September 9, 2005 was the worst day of my life. Confronted by my church board leaders, I had to admit my addiction to porn and headed home to tell my wife and four children. I knew a major train wreck was about to happen, and there was nothing I could do. My sin had been found out and I had no idea of the consequences that were going to unfold.
If you are facing that reality, I have a few suggestions that will help.
It feels like the hardest thing in the world to do. You know this news is going to wound her deeply and you have used that as an excuse to not confess. You reason, “If I keep it a secret and she never knows your marriage will be better and I will be able to stop on my own.”
Look in the mirror and say to yourself, “Liar!”
The truth is you have already wounded her and your marriage. She just doesn’t know why there is this barrier between the two of you. Here is your reality.
- Your use of porn is heart adultery according to Jesus in Matthew 5:28.
- This has gone on for years and perhaps decades and you haven’t stopped.
- You are scared to death of what this confession will do to her, you, and the family.
I understand your fears and I know it is the last thing you want to do. Yet, it has to be done…so what is the best way to tell her?
I lived in that world for years. Not until I resigned my position as a pastor and was forced to confess was I able to do it. Nine years later our marriage is still intact and God has healed our wounds and inhabits our brokenness every day. Getting through it with your marriage surviving can be helped or hindered by how you deal with your disclosure. So here are five things that will prove helpful to you.
- Tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. What you plan on telling her will not be the same as what she will want to know. The truth is how often you act out using porn. The when and the where are important facts. The details are not. Too many details will be destructive for her in the long run.
- Consider telling her in the presence of a counselor or pastor. Having someone there to help moderate the conversation can be helpful to things escalating and becoming worse. That third person should be made aware of what is going to happen in the meeting and should be someone your spouse is comfortable with.
- Confession is the beginning of the long journey of recovery. Hopefully you are broken by your bad choices and desire to really stop and get the help you need to walk in purity. This is a reality most people want to minimize. Seeing this as a first step is good but having a plan for recovery helps give hope. Find what groups there are in your area that deal with sexual brokenness and make plans to attend consistently. You should plan on attending at least for one year.
- Genuinely ask for forgiveness and be repentant. It will not be your words from which she will receive assurance. Talk is cheap. It will be a change in your behavior and seeing godly sorrow that will help her. She will feel that she cannot trust you…and that is normal. However, she needs to place her trust in God that whatever you do He will take care of her.
- Realize that this will be traumatic for her and create desperation and wounding.
Nothing is going to make this easy. Looking back, I wish I had come forward and confessed before I was caught. If I were a better man I would have done so. However, the bottom line is you need to come clean. You need to be honest.
Your Father, your Lord and Savior, and the Spirit—your comforter and counselor—will walk you through it. You need to allow Him to begin dealing with putting the broken pieces together. It all begin with walking in the light of confession and repentance.
Over the past 9 years I have worked with many men trying to break free from this sexual sin. The support and encouragement from your wife will be a very helpful part of the process. However, that is a decision she will need to make on her own. What you do and how you act in the days following your confess will either help her come along side of you or push her away.
It is time to be a humble and loving servant to her as we are commanded to love our wives as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25).
Here is the thing Luke…Most of us wives went into marriage thinking we would fulfill our husbands sexual/intimacy desires. Then low and behold we find them scouting for other women to tittiliate themselves…and more often than not, we find that they lose interest in the marriage on many different levels and sex/intimacy comes to a screeching hault or is SEVERLY PERVERTED.
So this DOES affect the entire quality of the marriage. You cannot expect a wife to WANT a husband who destroys her sexual self esteem and make her feel USED…or can you? Marriage is not a license to degrade and destroy…and being married does NOT give a man the right to think that his wife HAS to put up and amp it up after she is treated repeatedly like this.
I am sweet and good looking. But my husband is in for thrills and/or seducing other women for his ego needs…not because I was not “putting out” regularily.
