Navigating the Early Days After Discovery

Rebecca Dekkers

Yeah.

Rebecca Dekkers

You know, when you're thinking too, about how to have that, you know, I call it back pocket statement or that high level statement. You know, we sometimes we still get wrapped up in having to explain why and feeling like, I need to give you an explanation why we're like this. Sometimes it can be as simple as just I think of it as calling your place meaning like with the example of if families coming over and they notice that we're into separate bedrooms and you want to have one brief, sort of high level statement that it doesn't have to allude to why?

Rebecca Dekkers

It just has to say we're feeling more comfortable with this arrangement right now. Right. And sometimes I, I say this at the workshop often, but sometimes people will press a little bit and they might not be great at boundaries and they might want more information. And I always say, I promise. If you say the exact same thing three times, they'll stop asking.

Rebecca Dekkers

And so we know we don't know a whole lot of information sometimes. You know, one of the things we say often is that people earn a right to our story, right? We're not we're not owing anybody more information than we're yet ready to share.

Randy Evert

Welcome to the Faithful and True podcast. I'm Randy Everett, your co-host. We're here today with a full house. We've got our usual course, our leader, Greg Miller. Greg, great to see you as always. Always good to be here. And, Greg, we who reached into the deep and talented staff here at Faithful and True and got Rebecca Dekkers to join us today.

Randy Evert

Rebecca, it's great to see you.

Rebecca Dekkers

Nice to be with you all.

Randy Evert

And the clinical director of Faithful and True Jim Farm.

Jim Farm

I know you're going to say you reach to the far end of the bench.

Randy Evert

Well, I was going to embellish you a little bit, Jim, but we're short a time, so we'll we'll take we're happy to have you and Rebecca both, so we'll proceed from there. Our podcast today is going to deal with navigating relational requests. In the early days of discovery, when the relationship seems to be uncertain.

Rebecca Dekkers

Yeah.

Greg Miller

Well, and specifically we're talking about those couples where they're kind of doing what I refer to as stealth recovery. And there aren't a lot of people that know, you know, for some of us, my story and others, there can be this big public explosion where people know and it's fairly common knowledge and it's hard to even contain the information.

Greg Miller

But for many of the people who come through faithful and true, that are married, not that many people know. And so the couple is trying to navigate it on their own. And so in this season, you know, they can there could be a lot of uncertainty in their relationship, but at the same time, they're having to function in public.

Greg Miller

And so it may be that they're not wanting people at church to know or work to know. And so therefore they're trying to figure out how do we have integrity with who we are and what's going on without feeling the need to say yes to every invitation? Or I feel like we have to explain to people what's going on.

Rebecca Dekkers

When it can be a thing that eventually they might find their way to being more known. But on the on the early weeks months, it does make it complicated. How do we how do we handle those things? Yeah.

Greg Miller

And specifically, it could be a situation where the couple is involved in church. They've had some leadership roles people don't know. So they continue to be asked to do certain things at the church, or maybe they're even in a place of leadership. And so they're trying to figure out how do we navigate this public image that we have.

Greg Miller

Knowing these other things that are going on behind the scenes, and it can create a lot of cognitive dissonance early on when they're living these worlds in public, but also they have this private world that's going on in their house.

Jim Farm

Well, I think it might be even maybe a little bit more difficult for the spouse because at some degree, the guy that's struggling with the addiction is kind of used to kind of having a write a story that's hidden. And for a wife, it's like, this is new territory. It's it's weird to feel like I'm holding back information.

Jim Farm

It doesn't feel authentic. And so it's really, I think, a lot more when you say Rebecca a little bit more disturbing.

Rebecca Dekkers

Well, yeah. Like, I think that's good word to end it on. Even just triggering anything that feels like it's the way we had been set up in the addiction that we're trying to hide. We're trying to be be not fully known. It can be hard to do nuance well in that space. Yeah.

Greg Miller

Well and especially, you know, so the the wife now knows the acting out that the husband has maybe they are involved in the church, maybe others don't know what's going on. And so it can be really painful to see how the husband continues to be supported and encouraged and affirmed and maybe even put in places of leadership because the people in the church don't know.

Greg Miller

And so it can create a lot of chaos for her. And yet at the same time, she may be hesitant for people knowing this information because she's adjusting to something brand new. And sometimes women can have their own shame about the addiction they didn't know or whatever. And so how would you recommend for a wife who finds herself in these situations?

