Our Story of Addiction, Betrayal and Restoration

[00:00:15] Speaker A: All right. Hello, my name is Michael. [00:00:17] Speaker B: And I'm Shanna. [00:00:18] Speaker A: And this is the Marriage Altar Podcast. The Marriage Altar Podcast. [00:00:23] Speaker B: Our very, very first episode. [00:00:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And what we're wanting to bring to you. And this has been in my heart for about nine months. And God put it on there is real life situation that happened to my wife and I over almost a year ago and how we have overcome it so far through love, patience, lots and lots of doses of Jesus and lots and lots of prayer from ourselves. We pray for ourselves to people praying for us. Ali, Andre and church. [00:01:02] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, we just started. We decided to start this because. And call it the Marriage Altar because of what happened, which we're going to go into today. We feel like it's time to share this story. We've been sitting on it for about nine months, so it's really not that old. But we decided to go ahead and share because we started feeling convicted. [00:01:24] Speaker A: Yes, we did. [00:01:25] Speaker B: About, you know, if God completely saves you and restores your marriage and he actually did more than that, how can you not share that? And so we felt like that's what we were meant to do. We felt like there are people and. And maybe couples who are on the brink of maybe divorce or maybe one of them is an addiction. We're going to talk about that today. Part of our. Our story. Or maybe, you know, it's just. They're just coming to that point where, like, I can't do this anymore. We believe that if Christ is the sinner, like, that's why it's called the marriage altar. If both people come to that place of surrender. [00:02:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:10] Speaker B: And it becomes an altar unto God that he can restore it. And so that's why we're doing this. And so today we wanted to tell our story. So we met. I'll just start in a little bit. [00:02:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And then you can kind of pick up. So we met in 2021. So. Right. Kind of still in the throes of COVID and all. But that entailed. For those few years, I was coming out of a. A divorce. I had been married for a really long time, like 24 years, something like that. And. And we just kind of met through a weird thing. [00:02:47] Speaker A: We match dot com. [00:02:51] Speaker B: And it's not something I would run around and tell people, hey, get on match.com and find your soulmate. But it just so happened that, you know, because when I was coming out of divorce, I wasn't looking. I wasn't looking for you or anyone. I was really just focusing on my relationship with God and just feeling like, hey, I need to get healed because, like, I'm so messed up from the marriage I just came out of, you know, But I couldn't shake it. And. And I started feeling so strongly. And it was. It was through multiple ways that God was speaking to me, but he just kept coming, kind of bringing to my attention that he had someone for me and this was who I was supposed to be with. And he was giving me specific details about him. [00:03:39] Speaker A: Right. All dark, dashing, handsome. [00:03:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:03:43] Speaker A: Great body. [00:03:45] Speaker B: Yeah. But I did know some things. I did know that either he was in the military or he had been in the military. And I kind of knew, like your height, I knew you were going to be over 6ft feet tall, which that could be a lot of men. But the combination of the two brings it, you know, brings it down some. But I just knew I. And I had told the Lord, I do not really want to be with a veteran or a military man because. [00:04:09] Speaker A: We'Re not very easy to deal with. Yeah. [00:04:13] Speaker B: Especially if. If you've been in combat or something like that. And so. And that. And that was the case. So we met on match.com. it just kind of took off. I'll let you pick up there if you want to talk. [00:04:23] Speaker A: We talked all night long on Match the next day. I asked if I could take her out that night. I was off that next time. She said yes. So I drove to her home. [00:04:33] Speaker B: But you got to tell them about how amazing our conversations were going and how compatible we were. It was crazy. [00:04:43] Speaker A: Just from the beginning, Shay and I had so much in common. Our birthdays are four days apart. [00:04:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:49] Speaker A: Yeah, four days apart. What we were looking for in a partner, I was looking for someone who wasn't religious. I was looking for someone who was spiritual and who loved the Lord and wanted to worship God, but also wanted someone who wasn't just full on religious. [00:05:07] Speaker B: Like legalism type religion. [00:05:08] Speaker A: Yeah, legalism is not good. I think it's kind of