Latest / Intentional Guy / WHAT SHE'S NOT TELLING YOU
Transcript
- Michael Chestnut: I've been clean for years now. Years of accountability, years of telling my story on this very podcast. Long enough that I started to believe I've already paid the full price for what I did. Then this week, my wife said one sentence to me that undid all of that in about ten seconds. She didn't bring up the screen. She didn't bring up the past. She told me what it had actually cost her. And I realized I had never once asked her. If you've gotten clean and you think the hard parts behind you, stay with me. And if you're the man still hiding right now, stay with me too. Because what I'm about to tell you applies to both of you, just on different timelines. She's not going to say it tonight. Tonight she's just gonna roll over and say, I'm just tired, and turn off the lights. But somewhere underneath, I'm tired, is a sentence she's never said out loud. Maybe she doesn't even have the words for it yet. But if she did, it might sound like this: Why wasn't I enough to keep you from looking somewhere else? That's not a question about pixels on a screen. That's a question about her worth. And most of us never even know she's asking it. Welcome back to The Intentional Guy. I'm Michael Chestnut. Today we're doing something different. We're not talking about your recovery from pornography. We're talking about what happens on the other side of the bed while you're trying to recover. Because here's the truth. Nobody told me for years. A man can do every right thing. Accountability software, a men's group, total honesty, and still not understand what his struggle did to his wife. And until he understands that, his his recovery is half built. Men, here's the gap. We think pornography is a category problem. It's not real. It's not her. It's just a video. We tell ourselves it doesn't mean anything about our marriage. It's compartmentalizing, contained, separate. She doesn't experience that way, not even close. To her, it's not a category problem. It's a comparison problem. It's not he watched something, it's he chose something else over me with his body, with his eyes, with his attention, the very thing he promised only I would have. You're thinking content, she's hearing covenant. You're thinking behavior I can fix. She's hearing I'm not desirable enough to be fixed for. That gap between what you meant and what she heard is where so many marriages quietly bleed out. Not because she's being unreasonable, because she's right about what her cost. Even when you didn't intend to cost her anything. I need to be honest with you about something. Because I almost didn't put it in this episode. I'm years into full restoration now. I've told my story on this podcast more times than I can count. I thought I understood what my struggles had done to my marriage. But I didn't. It wasn't until I sat down to prep this episode to talk to you about the gap between what men think and what wives feel. that I actually had a conversation with my wife. And what she told me wasn't new information about what happened. She wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know about my own history. What she gave me was something I never let myself hear. What it actually did to her. It wasn't really about the screen. It's never really about the screen. For her, it translated into one sentence she had been carrying quietly, underneath everything, for longer than I want to admit. I wasn't enough. He wanted to go somewhere else. Years into restoration, and I was hearing about that for the first time, not because she never tried to tell. Because I never actually sat still long enough to receive it. I'd move on to fixing my behavior so fast that I skipped the part where I let her tell me what the behavior had cost her. That's why I'm telling you this before we go any further. Recovery from the act and recovery of your marriage are not the same timeline. You can do Everything right for years and still owe your wife a conversation you've never had. And here's the part I have to own, because I think it's true of most of us, not just me. Men are selfish by nature, not always on purpose, but selfish. And when you add shame on top of that, it gets worse. Shame makes a man go quiet. So we tell ourselves the quiet is protection. I don't want to hurt her any more than I already have. So I just won't bring it up again. That sounds noble. It's not noble. It's comfortable for us. Because the truth is, our silence doesn't protect her. It troubles her more than the conversation ever would. She left to get she's left to guess, to wonder, to fill in the blanks herself. And she usually fills them in worse than the truth actually is. The silence isn't sparing her pain. It's just sparing us the discomfort of facing what we did. We've said it on this podcast more times than I can count. Recovery means you stop hiding. I believe that. I taught that. And I still had my head in the sand with the one person who paid the highest price for my struggle, my own wife. That's not fair to her. She deserves better than my comfort. Here's what's strange. Finding that out, hearing what it actually did to her didn't set me back. It did the opposite. It gave me more drive toward real freedom than I had had in years. Because now I'm not just running from a behavior. I'm running toward a woman I almost let Carrie it alone. And I'm not taking one step backwards from that. Not now, not at all. I've sat across the table from enough wives in counseling rooms and celebrate recovery groups in the quiet aftermath of a husband's confession to tell you the questions are almost always the same, not identical words, same wounds. Was I not pretty enough? Not enough? How long do I have to keep checking his phone to feel safe? Is this still happening and I just don't know yet? If I forgive him, does that mean I have to pretend this didn't change anything? Notice, none of those are really about the videos. They're about her body, her safety, her future, and her place in your eyes. Pornography doesn't just compete with her for your attention. In her mind, it puts her in a beauty pageant she never signed up for against women who aren't real, who never age, who never say no, who never ask anything of you. She cannot compete with that. And some part of her knows it. That's not insecurity. That's an accurate read of an impossible standard you've quietly placed in the room with her. Now here's what God says about This isn't a new problem. This is not a modern problem. Proverbs five was written for exactly this. The father in that chapter warns his son about the woman who