Fight For Love

In this third installment of our 'In the Trenches' series we bring you Leeah's story of Fighting For Love, overcoming both bad advice and an unsupportive church environment. She also shares the practical steps taken by her and husband, plus the stories in the Bible that sustained and inspired her.

Today we bring you the second of our 'In the Trenches' series with Tanya's inspirational walk of faith through the pain and rejection of a porn affected marriage.

To encourage others to come out of the shadows and walk in the light about porn addiction in their marriage, our little band of brave women is stepping up like never before, boldly sharing why and how they are currently Fighting For Love in their marriages. Today we bring you the first of our 'In the Trenches' series with Jen's incredibly story of courage and faith straight from the frontline.

Fantasy in films and books is promoted and sold as a socially acceptable coping mechanism, and yet for those of us in difficult and painful situations it can develop into a self-destructive crutch. Joining us today to unpack the topic of fantasy addiction is Lacy Bentley, an award winning author, women's mentor and coach, and founder of Women United Recovery Coalition. In her warm, engaging, and compassionate way, Lacy takes us by the hand and leads us through this tender topic, and gives us a practical roadmap out of the shadows and into the light. If you are feeling a little apprehensive about this topic, fear not, there is no blaming or guilting in this episode just an inspiring call to step up, face the truth, heal your wounds, learn to love yourself, and move forward.

In this hope filled and inspiring conversation with Dr Juli Slattery, clinical psychologist, author, speaker and the president/co-founder of Authentic Intimacy, we delve deep into the mystery and majesty of the purpose of sexuality as per God's design. Her most recent book Rethinking Sexuality is a resource like no other, brilliantly fleshing out exactly what we are fighting for when we Fight For Love in our relationships. Also don't forget to check out her podcast Java with Juli.

If you are seeking affordable, easily-accessible community and support for betrayal trauma here's another terrific option for you! Melissa Ruff is the director for Live Free Wives, a long-time group leader for betrayed women, and is studying to become a Licensed Professional Counselor. She lives with her husband of 13 years and their three wonderful children. Melissa has walked the long road of healing from betrayal and knows the difficulties that betrayed spouses face. When she was in the thick of it, there was no community for her to join, and no one that felt safe enough to walk this journey with. That is why Melissa is incredibly passionate about Live Free Wives and cannot wait for you to join the Live Free Wives community!

This is the second part of my highly informative conversation with Marilyn Evans and Melody Bergman, founders of Parents Aware, and the hosts of the Media Savvy Moms Podcast.In this episode we tackle:How to build up digital trust with our kidsWhat to do if they have been exposed to pornographySigns that they might be addicted to pornographyWhat to do if you suspect that they are addictedHow to manage playdates and those awkward conversations with other parents

Joining us to talk about strategies and tools to help us protect our kids from pornography are passionate pioneers Marilyn Evans and Melody Bergman, founders of Parents Aware, and the hosts of the Media Savvy Moms Podcast. In the first of this two part conversation we are introduced to the wealth of resources freely available to help us tackle this difficult challenge and calm our fears. Topics covered today include: Dealing with distance learningAnime Why we need to talk about healthy sexualityHow to start conversation about porn when your kids are different ages,Where to start with technological solutions

Continuation of frank discussion with Mark, Jake and Josh. On today's episode they talk about going through 90 days of celibacy, relapses in recovery, action steps to rebuild trust , sharing triggers, temptation to lust at the beach, helping a wife's triggers, and how their life and their view of their spouse has changed in recovery.

Here to answer the questions that you really wanted answering are three of our husbands, Mark, Jake and Josh. On today's episode they talk about: what prompted them to get into recovery: how they felt about doing a full disclosure and joining a group; and what helped them learn how to be intimate and empathetic with us.

Why is having a partner addicted to porn so traumatic? How does trauma affect the body? Why is getting to the truth so important? Is your behavior controlling or are you just seeking safety? What can you do if your partner won't tell you the whole truth, or if they refuse to get into recovery? What can you do if you get triggered when you are with your partner? And why is it so important to deal with present betrayal trauma first before diving into past trauma work.