He is not longer “doing porn” as far as I know (at home)…but every night he spends 6 hours or more playing Party Poker online. During the day, he does not lift a finger at our home except to take out the trash. He is so disconnected from me and our life that I feel single and used. So it would be a relief he would just go away rather than burden me down further with his “needs” at this point. Either that, or repent and learn what being a MAN is really all about. So until I see REAL change (rather than lip service) then NO, I am NOT putting out. I will know when he is serious when the Poker stops sucking all his time because it strongly indicates that he is still an addict…still looking for thrills and an emotional high from external sources.
So sorry to hear about what your husband has done and continues to do in your marriage. I hear more and more stories like this through the comments on our blog—after reading these comments for 7 years you begin to wonder whether there is hope.
I completely understand where you are coming from and I agree with you wholeheartedly. I’m sorry if any of my articles or comments have led you to believe I don’t agree. For a husband to command his wife to “put out” (even on the basis of some biblical concept) is not at all displaying the character of Christ.
Guess what, Luke, I was doin’ some prayin’ earlier, and I was doin’ some thinkin’, and my conscience was doing some nagging, as it periodically does, and it moved to the front burner a certain comment Andrew had made recently: “…we husbands are the ones primarily responsible for the well-being of the relationship”, to which I had agreed. Problem was PRIDE, though. So I wrestled in prayer with it for a while, and I finally lit on a pretext for making a small move towards entente with the “enemy”. Well, I can say it has met with some modest success, but the credit is the Lord’s.
Anyway, I was also saved tonight from being bitten by a poisonous snake, and the credit is totally the Lord’s! I won’t bore you with details but the incident involved my disposing of the trash, uncustomarily turning on the yard light (didn’t need it before, sure do now), seeing the critter in time, and being able to dispatch it. Now, I don’t wish to compare my little ophic encounter to the Savior’s anguish in Gethsemane, but the symbolism of my minor victory over my own pride (as with Jesus’ hard-won victory over the Adversary and subsequent squishing of a serpent) wasn’t lost on me. Whew!
Thing is, though, that I’ve also realized I’m being a bull in a china shop. The individuals who resort to Covenant’s blog aren’t helped by my creative contributions, my memoirs, or concentrated criticism, and “a man (or woman) convinced against his/her will is of the same opinion still”, anyway. Therefore, I’ve decided to give you all a good, long holiday from Xaviar the Horrible. I hope your company can continue serving the needs of those troubled in various ways by pornography. And when I am sure I have something truly helpful (and on-topic) to say… Ahl be baack! So carry on, folks, carry on.
(Just one last thing in parting, Luke: please quote me accurately before you post, thank you. If you review my comment for April 14, 2015 on your article of the preceding day, [and misquoted above] you will see that nowhere did I state that “wives should be aware” of anything, but whether “you [left] out the part about how a sexually-active man needs physical release every 72 hours or so… And this can be achieved sans pornography as well as WITHOUT the old ball-and-chain…” [emphasis mine]. With the respect I hold for you, I prefer to think that it was an oversight on your part and not a case of false witness. Best regards, all the same.)
Xavier’s comments. This guy goes to many different blog topics here to twist and challenge what would otherwise be great points and helpful for many to consider. Those who would otherwise want to make comments or ask questions fear getting a slur of “feedback” directed to them from people like him. He has done this many times. It would be one thing just to give an opinion…it is another to have to be directly challenged and being made to feel stupid by him. Being “vile” and nasty is not the only way to frighten away people searching for help and answers. using psychological mind games is quite effective also. Thanks for your consideration.
To Sweetz and Xavier,
Sweetz, as a general rule, I allow most comments on the blog unless it is clearly spam or from someone who is spewing venomous language. Often the line between someone who just disagrees and someone who is really being hateful is a blurry one, and it is often just a judgment call on our part. Some people seem genuinely open to dialogue and clarification. Others just want a podium to tell people how stupid they are. Over time Xavier has proven to be more of the former. On several of his comments, he seems genuinely concerned that people not dishonor God with lies, and he appreciates good Biblical commentary, and this is to be commended.
