The Bucket Of Suck

A phrase as plain as “bucket of suck” can hold an entire season of life—when betrayal trauma hits, the weight of grief, rage, and confusion follows you everywhere. We open up about what it feels like to carry that load, how it spills into every corner of your day, and what it takes to stop it from pulling you under. From the first shock of disclosure to the slow return of strength, we map the path forward with equal parts honesty and hope.

We break down why betrayal isn’t just an emotional storm; it’s a nervous system event. Panic spikes, sleep disappears, and hyper-vigilance takes over for a reason. Drawing on trauma-informed insights, we talk about the brain’s response to betrayal, why validation matters, and how to find calm without gaslighting yourself. Then we get practical: boundaries that protect your peace, ending obsessive monitoring, and the non-negotiables that make rebuilding possible—stopping acting out, telling the full truth, and choosing proactive transparency.

Along the way, faith shows up as a steady hand rather than a shortcut. Love is not limitless tolerance; real love insists on safety and accountability. We share tools that helped us drain the bucket: counseling, community, Scripture, and the daily decision to feel without turning feelings into felonies. There’s no timer on healing. Some days you’ll set the bucket down; on others, you’ll carry it with stronger arms. The point is progress—rebuilding self-trust, reclaiming joy, and writing an ending that reflects who you are now.

If you’re walking through infidelity, sexual addiction, or the fallout of broken trust, you’re not alone and you’re not “too much.” Press play for grounded guidance, faith-fueled encouragement, and real-world steps you can take today. If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review so others can find their way through too.

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.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hi, and welcome to the Hurt Meets Healer Podcast. I'm Kim Caps, your host and president of Hurt Meets Healer LLC, a business tree, business plus ministry 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. Hey y'all, welcome back to episode 10, season two, Hurt Meets Healer Podcast. And tonight, today, we're we're discussing the bucket of suck. What is it? Um, where did we even come up with that and all that good stuff, right, John?

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Exactly.