Sometimes the truth is easier to hear from somebody else. Someone who's been there, and isn't there any more. If you have a spouse who doesn't see why they should get into recovery, or even why you see it as such a problem here's an episode for you to share with them.

If you need to hear a message of hope today, this is the episode for you. So good we are running it again for those of you who have joined us recently.

In this episode Rosie reads the introduction and Chapter 1 to give you a taste of the information you will find in our Biblical Battleplan Fight For Love.

Be encouraged and blessed by the honesty of our very own Jené, as she describes her and her husband's recovery journey.

Grab your partner and listen together to this great conversation with author, podcaster, and founder of www.husbandmaterial.com, Drew Boa. After God saved his marriage before it started, Drew was given a passion to help other Christian men experience healing. Now he has an amazing platform and ministry helping other guys find freedom from porn.

Porn proofing our kids doesn't have to be scary and overwhelming. Today we're bringing you this uplifting and practical conversation from Daniel and Christina Im on the IMBetween Podcast and our very own Rosie Makinney.4 steps to help porn-proof your childrenSigns to look for to know if your child is watching pornHow you can support your child if they are struggling with a porn addictionIncredible age-appropriate resources to help you continue this important conversation with your kids and teens

Listen in to Gigi Hopkins, Wives Care Coordinator at Be Broken Ministries, describe her gentle introductory 6 week course for wives of porn addicts. If you have fears and apprehensions about taking the next step into recovery, this may be just what you are looking for.

Watching movies and shows today in recovery is extra challenging when sex and nudity have pretty much become the norm. Here are some of our favorite websites and services that take all the hard work out of finding something safe to watch, which enables you to actually relax and enjoy your time together.

Listen in on this great conversation between Dr Juli Slattery, president and founder of Authentic Intimacy, and our very own Rosie Makinney. Here they talk about equipping women with the appropriate steps to fight for their marriages, how to help their husbands, and find support for their own healing. Where do you draw boundaries? How do you know if he’s in a healthy support group? Is it okay to take time off from sex? They address all of those questions and more in this episode of Juli's own podcast Java with Juli. Grab your java and join us!

For the benefit of our new listeners we are rerunning one of our first episodes to help you understand what you in for when you embark on this journey of recovery. We give you an overview of the whole process, and explain the different stages of recovery. We also share what it was really like having to embark on this challenging and unknown journey, not because of something we had done, but because of something our husbands had done.

Ready to take that next step and reach out for your own support ? This could be just what you have been looking for. Today I interview Lyschel Burket. She has been working with women since 2008 as they take steps toward healing and their pursuit of God as they face sexual betrayal in their marriage. She has facilitated support groups specific to partners since 2013 both locally in Knoxville, TN and online through Vicki Tiede Ministries. After serving in these two spaces for almost 5 years Lyschel returned to school and obtained her coaching certification in recovery work. Lyschel is a Professional Coach, and Certified Partner Coach with APSATS (The Assoc of Partners of Sex Addicts Trauma Specialists). Lyschel is the Lead Hope Caster and Founder of Hope Redefined. She desires to be a part of something so much bigger than herself as she continues to expand the reach of support for women who are facing similar things to her own recovery story. She and her husband Garren live in Knoxville, TN with their 5 kiddos. Lyschel and Garren have been on the road of recovery since 2006. Hope Redefined is 501(c)3 not for profit that supports women facing sexual betrayal. They offer online support groups, one to one coaching, an intensive healing retreat, a private online community, and community education. This ministry is a community for women to link arms and walk their paths of healing. You can learn more about Hope Redefined on their website at http://www.HopeRedefined.org

Whether you want to know everything or absolutely nothing that is going on inside your husband's head, it's good to know what level of sharing from him is going to help you heal and move forward and what is going to hold you back. Learn why being your husband's primary accountability partner is a bad idea, and also why basing your feeling of stability and safety on his thought life is a precarious and ineffective strategy.

To help you discern whether the person you have found will be able to help you navigate through the tricky waters of recovery, I have enlisted the help of my husband, Mark Makinney, a Certified Sexual Addiction Therapist, to talk us through the important areas to consider.

