of them here and try to answer them briefly.
Whose responsibility is it to tell his parents about the problem?
Many times when a woman finds out about her husband’s sexual addiction, one of the first phone calls she makes is to her parents. Her husband, however, may struggle with telling his parents about the problem. Shame is working overtime in his heart, and facing the pain of disappointing his parents is a huge hurdle to overcome. In my opinion, it is his responsibility to tell his parents—not yours. It’s part of the hard work he must do—facing his sin and taking responsibility for it. Don’t rescue him from that work.
If he is blaming you for the marital problems instead of owning them with his parents, it is still not your responsibility to tell them. You can say, “Your son is not being completely honest with you. The marriage has been greatly damaged by _____’s choices. I am really hurting right now, but it is _____’s responsibility to be honest with you about what is going on.” If his parents really care for you and are interested in knowing the truth, they will confront their son. If they are unhealthy and deceived, then they won’t believe anything you tell them anyway.
Should my husband meet with my parents for a time of reconciliation?
If your parents are aware of the problem, are safe people (i.e. they won’t meet him at the door with a shotgun), and are willing to talk with your husband, I think it is a very wise and Scriptural thing to do. Your family needs to know that your husband is sorry for what he’s done to you and to them. Regardless of how your family members respond, it is a great exercise in obedience and faith for your husband. I would say, however, that a plan to meet with your parents and apologize should be initiated by your husband—not you. That’s his stuff. Let God work in his heart to bring him to that place of maturity and obedience.
What should I do if my husband doesn’t want me to tell anyone about his struggle?
Especially in situations where the husband is not working on his stuff, this is a very common response. If this is your situation, you will need great discernment and great courage. Tell your husband that you need a place to talk about how his sexual sin has impacted you. Assure him that you will use discretion. Then find a counselor, become involved in a confidential support group, and if you have a safe friend or two, tell your husband that you are going to tell them and let him know exactly what you will say about him. This is your stuff. His sin has impacted you, and you must walk in both grace and truth. You may need a lot of courage to stand by your word if your husband threatens to leave you. But covering up his sin in order to save the marriage won’t work. You’ll be miserable, and the marriage will eventually fall apart. Again, be honest with safe people, be truthful with your husband about what you are sharing and who you are sharing with, and trust God to be at work in your husband’s life.
What should I tell acquaintances who are really not close friends?
Tell them the truth without sharing any details. Things like, “Yes, we are really struggling right now. I really can’t share what’s going on, but please do pray for our marriage.” Or you could try being very real. “Thanks for your concern. I really don’t know you well enough to share details with you, but I appreciate your prayers for our marriage.” Lots of truth. Healthy boundaries.
I’m too embarrassed to tell anyone about this. Do I have to?
Well, that depends on two things: can you keep from telling without being dishonest and can you remain in relationships without telling? You have to have people, and you have to have truth. If the truth about your husband’s struggle causes you to isolate yourself from other people, you will never heal. Healing comes in relationship—and not just relationship, but intimate relationship. If you are lying about your situation, you will never heal—and neither will your husband. It was secrets that brought him this far, and it is secrets that will keep him bound. I can’t make you tell safe people about your struggles. But overcoming your fears and your shame will be necessary for you and your husband to continue on the journey.
–Melissa Haas, The Journey: Book One
Other Recent Posts on Disclosure:
You need to be meeting at least once per week with a group of three to five men as you undertake this process of building for freedom. These men should be guys with whom you can feel safe sharing your secrets. Anything said in a group meeting is to be kept strictly confidential, so that group is a safe place to start practicing being honest and real about your struggles. Other safe people with whom you might share include your pastor or an elder in your church, a qualified counselor, or a mature believer whose life and character you respect. You will need a lot of support and help on the journey toward freedom. Even two men can’t move a 750 lb. boulder by themselves.
I do want to make a few comments about safe people before we close for the day. It is important to begin being real with others, but it is also important to have wisdom and discretion as you share. Before you make yourself vulnerable to another person, look for these qualities.
Safe People:
Because you are very vulnerable right now, it is also very important that you guard yourself from unsafe people.
Unsafe People:
– Troy Haas, Building for Freedom
During the Reclaiming Families Weekend for our Trek residential clients and their friends and families, one of the breakout sessions discusses healthy relationships of ME and WE:
When talking about relationships, you have to start with an understanding of a healthy individual.