That said, Xavier, a lot of women who come here are looking for encouragement and answers, and the best way to do this is not to bring up how quarrelsome, grumpy, and hot-tempered some wives can be, how wives should be attentive to a man’s need for sexual release, how wives should be called to task for their unchristian character, how wives can be uninteresting in their personality and unadventurous in bed. Looking back over the last three months, this is the tenor I read in many of your comments. Even taking for granted there are women in the world who meet this description, it shouldn’t be a surprise that a blog frequented by women who feel hurt by their husbands’ use of porn is not the most receptive place for this message.
Let me tell you how I approach my writing. Picture a triangle: the top corner we will label “Saint.” The bottom two corners we will label: “Sufferer” and “Sinner.” I believe most Christians looking for answers start in one of the two bottom corners: they identify primarily as a Sufferer (“someone has sinned against me, and I want the pain to stop”) or a Sinner (“I am sinning against God and others, and I want to stop”). In reality, we are simultaneously both: we are sinned against and we react sinfully to our sinful world.
1. The goal in my communication is to first start where the reader is (affirming them in the suffering or sinfulness they feel)…
2. …and then over time move them to the center of the triangle where they embrace a holistic identity, not seeing themselves merely as victims but as participants, not seeing themselves merely as guilty, but as wounded.
3. Finally we move to the top of the triangle where our primary identity is one of Saint, where we can see both our suffering and our sin in light of all Christ has done for us.
This is, in a ways, the gospel in slow-motion. Most articles here are entry points. For the women who are betrayed by a spouse’s porn use, we do everything in our power relate to them as they see themselves in that moment, as Sufferers (because they genuinely are). On a similar note, our entry level articles for porn-struggling men are written from the standpoint of the Sinner identity. Since this is a blog and not a book, most of what we write camps out in these corners, but on occasion we push our reader more to the center and to the top (and we do this especially in our e-books and e-courses).
I say this, Xavier, because I really do understand your pain—you are all too aware of how a troubled marriage can lead to suffering and discontent. From the sound of your comments, you seem to be very introspective and self-aware. But when you show up on articles that are deliberately trying to help women to acknowledge the realness and impact of their suffering, to mourn the wrongness of it, jumping to “But you ladies have got a thing or two to repent of,” will probably fall on deaf ears.
Keep this in mind as you comment. Please, feel free speak from your heart about your personal story, but resist the urge to try to fix society by universalizing your experiences.
It may seem like I’m picking on you, Xavier, but I’m not. When women show up, obviously hurt by their experiences, casting all men as animals and monsters, I try my best to set them straight, too.
Sorry for the mini-sermon, but I wanted to explain some of my own rationale as the moderator of this blog.
Hey, Luke, no sweat, man! After all, it’s YOUR blog, and… (Ha! Gotcha..!) Naw, you’ve got a moderating job to do, and we wouldn’t respect you as much if you neglected it, now, would we? And, for that matter, I think you’re doing a great job of addressing the varying – and sometimes conflicting – concerns of ALL your stakeholders regarding Covenant’s services. So, rest assured, NO hard feelings here, and I hope, none at your end.
But: tone down the ebullience, you say? For the sake of more sensitive souls in our midst? Sure thing, pardner! After all, I wouldn’t for the world want to ADD to anyone’s angst or adversely affect Covenant Eyes’ fulfillment of its mission. Actually, I’m very grateful that I’ve been tolerated on your blog all this time. And I want to reassure female COMMENTERS that they have no need to “fear getting (anything from me) directed to them”, since I address individual women only when spoken to.
You see, for reasons all my own, I direct almost the entire thrust of my comments at men, my ultimate agenda being also male-oriented. (And it’s not like women are forced to read my comments anyway, but then again, I write to be interesting.) And that agenda, as you yourself will see very shortly, my esteemed Lord of the Blog, has much to do with pornography and the liberation of couples from it through discrete paradigm shifts. (Hey, but don’t worry, I’m not spamming you guys for a competing product!)