destroyed the church these days and just everything else there. We didn't want any more kids. I have two, she has one now. They're mine. Hers is mine and mine are hers. And just everything just seemed to click. There was never any awkwardness on the computer. On the computer. There was no awkwardness. It was just so fluid. [00:05:32] Speaker B: And of course there was the instant physical attraction. [00:05:36] Speaker A: Absolutely instant physical attraction. So that next day I worked night shift at the time, so I had kept her up all night long talking to me on the phone. And she had to Work that day I was off, so we agreed to move. [00:05:50] Speaker B: Five o' clock, you picked me up. [00:05:52] Speaker A: Picked her up about five, six. [00:05:54] Speaker B: Five or six? Yeah. [00:05:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it's five or six. It's about this time of year. [00:05:58] Speaker B: August. [00:05:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it was August. And. [00:06:03] Speaker B: No, sorry, it was May. [00:06:04] Speaker A: Yeah, it was my. So we went on our first date, and that's where the alchemist kind of came in. You know, we were. Took her to a really nice restaurant. Well, I think it's a nice restaurant and a town not from here. And just found the conversation. At first it was kind of forced because we were really nervous. But then after that, she's like, are you gonna hold my hand or not? I was like, okay. [00:06:26] Speaker B: Even the first date, though, we go to see a movie and I think it's called Finding youg or something like that. [00:06:33] Speaker A: Something like that. It's got Zac Efron in. Or is it Good Guy? [00:06:36] Speaker B: I didn't know who. Who he was, I don't think. Anyways, it was like, you know, one of the ways that God speaks to me is through movies and. And music and books and. And that movie. It's like I instinctively knew. I. Instinctive. Yes. Instinctively knew that that was like a confirmation because of the way the storyline went. It was almost like we were in that story. [00:07:01] Speaker A: It was our story from the beginning. Even some of the parts of it match what went down. [00:07:06] Speaker B: It was so crazy. [00:07:07] Speaker A: Yeah. The movie. I can't remember the name of the movie. [00:07:09] Speaker B: I'll tell you the next Finding you. I'm pretty sure it is. [00:07:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:12] Speaker B: We'll put it in the show notes or something. [00:07:15] Speaker A: Yeah, we will. But first date went well, and then we went on two, three more dates. I told her I was gonna marry her on the third date. [00:07:26] Speaker B: Yeah. By the third day, you had already asked me to marry you or something. [00:07:29] Speaker A: I was ready. [00:07:30] Speaker B: I was like, you know, think about a little bit. [00:07:32] Speaker A: Yeah. I have been single for a lot longer than Shea had. I been single for almost ten years. [00:07:36] Speaker B: Really? I thought it was like six or seven. [00:07:38] Speaker A: Oh, it's been ten years now. Yeah, it was only six years. I don't. I had been single for six years. [00:07:43] Speaker B: Dating. [00:07:44] Speaker A: Dating. [00:07:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:45] Speaker A: That's a sore subject with her. But I never found anything that really clicked with me. Either they were very, very religious or it just wasn't a good personality match. But when Shay and I met, I knew right away that there was something there. And I had been praying for someone, you know, like I'd already said, about who is not religious, who was beautiful, fun to Be around and we could compliment each other. Someone who was outdoorsy, someone who liked the outdoor, someone who liked the outdoors as much as I did, isn't afraid of buying snakes. You know, I was gonna say, we'll. [00:08:24] Speaker B: Talk about that some other time. We have this inside joke, but it. [00:08:28] Speaker A: Wasn'T an inside joke. It was an outside joke. [00:08:30] Speaker B: So it happened so that we literally were married within three months of. Of meeting. [00:08:37] Speaker A: Half her family was. Well, all of her family was in shock. Half my family didn't even know. [00:08:43] Speaker B: You didn't even tell them? [00:08:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I didn't even tell them. [00:08:45] Speaker B: Whatever. [00:08:45] Speaker A: Long story. There it goes into the addiction things. [00:08:49] Speaker B: But. Yeah, so. So we go into the marriage, and it. It seems to me to be blissful. I'm. It's like the marriage. The romantic ideal marriage that I had never had. I'd never felt that way before about. Yeah. I mean, I just was like, oh, my gosh. This is. I never thought I would have this. [00:09:11] Speaker A: Right. [00:09:11] Speaker B: You know, and it was a whirlwind, and it was amazing. Yeah, we. We struggled right off the bat, you know, just with, like, finances and things, like, adult