Creating a “We” through cohesion/togetherness
–Reclaiming Families Seminar Workbook
When it comes to disclosing what has happened in your marriage to family members and close friends, much of what we feel is related to how we learned to deal with embarrassing and shameful situations in our home as a child/teenager. You need to be aware of those dynamics in order to walk with both truth and grace with your family and your husband’s.
For instance, in my home, telling the truth about what had happened was very important, but expressing how you felt about the truth was not encouraged and sometimes even discouraged. So, when I was growing up if something bad happened, we talked about it in terms of factual reality, but we didn’t talk about how it impacted us emotionally. Telling my parents about Troy’s unfaithfulness was not difficult from the standpoint of being truthful. It was difficult because I didn’t feel safe to express how his unfaithfulness was impacting me. I felt like I needed to look like I was doing okay—even if I really wasn’t. My siblings were especially difficult to talk to. They accepted the truth, but they did not seek to know my heart or to share how Troy’s sin had impacted them.
Troy’s parents, on the other hand, grew up in family systems that taught them not to “air their dirty laundry in public.” They were very uncomfortable about other people finding out about Troy’s sexual sin and resented those who reacted to his sin negatively. In their generation, people didn’t talk about their problems with others. Unfortunately, that kind of thinking is a recipe for bondage. Secret sins and wounds can only be forgiven and healed if they are brought to the light. Covering them up only leads to more sin and more secrets.
So, the first thing to be aware of before you disclose to family or close friends is how they typically respond to painful/shameful information. You need to know what to expect in order to prepare yourself for their reactions.
The second thing you need to determine about those you want or need to tell about the problem is how much they really need to know. Most often, family members only need to know generalities. Remember, details make the emotional impact of truth much greater. And if someone asks for details, your response should be, “I don’t think you need to know that” or “I’m really not comfortable answering that question.” Be as specific as you can to avoid confusion or unnecessary fears, but limit what you tell your family in order not to expose them to more than they might be able to deal with. Keep in mind that you have a support group and probably a counselor to talk to. Most of your family members will have to deal with the bad news without that kind of support.
Please understand; I’m not trying to give you a script to follow. I just want you to think about what you say to other people and how it is going to impact them. The goal is to speak with both grace and truth. Be as honest as you can without causing your family or your husband or yourself any more pain than is necessary.
Of course, there are times when a family member is safe and healthy enough to really share your heart with. You may have a sibling who is a counselor and understands the dynamics of sexual addiction. A family member may have walked through the same thing and be able to identify with your struggles completely. Just be wise.
–Melissa Haas, The Journey: Book One
Other Recent Posts on Disclosure:
When we detach ourselves from God and others because of the fears that rule our hearts, the only thing we accomplish is the perpetuation of the enemy’s purpose for our lives. Satan, the father of lies, thrives on stealing, killing, and destroying. If he can get you to believe that no one, including God, could love you if they really knew the truth about you, then he has succeeded in his agenda for you. When you build a wall of secrets around your heart and life to protect yourself from rejection, you inadvertently cut off the supply of the only thing you really want—unconditional love. No one can get in to hurt you, but you can’t receive life-giving supplies either. And that brings us down to the biggest false belief driving this whole mess: I can’t trust God or anyone else to meet my needs; I can only depend on myself…
…If you are going to eradicate patterns of sin that have dominated your life, you must begin to expose all of the secret places of your heart and your secret thoughts and behaviors to God and to other safe people. That’s the first thing to do in preparing the site—calling for help. Secrecy kills; honesty heals. And I want to add something very important here: Telling your secrets to God is not enough. You must involve other people. Why? The Bible tells us that healing only comes in relationship (“Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”–James 5:16).