But, now, Luke, let me call you out on your own slips of tongue and assumptions: am I “more of the former” (1st paragraph), meaning that I am LARGELY “open to dialogue, etc.” and ONLY A LITTLE desirous of a platform for my stupidity? While you might be hedging in order to mollify the anti-Xavier faction, I’d prefer you were clearer. Deux, I don’t recall advocating for “wives (being) attentive to a man’s need for sexual release”(2nd par.); do correct me, however, if indeed I’ve implied such a thing.
Then again, what pain of mine is this of which you speak (6th par.)? Quote away, s’il vous plait! Now, I might be generally dissatisfied with the status quo between the old ball-and-chain and me, but I take everything in stride, man, believe me, with a dash of good humor and a lotta conservative philosophy (as understood by the light of Holy Writ). Yeah, I know, my life reads more like a cautionary tale than an example worth emulating, but I can still talk about the ultimate goal, can’t I?
And finally, do you really think I’m trying “to fix society by universalizing (my) experiences” (7th par.)? Society, tragically, won’t be fixed; a few here who feel motivated to see things from a different perspective may well improve their chances of kicking the porn habit for good, but that will involve a sea change in some entrenched attitudes. Moreover, at least 50% of the experiences I reference are not mine and anyway, I concur with Andrew that “the bible and experience in life” are pretty adequate to infer (many) a basic truth, because – as I say – humans are really not that different after all, are we?
With all due respect, Xavier, to say the thrust of your comments is to men, I disagree.
In previous comments you’ve expressed irritation at your wife for her temper tantrums and sharp tongue, talked about men who have to endure waking up next to “Grumpy” every day, talked about how wives don’t sexually fulfill their husbands because they are “Plain Jane” and give only “milquetoast sex,” said wives should be aware “a sexually-active man needs physical release every 72 hours or so,” expressed tongue-in-cheek sentiments about how porn is bad but guys retreat to it “for sorely-needed pizzazz,” and said wives of former addicts need to make themselves pretty and have “raw, unbridled, animalistic” sex for a change. You constantly tell me to stop cutting women so much slack. You tell women that maybe the lack of intimacy in their marriage is because “you just aren’t interesting enough.”
Yes, you talk about the need to stress mature masculinity—that porn is, at its heart, unmanly. And I agree with you. But I’m not sure people pick up these themes as the heart of your comments.
As far as whether you’re really in “pain,” I’m not talking about something acute. You clearly desire your marriage to be different, which is a kind of pain, even if only something of a dull ache.
As far as whether you are trying to fix society, I’m merely referring to your comments where you decry society devolving into anomie because women don’t recognize the hierarchical authority men and feminists are snuffing out masculinity. If your comments aren’t to change people’s thinking on these matters, why are you saying them?
Xavier’s comments really do not add anything to the discussion. It is his way of getting attention by setting himself up as someone who is criticizing my errors in grammar which seems a bit sad when one considers the gravity of the situation. If he were at an accident watching an EMT applying a tourniquet to someone who had severed their arm, he would want to argue about whether it is better to turn it clockwise or counter clockwise. This reality of confession is a huge step in recovering from porn addiction and should never be taken lightly. Marriages are being destroyed, families shattered and lives ruined so can we move beyond the showing off one’s cuteness and clever repartee and stay on the subject so others are helped?
Point taken, Luke.
You know, I appreciate people addressing me in a frank and direct way, with of course, the requisite common courtesy, and you have not disappointed. I’m also aware that you are responsible for looking after Covenant Eyes’ interests, while I answer only to the Almighty for what I write (as long as I steer clear of libel, ha, ha!).
I must say, though, that you gave me a good laugh at myself while reading my own words in the context you put them in… no, I’m not contradicting you… but all lumped together like that, they do paint a picture of a rabid, vitriolic male supremacist, don’t they? Sorry, people (for the manner, not the message).