Greg Miller

And let's start specifically in church, where they're in a place of leadership. Nobody knows. And they're, you know, it's this idea we're trying to act normal when normal is no longer really an option.

Rebecca Dekkers

Well, I think first for her to, you know, be validated in that it makes sense that it's hard to live sort of incongruent. Any sort of sense of incongruence feels really terrible for the first little while. And then for her to consider, like one of the things we talk about at the workshop a fair bit is how to build a network, a safety support like, and how to consider how much information will I share and to understand even that there is nuance with, you know, I need so many people who really know a lot of the information and then a few more people who know a lot, but not all of it.

Rebecca Dekkers

And then maybe as I go and bring my circle out a little wider, you know, what do I feel that is congruent and honest and reflective of where we are? But it maybe doesn't have to be the the fullness of what's going on for us.

Greg Miller

When of the things I encourage people to do is learn phrases that they can use in a moment, and that way they don't feel like they get stuck, you know? And so one of the things that they might say is we're just going through a difficult family situation right now. And so we're going to need to step back from leadership.

Greg Miller

And what can be true is sometimes it is the wife that is requesting that nobody be given the information because, like you said, she's adjusting and trying to figure some stuff out. And sometimes for the husband, it's really complicated because like you said, his life has been about hiding. And so now he's trying to do recovery. But he also feels the pressure to not be fully honest about what's going on.

Jim Farm

You know, we've talked about this on I don't remember how long ago a podcast, but we talked about the difference between privacy and secrecy. You know, we're secrecy. Nobody's going to know about this. And privacy is we're very intentional about, you know, who do we share with and what do we share with those people? You know.

Greg Miller

And a lot of times it is going to take couples finding some space of agreement of how we're going to show up in public. You know, what it is that we will acknowledge or not acknowledge. And if you know, we're going to step back from something, what is the reason that we're going to do that? And I know that couples just do life in a variety of different ways.

Greg Miller

So they show up at games together for their kids. They go to the school and help, and they volunteer in different organizations. And it really can be challenging to be in those public spaces and know how to be authentic, but also be safe in that context. You know, what would you say to the couple that doesn't necessarily want everybody on the team to know what's going on, but they are supposed to be traveling together to go to the away games, or they typically show up together and sit together at the games.

Greg Miller

And now this doesn't feel as comfortable as it once did.

Rebecca Dekkers

Well, I would say like, I like the way you talked about it when the phrase that I often use is that they would develop in some ways like a back pocket statement, because it can be hard to be willing to go and sit at the hockey game or go to church things without feeling prepared, like I we have a pre-arranged something that feels congruent, that I can I can just pull out and just let you know that this is kind of high level what's going on for us.

Rebecca Dekkers

And often, you know, back to the topic, sort of we were talking about like, how do we navigate decisions if we have sort of that baseline understanding, it helps people perhaps understand why maybe we need to just slow down as we consider. Right. Because almost always the right answer is to slow down. You know, you get asked to do something you're not sure.

Rebecca Dekkers

And if they have that, that back pocket statement or that high level understanding of what's congruent for you, then you might be able to buy yourself a little time as you make all your considerations. Right? Yeah.

Greg Miller

When one of the things that was true in our life exploded is there were just the reality was that Beth did not want to be near me, didn't want to spend time with me. And in fact, one of the things that the boys would acknowledge at home was that when Beth entered the room, I would leave the room, or if I was in a room, Beth would leave the room.

Greg Miller

And this was while we were separated. But there was this distinction of, you know, separation. And so even for the couple that's doing an in-house separation, it can be complicated when, you know, it's a holiday and families coming over. I've heard a lot of stories of for, you know, 3 or 4 days the husband was back in the bedroom because they didn't want all of the family to know.

Greg Miller

And so he's sleeping on the floor. And again, it is the couple talking about what they need. And I would say for the men to defer to their spouse that whatever it is that the wife is saying, this is what I need in this situation. And again, there's there are times when the wife doesn't want the family to know because historically, they've not been safe, either her family or his family.

Greg Miller

And so it may feel like we're pretending, but, you know, the language we talk about is the difference between being discreet and being deceptive. So, yes, we're not letting everyone know about what's going on in our home. And yet at the same time, we are being honest and authentic with each other about what is happening.

