root out negative emotions

“These enemies of the heart cannot withstand the light of exposure. For you to tell your story would be to drag it out into the light. You know intuitively that bringing it out into the open would cause it to lose its potency, which means you would lose an excuse to stay angry. Besides the whole ordeal would be so uncomfortable that it’s easier just to keep it to yourself.”

Enemies of the Heart, by Andy Stanley, p. 61.

You may be familiar with the phrase “dry drunk”. This statement basically describes a person who is sober, but still presents characteristics of an addict. In other words, they haven’t done the deeper work that heals them of the attitudes and beliefs that led them to becoming an addict/alcoholic in the first place.

The quote from Stanley’s Enemies of the Heart points to people’s emotions and how they hold a person beholden to certain attitudes and ways of relating to people. This is what can happen to many of us in recovery. The hardest thing many of us have done to become clean and sober is to admit that we were powerless, we admitted we were addicts, we admitted we were alcoholics. The bottom-line is we admitted we had no control over our life. In many ways, it’s very demeaning and sometimes embarrassing. Although our honesty leads to our sobriety, often we’re not willing to continue the deeper work of healing because it hurts too much. We don’t want to have to go through it again.

At around 7 years clean and sober, I had a tough time letting go of the idea that I’m a man and I can be intimate with my wife whenever I want. To me, it was an attitude I believed I was entitled too. It was an attitude directly tied to my ego, and it was painful to think that I had to honor my wife with her decision on when to be intimate. To me it was my right to be with her whenever I chose. Only in “agreement” would we abstain from intimacy. And in my mind, I never agreed to not be intimate.

It was a rough period in our marriage. We even went to marriage counseling to resolve our differences. The counseling helped some. At the very least, I learned that my attitudes may have been developed by what society believes a man is supposed to get from his wife. My wife and I still spent many more years battling out our differences.

Then in late 2014, God moved in my heart for my wife and I to practice celibacy for all of 2015. With some reservation (because we tried in 2010, but I fought the idea the whole time), my wife agreed to it. During that year, we prayed together, and read a book on healing from your sexual sins. The book was an in-depth look at how each sexual encounter (whether real or perceived, i.e. pornography) has an effect on your brain. The most important thing my wife and I learned from the book is how we can free ourselves from our sexual sins and start living from a new place together. This is despite all the emotional and spiritual baggage we carried in our marriage for years.

I also learned that it was my ego that kept me trapped in the idea that intimacy was my right as a married man. It was never my right. It was always a privilege; an honor really. I had to fight hard to let go of my incorrect attitude. And of course, I had to ask for my wife’s forgiveness for putting her through so much turmoil during the past 5 years of our marriage.

Later this year, my wife and I will be celebrating 19 years of marriage. We’re committed to each other. And if it’s not obvious by now, our commitment is what has carried us through some rough moments together. I’m not sure why my wife even stuck it out with me. She had every right to leave me for treating her like she was mine to use however I wanted. But she stayed and so did I. And after realizing the truth of my self-limitations, I never wanted her to feel less than what she has always deserved—and that is my best.

Our emotions are like the deep roots of a tree

My best now includes loving her and honoring her as a person. Not treating her like an object, but as someone that is learning and growing in life and loving her just as she is, not what I expect her to be. My wife didn’t need some self-entitled a-hole to act like he deserved anything and everything he wanted. That was never the truth. The truth was there was more for me to learn about my humanity and especially what it means to be a man of God.

“Sometimes, whatever the good Lord needs to teach us comes in ways we don’t see. But it doesn’t mean we’re not supposed to learn something. … And whether it seems fair to me or not, it doesn’t matter. Sometimes life isn’t fair. It’s a hard lesson for folks to learn and most people don’t have to learn it this young. But you do. You hear me?”

Quoted by the character Grandma played by Octavia Spencer, from the movie Roald Dahl’s The Witches (2020).

#neverstoplearning #becomemorethanemotions