stuff. It's not fun, you know, but rebuilding our lives and all that. But I was just so in love, and I still am. So I don't want it to sound like I'm not anymore, but I was just smitten, I guess would be the best way to do it. I mean, I remember texting each other, and we were just, like, sick. I mean, it was like, sick. Like, oh, my God, I love you so much that it's like these stupid emojis all day long, and just like, I love you so much, you know. [00:09:50] Speaker A: I remember whenever my phone update or something like that, and I lost. Lost all our old text messages, and I was just devastated. She's like, that's okay. I still have them. [00:09:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:58] Speaker A: Yes. As long as one of us has them. Okay. But I was just devastated. [00:10:01] Speaker B: I mean, we were pathetically in love, and we still are. And we are. Yeah, it was. It was just so cute. And I'd never had that, and I don't think you had either. [00:10:10] Speaker A: No, I never had had that before. [00:10:12] Speaker B: We. You know. Of course, you had been married before, too, and you still hadn't had that. And so we just kind of went from that right into, like, working our job so hard and working so many hours. And you started traveling. [00:10:27] Speaker A: Well, we got married. [00:10:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. August. Yeah. Of 21. [00:10:32] Speaker A: August. What? 24th. [00:10:34] Speaker B: August 7th. [00:10:35] Speaker A: August 7th. Pardon me. I knew it was August, so I get points for that. August 7th. And the next day we went to work. [00:10:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:42] Speaker A: Yeah. We didn't get hungry. [00:10:43] Speaker B: Yeah. We had to wait till September. [00:10:45] Speaker A: Had to wait till September to get hi. Because I was just starting to travel and Shay was. Had changed to a different company that she was working for. No, that was after we got married. [00:10:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:57] Speaker A: You had left that company. [00:10:58] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a lot. [00:10:59] Speaker A: Yeah. But once we got a step to that and we went on a honeymoon, kind of. [00:11:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's. That. It would be so awesome if we just said, yeah, that's. That's our life and that's our story, and. Hey, guys. But that's not what happened, so I'll just kind of jump in little further and fast forward it. So it just got to where I think we were both so stressed, and we were so desperate to, you know, pay our bills. And I mean, everybody in that. In those years and even now with inflation, all that's happened. Everybody's struggling financially, and. And I think that. [00:11:35] Speaker A: And they were back then, too. Yes. [00:11:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And we were just struggling and. And you decided in the middle of all that. And I did switch to a sales position, which I hated to do, but I felt the Lord telling me. So I went into that and. And then you. You were still working out of town for a while, but then you decided to come home. And we were like, okay, we don't know how we're gonna make this work. Because you were making the money. [00:11:58] Speaker A: Yes. [00:11:59] Speaker B: While I was building. And we just were like, well, we don't care, because I don't think it's healthy. We just missed each other really bad. And so you came home, and I thought everything was okay now. We were struggling with just the stress, you know, and so we ended up moving cities, selling our home, getting into another house just to kind of relieve some. Some of the financial burden on us. And. And I noticed, you know, things were kind of. You were acting anxious. This was last. [00:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Not at first. At first, everything was okay, you know, just the normal stress. [00:12:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you found a job and you were settled in, and I knew that everything was weird, and I could tell, you know, that you were super stressed. [00:12:44] Speaker A: I've been having a lot of anxiety attacks. [00:12:46] Speaker B: Yeah, you were having anxiety attacks. And I remember around that time, you. [00:12:54] Speaker A: Know, just everything had suffered. [00:12:56] Speaker B: Well, we had started. This is where it started. This is why we call it the marriage altar, because I can't believe I almost forgot to talk about this. We had started in August. It may be July. We had started praying together and reading Our Bibles in the morning together. So the Lord had just, like, I woke up one morning and I just felt him say, y' all need to pray. And I said, y' all. Yeah, we're from Texas. Yeah, y' all need to pray and you need to read your Bibles together. You need to approach me as. As one. [00:13:27] Speaker A: I had no idea that doing. There was more that we did to