Hurt Meets Healer Podcast

One Mell of a Hess

• Kim Capps • Season 1 • Episode 13

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In this reflective episode of Hurt Meets Healer, we dive deep into the challenges and turbulence of repairing relationships impacted by betrayal. By navigating through the intricate, emotional landscapes of sexual addiction and infidelity, we offer insights and encouragement aimed at those in search of healing and understanding. Together, we confront the mess that betrayal creates and explore practical pathways to repair and restoration.

The conversation takes us through the various emotional debts incurred in long-term relationships, paralleling them with financial debts that require dedicated effort to resolve. We emphasize that making amends is not merely about apologies but involves deep introspection, genuine communication, and taking responsibility for one's actions. A journey rooted in grace offers couples a way out of despair and toward reconciliation.

We also tackle the vital role silence plays in communication and the messages it sends. Open discussions stem from vulnerability, which we believe is integral to overcoming feelings of hurt and betrayal. Join us on this journey as we share personal anecdotes and nuggets of wisdom aimed at enhancing personal relationships. We want to invite everyone, whether in a troubled relationship or looking to prevent one, to listen, learn, and engage more deeply with one another.

Finally, remember, the choice to heal lies within each of us. We encourage our listeners to connect with us, share their stories, and embark on their healing journeys. Subscribe, share, and leave a review to help us reach others who might benefit from our shared experiences. Together, we can transform our messes into meaningful growth.

Quotes from:

Laurie Bryson, M.A. & LPC, Affair Recovery Blog - ‘Why They Don’t Want to Talk About the Affair’

Melody Beattie, ‘The Language of Letting Go’

Thank you for listening! For more information about us and the services we offer, visit www.hurtmeetshealer.com.

Intro & Outro music written, performed, and produced by Kim Capps.


This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, or professional advice. The views expressed by the Host or any Guest(s) are strictly their own and in no way constitute legal, medical, or professional advice.
Copyright ©️ 2025, Hurt Meets Healer, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kim Capps:

Kim Capps. That was created to help individuals and couples who are walking through the devastating impact of sexual addiction and infidelity. Thanks for joining me today.

Kim Capps:

Hello and welcome back to the Hurt Meets Healer podcast. I am Kim Capps. I am here alongside John Capps, howdy-do, howdy-do, and hopefully he will be speaking a lot more than I will today as I'm a bit under the weather, headed for a root canal within thank the Lord, less than 12 hours. Uh, within, thank the Lord, less than 12 hours. So, uh, man, this has been been a rough week, but we are here and we are continuing on with.

Kim Capps:

Well, what is the Hurt Meets Healer podcast? And, just being real, talking about our stuff, um, last two episodes we talked about making the repair. Why would someone not make or desire to make repairs, make amends? I think we had discussed and talked about semantics, making the repair versus amends and restitution, things like that and I think that leads us now to this, our next topic, which today, if you notice the title of this podcast, it's One Mell of a Hess, and that is thanks to one of my aunts who was a teetotaling Baptist, and she has since long gone to be with Jesus and is now just enjoying life in heaven, but we never heard my siblings and I never heard her say any cuss word whatsoever. And one day she just popped off yeah, it was one Mell of a Hess and that stuck with me for decades, decades, because it happened before I even met you. And, good Lord, we're working on 36 years coming up here, so we met very young that's right.

Kim Capps:

That's right. I was very young, so, speaking of the hess that we have made of this or I'll just put the m where it's supposed to go the mess, how I have a couple questions in my show notes here. How do we clean this mess up? How could making, or could making the repair be a solution? And my thinking on this is just me. This is my thoughts. I think it depends on the length of the marriage, how long you've been married and how long the abuse has gone on. I think any betrayal, any of the intimate betrayals that happen in a marriage, are devastating. There's not one that is lighter than the other, just knock, shift for a loop. I wonder, though, how much more those of us who've been married or I've been married more than half my life, because I was such a youngin when I got married how that plays into the repair side of things, how that plays into the cleanup of the mess that was caused by betrayal.