In this rich and candid interview Cat draws from her personal and professional experience of dealing with betrayal trauma. Here's a therapist we wish we could clone for all our listeners! This is a MUST LISTEN! Cat Etherington is Head of Recovery for UK based charity Naked Truth Project. Naked Truth Project formed with a vision to Open Eyes and Free Lives fro the Damaging Impact of Pornography. As a multi skilled practitioner, international educator and speaker, Cat has pioneered multiple online recovery and healing resources for men and women impacted by problematic sexual behaviours, both their own and that their spouse or partner. Drawing on her own personal addiction and betrayal trauma recovery journeys, as well as her multiple professional trainings and certification, Cat (along with the rest of the Naked Truth Recovery team) supports men and women from around the world with skill and compassion.

In this episode I have the pleasure of being joined by Jenaye White, publicity and marketing guru at LifeWay, to talk about two exciting new initiatives that can help you bring the message of Fight For Love to women at your church. Firstly, we talk about a seven day devotional for wives of porn addicts, and secondly we explain a terrific new initiative called Stay On The Same Page, created to help churches stay connected and study together at this challenging time. After we explain how 'Fight For Love - Stay On The Same Page' works, we tackle all the possible objections you might face from others and from your own brain!

On this episode the team tackle two very common questions: Will I ever feel the same way about my husband again?Will it help if I take pictures of myself for him?

Even if your husband remains unrepentant and refuses to seek help there is still great hope for a joy-filled transformed life for yourself and your children. In this episode Ruth describes her own healing journey beyond her divorce from her porn addicted husband.

**A must listen for anyone who doesn't believes that porn use affects relationship** In this most vulnerable of episodes we share exactly how our husband's porn addictions affected us, and what it was like to draw that initial line in the sand on porn. It was not knowledge that drove us to set boundaries it was sheer pain. If we could go back and tell our younger selves one thing this is what we would say!

To help us unpack what to do when your porn addicted spouse is also abusive, we have enlisted the expertise of Jeneane Nicodemus (Associate Marriage and Family Therapist), a survivor of domestic violence and therapist at Stand Strong, a women's shelter for survivors of domestic violence in San Luis Obispo County, California. F

True to form, we're kicking off our new season by getting real about how this pandemic is kicking our collective butt, and we're not even in the heat of an active addiction. In this episode we share the reality of a rapidly growing global porn pandemic, and emphasize the importance of upping up your self-care and seeking support.

Grab your hankies, and join us as we reflect on God's goodness and grace in our lives.

Rosie shares the joys and the challenges of writing the book, and the team reveal what motivated them to share their stories with the world. Praise for Fight for Love by Dr. Josh McDowell, renowned author and speaker: "Using neuroscience and Scripture, and unflinching honesty, Rosie brings hard facts and hard truths for these hard times. This book has a challenging message, but it is beautifully wrapped in hope and grace and gentle humor. I’d consider it essential reading for Christian wives trying to navigate life and relationships in a pornified culture. It’s time to equip and encourage women to pick up their swords and join in the fight.”

With all the anxiety, uncertainty and free porn (courtesy of porn hub) floating about, the epidemic of porn in the church is only going to get worse. Pastors are required to step up to the plate and deal with this crisis head on. Here are over ten years of personal and professional experience of successfully dealing with porn addiction condensed into 50 mins from husband and wife team Mark and Rosie Makinney.

Telling your kids the truth about what is really going on in your marriage is daunting for everyone. In this episode we share candidly our own experiences to give you hope that this is not only doable, but extremely beneficial for your entire family. We also share practical resources that we found useful to facilitate the conversation.

Identifying codependent ways of interacting that have been negatively impacting your relationship is both daunting and liberating. Join us discussing one of our favorite topics. This is where true transformation begins! And as Miranda says 'choosing to look at your codependency is the least codependent thing you can do!'

In this episode we give you the inside scoop on what it's really like to be part of a wives recovery group. As daunting and scary as it was walking into our first group, all of us agree that the fellowship that we gained through recovery was absolutely life-changing. Recovery groups are real, and precious, not to mention avenues of healing - they will ruin you for other groups!