Anyway, I take continued issue with just the gist of your last two paragraphs: I don’t think my attitude towards my mutual yoking to you-know-who rises to the level of actively “desir(ing for it) to be different”, since I pretty much ignore Grumpy’s histrionics and as long as she doesn’t overstep her bounds – voila! Peace between nations. But, as I ruminated on the matter in a comment to Andrew, I recognize there’s a transcendental importance to marriage that makes it incumbent upon me to actually START CARING about it, ok? So, there, Luke, and don’t be so argumentative. ;)
And again: me, a Volk-fixer? I am no more that than all the Covenant writers are, then. And no, I certainly am not writing from a standpoint of warning against “anomie” (a concept loaded with primary and secondary meanings, among which “normlessness” and “social instability” figure prominently) per se, except in its narrowest dictionary definition as a “lack of the usual social or ethical standards in an individual or group”. So, please handle such terms with care, since I speak of the creation within a particular context of a new normative order that has practically replaced the traditional one in our cultural setting.
But, okay, Luke, I am of course trying to “change people’s thinking on THESE matters” (emphasis mine) with a consequent change in RELATED behavior, not obeying an “urge to try to fix society” (which is way too broad an assertion to impute and something only the Messiah can do, anyhow), so I’m glad you rephrased that pointed little imperative. Danke schön! And stay cool. :)
sweetz thank you. I come here for hope and healing. Comments that minimize or mock what we now live and KNOW (like pain and the damage of lies and infidelity, in whatever form) do not add to the discussion unless they are asked from a place of genuinely seeking to understand the issue or process. Please don’t let them continue to belittle this and detract from our search for help. Thank you.
There are much worse things in life than confessing you look at porn. If that is the worst that has happened to you, then you have led a charmed life. Sorry to be brutally honest, but that is the truth. Also, the guilt associated with porn use is created by the churches in the first place. Churches make it out to be this huge deal. When in reality, it is just looking at porn and gets old quickly.
While there are worse things than looking at porn, this should hardly make us feel that looking at porn is somehow good or even excusable.
I also disagree that the church is the primary reason why people feel guilty for looking at porn. Since I believe God created us with a conscience and has stamped his moral law on our hearts, I believe the primordial reason we feel guilty about porn is because our consciences know porn is wrong.
Take Russell Brand, for instance—not a Christian at all by any stretch of the term. Even he seems to understand there’s something about pornography that runs against the very purpose of our sexuality, that we aren’t sexually healthy people when lust becomes a habit, when pornography becomes a means to take our sexuality inward.
There was much more to confess to her. Porn was part of it but after years of using porn the law of diminishing returns lead me down the road into other sexual sins and ultimately affairs.
Mike – if my situation was “just looking at porn” you are correct that would not, in and of itself, be a huge disaster. However, when the porn led to deeper sexual sins that, by my own bad choices, destroyed my 26 year career and deeply wounded my wife and adult children. Two of them were in college and a 16 year old daughter who wanted to go. Now about me telling my kids … I had to because first of all they should know the truth and I was the pastor of the church. However, as we approach the 10 year anniversary of that day I can look back with deep gratitude for the grace of God and the forgiveness granted to me by my family as I continued to walk out my recovery.
I take it your response it to Xavier and not me …
To a husband who’s been there – thanks for your comments and understanding. It is interesting to me how someone, on a topic as serious as this wants to squabble about diction and grammar and not even address what the article is all about.
Rats! Cover’s blown… gotta get out of Dodge! :P
Hey, John, we gotta see life with some humor, dontcha think? And I’ve got lots of it, man – since I no longer go around sporting a Sequoia on my shoulder – but when I take someone or something to task I’m dead serious about it.
That said, (and while it’s not entirely accurate that I didn’t “address what the article is all about”, since I was questioning the wisdom of letting on to the kids about the porn, as per your own statements), it’s one thing to lob a criticism impersonally, and another to have the object of your negative attention respond as graciously, and evince as great restraint, as you have done.
John, you’re a gentleman, and while I can’t promise to forgo my natural candor and objectivity, I’ll attempt to do so without stepping on too many toes. Sir, it’s been an honor to have been addressed by you, and if I discomfited you in any way, may I be dealt with today to the same degree. I’m in God’s – the righteous judge’s – hands.