Naming Betrayal Trauma And Its Weight

Finding Help, Faith, And Strength

Boundaries, Rumination, And Letting Go

SPEAKER_00 0:56

And I think um being human, we can all experience a bucket of suck at times in our lives. But we are addressing betrayal and betrayal trauma, um, sexual infidelity. And as it relates to that, the where I came up with it is from our friend and very longtime ranching partner. He would um describe an event. We would we would have to pull a calf in in mud or um just you know, you step in a pile of fire ants, crawling up your boot or whatever gets in your boots, and you run and trying to corral cattle into uh the shoots and whatnot, you trip and fall. And he would he just had this phrase that man, that's such a bucket of suck. And what I uh I would laugh every time he would say that, but that came to translate for me in a raw and honest way to capture the overwhelming sense of pain after uh my experience of sexual betrayal. And it perfectly for me captured that season where grief, rage, and shame, confusion, hopelessness all got dumped into this container that that then uh I was forced without my permission to carry. And it's this bleaking heavy bucket that can now here's what we're gonna talk about is what it can, the positives and the negatives, depending on how we uh take it and what we do with the pain and all these feelings that fill up this bucket. Um, but at the time when you are in betrayal trauma, it is this heavy bucket bucket that you it's with you everywhere. You can't set it down without spilling, you can't ignore it. Uh and for me, there were a lot of people around me saying, just get over it. Just get over it. And I think, well, I know, I don't think, I know the worst part was um, John, that you would uh say, Well, I'm gonna paraphrase, you didn't come out and say, Why are you carrying that? Because we didn't, I wasn't calling it the bucket of suck at that time. But it was, you know, for just why can't you forgive and forget? So along those lines of let it go, I think were some words sound familiar. Yeah. So um let's talk about it a little bit and see what it's about. Now, I have a theory that this bucket of suck, we can either use it for good, or we can it can be used for um really just devastating us. So at the time, at the initial onset of uh the betrayal trauma hitting us, we've just made a discovery, or there's been a disclosure. It's there is this. Um we have been run over by a bus, and we are in emotional ICU. All these emotions are flooding in us. And for me, I did not have the tools, I didn't have the language, I didn't have uh gosh, knowledge to know what to do with all this stuff. Um, it was just this crazy time of confusion, and I felt so alone trying to carry this bucket, and I did carry it alone for a while. Um, and so when I realized that and found a team of helpers for me, is when the load became lighter. And then I found a really good counselor, and she, with God's help, helped me not only poke holes in that, where then it became the weight of that sucker as I carried the weight of that bucket. At times I felt this thing's just gonna sink me. I'm going down, I'm not gonna be able to get back up. And then God reminded me, hey, hey, hey, my daughter, I'm right there with you. And I could feel his arms wrap around me and help pick me up. And as I would carry that sucker and figure out what to do with all this flood of feelings, I became stronger. And as I became stronger, I didn't push God away. God was still there, right there with me in the thick of it. And as my strength grew and as my emotional muscles grew, it became where that bucket wasn't dragging me down all the time. There were seasons that there was grief that was unbearable. I continued to receive a lot of infilling from you, John, that uh it seemed that if when I could drain some stuff off, you're like, oh no, no, no. This is my interpretation, right? What I tell myself, no way, girl, uh-uh. You ain't gonna put that down. No, don't you put that down. Wait, here, let me throw some more stuff in there. And another disclosure would pop out, another season of lying or or hiding. And man, once once I was able to realize that, hey, hang on a second, uh, I'm stronger now with the help of groups, with the help of a really good counselor. I can actually, I'm strong enough to get this thing off of my back and set it down. And that was a huge pivotal moment for me. Now, did I go back and pick it up? Oh, sure. Yeah, sure I did. And there were times that it got thrust back on me without my choice, with a new disclosure coming out, more information, another lie. And we can again, we can use this as, and it's just an illustration. It it's it's my illustration, honestly. It's I came up with it years ago, and that's just what I call this season of um trauma and the emotional roller coaster, the rocky road of recovery, it is just a big old bucket of suck. And here's where I want to lead us today is we can take that. And what Joseph said to his brothers, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. And just like I don't enjoy lifting these weights over here behind my chair, I sure enjoy the muscle that's forming on my body. I don't enjoy all the squats that I do, I don't enjoy the um walking and all the stuff, even though I was very athletic. I I hurt now. I'm older, I have these aches and pains, but I know that it's making me stronger. And same with this emotional bucket of suck. It has actually created a strength in me that I thought I never could develop or have. And that is that changed for me when I did what I would say to you, John, why don't you just put your hands down? Right. And I part of my bucket of suck was that I was allowing way too much rent-free space for you in my head. I was so concerned. What's he doing at the office? Well, who's he talking to? Who is he getting? Is he oversharing? All these crazy thoughts. Valid.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Sure.

Love Versus Tolerance And Accountability

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Valid. Absolutely, but just ruminating all this. Oh my Atlanta, taking up so much of my time. And I got to a point where I said, um, is this beneficial, Kim? I actually asked the questions that I I turned my own, I used my own advice and my own coaching. And I just said, hey, is this beneficial? Is this helpful? Is this gonna get me where I want to go? Is this is this exemplifying the image of Jesus that I want to represent? And how can I pivot, if you will, to a uh more stable, more Christ-like response in how I live? And it it became this, I had to really uh dig into my boundaries. Not only, well, the boundaries are for me, I had to expand on them a little bit of what I would tolerate, what I would do when a boundary was violated, and stop living in regret. Regret of not knowing, regret of not making better decisions, all these regrets, because regrets, regrets are pictures and places where we have not forgiven ourselves. And holy balls, y'all. I had still have a lot of those, a lot of those dark places that I'm still digging out. And it leads to if we hold on to regrets, man, it'll lead to condemnation, it'll lead to hopelessness, despair, jealousy, fear. And I I've had all that, and that is a big old bucket of suck to carry around. I didn't want that, and so I want I just want to encourage y'all that it won't always be this way. There is there is a way through it, we can't ignore it and go around it. We're gonna talk about that the next episode, but we can get through it. We can get through it, and I am so thankful for the team that has surrounded me, that has helped me drain off a lot of the suck that was in my bucket. That even when you, John, would throw an attempt to, hey, I'm gonna fill this, I'm gonna get your bucket full again. I could actually go, oh no, you're not, buddy. Go ahead and try, fill the bucket all you want. I set it down, it's right over there. I'm not picking it back up again. And that freed me from all the poopah that was being slung at me. Uh, and there were I've had I had people say to me, Well, um I've heard you say this, John, of uh, well, love believes all things, believes that we we ought to believe the best in people. And okay, sure. That was at Ephesians 5 or something like that, Ephesians 6, the love chapter, somewhere around in there.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