that. We also staked out our property. We got that idea from a book. [00:13:33] Speaker B: Yeah, we have. We got it from a book. And we staked out our property. We put scriptures on it. We drove out any demonic powers or anything that maybe had been done before we got here or anything spiritually that, you know, we brought or whatever. [00:13:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I was being a total hypocrite. I was being totally hypocrite. Critical. And you can't ask God to do something, and then you can't expect God to not do it, because God's going to do what you ask him to do if it's in his will. [00:14:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, we were. [00:14:04] Speaker A: And he had been convicting me for a while already about. About the things that I was doing and my actions and that I needed to get my heart right. I remember I got this one feeling, or whatever you want to call it, from the Holy Spirit said, okay, if you don't do it now, I'm going to do it for you. And if you do it, it'll hurt, but if I do it, it's going to hurt a lot more. I put it off for about another week, trying to clean things up on my own. And God took the band aid off because I kept negotiating with God, and there is no negotiating with the Lord. You can say that, God, if you'll do this for me, then I'll do this for you. But God's been around a long time, and God doesn't. God doesn't negotiate. His word is final. And he did. [00:14:50] Speaker B: And I think what you were really crying for was freedom. [00:14:54] Speaker A: Well, not from us. [00:14:55] Speaker B: No, no. Freedom from the. Freedom from addiction. Let me just kind of set you up, and then you can talk about that. So what happened was I was sitting at home. I work from home, and I was. I was working, and I got a random Facebook message from a lady, and she just said, hey, I would want somebody to tell me this if I was in your situation, but I didn't know that your husband and you were married. And we've. We're. We're in a relationship. We've been talking, you know, we've been texting whatever she said some other things, and I was like, what? You know, I mean, I screenshotted that, and I texted it to you because I thought because you. You had already made up this whole story, I went into damage mode. Well, you had already made up this story, and you had said, hey, there's this other lady at work, and it wasn't her. Somebody else who. She has it out for me. She can't stand me, and she's trying to get. Trying to get me fired or something. And so I thought maybe they were working together and they were making up a story to make you look bad. So that's how it started. [00:16:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And I stayed at work half that day, and it finally got to the point where somebody had contacted you, and I couldn't remember who it was, but I went to my supervisor, then my director of nurses, and I told her that, hey, you know what? I think it's time for me to leave. I've got to go home. I've got a mess at home that I've created, and people up here aren't helping. I think there's more than one person there. After a while, it was several people who were to contact me. [00:16:30] Speaker B: That was later. [00:16:31] Speaker A: Yes, that was later on. And I got home, and, man, you got home. [00:16:36] Speaker B: And that night. Well, it didn't. Didn't fall apart that night. I remember we had Cohen, our grandson, and thank God it didn't kind of all come apart that night because you made up a lie and said, this is what's going on. And I just was like, oh, okay. So they're just have it out for you. So I'm thinking to myself, he would never cheat on me. He would never, ever. I just. I never sensed that in you at all. And never. It's just never. It wasn't on my radar, you know? [00:17:06] Speaker A: Well, I think my military experience. I was in the military for 18 years, saw combat in three different wars. And I think that you get pretty good after a while of hiding your emotions. You get pretty good at acting like everything is okay. You get good at that because nobody wants to be the weakling. And I want to say that several times throughout this podcast. I'll say it several times. But came home, I thought that I had meddled everything over, and, you know, you've got the angel here and the devil on each side, and it kept telling me, oh, yeah, you did good. Everything's gonna go away now, and you're gonna be all right. Okay, I'll beat this. But the next day, bam, a nuclear weapon went off. [00:17:48] Speaker B: In our room, we. I had bought. It was his birthday, ironically, which I don't think is ironic at all. I think it was. [00:17:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:57] Speaker B: I think it was the enemy trying to take you out. [00:18:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. [00:18:01] Speaker B: But that day, I had bought some tickets for a play because he loves the theater, and we were gonna go for his