Luke…can you get rid of that Poser? Do us all a favor who do not wish to be mocked in our pain (both the men as well as their wives) and kindly BAN people like this. Every article that is written lately is challenged and made into a mockery of both the writer of it, as well as to those who might have wished to respond without having their thoughts twisted into a pretzel. His SARCASM is disgusting. He sounds like the Enemy prowling around looking to see who he can devour.
Thanks, sweetz. I’ll look over the comments again. Perhaps I’m guilty of misjudging the nature of some of these comments because of all the comments I delete that are really vile. Generally I allow comments through it they make an attempt at dialogue. Which comments are you speaking about (just so I’m clear)?
I take it you are referring to Xavier and not me …
You know, Luke, nobody should feel threatened or intimidated into withdrawing from free and public discourse, so I likewise decry the shenanigans of this Poseur who Sweet alludes to. Yes, Luke, you need to use your sweeping powers expeditiously to ferret out this crafty interloper and, having unmasked the rogue, bring to bear upon him the full weight of your authority for souring certain damsels’ dulcet dispositions.
But, am I glad that I, for one, address myself usually to men on these fora, for unless a woman wrote the article being reacted to (in which case, said exposition is fair game for critical consideration), or addresses herself to me directly in the Comments section, I do not as a rule initiate communication with any lady in particular, but defer to their initiative if they wish to broach a topic with me. My dialectic is primarily with men, although I consider myself equally ACCESSIBLE to the opposite sex.
Oh, and by the way, you will notice that I merely piggy-backed onto “AWife…’s” comment above in order to post mine, without anything to say – for better or for worse – about what she wrote. (But wait, I’ve been nagged by my conscience of late for having been too caustic towards the redoubtable Lisa Eldred a few articles back; I’ve realized I was too uncivil in my approach and for that, I apologize, hat in hand – hold on, let me get my hat… Just kidding, Lisa! :) But I DO apologize to you, and as publicly as when I disqualified myself from your Thanksgiving Guest List. Good night.
Are you kidding me? The worst day of HIS life? Could anything do a better job at epitomizing the selfish, immature, self-indulgent mindset of the porn user? And a decade later, he STILL has the nerve to refer to it as the worst day of HIS life!!! UNBELIEVABLE!!!
My beef with the writer is his ambiguous diction, unsure whether to keep the object of those verbs in the predicate (tell, wound, do) singular or plural, with the same implicit subject (his announcement) and within a single semantic block. That, and his imprudence in even considering unloading his conscience (re: porn) on his kids.
But, I hope that a certain Resource Manager friend of mine doesn’t see fit to rush to this writer’s aid once more, to put a spin on what he said, as is his wont in these cases. ;)
I’m not tracking with you. Can you elaborate? Sorry, it’s early and I haven’t had my coffee yet.
You are right. It is also the worst day in a wife’s life. Everything she thought was true and right has been crushed. This article isn’t meant to diminish that fact. There are many articles, which I am thankful for, on Covenant Eyes that are written from the side of the wife that are very helpful and real. This article though is very true in how husbands perceive things (although not always the way we should). As men get further into recovery they can see how flawed their own thinking was and how damaging it really was to their wives. For a husband to ever find freedom from the bondage of a porn addiction he must learn to be real and honest with his wife. This article is a wake up call for husbands to do the right thing and then trust God from there (with everything – including our marriages). Freedom and healing can only be found in total honesty. The shame and secrecy is a weight and porn is an addiction we can’t overcome on our own. I know. There is hope even after the worst day of our lives (for us and our wives) because God can fill any hole that remains.
Well, it was the worst day of my life as well as the worst day of my wife’s life and the lives of my children. In writing that I was attempting to let those who need to confess that I can relate to their feelings so that they might respond to what I suggest they need to do.
Certainly at the time I was fully self centered, immature and self-indulgent. However, my marriage continues with our 36th anniversary last week and happy father’s day calls from all my children yesterday.