First Corinthians 13.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

There you go. Well, it's close. I'm in the New Testament. I'm circling the I'm circling the drain. I'm close to that. The bullseye, like in curling.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Right. Well, we'll curl it in there.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Right. Get close. And I love this quote by Dr. Caroline Leaf, where she says, unconditional love does not equal unconditional tolerance. So we have to take the word of God and rightly divide it and truly understand that because I love you, I will not tolerate this behavior from you. If you want to behave that way, you go. Go ahead. I'm gonna inform you that hey, this is why I will not be in relationship with you because you're acting this way. But go, you you're free to go be a buffoon, have edit, enjoy your life. And you know, that's where I'm gosh, not every day, most of the time, landing these days. And so we you're waiting, you want to add anything in there? I've been chatting for oh my lord, a while. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Well, it's hard for me to add to uh your description of your journey. Um so um I'm uh taking the opportunity to just shut up and listen.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Got your SCFU t-shirt on? Yes. All right, yes, very good, very good. Well, I want to read this quote that um I found, and it it says, the man sets the tone in the relationship from day one. Whether people admit it or not, a woman responds to the environment that a man creates. And I know today's there's these, and this is me speaking now, this is not the quote. There's all these, oh, submission and blah blah blah. Again, we as Christians, which is I hope where we're headed, uh, that we stay in the in the word of God, and we all have our opinions. It's it's like a nose, we all have one. Well, most people. And so it's okay to read things differently. And here's what's interesting: a scripture one year, I read through the Bible every year, I have for several years now, that one year it'll speak to me one way, and the next time I read it, it'll speak to me another way because I'm in a different season. So please hear that this, I believe this is how God set it up, and this could possibly like why did Eve feel confident to pull the fruit off of the tree when Adam's standing right there, and why did he not set the tone for the relationship and the environment? Well, why hadn't he or did he explain to her what the what the living requirements, what the boundaries were?

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

So just please, we're not getting into this. Um, I'm not gonna go there on this submission, not submit. I believe this is how God created us. I know for me, this is how it works for me. Am I a strong woman? Absolutely. Man, I can dig a hole with the best of them. I can drive equipment most of the time better than John, I can pick it up a lot easier. That's just how God created me, right? So I can read instructions and build stuff. It's it's not uh uh the man over. We are partners in this, and so let me see if I can get through this without interjecting any more of my stuff in there.

Feeling To Heal: Validating Emotions

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Well, and don't forget that it's also about authority and accountability and the way God structured it is you know, and for me, the sobering thought on that is I'm responsible for what happens in our marriage.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Right. You'll be held accountable, right? Yeah. Ooh, that ought to scare your pants on fire, dude.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

It yeah, it does. It is sobering, it really is.

Betrayal Trauma And The Brain

SPEAKER_00 18:27

So here's the here's the quote The man sets the tone in the relationship from day one. Whether people admit it or not, a woman responds to the environment that a man creates. If he is clear in his intentions, steady with his actions, grounded in who he is, and I would say in who God says he is, then we as women relax, we soften, we feel safe enough to follow his lead. And that's not weakness, that is biology. It's a nervous system regulation. However, when a man leads with mixed signals, hot one day, cold the next, uncertain about what he wants, emotionally inconsistent, she does not feel safe. And so her body switches into survival mode. She becomes extremely guarded, hyper-vigilant, questioning everything, and emotionally exhausted. Not because she's too much or too dramatic, but because the container and foundation is unstable. Women do not want to lead men, whether they like to admit that or not. They just don't want to. We respond to leadership, and leadership isn't loud, it's calm, it's firm, it's steady, and it's consistent. When a man knows who he is and where he's going, a woman doesn't need to manage him or chase him or protect ourselves. We can just be. And when that happens, guess what? Polarity returns, the attraction deepens, and the relationship finally feels easy instead of tense. So, men, listen up. You are setting the tone for how the relationship is going. If she's combative, well, men, ask yourself, what do you need to be doing better? If she's holding everything in, she won't talk to you. Men, ask yourself, what can you be doing better? You are the leader, and we follow your lead. And I I 99% agree with that. That's um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Yeah, it it sucks to be the leader sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Because you're accountable and responsible.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

And and that's been, you know, that's a hard that's been a hard thing for me to own.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

So you're you're uh being held accountable.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Well, just the the whole thing, yeah. Um leading and being comfortable with leading.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