birthday. [00:18:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:07] Speaker B: And we were actually gonna stop first to get ice cream. [00:18:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:11] Speaker B: Yep. And I got a phone call, and it was a blocked number. And I'm like, well, that's weird. And so I didn't. I. I declined it. And then it called right back. And then I. I answered it, and it was another woman, and I had her on speaker, and she proceeded to tell me, it's a different woman. That you and her were in a relationship that you had been texting each other for a year and a half. [00:18:33] Speaker A: Yeah, it was a texting. It was a texting relationship. Never got physical. [00:18:37] Speaker B: But she sent me screenshots and pictures to prove it. [00:18:40] Speaker A: Right. [00:18:42] Speaker B: And so I am, like, at this point, I don't even have words for, like, your whole world. Just. [00:18:49] Speaker A: Well, obviously, we did not go to the play that night. [00:18:52] Speaker B: We did not. [00:18:52] Speaker A: We came home and that's when everything really just kind of blew into motion. Because you can't ask God to take away all the evil when you're the evil one in the household. It's totally hypocritical. And God warned me. And I think throughout the whole thing, I have been Matt Thor. One time. You know, I've made excuses for myself. I think my excuses. Okay. So anyway, so that night. [00:19:16] Speaker B: Well, we stayed up all night fighting. [00:19:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And it was truly. [00:19:19] Speaker B: And I. I had to press you for about three hours before you finally admitted because you were saying, oh, my God, I didn't do it. She. She just used, like, something on the computer to make it look. [00:19:31] Speaker A: It was so lame. It was so lame. [00:19:33] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. So we fought all night. Yeah. [00:19:35] Speaker A: Yes. We fought all night long. And then the next day, it wasn't much better the next day. It really wasn't. We fought for a good. [00:19:42] Speaker B: Well, you got up that morning. [00:19:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I got up that morning, and I was going to mow the yard. We got a great big yard. And I had run my mower out of gas, so I got the two gas cans. I went to the gas station about 10 minutes from our house, and she had received a phone call from a guy that I worked with at this nursing facility. [00:20:08] Speaker B: And he just confirmed and actually told me. He told me it was way worse than what I had Even imagined that there was just a lot more than I knew. [00:20:19] Speaker A: And so adding my 18 years military experience with this and several combat tours, obviously I have post traumatic stress disorder, and it was untreated. I was doing a really good job of hiding it. You know, the typical things would kind of make me jump. Like loud noises. You can't sneak up on me because I'll freak out. Shotgun. I don't like weapons to this day. I don't like shooting. Some vets do. I'm just not a vet. I'm a vet who doesn't want that kind of stuff in my life right now. Depression, anxiety attacks, moodiness, not sleeping. And then you add that on top of my other addiction. And so that day, I was. I was at the gas station. I had the gas in the truck. I had put gas in the gas can. I think she called me and she's like, okay, this is what's going on. And some words were said, and I was like, you know what? I have one more thing that I can do. And after that, I kind of blacked out. It came kind of in and out then, but I had a 9 millimeter weapon in my truck. I carry it because I drove late at night and early in the morning to work and back, and I drove to a graveyard. And I had reached a point. I had reached a point where I knew that I had hurt the one thing in the world who loved me unconditionally. Something that I told God that I wanted. Something I got told God that I would take care of and I would treat as special as he did. And I violated that. I went against that promise. So I just broke. I went to the graveyard, and I had every intention of ending it. And not just because I had gotten caught with that. It was because I was so tired dealing with my post tract stress disorder. I was tired of hurting people. I was tired, and I knew that I had hurt my wife. Someone who didn't deserve it at all. [00:22:23] Speaker B: She really did. Well, I just want to say real quick, you keep saying my addiction, but you didn't really like. It's actually considered a sexual addiction. [00:22:33] Speaker A: It is sexual. [00:22:34] Speaker B: So, you know, I just wanted to clarify that people might be thinking, what's exactly. [00:22:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So PTSD on top of a lifelong sexual addiction that started when I was 13, 14 years old. We'll get into that later down the road. But everything that happened that day was so. Holy spirit. [00:22:57] Speaker B: It