Many women long for good and safe men in their lives. Sadly, they are rare, so much so that my wife keeps a list in her top drawer to remind herself that they even exist. Women need more good men. But men also need more good men. We long [...]
In 1955, Housekeeping Monthly published an article called, "The Good Wife's Guide," telling wive’s how to be a “good wife” to their husbands. This is the social norm that laid a foundation that our parents were born into and still permeates in the patriarchal, misogynistic air that we breathe. [...]
It’s rare, but it happens. Abusive men can heal. But by rare, I mean the data is abysmal. Becoming safe and doing the work of healing only happens among roughly 1 in 10 abusive men. Your abusive husband can heal when, and only when, he fully faces the depth of [...]
Merely being a living, breathing human in this gloriously fallen world is a task in itself. Yet throwing in living in partnership, both people attempting to authentically with full desire even more daunting. Marriage is grueling, at times feels like an impossible invitation to the heights of Heaven and the [...]
We love a good narcissist. Like flies drawn to the organic matter within feces, we hover close to a narcissist to try to catch some of what they seem to have, but what they actually offer us is clearly already decaying waste to those who are not the flies. Crude [...]
It's a question I hear often in the work I do with men recovering from unwanted sexual behaviors: “Is accountability software helpful or effective?” My answer, like most of the advice given in this field, is a nuanced one; yes it is, and no it isn’t. Let me explain. [...]
I am realizing that men are innately disconnected from their own bodies in a way that is unique to their maleness. (I am clearly not saying all women are connected to their bodies, clearly, and trauma warps all bodily connection.) But girls grow into womanhood with their monthly cycles literally [...]
*trigger warning: Degrading language, graphic sexual abuse described Patriarchy’s influence on popular culture has made objectification and violence against women normative. We are so accustomed to violence against women, we don’t even react to it anymore. Songs I grew up listening to, for example, “O.P.P." by Naughty By [...]
This is an excerpt from my book, The Sexually Healthy Man For us to break free from our unwanted compulsive behaviors, we must have the courage to delve deeper into our woundedness and explore what lies beneath it. We must begin to kindly yet decisively cut out the roots of [...]
I am proud to feature the work of Dr. Nancy Murphy on my blog today. Dr. Murphy is a professor, former Executive director of Northwest Family Life, and created Speaking Up online course to help educate churches in navigating issues of Domestic Violence. She has been my teacher and supervisor [...]
I hear it time and time again: “She won’t give me sex”, “She won’t give me what I deserve”, “What is wrong with my wife?” Even if these things aren’t said directly, they are often implied. Men feel they deserve sex on-demand from their wives, and that something is wrong [...]
Genesis 1-3 offers a unique view of gender roles within marriage. Genesis 1:27 begins with "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Males and females are both uniquely image-bearers of God, and in that, both deserve [...]
There are many stigmas that need to be broken in the Christian tradition. The stigma of divorce in the Christian community is a phenomenon where folks are, after much pain and heartache, retraumatized and relegated to a second-class-citizen type of Christian and branded as damaged goods, a failure, or both. [...]
I am proud to highlight the work of writer Kaitlin Shetler today on my blog. When I came across this viral piece my heart nearly stopped and started at the same time. I had never thought about Mary this human before. Mary has always felt out of reach, this poem [...]
I am pleased to host a guest post today by therapist Matt Mulder. Until you can name the goodness of what your addiction gave/gives you, you cannot let go of its devastating cycles. I asked her when she first started looking at pornography. She looked up at me with a [...]
Pleased to have a guest post by counselor Stephen Grant today on the blog. Read his bio and check out his work below. As I walked up the outside stairs to the church’s classroom I couldn’t believe it was really happening. I was a dead man walking. Life as I [...]
I am a bowling ball heavy with holes, unwilling to be used by you any longer. You finger me at your will then Throw me away again and again, and again. I have become hard to survive; your grip is squeezing the life from me You toss me away, send [...]
Our genitals are good. They were made for giving and receiving pleasure, new life, and experiencing radical divine joy. Many times our sexual organs get a bad rap. Sometimes we feel they have betrayed us. This happens often in the context of sexual abuse. Many victims of sexual abuse experience [...]
I was attending a professional training group to improve my therapeutic skills when I was brought face to face with deep, lingering fear and shame around my past treatment of women and idolatry of beauty. One of the exercises we were asked to do was to pair up with another [...]
“Getting off is getting off, it doesn’t matter how,” he said with a smirk. “I mean, I’m not gay, I just like busting a nut and don’t care how it happens.” My client’s crude demeanor was no surprise, considering his unwavering narcissism and complete shamelessness. I listened as he described [...]