Why is that? Was I just too strong for you? My buffness, my manly my manly muscles, my my big girly muscles.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Yeah, that that uh conversation for a whole nother Podcast. But um yeah, it it's just been a learning experience to understand a lot of those things for me and to see things differently, what leadership really is, servant leadership. Again, a whole nother conversation that we don't have time for.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

And this well, you can you can um do a podcast on that. There you go. I can charge you with that. There you go. Yeah. I mean it's I will say that I came into our relationship with an attitude of no man's ever gonna get to me. I had watched and been um deceived on what my parents' relationship was and how it ended. And I was lied to about that. And so that messed me up. I didn't know I was lied to at the time. I didn't find that out till like 10 plus years later, yeah, that I had been um kept from, or my dad had been kept from seeing me and uh yeah, and why it all happened. So I had this attitude of um you're not gonna, you know, never let them see you sweat, basically, and I'm gonna try to be strong and tough, and and I wasn't. That is not me. That is not me. Now, do I have a high pain tolerance?

SPEAKER_01 23:34

You are very strong, though.

It’s Not Your Fault: Reframing Blame

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Well, in different ways, but it you know, I have a pretty high pain tolerance when um if I break down in pain, I there's some massive something's very, very, very, very, very wrong. Get help immediately. Right. Emotionally, though, I'm not. I am not very strong. I can cry at the drop of a hat. I don't like to. I don't like to. However, a good friend of mine said, Kim, because I was telling her this, and she said, Kim, uh, your tears are healing. Your tears are healing. If God didn't want you to cry, he wouldn't have given you tears to cry. If he didn't want you to feel, he wouldn't have given you all these feelings. If, you know, if your feelings were bad, which I was told growing up, your feelings are bad. And I'm just learning in my 50s, no, they're not. They're not good or bad. They're not right or wrong. They just are. They're indicators. Like your turn signal in your car. Is it right or is it wrong? Well, if you drive with it on all the time, you know, I think everybody the other day when we were out and about was turning left because every uh several people had their left blinkers on, just going down the highway, left blinker on my God, I'm turning left right now. And if we do that, if we leave a feeling stuck, yeah, that can cause some unuhwanted consequences. And but feelings are not, they're just, they just are. They're amoral, not good or bad. And when we can learn to recognize those feelings, um that's uh that that's a huge growth moment, I think, when you start being able to name it and where you're feeling it in your body, and then learning how to properly release those with it, be it crying, be it go stand in grass, be it go hit a bunch of golf balls, be it throwing axes at a proper axe throwing place, or we've gone down to the back of our property and um practice some pew-pew stuff and and you know, enjoy that. But I want to I want to pivot on to uh some of the messages that we can get when we're when we are faced with this bucket of suck. And a lot of it are is is invalidation. The uh and I see it a lot in well-meaning Christian circles that, well, and sometimes they're not so well-meaning, that want us to get over it so that they can feel better. And not having our best interests at heart. And well, we get so uncomfortable sitting in with someone else's pain that we want them to just get over it so we can feel better.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

No, we don't know how. I mean, I'll speak for myself. I don't know how to sit with my own pain most of the time. And so sitting with somebody else's pain when I don't know how to soothe myself, I don't know how to soothe them. And so it it is extraordinarily uncomfortable when you're in that situation.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Well, what if it's not your role? That's not your responsibility to soothe them. What if it's just your responsibility to listen and to just say I'm here for you?

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Right. Yeah. Well, and understand, I haven't I have struggled to learn how to just be there for me. A lot of the pain that I've experienced, I can't change, I can't fix in the moment. I that's all I can do is experience it.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

And stop, stop, you can stop self-inflicting.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

I can but to get through it, it has to be experienced.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

You gotta feel it to heal it.

