The Secrets

Shame is the San Quentin for your heart – a prison where a man’s heart will probably rot and die.  This prison’s cell guard is the foul spirit from hell that says, “You’re not good enough.” or “Who do you think you are?” It is an epidemic in our culture.

Shame is a misplaced focus on self.  It’s different from guilt, which is a focus on behavior.  Guilt says, “I did something bad.  I’m sorry I made a mistake.”  Shame says “I did something bad.  I am bad.”  For men, shame’s message is “Don’t be perceived as weak.  You don’t need to ask for help.”  Sadly, in our culture today, most women would rather have their man die on top of his white horse than watch him fall by being vulnerable, open and honest.  When men reach out and are vulnerable to their woman, they typically get the crap beat out of them.  Being truly vulnerable with a woman can be frightening, brutal work.

But that doesn’t absolve men of the responsibility to be vulnerable.  We are called by Jesus to “lay down our lives,” and to “carry our cross”.  There is no exception that says “unless you’re wife is going to be pissed and yell at you.”  Here’s the truth, men: vulnerability is not weakness – it is spiritual courage.  It is the ANTIDOTE to shame.

Shame was a MASSIVE part of my own personal “brokenness”.  Much, if not most of my healing has come through learning to withstand shame, to live transparently as behind a protective sheet of bulletproof glass.  Seriously working a 12-step program with a friend to guide me helped me to do this.

My wife is a strong woman, a godly woman. She does NOT back down from a fight – spiritually and emotionally speaking.  This is one of the things I love most about her and that attracted me to her in the beginning.  In her own vulnerable moments, she’ll confess that one of her core struggles is with anger.  When we went through pre-marital counseling, she revealed to me that her greatest fear was that her husband would someday cheat on her (which would only serve to validate the lies the enemy had whispered to her since childhood – “you’re not beautiful enough”).  That’s why I HID the fact that I was already struggling with pornography – because of SHAME.  I lacked the spiritual courage to tell her for fear of losing the relationship.

Brene’ Brown (Shame researcher, storyteller, author) defines shame as “the fear of disconnection.”  Shame says, “If you truly knew me the way I am, you won’t accept me.  You will reject me.”  Couple that with shame’s two allies, DECEIT and FEAR and you have a deadly recipe for A SECRET.  I believed the lie (deceit) that my wife wouldn’t love me if she knew of my pornography and sex addiction.  I was afraid (fear) that she would leave me if she knew.  This is shame.  This is why I hid my addiction for so many years – from almost EVERYONE.  Shame is a powerful motivator for hiding and lying – a LACK of transparency.  It encourages us to wear a mask, to present a false-self to the world.

Recently, I read a news article about the adult cheating website, Ashley Madison, being hacked and having all of the private information of its users stolen.  They’re tag line reads, “Life’s short.  Have an affair.”  This hack not only included names, addresses and credit card information with which the hackers threatened to use to expose the website’s clients, but also the secret sexual fantasies and fetishes of its clients.  A company like Ashley Madison leverages the power of shame to make a profit – its message is “have an affair, don’t tell anyone and we won’t either.  We’ll protect you from shame and allow you to carry out your own evil desires”.  They encourage the “deceit” of presenting a false-self, hiding what is really going on.  The hackers have threatened to expose this lie under the threat of shame.  Shame is crouching at the door for every client of Ashley Madison.    Ironic that they’re website’s home page features an image of a woman with her index finger over her pursed lips – the image of “keeping a secret”.  Read more: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/11/11/as-if-there-wasnt-already-enough-wrong-with-that-dating-website-for-married-people-a-lawsuit-now-claims-theres-a-big-secret-theyre-hiding-from-visitors/

Over 22 years of marriage, my own personal struggle with pornography progressed and developed into deeper, darker sin and I hid it from everyone.  Sometime around our third year of marriage, I was already compromising my principles and acting out sexually – the details are not important, but at this point I was definitely being disobedient to God and behaving in ways that were severely damaging my marriage even though my wife was completely unaware.  I hid these experiences, not only from my wife, but from my closest friends as well, for the most part.  About the only one that knew about any of it was my brother.  Even though I felt like I could tell him anything (and still do), I didn’t want to.

Here’s the lie that most men believe when we’re wading into these waters – “I’m not hurting anyone so this is ok.”  Men are so good at compartmentalizing this stuff, that we actually believe our own bullshit most of the time.  To me, when I made my marriage vows, I didn’t fully understand the spiritual commitment I was making – keeping my vow to my wife simply meant keeping my pecker in my pants as far as I was concerned.  As long as I didn’t cross THAT line and PHYSICALLY enter in with another woman, I was keeping my vow.  Not so.  The reality is, the TRUTH is, every time I viewed pornography and/or acted out somehow sexually I was being DISLOYAL in my heart to my wife.  Jesus KNEW men were like this.  That’s why he had to tell us in scripture…

“But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”                            – Matthew 5:28

Even though I had convinced myself that I wasn’t really hurting anyone, I was.  I was hurting my wife, my marriage, my kids, myself.  This progressive behavior was crushing my intimacy with my wife – spiritually AND physically.  I was trapped in a hellish prison of shame.  None of my friends knew.  I was masterful at presenting myself behind a mask of “I’ve got it all together” to my co-workers, friends, family and my wife.  I did this for years, living a double-life, masquerading as a successful, Christian man, loving husband, spiritual leader, godly friend, worship and bible study leader at church, dedicated father.  It was all a complete lie.  I HATED what I was doing and I HATED who I was.  The prison door of shame was closed and locked and the lights were turned out.  While I may have been presenting something acceptable on the outside, in my heart, darkness was setting in.