– Troy Haas, Building for Freedom
• Genetic vulnerability
• Individual biology
• Coping with undiagnosed or untreated medical or mental health issues
• Repeated use leads to lasting changes in the brain – habituation
• Distorted thoughts and beliefs
• Inability to cope with negative feelings
• Personality traits
• Trauma
• Peer influences
• Failures
• Develop a sense of self
• Develop values, limits, and coping styles
• Learn to relate to others
• Develop our understanding of the world
• Shapes our view of God
• View of self
• Sense of purpose and meaning
• Faith and hope
–Reclaiming Families Seminar Workbook
Finding out about a husband’s sexual sin and betrayal is one of the most painful things that can happen in the life of a woman. I think it is probably even more painful than the death of a spouse. Denial, anger, bargaining, and despair are all part of the natural process of grieving the great losses that result from a husband’s struggle with sexual addiction. And as long as you are moving through grief without getting stuck somewhere along the way, eventually you will come to accept the losses and be able to move on.
Moving on may mean you and your husband are able to deal with your own issues and come back together as two broken people growing daily in relationship with God and depending on Him instead of each other to meet your deepest needs for love and acceptance. This is my prayer for every woman who comes to Journey. I want you to heal. I want your husband to heal, and I want your marriage to become everything God intended it to be.
Sometimes, though, moving on means an extended separation or even divorce. This may happen if a husband refuses to work on his stuff. It can also happen if you refuse to work on your stuff. In rare cases, both the husband and wife may deal with their brokenness but be unable to reconcile because too much damage to the integrity and trust of the relationship has been done to salvage the marriage.
And I do want to make one more comment before we take a look at God’s heart. If your husband is pursuing God and allowing the Lord to replace lies with truth and learning how to let God fill up the empty holes in his heart—if he is sincerely and consistently working on his stuff—then the success of the relationship will depend on whether or not you take your own recovery seriously. Susie Sunshines, we need to take two steps away from our husbands, put up some boundary markers, and surrender our need to be loved to the only One who can truly love us. Stormy Sues, you need to take two steps toward your husbands, lay down your weapons, and surrender your need to control to the only One who has the right to rule and reign in your marriage. Remember, dear sisters, your responsibility is you.
Proverbs 19:5 (NASB) A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who tells lies will not escape.
Proverbs 28:13 (NASB) He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.
–Melissa Haas, The Journey: Book One
More About Susie Sunshines and Stormy Sues:
Journey – Week Thirty-Three-Introducing Susie and Sue
Journey – Week Thirty-Four-More About Susie Sunshine
The problem with secrets is that they only seem to protect us. We think that our only option is to hide the truth—that we’ll be rejected or hurt or destroyed or abandoned if the truth is exposed. And when we are talking about our relationships with other people, some of our beliefs may be valid, at least in part. If you had a physically abusive father, it was dangerous for you to mess up in some way and be honest about it with him. If you were sexually violated or abused by another person as a child or adolescent, all kinds of fears kept you silent—fear that others wouldn’t believe you, fear that the abuser would hurt you, fear that you were to blame, fear that others would think you were gay, fear that others would reject you. Now in your present life you have all of the old fears ruling in the depths of your heart, and as you try to calm those fears and soothe the feelings of shame, you behave in ways that create more fears. You hide your use of pornography and/or your unfaithfulness from your wife because you fear her rejection and scorn. The first secrets beget more secrets until your whole life’s goal is to conceal and hide your struggle from others. And in the process, you also hide from God—or at least you try to.
– Troy Haas, Building for Freedom
Definition of Addiction
Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors.
Addictive Behavior Can Be Characterized by 5 Specific Features:
Source, and further information:
https://www.asam.org/resources/definition-of-addiction
–Reclaiming Families Seminar Workbook
We’ll start this day with a question that burns in all of our hearts at some time or another.
How do I know if my husband has told me everything?
The answer to that question falls somewhere between “You can’t” and “You’ll know.”
Let me put it this way, if your husband is pursuing God and working diligently to replace lies with truth in his heart and life, then he will be completely honest with you and disclose everything you need to know.
On the other hand, if your husband is not pursuing God or working on his stuff, he is probably not going to be honest with you about everything. In that case, God Himself will show you what you need to know.
There are a number of reasons why our husbands may struggle with being completely honest about their sexual behaviors/sin. Obviously, sexual sin causes a lot of shame, and whatever sins the struggler sees as particularly shameful, he may have great difficulty sharing—even with his counselor. A man may also lie if he feels that a particular behavior will result in losses he is not ready to experience—i.e. loss of a job or marriage. If a guy knows that something is going to be particularly hurtful to his wife, he may hesitate to share it, and then there is the whole problem of black-outs. Some addicts literally cannot remember what they’ve done during an addictive cycle. (We had a good friend who would wake up in bed with someone and not remember how he got there.)