John Capps:

Well, if you think about it in terms of debt, so the longer you've been married, potentially the greater debt that you've incurred with your spouse, and just like we have on many occasions dug out of debt and we are living in a season where we are free of debt. It's wonderful, but it wasn't an easy process. It wasn't a short process and short of something miraculous which we had, something miraculous which we had it's. You know, getting out of debt, an overwhelming debt, is a process and so I think it's a long process where it takes discipline. It takes, I mean and again, just think about your debt snowball. Go back to all the principles on getting out of debt Become disciplined. You make concerted effort to pay down debt. All of those things are real that need to happen in order to get free of debt, and repairing injury is very similar, I think.

John Capps:

I do think that we need to be careful not to try to perform our way out and allow grace and you know the, the good news of grace to enter into that in in a christian marriage and at the same time, there is that um, there is that restitution, if you will, that becoming different, showing up different, having a different lens that you see your mate through, and a different filter that you hear your mate through, and all of that as I understand it and as I'm growing to understand it, because I'm not going to pretend that I have it figured out.

John Capps:

So, just in case anybody out there is deluded into thinking that I've got any of this figured out, I don't, but I'm learning and growing in these areas and I just believe that it's both, and it's the humility and the repentance coupled with grace and mercy that eventually pay the debt off.

John Capps:

And not to over-spiritualize it, but going back to the fact that Jesus paid the debt off and if I look at everything through that lens, then I can stop carrying grudges, I can stop worrying about and obsessing over every little nuance of hurt that I think I've received and just listen and hear through a different set of ears. Listen and hear through a different set of ears and I will tell you and if you could see me right now I'm raising my hand to say that I am very guilty of that for a long time that it has been a journey for me to lay down those offenses and not pick them back up. To lay down those offenses and not pick them back up, and it's hard to do the first and it's even harder to do the second because laying them down is a moment, but picking them up when it seems like it's the same thing is real easy. So that's kind of my big picture perspective on that from an accounting perspective?

Kim Capps:

Sure, absolutely. And you know, I just want to say I am so proud of you and you know, I just want to say I am so proud of you how calmly and just measured you actually said the word restitution, that I mean kudos. I'm proud of you.

John Capps:

Well, we came to some good agreement and understanding of we were talking a lot about the same thing in our last episode and unwittingly we agreed, but we were in disagreement over some of the semantics until we actually unpacked it right here on the air for all three of our listeners all right and, and you saw the light yes, and it wasn't the Rainbow Bridge.

Kim Capps:

Oh, my goodness, yeah, so that's. I'm still shocked at that. And lightning didn't strike, we got storms around us. So there you go. There is such a thing. Maybe it's because it's been just so pushed back you know that's been pushed back on me that it's not a thing. Maybe it's because it's been just so pushed back you know that's been pushed back on me that, ah, it's not a thing, that's not scriptural, it's not go down the list of all the things you know defenses and whatnot. It absolutely is scriptural and it is. Yes, yes, we are forgiven for every when we confess, when we confess and we can confess straight to God, absolutely. However, why then, if all of that's taken away and you've confessed your sin to and I'm looking at John, we're having this conversation, y'all I don't know if you know we're actually in the same room talking. Imagine that. So you've confessed your sin, it's all been taken away, why aren't you healed?

John Capps:

Well, James says confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can be healed. And I think it takes all of it. It takes confession to God, it takes confession to each other and it takes prayer.

Kim Capps:

So that brings up. Oh my goodness, I have like a couple of questions. Are you open to some questions?

Kim Capps:

I don't know Okay, is it okay if I ask them? And then, if you know it's not cool, you can just pass. I'll take a pass, hold your green card or your red card, and then I'll know which way to go. So through the years, you had said to me that you asked for forgiveness, you confessed it to God and so you were forgiven, and so you didn't have to come to me and share with me. That didn't help our marriage whatsoever.