was. [00:22:57] Speaker A: Everything was so. God. And I pull into the graveyard, and I called my best friend Adam. He lives in Florida. But First, I called my friend Dwayne, and he didn't answer. And I called Adam, and I told Adam. I was like, man, you know, I can't do this anymore. I am screwed up. Cheated on my wife, and I'm tired of hurting people, and I'm tired of hurting. So I said my goodbyes to Adam, and he begged me not to just get the hand. He is. He told me to call the VA Hotline for suicide prevention. And any vet who knows anything about the VA knows that they are not. It is not a good situation with the va. They don't take care of you. This is what I heard. This is what I had thought. So anyway, so talking about this, it's not easy. So I had to go down. And Adam was like, nope, man, you're gonna. I want you to call the VA Suicide prevention. And I did. And this young lady on there. And by the time that I was on the phone with VA Hotline for suicide prevention, Jenna and her mother found me. I don't know how, other than just. You knew. Her mom. I had turned off my location. [00:24:26] Speaker B: I just knew. Yeah. [00:24:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I had turned off my location, and. [00:24:33] Speaker B: I called the cops, and. And they were involved. They were looking as well. [00:24:37] Speaker A: Yeah. She had drove up with her mom, and she had actually got out of her mother's car. Now, you and your. [00:24:42] Speaker B: We were in my mom's car. She drove. Yeah. [00:24:45] Speaker A: And after that, I kind of blacked out. I don't really remember much after that. It's just kind of bits and pieces. The next thing I know, I'm driving my truck through the graveyard. There's a cop behind me, chasing me. And so I pull over and I get out of the car. I didn't get out. I yelled through the window, I've got a gun. Do not come near my truck. And from there, it's just bits and pieces of things. The hallucinations were the worst part, I believe, about all of it. And Shannon was watching this from a distance. Gregor has a big feeling middle. They were up on the hill, I guess. Right. [00:25:18] Speaker B: Well, at first, you know, I was kind of creeping around. They didn't realize I was down, kind of down from you guys, behind some trees, watching and praying. I was on my face almost before God, just bawling and begging him, begging him to stop you. [00:25:33] Speaker A: And. And, you know, if you never feel the love of God before you feel it. I felt it there. I thought I didn't have a purpose in the world. I thought that I had ruined any blessing, any chance of any good that I could do in this world. I just wanted to get home. I just wanted everything to end. I wanted to go ahead and take any punishment that I had for killing myself when I got to heaven, Just go ahead and end it and let her move on with her life and let her family move on. Because most of her family have been very gracious to me. They actually. Her mom and dad adopted me as our son. I mean, they have been nothing but amazing. But about three hours. [00:26:18] Speaker B: It was a three, three and a half hours to end off with the cops. They had about four or five cars up there. [00:26:26] Speaker A: Yeah. So finally, a cop named Maria has a boyfriend. Husband. [00:26:33] Speaker B: It's her husband. [00:26:34] Speaker A: He's her husband. Yeah, don't ask him that. She says he's her husband. He was special operations like I was, and he had been through similar situations. He had done stupid things like I had. He had spent some time in the mental hospital, mental facilities, trying to get help for his ptsd. And he talked me down, you know, having. Having a battle buddy again that you could talk to about your problems. So he said, and you don't think about the consequences of what you're doing at the time. I mean, your consequences are dumb. But he's like, look, man, he said, I'm willing to help you. He said, but you've got a loaded weapon, and you're sitting there in front of my wife. And he said, I had really rather you not do that. I really rather you put the gun down so I can come up there and see you, he said, because they're not gonna let me come here and see you until you put that gun down. And I had been talking to Shannon several times throughout all of this. My family was wonderful, and I was. [00:27:44] Speaker B: Begging you not to do it. You don't remember? [00:27:46] Speaker A: I don't remember a lot about. [00:27:47] Speaker B: My mom was begging you. Allie was begging. Our daughter was begging. I mean, it was just right. We were all just trying to talk you down. [00:27:55] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, and I want to say I didn't do this because I was caught. This was coming. This already was coming down the line because I was so exhausted. I'm tired of the nightmares. I'm tired of the hurting people, you. [00:28:09] Speaker B: Know, and you had. And I had no idea. I had no idea that all this was going on inside of