Jim Farm

But I think it is important. You know, one of the things that we've talked about is that they do have a place where they can be open, you know, and that's why we talk about the importance of community or group. So it doesn't feel so secretive that there are people that know our story, you know, but I you know, and I know when I work with couples, I'm really intentional about having them be intentional about the people that are kind of in their area of influence.

Jim Farm

You know, whose people that are safe, who are the people that are maybe we don't know if they're safe yet or not, or and then who are the people that maybe aren't all that going to be all that's safe for us, right.

Greg Miller

You know, I know the situation where a husband in their job travels and that traveling was part of the acting out. And so now he's still expected to travel because nobody at work knows what's going on. And yet it's incredibly painful and difficult for the spouse knowing that the husband is traveling and even something like that, where the spouse isn't directly involved in the public image, but how the husband shows up at work, and the fact that he's expected to still do his job can create a lot of chaos for the couple ship, as they're trying to figure out how do we navigate his travel when that is a legitimate expectation for what he does

Greg Miller

professionally?

Rebecca Dekkers

Yeah.

Rebecca Dekkers

You know, when you're thinking too, about how to have that, you know, I call it back pocket statement or that high level statement. You know, we sometimes we still get wrapped up in having to explain why and feeling like, I need to give you an explanation why we're like this. Sometimes it can be as simple as just I think of it as calling your place meaning like with the example of if families coming over and they notice that we're into separate bedrooms and you want to have one brief, sort of high level statement that it doesn't have to allude to why?

Rebecca Dekkers

It just has to say we're feeling more comfortable with this arrangement right now.

Jim Farm

Right.

Rebecca Dekkers

And sometimes I, I say this at the workshop often, but sometimes people will press a little bit and they might not be great at boundaries and they want might want more information. And I always say, I promise. If you say the exact same thing three times, they'll stop asking. And so we don't we don't know a whole lot of information sometimes.

Rebecca Dekkers

You know, one of the things we say often is that people earn a right to our story, right? We're not we're not owing anybody more information than we're yet ready to share.

Greg Miller

Well, even with like, the traveling for work. Yeah. To it's amazing to me. There are so many men that are reluctant just to say, you know, for a season, I'm not able to travel. There's something going on in our family and I want to be near for that. And what many of them discover is there can be some allowance for that.

Greg Miller

There can be some temporary adjustment. It may not be a permanent solution, but at least for a season it may be possible. But the reality is you don't know if you don't ask, you know. And so if there is something going on and you're needing to set a limit or you're not able to participate, you know, sometimes what happens is the couple has to decide some things that we used to do together, we will do separately.

Greg Miller

And so we won't go to the kids games anymore if the wife's not comfortable being near the husband, and so she will go or he will go, but they just won't go together. I know that, you know, our boys played hockey and so Beth and I could show up at the rink and it didn't look too out of place where, you know, we're watching the boys separately.

Greg Miller

You don't have to be standing together all the time. And so just that, that unspoken, sometimes agreement of how we're going to function in public can be one of the ways that we begin to create safety. And I especially believe it's one of the ways that you can honor your spouse, given what it is that you've done. And if there is a request I need for you to not go to the games for a while, or I need for you to fill in the blank, whatever that is for the husband part, they do whatever they can to honor that.

Greg Miller

Well, one one of the places that it can also happen is just as they are in their couple ship trying to figure out how do we want to look in public. And it may be in a group setting. We've been invited to go to a party together. Maybe we've been invited to go on a vacation. I know of situations where the vacation was planned with other couples, so there was already things work, you know, in the works.

Greg Miller

And so now everything is now being questioned. So what might a couple say if they were invited to go? They were planning to go on a trip. And now because of this they realize were not comfortable going on the trip together.

Jim Farm

Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, we've ran into that same exact situation. I think there's just a level of honesty that we just can't make it work. And sometimes you don't, depending on the other couple. Other times, if you're going to go on vacation, you're probably a little bit closer to the couple, so you can share a little bit more.

Jim Farm

But like Rebecca said, you know, I think oftentimes we feel compelled to get into this big explanation for things. And oftentimes I don't think that's the wisest thing early in recovery, digging into these very long explanations of things. It's okay just to leave it abrupt, right? You know.

Greg Miller

When one of the things that Beth indicated and I think this was true, is that in the early days, she was trying to discern who to tell and who not to tell. And I've heard her and other women say that they ended up telling too much or too many, and it came maybe out of that need to explain or some sort of obligation, or maybe just so much was going on.