Kim Capps:

Nor did it help you change? Because your heart wasn't being changed and being healed. Would you agree with that? You can't pause dead air.

John Capps:

Dead air, absolutely um, yes, I would agree with that and what was so?

Kim Capps:

I mean, you knew scripture, right you were, you were well versed in scripture, you are well versed in scripture. Was that just a uh, that one doesn't apply to me.

John Capps:

That's just yeah, just plain rebellion,

Kim Capps:

okay wow, holy moly, hang on.

Kim Capps:

I about to fall out of my chair here for a second and pick myself back up.

John Capps:

Well, when you're in denial, you pick and choose how you interpret and apply.

Kim Capps:

Oh right,

John Capps:

Yeah, and so I mean, it's the only way you can stay in addiction.

John Capps:

You can stay in denial. You can stay in yourself. Is you numb yourself to the truth? Is you numb yourself to the truth? You believe the lies and you make excuses to do your own thing. I mean, everything that we do is a choice. To forgive is a choice. To hold a grudge is a choice. They're both equal choices. They have radically different outcomes. To confess your sins is a choice. Confession and repentance is a choice. Rebellion is a choice. All of it's a choice.

John Capps:

Hardening your heart is a choice.

Kim Capps:

Dad gum, you have been listening. Oh, my goodness, this is like a big deal. Y'all, y'all, y'all just don't understand. Well, you may understand this is big here in the Capps household that, uh, to hear these words, um, it first alongside me here and um, yeah, wow, wow, I'm, wow, I, I need to take a breath for a second here and oh,

John Capps:

okay, so well our attitudes, I mean's literally nothing. God gave us the ultimate gift of choice. Literally everything that we have is a choice, and so we choose to love him, we choose to reject him, we choose to be loved by him or we choose not to choose to be loved by him or we choose not to. And it takes a it's taken a journey of acceptance and battling through a lot of layers of denial to recognize that nobody does anything to me, nobody can do anything to me to affect me, nobody makes me mad or makes me sin other than me. I get to choose me. I get to choose and I have a stellar well, not stellar an impressive track record of really poor choices. And to sit back and reflect on those and fight through that denial and break free of those lies is a journey, and the balls y'all it's literally only big red balls it's a hard.

John Capps:

It's a hard journey but I don't know some. Maybe for some folks it's not a hard journey. For me it's been a hard journey.

Kim Capps:

I think the longer you um is, is there a saying, kick the go, kicking at the goads? Or yeah, I think the longer you do that, the more your foot becomes numb to the pain and you know you're in your late 50s there. Extremely late, you're about to step that threshold. Stepping over old Pippin' over, and I wouldn't you say you've been doing that for the majority of your life.

John Capps:

Oh yeah, yeah, I've lived my own. I mean, that's one of the hardest things to come to grips with is recognizing that the relationships that I have or don't have with God, with you, with others are my choices. They're just the consequences of my choices. They are things that I've chosen. Now, the crazy thing is they aren't things that I would have consciously chosen. Those are not outcomes that I desired.

Kim Capps:

Sure, oh yeah.

John Capps:

Absolutely, and so what I never really was willing to see is that how this choice or that choice or that choice or the next choice was driving me to the outcomes that I'm currently living in.

Kim Capps:

You didn't connect all the dots.

John Capps:

And so it's been.

John Capps:

You know that part of the journey has been tough because there's a lot of regret to have to grieve through and sometimes the grief overwhelms the process of growth and it pauses the growth to grieve. And I think and I don't know, but I think that as I have really embraced the grief I have actually grown in the seasons of growth and it's been hard because the grief looks a whole lot like, it feels a whole lot like shame at first. But then when I was able to get past most of the shame and I still battle with shame, but when I'm able to set aside the shame and embrace the pain not only the pain that I've caused but the pain that I feel because of the pain that I've caused then I have a different outcome on the other side of that learning curve. So I think there's a learning curve there that we have to battle through the denial to get to the acceptance piece and then grieve the acceptance, grieve what we actually did, what I actually did. I have to grieve it, but I have to accept it first.