One Step At A Time Recovery

SPEAKER_01 28:02

And so until I'm able to do that, um I can't heal. And so learning how to simply sit with myself in the pain and knowing that there's absolutely nothing that I can do to make it go away, make it lessen uh other than stay with the experience until it's healed. And as I've as I've been able to do that more and more, I've been able to s learn to sit with other people's pain, with your pain, and to not get defensive or you know, to just focus on your pain in that moment and not worry about mine. But it wasn't until I learned or started to learn, please don't hear me say that I've learned it, but I'm in the process of learning, but it and it wasn't until I really started to learn that, and to be able to do that for myself that I started to be able to do that remotely for you. Yeah, and most people that haven't done a lot of work are in that same boat, they don't know how to sit with their own pain, and they sure can't sit with ours.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Right, yeah, yeah, so and there's a lot of misunderstanding about sexual betrayal. Um, but and so what's happening in my this is just Kim's view when John speaks his view. We um this is not advice, this is not medical or psychological or whatever advice. We're just given information and our opinions. So what's happening with this bucket of suck is sexual betrayal triggers betrayal trauma. And it is actually a not only an emotional state, it is a physiological change in the brain. They have done, um, Dr. Amen has done, I don't know how many brain scans pre-post um betrayal, pre-post all these different studies that he's done, actual physical scans of the brain, and found that certain places go dark, certain places light up, uh, you know, when certain things happen, and then healing, how healing can bring back some of that, not all of it. And so please just understand that when you're shaking, when you're feeling all these things, when your heart's racing, it this is it is it's reality. That is what's going on. Betrayal trauma, the nervous system, and we go into fight, flight, or freeze. And why that is, is because our foundation of safety and trust and the reality that we were living in has just been shattered to into bazillion pieces. Our sense of self is busted. Um, you can have panic attacks, insomnia, intrusive thoughts, rage, all uh rage that comes out of nowhere. Boy, that was me. It would just hit me, and it was like I lost my flipping mind. It was trauma. And when I was able to define that and actually put some words to it, man, I was so relieved. I thought I was going nut so. And we get these false messages from our religious groups that and even society that treat infidelity like a marital issue, as if the betrayed spouse has some control over this other human being in their life. If if I had just sexed you up more, if I had just, I don't know what. What could I have done? I nothing. Right. Right? Because it it's your decisions, choices. Yeah, it's your decisions to make. Uh and I can't do anything about his decisions. I can't, I can't look at Hollywood. How many Hollywood couples break up because of infidelity? And they're good looking people. Doesn't have anything to do with how we look, how we, you know, show up. It shouldn't, in a marriage, when we make a commitment, I remember our vows as for better, for worse, for richer for poor, in sickness and in health, till death does part.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

And so, and I think that covers the whole spectrum of what a marriage can go through.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Not a lot of wiggle room in there, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:24

It's not a rough patch. And it what I didn't expect was to have a husband that came in already with an addiction and already with a lot of um unhealed trauma. And that was not, I I didn't cause that. Right. I didn't cause, you know, I didn't I can't cause you to do anything.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Right.

No Timeline, Only Progress

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Right. That it's you and me. You can't cause me to do anything. Right. We each have our own choices to make. And you know, sexual betrayal, it's a huge, it's a huge trauma. It it happens in what was supposed to be the most sacred and the most safest place in a marriage, our our marriage bed, it it just poo-poos all over it. And you know, how do you how do you turn that into something, uh, a growth uh moment? How do we flip the script, if you will, and and um pivot to something positive out of that? And my answer is one thought and conscious decision at a time. The same way that you got right.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Same, same as yeah. I mean, it's the it's recovery. I mean, period, it's recovery.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

And call all the names, you know, name all the different maladies, um addictions, traumas. The the the the way out is the same. It's one foot in front of the other toward toward a toward the light, walk toward the light. Yeah, right. And Jesus. Right. And it's it and simply one foot in front of the other.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Right. And honored those feelings. Yeah, they're they're they're big, they're scary, they're um sometimes um unexplainable, and and that's all valid and normal. Very much so.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

And some and they and they feel uncontrollable at times.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Right. I remember, well, there's a lot of days that I actually um I'll high-five myself. I'll high-five myself in the mirror because I have made it through another day without turning my feelings into felonies. I am learning to properly process those things. Right. And um, and you know what? If that's what it takes, that's what's worked for me to help turn, I will high-five myself and high-five myself over and over again. Um, giving myself the just the encouragement. I didn't get that a lot in our marriage. I didn't get it a lot growing up, and so for uh the betrayed spouses out there, number one, this is not your fault. You didn't cause it, and you absolutely didn't deserve it, and you are allowed to feel all the spectrum of feelings, all of it's valid. And in my experience, with proper help, with um community, with good coaching, counseling, the bucket will not always feel as heavy as it does today. It does get lighter, and not necessarily because the betrayal gets smaller, or our husbands stop acting out, or they all of a sudden turn into, you know, this wonderful, romantic, open, honest, um, can talk, say all the right things, never have bad breath, they don't tootie-toot in front of us. You know, they're just these perfect gentlemen. It's not because of that. It's because we get stronger. We get stronger, we learn how to process those feelings and process the pain properly. And I'm what I want to also validate there's no timeline. It can take six months, two years. We're on the I think 10-year plan. I don't we're on a big long plan here. And you know, just to be able to give y'all more um information and experiences because yeah, we're doing it for y'all.