I remember a time when my brother and I were away on a weekend fishing trip (which usually involved as much or more drinking as it did fishing).  The guilt was weighing heavy on me.  I was drinking alcoholically to numb the shame, I was taking pills, I was hiding and lying to everyone.  I was desperate for a way out.  Maybe, just maybe, God would give me a chance, the courage to tell him while we were on our trip and that would alleviate the pressure enough for me to live, to move forward.  I hoped and prayed for the right time that I might have the courage to tell him and possibly relieve the shame.

The moment came while we were walking through a field from the river in which we had been fishing back to the car.  I said, “I’ve got something I need to confess. Something that needs to go in the lock box.”  He said, no problem and was ready to listen.  We sometimes asked each other to put things in the “lock box” – that was code for “this secret is so nasty, you can NEVER betray me by telling anyone about it”.  It was a brotherhood covenant of trust. “I’ve been doing things I shouldn’t be doing.  It’s been going on for a long time.  I’ve crossed lines I should not have crossed.  I feel awful, but I don’t think I can stop.”  I told him most all of the details trying to dump shame.

My brother loves me.  I know he would never intentionally do anything to hurt me.  But he has his own struggles and “shame filter” that everything gets sifted through in his own head and heart.  I think he put himself in my shoes and thought through what my predicament might look like if he were me.

He told me, “You know you can NEVER tell your wife that, right?  She’ll leave you.”

“Yeah.  I know.”

“OK.  You’ve confessed it.  Ask God for forgiveness, stop doing it and move on.”

This is the message of shame.  “Keep it a secret.  Don’t talk about it.  Don’t tell anyone.  When you feel it, just stuff it down there in one of those deep, dark crevices of your heart and keep on acting like you have it all together.  Be an imposter.  Wear a mask.  Put on a show.”  At the time, it’s probably the exact same thing I would have said to him if he had told me HE had been doing those things.  Today, knowing what I know and having been through what I’ve been through – I would tell him something completely different.  I NEEDED HIM to tell me something completely different.

I NEEDED HIM to tell me something completely different.

This is where men need God’s courage, strength, wisdom and hope when speaking with each other.  Courage is what is needed to tell a brother you love THE TRUTH.  Don’t get me wrong – I’m not faulting my bro.  He was there for me, he listened, had empathy, forgave me and accepted me in spite of my sin.  He’ll always do that because I know he loves me.  But I needed something more from him at this moment.  I needed him to have the courage to tell me something like this…

“Brother, I’m not the one you sinned against.  You need to consider what it would look like to confess to your wife.  She is the one you need to ask for forgiveness.  And then you need to get some help if you really can’t break the cycle.  I’ll walk with you through the whole thing.  God is bigger than this.  He’s bigger than your sin, your failure, your marriage.  He loves you and he will never leave you.  Put your trust in Him and ask Him what He wants you to do in this – REGARDLESS OF WHAT YOU THINK THE OUTCOME WILL BE.”

I ended up keeping those secrets for several more years after this conversation took place, still in that prison of shame.  A couple of years later, I went on a solo backpacking trip into the high sierras to camp and fish…and drink, alone.  I needed to get away from myself (which is impossible, I know) and just numb the incessant lashes of shame that I was imposing on myself in these addictions.  I drank heavily after I got my tent and camp site set up next to the river.  Then I passed out in my sleeping bag.  I woke up about 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning and heard this…one word:

DISLOYAL.

I knew what it meant immediately.  I was being completely disloyal to my beautiful bride and to God.  While I thought I was loving her as best I could in spite of my terrible spiritual sickness, the fact was, I was being disloyal and had been in my heart for years.  This word – “DISLOYAL” – echoed in my head and heart for many more months – God repeating this word of conviction over and over until I was finally exposed several month’s later.  My wife found pornography on my iPad for the third or fourth time.  I was tired of fighting, evading, striving, hiding, lying…but I didn’t have the courage to come clean right then and there.  So I ran…for a few days at least.

Here’s the thing about Jesus.  He loves us FAR TOO MUCH to allow us to run very far.  He understands addiction, idolatry…disloyalty – it’s not the first time someone was disloyal to him (READ: the apostle Peter).  I couldn’t run for long until he caught me.  I finally responded to the awful situation I had created for myself by confessing to several other godly men and then to my wife.  This is what finally set me free.