For our guys who are pursuing healing, God is always at work in their hearts and minds to renew and transform them. Many times as the Lord moves and ministers in the life of a man involved in the restoration process, He will remind him of secrets that have not been disclosed. Or, if a man has intentionally withheld information because of shame or regret, the Holy Spirit will prompt him to do the pain and be completely honest with his spouse and others. This is a good/bad thing for us as wives. It is good in that our husbands are being renewed and changed. It’s bad when we have to grieve again over things that have happened in the past.
When a husband shares additional information about his sexual sin after the time of formal disclosure has taken place, he is engaging in what I like to call the “dribble” method of disclosure… I hate the dribble method!!!!!!
And to be honest, I hate the fact that there is nothing we can do to ensure that our husbands tell us the whole truth and nothing but the truth during the initial time of disclosure.
–Melissa Haas, The Journey: Book One
Other Recent Posts on Disclosure:
Think about your life right now. If your life is a piece of land on which God wants to build a home, what things are going to have to be dug up or filled in or taken away in order for him to have a level lot on which He can pour a foundation?
The first thing that needs to happen as we rebuild for freedom is the eradication of a pattern of sin that has dominated our lives. That means we need to stop acting out sexually and start living a life that reflects who we are in Christ.
…Don’t worry. I’m the last person to tell you to just stop sinning sexually and expect you to say, “Okay, I’ll quit. No problem.” I know how it feels to be powerless—to promise yourself that you’ll stop and find yourself breaking those promises the very next day. I understand the shame and the feelings of condemnation which have taken up permanent residence in your heart. I’ve lived with the self-hatred and aching loneliness. I know. But I also know that there is hope…
…Think about it. Can you imagine leveling a lot by hand without any help from another person or any tools or machines? It’s impossible. You can’t move a 750lb. boulder by yourself. Sure, you can pull up weeds and thorns and poison ivy. You’ll get a lot of scratches and itchy places. The problem is, as soon as it rains all of it will grow back, and you’ll have to start the process over again. You can kick a little dirt into a gaping ravine, but there is no way you will ever be able to fill it up. Of course, the hopelessness of the task is enough to make even the most determined man throw up his hands toward the sky and say, “Why did you do this to me, God? Why did you give me a job I can’t do? I can’t level this lot! I’m not strong enough. I don’t have anything to protect my hands from the thorns. I don’t have any tools to help me! Why, God? Why?!”
And that’s the point.
– Troy Haas, Building for Freedom
Relationships: With God
• We are meant to have a real and vital relationship with God.
• This relationship becomes our “source” of real life!
• We are meant to live out His design and purpose for our lives.
Relationships: With Self
• Begins with being connected and bonded together with one another.
• Then comes learning to separate from others to form a sense of self. (Boundaries)
• Have a healthy self-concept which includes significance and worth, self-awareness, and self-acceptance.
Relationships: Within Families
• Families provide the environment of safety and acceptance for a child to bond, learn boundaries and gain a healthy sense of self.
• In families, children become prepared for the challenges of life and then are launched into adulthood.
• We are meant to live out His design and purpose for our lives.
–Reclaiming Families Seminar Workbook
If you are going to heal and find freedom for yourself on this journey, you need to be able to look at truth squarely in the eye and seek God’s counsel on how to respond to the reality of your situation. If you deny the truth, you may naively put yourself back into a dangerous and harmful situation, entrusting your heart and body to your husband too soon. If you try to manipulate or change the truth, you may prolong the work God wants to do in your husband’s life. If you stay angry at the reality of your husband’s spiritual and emotional condition, then you become an ally of the enemy, helping him to do his work rather than yielding to the work of God in your life.
–Melissa Haas, The Journey: Book One
Blaming others is giving ourselves away in little pieces. Every time I blame I give power to someone else to define who I am. And every time I give power away to others, I lose the ability to control myself.
Real change can only happen if I harness all of the power God has given me to fight the temptations and trials I am promised on this journey. Our propensity to refuse ownership by blaming others weakens us greatly. Sometimes it is the reason we fail.