unknown 38:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Hopefully, our our uh plan is getting shorter, but at least the end is getting nearer.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

There is no end, bud. There's no end. This will always be an experience. Now, here's what what we can do is not allow it to control our future, right? And that's we get the choice to rewrite our future, yes.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

And that's that's the that's where I'm hoping.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Okay, because you can't ignore the past.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

No, no, no, no. Uh you're absolutely right. What what I'm what I'm hoping for is more moments where we're on the same team. Right. And we're dreaming together and creating future together.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

That's what I'm hoping for.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

And working toward, diligently working toward.

Choosing Your Story And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Then it takes time when um when a person is highly stubborn and just stuck in some need to be right, um, it's gonna take a minute or three or ten, or it's gonna take a while. And and no matter how many eloquent words or um Instagram posts or Pinterest sayings or YouTube videos or gosh, how many counselors? Until the betrayer makes the decision to put their partner's healing first. Now the the acting out has to stop, right? That has to stop, which means you've put their healing first because you're stopping that, you're stopping lying, you're stopping deception, you're being broken open, you're being um transparent, which means coming forth with things ahead of the game, you're being proactive. Um, because you can't you can't rebuild a house while it's still on fire. You gotta put that fire out, clear off the the foundation and rebuild. And then you got the whole thing of forgiveness, and that takes time. Um I just want to again reiterate, I think I've said it on a couple other episodes, that um you don't have to allow anyone to pressure you to hurry up. This is your life, this is your experience, you are living it. They are not, and neither is your spouse. John cannot hurry up my healing because it's mine, it's mine to walk through, it's mine to take to God and allow him to guide it. And you know what? It's gonna take as long as it's gonna take, period. And so there is hope for the other side, and it's not that the pain disappears, uh, forgiveness doesn't take the pain away, reconciliation doesn't take the pain away. There are still intrusive thoughts that hit, there are still moments of remembrance that I just gotta take a minute, and sometimes go and cry, and that's okay. That's okay, absolutely valid. There's nothing um wrong about it. I don't like this right and wrong. I'm really working to get right and wrong out of my vocabulary. It's absolutely valid when we can begin to drain some of this stuff out, and as we get stronger, and that suck leaks out over time, and you can actually get to a point where you're strong enough to just take that thing off, set it down, and hey, if it if you know, if the spouse wants to throw more stuff in it, you know what, there they go. That's their decision. We don't have to pick that bucket up again. We can start having days where laughter returns. And maybe we can actually start rebuilding trust with our spouse if they begin to truly, truly repent and be remorseful and begin walking their path of healing and recovery. And we can begin to rebuild trust in ourselves and come to that realization that oh my goodness, I have survived something that felt unsurvivable. You are not alone in this journey, you're not crazy, and you're not gonna be there forever. There is hope and healing for the journey and for getting through to a better place. I don't want to say getting over it, but getting to a better place where we can better manage our our own emotional state and how we respond and how we want to show up.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

To each other and for each other and with each other. Yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

All right. I have one quote that I'm going to end us with. You have anything else, John?

SPEAKER_01 44:22

Uh no.

Closing Encouragement And Resources

SPEAKER_00 44:24

All right. So Brene Brown has she's just really intelligent. I like this quote, and this is how I want to end today. She says this our job is not to deny the story but to defy the ending. To rise strong, recognize our story and rumble with the truth until we get to a place where we think yes, this is what happened and I will choose how the story ends. What a great great quote. Ladies and gentlemen, I just want you to be encouraged that there is a way through for you. You can't control what another person does, what your spouse does, but you get to write your story and you get to write how you will show up and be an image bearer of Christ. Thank you for joining us today. Well we appreciate you listening. I hope there's some nugget in there that you can pick out and take and allow God to grow that in you and in your healing story. And until next time y'all God bless 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 www dot hurtmeetshealer dot com. Until next time God bless