you. Like, you didn't let me into. [00:28:16] Speaker A: Well, I was. I was being the husband who takes care of his wife. [00:28:19] Speaker B: Right. He would always say that I'm supposed to take care of you. I'm supposed to take care of You. [00:28:21] Speaker A: I'm not supposed to, I'm not supposed to be taking care of anybody. I'm a 50 year old man, you know, I should be able to take care of myself. And I prided myself on being that strong. But when you're broken on the inside, you're not a whole person. You can't be strong. You're not a whole person. So they talked me down and her husband's name was Diz. Drove up to the hospital, drove up to the, the, the graveyard. [00:28:50] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:28:51] Speaker A: And he came, he taught me down. And then my wife and kids came up. Anyway, it's really humbling knowing that you almost murdered yourself. [00:29:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:17] Speaker A: But anyway, my wife and kids came up, my daughter Ally, my grandkids were even there. And that's what's so bad about it, is that even my grandkids, that's the last thing they would know about me. I was laying dead on the ground and they hugged me. They loved me. [00:29:40] Speaker B: Yeah, me and me Ally and my mom. [00:29:45] Speaker A: Yeah. They let the kids come up with her mother. [00:29:49] Speaker B: They tried to call you and you wouldn't answer. [00:29:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And I just knew that I had destroyed my life. So they took me to the hospital for mental evaluation. I found out I had insurance. [00:30:02] Speaker B: Yeah, we didn't even know he had insurance. [00:30:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Because I had never done anything with the va, but I had Tricare west, obviously veteran. So I stayed in the hospital overnight under armed guard, you know, like I was, no shoes on. I was in a hospital gown freezing to death. But then the next day they allowed Shannon come there, see me a couple of times during the night. And just living with that, it's just almost more than I want to bear. But I could see the toll that I had taken on her. And I could see the hurt and I could see the, the pain that she was going through and she could see the pain that I was going through as well. And she hugged me, she talked to me, she told me where I was going or I told her where I was going. And the next day I came, I rode in an ambulance up to Red River Mental Hospital, a mental facility for people. And I spent four days, five days, five days in there. [00:31:16] Speaker B: And I had no ability to talk to him unless he called me. [00:31:20] Speaker A: Yeah, they take your phone. [00:31:22] Speaker B: It was torture. [00:31:23] Speaker A: It was because Shannon and I, the one thing about us is that we talk to each other constantly throughout the day. If it's not voice, it's text. And that's just something I never got tired of. You know, I've always enjoyed talking to my wife. We're best friends. She was obviously a better friend than I was, but. Huh. Spent five days there. And the phone calls were hard, you know, the phone calls were real hard. I'm having to hear, you know, I'm having to hear in her voice the hurt that I've caused. And then I left her in such a bad situation here at the house. She was just starting a new career with a new company, and it was a big promotion for her. It was a big promotion for Shannon. And we had talked about her leaving that other company she was with before, but the time didn't feel right. Just about the time felt right, actually. [00:32:15] Speaker B: You know, I was gonna wait a few more, like another week. And then I remember us, you know, I don't know how, but I was coherent enough. The Lord was like, do it now. [00:32:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:25] Speaker B: And so I'm like, right now? Like, he's in the hospital. Do it right now. And he's like, yep. And I think that was because the pay was so much better, right? [00:32:35] Speaker A: The pay was so much better. [00:32:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:37] Speaker A: That was a prelude of things to come. So I got home and, well, we met it up. We went. We had a hotel room that night just so we could talk. Just so everyone seemed to be okay. I mean, I seem to be all right. We seem to be okay. I think we're putting on. I wasn't okay. I was still a basket case inside. [00:32:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:58] Speaker A: So much raw emotion. I had been having a lot of flashbacks. [00:33:02] Speaker B: Nightmares. [00:33:03] Speaker A: Nightmares. I'm not gonna get into those, but this is a dog. Snake. Dog. [00:33:10] Speaker B: She knows he's upset. [00:33:12] Speaker A: She's our little. What kind of dog? Support dog. But we met the hotel that night. And then the next day, I got another text message from someone saying, hi, honey. And it was from someone else that I had been