Power is released from God in us toward sinful attitudes and behaviors that we own. His power covers, heals, and restores—working in us to make us whole and useful. But when we blame, power leaves us and moves instead to the hand of the enemy who uses it to fuel the destructive cycle of shame, failure, and regret.
Choose to take ownership, and you will choose life.
– Troy Haas, First Steps
Recent Blog posts on Blame:
Here’s the thing. Your beliefs about yourself are absolutely, totally, and inextricably tied to your recovery.
Why?
Because recovery from addiction is only successful when we believe that we are valuable — that we are worth loving.
Because recovery from addiction is only possible when we dare to believe that others love and accept us, even when they know everything about us.
Because recovery from addiction requires us to trust others enough to ask for help.
And because recovery from addiction means we no longer have the need to escape from ourselves through some substance or behavior, since our greatest needs have been met in relationships with God and others.
So, if we are going to be successful in recovery, we must face our shame and find freedom from it.
–Melissa Haas, Emotions 101
Recent Blog Post on Shame:
Now I do want to talk for a few minutes about five different guys. Pay attention because you are probably married to one of them. These guys have all disclosed at least some of their sexual sin and addictive behaviors to a counselor and/or their wives, but in terms of recovery and healing, they are all at totally different places. As you read, look for your husband, remembering that recognizing where he is spiritually and emotionally won’t change him. It is the work of God in his heart that will make the difference. Your job, as I’ve said before, is to pray for him and to work on your stuff. With that in mind, let’s look at the line-up.
We’ll start with Broken Brad. Brad is serious about his healing and restoration. Disclosure was for him the first step toward freedom. He feels greatly relieved to have all of the secrets out in the open, but he is far from a carefree happy guy. The more he comes to his senses, the more pain and regret he is feeling about what he has done. He is diligently pursuing God and sifting and sorting with a counselor. Relationships with other men have become a focus in his life, and for the first time, he is experiencing real intimacy with his peers. Every day he realizes how much he has hurt his wife and family, and his love for them is beginning to blossom into a desperate desire for freedom so that he will not hurt them again. As he relates to his wife, he is very understanding and patient; he knows she needs time to grieve and to see him being consistent over time.
The second guy in the line up is Flippant Fred. Now Fred has disclosed all of his sins and is feeling quite free from all of that sexual addiction stuff. He has felt very sorrowful about his sin, and he’s made a good start in the process—getting back into God’s Word, going to support group, seeing his counselor occasionally. But Fred is getting sucked into the illusion that since he has confessed his sin, he will no longer struggle sexually. He’s not really into looking at his past. You can’t blame your past, you know. You’ve got to make choices in the present. Fred is also not very patient with his wife’s grieving process. Although he may not say it out loud, he really doesn’t understand why she can’t just get over it. Six months should be enough for her to let go of it all and let things get back to normal.
Next in line is Red-Handed Randy. Randy got caught, and the only thing he is really sorry about is getting caught. He really doesn’t think he’s got a problem. Men just have different needs than women. It’s a guy thing. He’s told his wife as little as possible to get her off his back and made a show of getting help. Since he does care about his wife and doesn’t want to lose his family, he’s seen a counselor a couple of times and talked to the guy in charge of the support group. But he figures if he just lays low for a while, gives his wife a lot of attention and buys a few things she’s been wanting for the house, that everything will blow over and life can continue as it was. God is really not in the picture. Randy believes in Him but is unable to relate to Him on a personal level. Whenever he feels bad about himself or what he’s done, he just promises himself that he won’t do it again and escapes the pain in some way—usually by throwing himself into his work or zoning out while watching sports.
Guy number four is Blaming Bill. Bill’s not sorry he got caught; he’s mad. The only thing his wife knows about is the thing she caught him doing. And Bill isn’t planning on disclosing anything else, ever. Anytime she brings up the subject, Bill blows up and tells her either to let it go or leave him. He’s not the problem. Her lack of forgiveness is. Bill won’t take responsibility for his actions, and he habitually blames everyone else for all his problems. The inappropriate sexual behavior is his wife’s fault because she won’t have sex every time he wants to, or it’s the media’s fault because they saturate society with sexual images. Bill goes to counseling and discovers even more people to blame. It’s his dad’s fault because he demanded perfection. It’s his mom’s fault for not nurturing him like she should have. Bill, of course, is not very fun to live with. His wife’s only respite is when he is blaming someone besides her for his problem. Things are half-way bearable on those days. Anger and defensiveness are the hallmarks of Bill’s life, and he can’t heal because he can’t see that he’s the only one responsible for his actions.