Greg Miller

They had difficulty just sitting on it. And so that's why I think what you said, Rebecca, about slowing down is so important that before you include somebody in this information you really think through, is this somebody that needs to know this part of our story, our experiences, and then also, you know, the idea of how do we include our children and maybe our children's friends parents in this.

Greg Miller

Right. You know, again, the kind of the ripple effect of this can be pretty significant. And so understanding what do we share? With whom do we share that type of thing?

Rebecca Dekkers

The other thing that I think can be important to think about with it is to have a good sense of what's your knee jerk meaning? Am I one who has historically tended to overshare, you know, so you again slow down and you consider, am I one who tends to overshare and want to draw a lot of people and need a lot of support?

Rebecca Dekkers

And have I regretted that in the past, then that might inform my decisions with again how I decide who my safe community is. If I'm one who has perhaps had a difficult time letting others in and to ask for support and to reach out for that, then maybe I can challenge myself a little bit more, and maybe I need to lean into being a little bit more willing to let others in and to ask for that support.

Rebecca Dekkers

And so I think that's a big part of it, is knowing what my my knee jerk. Yeah. Yeah.

Greg Miller

Well, and the idea of recovery is we do it differently. You know, whatever historically I've done, I need to look at that and say, has that way served me because this is providing an opportunity to live life differently.

Jim Farm

Well, I think one of the things I've run into every so often is where the guy wants to be really open with the story, and the wife's like, not a chance. I don't want anything shared, right? Which makes it a little bit more tricky. Yeah. You know.

Greg Miller

When especially, you know, what Rebecca said earlier, we're trying to do life differently. And for the person struggling with addiction, they have lived with secrets. They have had this information and now they're feeling freedom and talking to people about it. And so again, we're back to honoring the spouse's request. But if the guy has good community, that's where he practices that complete and ruthless honesty.

Greg Miller

That's where he significantly transparent with his wife and also with his community, which then allows him to be more grounded when he's in a public space. You know, one one of the things that is interesting is we're talking about the early days. And yet for some couples, their desired their intention is to do their entire recovery journey fairly stealthy, and they really don't have a thought.

Greg Miller

Maybe a small group of accountability or recovery community, maybe a few family members. But there really isn't this intention to share this information very much. So what? What could be the long term challenges that a couple might experience if they're trying to keep this really under wraps and very limited in who they share with?

Rebecca Dekkers

Well, first I just want to say it does seem like it always. It can come to a place in a certain recovery process where it where if that is the case, we're attempting to do it stealthy, even if we're doing all the other parts of it really well, all of a sudden it does seem like this is the thing we're bumping up against because like what we're talking about today, all of a sudden the decisions were trying to make become super complicated because nobody's allowed in all all of the ways we show up parenting, all of that gets really difficult.

Rebecca Dekkers

Rebuilding trust. You know, if we're if we're living life in the same pattern, all of a sudden it does come to a kind of a screeching, I don't know, point where all of a sudden we've got to deal with the fact that we've done it in stealth.

Jim Farm

Yeah. Well, I think I think one of the complications I think we see this with kids oftentimes too, is, you know, they know something's off, but they can't wrap their head around, what is it that's off. And I think, you know, people that are close to us are friends. If they see something's off. But we're leaving it up to perception of, well, what's happening.

Greg Miller

Right. You know, and, you know, there there is a thought we're going to protect the children from this. But very much like what you're saying, if we don't include the children, then they're aware of the energy and the dynamic of the family, what's going on in the house. But they have no context for that. And we're back to that thing, we say, where children are great observers, great absorbers, but not great interpreters.

Greg Miller

And so they're absorbing all this energy, but they don't know what to do with it. I think for a lot of people, they're afraid if they tell their children, they're going to lose the narrative. And, you know, what we often say is once you share it with your children, you empower them to do what they need to do with it.

Greg Miller

And you may coach them. You may guide them. And it is scary to think that my child may tell somebody what's going on, but to limit that is really to exclude your child from something significant that's happening in the family. And at some point, what I've seen is for those who really have transformative recovery, they lose that that desire to control the narrative in the story.

Greg Miller

They lose that desire to manage their image. And they also are willing, even if it doesn't go well, they would rather be known than to be isolated and still managing their image.