Kim Capps:

Which is the hard part, Right, it seems to me from looking from my side of the road that it seems that that's been a struggle for you.

John Capps:

And I would. It has been, and I would argue that for all of us it's a struggle to accept our own failures and deep flaws in the way that those have impacted other people. It's hard to look at the situation and go oh crap, I blew the room up. This is one male of a house, right, right. And so, however, the what I'm discovering, a little at a time, is that the more diligent that I am about pursuing that the cycle of battling through the denial because that's where it starts and then seeing the truth of the situation, and that involves listening to other people's pain. So in our situation, it involves me listening to your pain, not trying to reframe it, not trying to justify or reason or excuse away.

Kim Capps:

Minimize.

John Capps:

Anything that I've done, but simply to hear what you're trying to say and not to hear it through the lens of bad husband. You're a failure, which is one of the messages that is very tuned in in my head. And when I'm able to set that aside and say wait a minute, if she didn't care, if she didn't love me, she wouldn't even be saying these things, she wouldn't be saying how much she's hurt, she would simply be withdrawing and doing something different. And so to battle through that and get to the place of acceptance of oh crap, yeah, that was my fault. And then to grieve that, grieve the pain that it's caused you, the pain that's caused me, the pain that's caused us, our family, the missed opportunities in ministry, in life, the missed joys, the missed mountaintops, mountaintops. And to grieve all that and to look at it and to say, man, that sucks and don't do that again. And then that's the learning opportunity moment. Right, there, is, okay, that sucks, don't do that again. And the next thing that I ask myself is okay, how do I not do that again? And what am I going to do different? And it's just coming to, and for me it's really because I'm I need it simple, I over complicate things, but at the end of the day, I need it simple. And the simple thing is I need to listen. Well, I need to listen with my heart and not with my head.

John Capps:

And one of the things that Craig Hill says in Two Fleas and no Dogs is he talks it out so simply that even I can understand it very well. And it's really. I think it's probably my third or fourth reading of that book and it really sunk in and it really sunk in. And this particular time through that book, that's one of the things that really hit. And I've said this before God plows our heart and we have to allow that to happen.

John Capps:

We have to allow him to plow and break up the hard ground of our hard hearts, because it's only nice soft ground that's ready for seed. And so a hard heart is a choice and so is a soft one. And so, once again, it goes back to choice. I'm choosing, more often than not, to allow my heart to be soft and receive those teachings and try to really implement those and learn to hear you, learn to pursue and say hey, I noticed that you walked out and you didn't come back. Is everything okay? Did you want to talk more about that. It's little moments of taking little steps of courage and recognizing that those painful things I don't have to receive as bad husband. Yes, I did those things that hurt you and you're sharing your pain doesn't mean that you're rejecting me as your husband or as a person.

John Capps:

It's just man it hurts and I need to get it out, because if I don't get it out it's killing me from the inside, just like your root canal, right. But it's the infection.

Kim Capps:

The root canal. Hopefully will fix it. That will be a solution.

John Capps:

Yeah, your root canal is the way to get the infection out. Clean up this mess Right. So that's a little bit of that complete cycle of battling through the denial to acceptance and then grieving, and then growing, and then changing and choosing different.

Kim Capps:

Wowzer, I hope, I really hope, that it's not just words. I do see good things happening in you. I do see good things happening in you and that's a great answer. Well, a suggestion, a start to how do we clean this mess up? And this is one mouth of a hess. It doesn't fix overnight, it doesn't go away in a week or a month and it doesn't go away even if, I forgive, it doesn't go away. That's just the start of the healing process. And that second question could making the repair be a solution? I would go yeah, absolutely, yes, yes, yes, absolutely. And talking what has helped me has been when I can share with you, even if it's angrily and hurting, when I can speak to you. This is what I'm hurting, dude, you did these things, and what I'm looking for is ownership and sympathy and compassion and care, and to me, that is tending to the repair, making that repair, Like someone attributed it to.