Finally, we come to Run-Away Rob. Rob handles the reality of his sexual addiction by pretending that it doesn’t exist. Confronted with evidence of sexual sin, Rob admits to what he’s done and may share bits and pieces of the whole picture, but Rob doesn’t spend a whole lot of time in reality, so it’s difficult for him to be completely honest. Different Robs live in denial in different ways. Some Run-Away Robs just leave the relationship and move on to other relationships and other marriages. Others become so depressed that they are unable to feel or function normally. Still other Robs escape reality by using drugs or abusing alcohol or engaging in other addictive behaviors. Rob may have a relationship with God but since he can’t be real with Him either, Rob feels totally disconnected. The best way to describe Rob is numbed out. He can’t feel, so he can’t heal. Most Robs are really nice guys—funny, laid-back, friendly. The problem is that they can’t tolerate pain long enough to deal with the problem. It’s hard for Rob to leave the comfortable no-feelings existence he has created to insulate himself and to do the pain required to get well. Of course, watching his wife grieve is really uncomfortable, so he either tries to get her to laugh or acts like nothing has happened between them, going on with life as usual.
–Melissa Haas, The Journey: Book One
Other Recent Posts on Disclosure:
Passing the buck seems to be a part of human nature. It’s so instinctive, in fact, that we find the first “Blame Game” taking place between the first man and woman. After Adam and Eve disobeyed God, He questioned them about their sin. Adam’s response? He blamed Eve, who then blamed the devil.
People haven’t changed much since then. We still search for ways to excuse our poor choices. For those of us struggling with sexual sin, we may blame our parents, our wives, even God, for our behavior. But these excuses hold us back from true repentance and delay God’s work in our lives.
It’s human nature to dodge responsibility for our failures. Yet excuses can hamper our recovery and hinder our healing. It’s essential that we take full responsibility for our actions and choices. Honesty will lead us to repentance and humility, and allow God to truly change our hearts and minds.
– Troy Haas, First Steps
Shame is a complicated emotion. In a very healthy way we can feel ashamed of something we have done because our behavior doesn’t match up with what we value or believe. We sense that there is a disconnect between who we are and what we do — an experience common to every human on the planet. And it is this same experience that helps us to realize how much we need a Savior to help us successfully navigate this thing called life. Without Him, we are doomed to fail at loving ourselves and loving others well.
On the other hand, shame can become an emotion infected by toxic beliefs about ourselves which results in an overwhelming sense of defectiveness and worthlessness. We feel that we are uniquely screwed up, and therefore there is no hope for change.
–Melissa Haas, Emotions 101
After a time of formal disclosure has taken place—usually one or two days after the meeting and a wife has had time to process what she has heard—she oftentimes is overwhelmed by a great host of questions that flood her mind, questions she forgot to ask or didn’t think to ask or was too afraid to ask during the disclosure session. A typical response to the anxiety and uncertainty she is feeling is for a wife to corner her husband (either kindly or angrily) and shower him with all of the questions in her heart.
Prepare yourself. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will.
If and when you experience such a time when something triggers all of those fears and doubts and questions, I want to encourage you to take a time out and process what you are feeling and thinking before you approach your husband.
I have found it to be helpful in my own journey if:
›I get away by myself to a place where I can focus and concentrate.
›I invite the Lord to join me in the painful process of fearing and doubting my husband’s integrity and love for me.
›I write down all my questions.
›I read each question and ask myself, “Why do I want to know that?”
›I cross out questions that are asking for more details about things I already know.
›I put a star by questions that seem to be valid concerns and need to be addressed.
›I call my counselor and/or friends from group and ask for feedback on the questions I have marked with a star.
›If others agree that they are valid questions, I plan a time with my husband to discuss them. (You may need to set up another counseling appointment if you have a significant number of questions or if you feel your husband has been dishonest in his initial disclosure.)
–Melissa Haas, The Journey: Book One
Recent Posts on Disclosure:
