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 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 [...]
I knew what had to be done; now I had to convince my body to carry out what my mind was telling me. It was about 9:00 p.m. when I reluctantly began gathering my belongings. I opened my pack and began filling it with my sleeping bag, a lighter, 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 [...]
I carry you with me, everywhere. The lines of my hands resemble yours. The wrinkles beginning to form on my face bear a time when you used to smile. I see you in my crooked nose; it looks a lot like your integrity. These types of recognitions stun me on [...]
Reader's Ask Andrew, My 20-year marriage ended in a rapid divorce last year. We share three children ages 9, 6, and 3. As a pastor's kid, I was steeped in patriarchy and lots of chaos in a dysfunctional family that over-spiritualized life and moralized disagreements to perpetuate enmeshment. I married [...]
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your spouse’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your spouse, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your [...]
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 [...]
A common theme in marriage is a relational dynamic I call “the Savior & the Goat”. Typical Saviors and Goats are initially attracted to each other because of function; each person serves an unconscious role of utility and psychological soothing. For example, if I have a high level of self-contempt [...]
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 [...]
We Christians love a good story. We know that stories are powerful, and sometimes we get caught up in the craving for that power. I've told my life's story hundreds of times. In fact, when I was a pastor, I was applauded time and time again for the “power” of [...]
We cry out for attachment through our excessive violence, our lack of school attendance, the amount of women we seduce, and few understand why we act out. In just three decades, the number of boys living without their biological fathers has doubled. Fifty percent of American children tonight will go [...]
One exercise I do often with clients is have them begin to tell the truth to their parents. This is not an attempt to blame their parents for all their current problems, but rather to reclaim a lost voice. We often relate to our parents the same way [...]
After a few years as a therapist, I realized that a strictly narrative-based approach towards counseling limited the depth of the work that I was able to do with my clients, especially those who were who struggling with unwanted sexual behaviors. I started training with a somatic therapist to step [...]
“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 [...]
As I've become aware of the complexities of sexism, I see the world much differently than I did before. I am beginning to look for ways to raise my children to not “drink the kool-aid” of sexism that is so ingrained in American society, especially in evangelical culture. Recently, my [...]
In Honor of International Women's Day and all the Fierce Women in my life. I am grieved deeply by how many women attempt to become small; I see the way you try your hardest to become less than. Less attractive, less brilliant, less strong, trying your damnedest to become something [...]
It’s a question many women find themselves asking: What if I find out my husband is using porn? The chances are high that your husband has looked at pornography in the past, is currently using it, or will do so in the future. Barna Group’s research found that among Christian [...]
Dear Andrew, Before marriage, I was a sex addict who slept with hundreds of women and struggled terribly with porn. Porn was a struggle in the beginning of our marriage as well, but over time I have learned how to remove it from my life. I have never cheated on [...]