Kim Capps:

I was looking up something for an upcoming episode and they likened it to. I don't want to give it all away, because the title will be Solving vs Fixing. So that's coming up and I'll give you a little preview. Solving is a process, Fixing is a project, and so just remember this healing is a process. It takes time on both sides and you both have to do your own work, and then there's work that has to be done together as well.

Kim Capps:

And one thing I want to give you a couple of quotes and I'll put them in the show notes as well, that Lori Bryson of Affair Recovery. She wrote in one of the blogs or their vlog that they do, titled why they Don't Want to Talk About the Affair, and she said if you are the one that had the affair, please hear this. Every time you do not talk. Your silence conveys to your spouse that you do not care, that you do not care. Your silence and hesitation convey that you want to continue a dysfunctional pattern of avoidance and minimization in your life. Your silence tells others that your discomfort and fear of judgment comes first, and this communicates to your betrayed spouse that you're selfish and will always put your needs ahead of theirs. And boy, I feel that deep. I've experienced that deep and I will say that is exactly the message, that silence when I, if I ask a question or um, it's mainly my asking questions, 40,000 questions. I believe it used to be the deer in the headlights look that I would get in response. But now it is a. That's a good question. You're actually responding better and kudos to you, man, Proud of you, Look at you doing your work, it is awesome.

Kim Capps:

And then one last quote I want to leave y'all with today. It's from Melody Beatty in her book the Language of Letting Go, and she says this Unfinished business doesn't go away. It keeps repeating itself until it gets our attention, until we feel it. Deal with it and heal. And, guys and gals, the Mel of a Hess that betrayal has caused. It is not just go get the broom, let's sweep this up and move on with our lives. That's not how this works. It takes time, it takes intentionality, it takes the stopping of some horrific behaviors, it takes openness and willingness to be vulnerable. It takes openness and willingness to be vulnerable, to be open even when it's hard, when it's hard, and to sit with your partner in these hard conversations. That is choosing the relationship. So I'm going to leave the last word to you, John, before we close out Anything else.

John Capps:

Well, it will actually be your words that you said to me not too long ago, and it was. You said we were talking about something I don't remember the exact topic even at the moment and you said you know, I've really been trying to do this, do unto others as I would have them do unto me, and that's the message that I want to leave for everybody listening. All two of y'all is remember that you know, treat your spouse the way you want to be treated, and that's with care and compassion and empathy and concern and love and gentleness and tenderness and patience and kindness and all of those things, because I would almost guarantee that that's how each of you want to be treated. And it was very meaningful when you said that to me that day, and so your words.

Kim Capps:

Wow, you listen, oh, my goodness. Well, that's a whole you. Just that's potentially opening up a can of worms there, because I I have well, wait a second, because there's also boundaries and there's strength and hold the line. All my little sayings that I tell my ladies yeah, be congruent with who God has made you to be Women.

Kim Capps:

I'm going to tell you, ladies, this, that I'm going to just guess. I'm guessing, john, you're talking to both the ladies and the guys, absolutely, but I want to speak to the ladies, in that it's hard to not get angry and want to do things that are not congruent with who you really are. So I just want to encourage you that it's okay to be angry, it's okay to be sad, it's okay to be mad. There are ways to express those safely without hurting your spouse in the process. So I just want to leave you with that, guys. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Hurt Meets Healer podcast, and until next time, God bless.

Kim Capps:

Thank you for taking the time to listen today. Remember you are more than what happened to you. We'd be honored to come alongside and guide you on your healing journey. Connect with us at wwwhurtmeetshealercom. Until next time, God bless.

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Kim Capps

Host
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John Capps

Co-host