I hope what I shared will be helpful to men who need to confess to their wives instead of continuing to live a lie.
Hey, Luke! A fellow coffee-head, I see! Man, I know just how you feel – still kinda zonked from the z’s until that java hits the spot. :))
Anyway, I was just teasing you about your propensity for interpreting for your readership whatever may not have been clear in any article; Luke must be clairvoyant, I thought to myself, or is expectably promoting/slanting any view (including assumed ones) that ties in with Covenant’s view of our current milieu.
Listen, it’s the “worst day of his life” because someone who’s addicted to pornography absolutely dreads the thought of telling someone their secret. Honestly, it’s one of the hardest things… and yes, it is selfish and immature, that’s why we’re trying to get away from it! It’s so addictive and it’s seriously NOT EASY to get away from! Temptation is in everything. I struggle… I need help
Hi friend,
A huge part of overcoming addiction is sharing your struggles with someone you trust. However, this is easier said than done! I would encourage you to pray and ask God who he would have you talk to about this. It might be a family member, a friend, or a mentor. Ultimately, we must turn to God for healing and forgiveness from any sin. Porn is really hard to get away from, so please know that you are not alone.
1 Corinthians 10:13 – “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
Blessings,
Moriah
“I had to admit my addiction to porn and headed home to tell my wife and four children.”
But: “You know this news is going to wound her deeply…”
“You are scared to death of what this confession will do to her, you, and the family.”
But: “Yet, it has to be done…so what is the best way to tell her?”
So which is it, mes amis? Tell only the other half, or all and sundry at the little house on the prairie? Hmph..! You people keep tying yourselves into semantic knots with your equivocating.
And by the way, thank you, Covenant Eyes, for listening to my comments, positive or critical, facetious or formal. But, guess what, now that I’m on the topic of comments, are you guys on staff ghostwriting some of them? You know, in order to lead the discussion to a “certain” inevitable conclusion? (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.)
“Behold also the comment threads, which though they be so extensive, and are driven of fierce debate, yet are they turned about with a very subtle slant, whithersoever the bloggers listeth.”
Cheers.
“So which is it?” I think John answers that in the article. He obviously told his wife, the confession wounded her badly, hurt his family, and was terrifying to do. The point of John’s article is to show the inner conflict one feels in these situations and to press through to wise actions.
I’m not sure I get your wink-wink. Are the comments from ghostwriters? Certainly not the comments that originate from any employees of the company or contractors. We value transparency. If you have a question about any specific comment, perhaps we can help you out.
Well, I’m not going to quibble over Doyel’s conflicting statements but I do note, Luke, your uncanny ability of fathoming every Covenant Eyes writers’ thought processes. (Or you might simply call them up to find out… okaaay… BUT this article wasn’t up to my standards and I want my money back! Ha, ha, just kidding, Luke. Don’t lose your toupe.)
Anyway, old friend, you may have noticed that I wax a wee bit skeptical of things I read, much to any (hypothetical) ghostwriters’ chagrin; this ingrained distrust is not innate but acquired, and its origin harks back to a time…
Long ago, lost amid the mists of antiquity… when dragons roamed the countryside, terrorizing ignorant, helpless villagers, multi-hued lotuses bloomed delicately on every pond, and as a callow stripling, I was taught the ostensible combat rules of the Bushido by a grizzled old samurai:
TRUST NO ONE.
ALWAYS EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED.
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE YOUR OPPONENT.
(Actually, it was the psychedelic ‘70’s, we were pretty ignorant and helpless in class, and certain teachers looked like they could breathe fire. Oh, and that rough-‘n’-tough kid was, I think, one year older – certainly bigger – than I, and he must have watched a karate flick or something; but well, the rules are still kinda cool, aren’t they? And, guess what? They’re all principles endorsed by no less than the Bible – scour it and see – though there they apply largely to spiritual combat and preparedness. Oh, yeah! And the lotus flowers were those cute beings who shared our lebensraum and also snitched on us from time to time. *Raspberry*)