isn't his wife, the cheap substitute that promises pleasure and delivers regret. But the chapter doesn't end with the warning. It ends with an invitation. Drink water from your own cistern. It says, Rejoice in the wife of your youth. Let her breast satisfy you at all times. Be intoxicated always in her love. Now that's Proverbs 5, verses 15 through 19. And I want you to hear what's actually being said here. God's design was never deprivation. God's design was never reprivation. That's Proverb five, verse fifteen through nineteen. Now let's go further up. This isn't a new problem, and it's not a modern problem. Proverbs five was written for exactly this. The father in that chapter warns his son about the woman who isn't his wife, the cheap substitute that promises pleasure and delivers regret. But the chapter doesn't end with the warning. It ends with an invitation. Drink water from your own cistern. It says rejoice in the wife of your youth. Let her breast satisfy you at all times. Be intoxicated always in her love. That's Proverbs five, verse fifteen through nineteen. And I want you to hear what's actually being said there. God's design was never depressed. God's design was never deprivation. It was never deny yourself and white knuckle it. His design was exclusive, abundant satisfaction in one woman, the one he gave you. That word always matters. Not when she's exactly what you want, not when the season is easy. Always. Pornography isn't dangerous because desire is bad. It's dangerous because it trains your desire to wander away from the one cistern God actually built for you to drink from, and your wife feels every degree of that wondering, even when you're never physically leaving the house. So if she's carrying all that, what does she need? Not a perfect man, not a man who never struggles. She needs three things, and none of them are complicated. Even though all of them are hard. She needs the truth before she has to go find it herself. Confess on your timeline, not the timeline forced on you by a discovered phone or a missed login. She needs your eyes, not your apology. Your eyes, apologies are words. Eye contact over time rebuilds the things words can't. The sense that she is being seen again, chosen again, on purpose, every day, not just in a crisis. And she needs your community. This is the part men skip. You cannot make your wife your only accountability. That's not intimacy. That's putting her in the position of policewoman. And it will exhaust her and resent you both. She needs to watch you walk towards other men, not just towards her, because a man surrounded only stays surrounded if someone else besides his wife is checking on him. Now, let me talk strength to a different guy for a minute. Now let me talk strength to a different guy for a minute. Maybe that's you. Maybe you haven't told her anything yet. Maybe you're sitting on a secret right now, telling yourself you'll bring it up when the time is right. I need you to hear something, and I need you to hear it from a man who waited too long on his own version of this. There is no version of hiding that costs less the longer you do it. Every week of silence isn't neutral. It's not you waiting for the right moment. It's compound interest on a debt she's going to have to pay eventually, whether you tell her or she finds out. Here's the math nobody wants to do. If she finds out in a year instead of hearing it from you tonight, she's not just grieving the original thing. She's grieving the years you let her live next to you without the truth. She's grieving every conversation where you could have told her and didn't. The longer you wait, the bigger the second's wound gets. The longer you wait, the bigger the second wound gets. The second wound, the decision. Here's the math, nobody wants to tell you. If she finds out in a year instead of hearing it from you tonight, she's not just grieving the original thing. She's grieving the years you let her live next to you without the truth. She's grieving every conversation where you could have told her and didn't. The longer you wait, the bigger the second wound gets. And the second wound, the deception on top of the struggle is Is very often what does more damage than the struggle itself. Proverbs 28:13 says it plainly. Whosoever conceals their sin does not prosper. But whosoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Concealing doesn't protect you, it just delays the reckoning and grows the cost while you wait. So here's the truth. So here's the truth I want to leave with you. Specifically, the sooner you confess, the sooner healing can actually start for her and for you. Confession today is painful. Confession in six months is devastating. Same sentence, same words, but the longer you wait to say them, the more they cost both of you. You are not protecting her by waiting. You are only protecting yourself and only for a little while. Here's what I want you to do this week. Not start a new accountability app, not buy a book, sit down with her, not in the middle of a fight, on a normal Tuesday, and ask her one question, the one I should have asked her years ago. What has my struggle cost you that I never asked about? Then don't defend, don't explain. Just listen long enough to actually hear the sentence she never said out loud. That's where real recovery starts. Not when you stop looking at something, when you start looking at her. If you're done hiding and you don't know who to tell first, if you're close enough to grab coffee, let's do that. And if you're not, if you're listening from somewhere, I can't just meet you. Okay, let's do this again. That's where we'll recover. Here's what I want you to do this week. Not to start a new accountability app, not buy a book, sit down with her, not in the middle of a fight, on a normal Tuesday, and ask her one question, the one I should have asked her years ago. What has my struggle cost you that I never asked about? Then don't defend, don't explain, just listen long enough to actually hear The sentence she never said out loud. That's where real recovery starts. Not when you stop looking at something, but when you start looking at her. If you're done hiding and you don't know where to tell who to, if you're done hiding and you don't know who to tell first, if you're close enough to grab coffee, let's do that. And if you're not, if you're listening from somewhere, I can't just meet you. DM me or drop a comment below and I will reach out to you personally. I'm right here. Let's get coffee. Let me be your friend. Let me walk beside you. I'm Michael Chestnut. And until next time, just keep being intentional.