Rebecca Dekkers

When really we we set up our contexts, our communities, in that same way, they can sense that something's going on with us, but we're not helping them, you know, know, even for them how to approach us. You know, just the idea of neurosurgeon, you know, the idea that I think it's 80% of our our nerves are afferent, meaning they gather information from our environment and they send it to the brain.

Rebecca Dekkers

And so that's the direction. And so we all have these sensing and feeling instruments that are kind of going, oh something's weird with that couple. You know what's going on. And so us being able to live congruent some of these, you know, like how we started again, that idea of how do we handle these decisions. Some of that does just clear up as we're learning to do that, that being known more and more.

Rebecca Dekkers

Yeah.

Greg Miller

When of the patterns I see is the more we tell our story, the more comfortable we come in telling our story and the wiser we become in steward in our story. And again, we're back to the importance of community. If I'm regularly just engaging community and I'm learning this new language of honesty and authenticity, and I'm practicing in my my community, then it's going to naturally impact the way I relate to others.

Greg Miller

And again, not everybody needs to know everything but those, you know, you said back pocket phrases. We're going through a difficult season. There's just some things we're trying to figure out. And if, you know, I often say when you think of your story, think of it in vulnerability. On a scale from 1 to 5 one, I'm not at all five.

Greg Miller

I'm completely vulnerable. And so I don't have to start at a five. You know, I can start with the two. I can test the waters and see who responds positively to what I'm saying. The other thing I would say about this stealth recovery is rarely are we as good at hiding as we think we are. You know, the truth leaks out of us.

Greg Miller

It is in the way that we show up. It's our emotions. It's our energy. It's our lack of emotion. Sometime it's what people observe is we don't seem very engaged or present. It's in our eyes when we're not looking at people and we're just, you know, so there is this intuitive knowing in this part of us that shows up authentically.

Greg Miller

Saying something is off, even though I don't want to talk about it. And I've heard a lot of couples say, oh, our kids don't know anything, and then they're just shocked when the child just repeats back everything that they've overheard, known, seem perceived, figured out, all of that type of thing. So one of the things I would encourage couples who are kind of in this season of not wanting to share in the chaos that it's creating, is to recognize that, yes, you want to discern.

Greg Miller

And in the early days especially, you want to be guarded and cautious and wise in that I'm and at some point, the reality is you're probably not as good at hiding what's going on as you think you are.

Jim Farm

I always kind of tell us the couples, because this has been my experiences. Most couples will later find out in recovery that they shared something with someone they wished they hadn't shared with, and they'll find out that they didn't share with someone they wish they would have shared with. Right. You know, and so I say that just to normalize that, there's probably going to be some mistakes along the way.

Greg Miller

Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things one final thing is if you are in relationship or community with people, that on some level prior to this, you trusted trust the fact that you trusted them, you know, yes, this information is new, but who that person is isn't necessarily new. And if you trusted him before, then that may mean that you sense that they are trustworthy.

Greg Miller

And so go ahead and risk in ways that maybe you didn't think you could. But it's a wiser risk because you do have a context. And for those listeners who are actively involved in church, one of the most difficult things is to feel like I'm being incongruent in my faith experience. And so you don't have to tell everybody in church.

Greg Miller

But I would say that it's important that someone in the community of faith that you are in, whether it's someone in leadership or someone that's a part of a small group with you, somebody knows what's going on so that you can feel congruent in your faith when you show up. And there's nothing better than having somebody sitting next to you in that faith experience that knows what's going on for you.

Greg Miller

Other than your spouse. Right?

Rebecca Dekkers

Right, right.

Randy Evert

I know what's going on.

Randy Evert

Well, thank you very much for joining us today on the Faithful and True podcast. We appreciate having Jim and Rebecca here with Greg and myself today. We hope that today's podcast has been enlightening to you. It's a very deep subject, very complicated and yet wonderful information that's being shared with you. Would like to invite you to visit our website, Faithful and True, where you'll find many valuable resources available, available to you, as well as the information and online registration for our three day intensive workshops.

Randy Evert

We offer the Men's Journey Workshop every month, and we also offer the Women's Journey Workshop on a quarterly basis. We also have two very impactful Couples Journey workshops that you can see the information about, and the opportunity to call our office and register for either one of those big events as well. So in the meantime, we hope that you've enjoyed today's podcast.

Randy Evert

We hope that you will take a look at our resources and our website. We hope that this coming week for you will be filled with many blessings and with great vision.