Against the typical advice you may get from a friend or well-meaning counselor, a period of celibacy is highly recommended at the beginning of recovery. Having more sex is not the answer, especially in the weeks following a full disclosure. Your husband’s altered expectations around sex need time to reboot, as does his warped view of reality. The suggested time frame for celibacy is normally ninety days. This provides time for husbands to “dry out.”You’re probably familiar with the concept of detox or “drying out” in relation to drugs or alcohol, but you may not be aware that it also applies to porn. Drying out from porn is a difficult and gradual process. You can’t just pour your secret stash down the sink and be done with it. It’s stuck inside your head, available to get you high at any time.But your husband is not the only one who will benefit from a break from sex. Recovery also means reclaiming those aspects of your own sexuality that have been impacted and damaged by his addiction. Taking time out to heal your sexual wounds is critical. Ninety days is recommended guideline, not a rule.

In this episode we demystify another aspect of recovery and talk about preparing for unexpected patches of extreme turbulence before they happen. The time to think about what to do if your husband relapses is not after the event, but before. A safety plan is a personalized, practical plan of what to do if your husband looks at porn again. The point of the safety plan is not to punish him but to help you respond in a healthy and effective way.

The Partner Response Survey is a self-assessment form that helps you identify ways that your husband’s compulsive porn use has affected you mentally, physically, sexually, and spiritually. In a supervised session, you read your answers aloud, and your husband is not permitted to respond or defend himself. He simply has to hear you. Without name-calling or blaming, you express your hurt, pain, frustration, anger, and disgust without fear of contradiction or reprisal. Exploring how your husband's porn addiction has affected you is critical for your healing. Sharing it with your husband in a safe and controlled environment is also crucial for his healing. In terms of building intimacy and restoring trust, feeling able to expressing how you feel is key. Filling in the Partner Assessment helps facilitates a hard honest conversation that has to happen.

Disclosure a pivotal and powerful moment in recovery. It's both terrifying and transformational. Often describes as ground zero--or the moment our marriage truly began--it can also be an extremely daunting and painful experience.Disclosure is a planned facilitated event where a husband reads out a prepared document to his wife detailing his sexual acting out with porn or other people. In this episode we share honestly about our own experience and give practical ways to prepare beforehand. We also reveal that although the whole process was extremely challenging, we are extremely grateful that it happened.

Reaching out to support that is safe and qualified to speak into you life is crucial. Listening to well meaning, but ill-informed friends and family, or even counselors or even pastors can derail your recovery before it has even got started. Learn from our experiences and mistakes, and find comfort in the fact God will not leave you in the desert, without the right help.

Both the betrayal and the deception aspects of having a porn addicted spouse is devastating. In this episode we dig deep into our experiences of restoring trust, and share how, in the process, we discovered a whole new level of intimacy in our marriage. We also explain how getting into recovery forced us to look at some of our own issues that were getting in the way of our own ability to be truly vulnerable and communicate effectively ourselves.

What are you in for when you embark on this journey of recovery? In this episode we give you an overview of the whole process, and explain the different stages of recovery. We also share what it felt like when our husband’s porn addiction picked us up and hurled us down the rabbit hole of recovery. How we really felt about the fact that now we had to embark on this challenging and unknown journey, not because of something we had done, but because of something our husbands had done.

In this episode we correct the lie that you are responsible for your husband's compulsive porn use. We talk about the impact of believing this lie and all the ways that we tried to fix the problem on our own. Then we dive into the scientific research and look at what is really going on in his brain. We explain why he looks at porn, why he can't stop and also why he is unlikely to reach out for help without your intervention.

In this episode we share what it is like to be married to a porn addict, showing you how compulsive porn use affects not just your sex life, but all aspects of your relationship. Being able to recognize these red flags will enable you to take decisive action sooner.

In this episode we talk about how we felt when we discovered that our husbands had a problem with porn. Then we share all the unsuccessful ways that we tried to fix the problem on our own which were a complete waste of time and energy. In the second half of this episode we take you through four helpful things that you can do.

In this short and sweet episode, you will meet the team: Rosie, Miranda, Crystal, Mindy and Jené, and hear our hearts to help women dealing with porn addiction in their marriage. We talk about what topics we will be covering in season 1, and the episodes that we are really looking forward to sharing with you.