talking to. And. [00:33:32] Speaker B: You lied about that. [00:33:33] Speaker A: A lot about that too. I told her that. I told her it was nothing, just. Just to delete it, and it's not important. So she did. She's a beautiful wife. She deleted it. [00:33:44] Speaker B: I just couldn't. I think I was at the point where I couldn't deal with anything else at the moment. You know what I mean? So. [00:33:49] Speaker A: So we drove back home. And then she warned me before I got home that some of the people in her family weren't. [00:34:00] Speaker B: Well, you know, I don't. [00:34:04] Speaker A: There weren't long days. [00:34:05] Speaker B: So the thing is, the rumors I had heard were so awful that, you know, my family, I didn't have. I didn't have good information yet. I was still like, not sure what was true, what wasn't true, what the heck just happened. And so everybody is believing, you know, how the rumor mill is, or. Or how, like, everybody's believing the worst about a situation. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not saying it wasn't terrible, but I'm just saying, like, there were some things that weren't true that were flying around. And I think. And also just some of my family members being scared to be around you or have their children around you. [00:34:46] Speaker A: Well, you had come from a relationship where you were and weren't treated the best it was ever verbally or mentally abusive, but it was. It was cheating. And her family, especially her sister. [00:35:00] Speaker B: But really, I think more of it came from people being afraid because you had tried to kill yourself and you're a veteran. There's that stigma with veterans with PTSD that if they. If they come unhinged, are they going to shoot everybody that's around? Well, that was really where it was coming from. [00:35:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And they had also told her before I could come home that she had to get rid of all the guns. [00:35:20] Speaker B: In the house, which is great. [00:35:21] Speaker A: And we still don't have any. [00:35:22] Speaker B: Yeah, the vehicle. [00:35:23] Speaker A: We have one weapon in the house now, but I don't have any access to it. Only if it's a home. A situation comes up where a home thing happens, home invasion or whatever. But the rest of my guns are at her parents. And I love my weapons. You know, one of them. One of the weapons is my brother's.308 win mag. And. [00:35:45] Speaker B: But you were. You weren't stable enough. And the VA told me I had to do it in order for you to come home. [00:35:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I still got a 9 millimeter at the police department. That was my dad, so I got to get that one. [00:35:57] Speaker B: But what happened next, I think, to me is probably one of the most beautiful parts of the story. [00:36:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll let you talk that. I talk a lot. [00:36:06] Speaker B: Well, we. We got back from. I picked you up on a. On a Friday. [00:36:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:13] Speaker B: And we stayed. We stayed in a hotel Friday night. We kind of spent the day together. Saturday, we kind of did some running around up there, ate and stuff like that. We came home, and we were still like. I don't know if you've ever been in a traumatic situation, but you kind of just feel like you're floating around. And I felt like we were just kind of floating around. I wasn't really in my body. It still hadn't hit me yet what was going on. I was still just. I don't know how to explain it. Just not really there, you know, but hanging on to God. And I had this. I had this hope inside. And I had talked to my friends. They are amazing. And they. And I have two friends that are just amazing. And throughout all of that, they were praying with me every day, interceding, you know, they would. If there were things that they felt like the Lord was, you know, saying to encourage me, they would tell me. And. And they were. They were very encouraging about, hey, I think God wants to do a restoration work here. And so that's what I was feeling. And the Lord had given me a really strong word. I was praying one morning, and it took me a good 15, 20 minutes just to calm my nerves and calm myself down to where I could hear him. But when he finally spoke to me, it was a word of restoration about us. He gave me a specific phrase and his scriptures to go with it. And I've hung. I've clung to that from the moment he told me that. But so the next day we went to our church and the. The sermon from the moment we got there. Yeah, the whole thing, the whole service was, like, set up for him, for you. And the sermon was. Was kind of wrapped around the centurion soldier who. It says that he's a good man, but he wasn't saved yet. And so I think. I think Paul. Or is it Peter? Maybe it's Peter. It was Peter takes the message to his household and they get saved. And there was something about that passage or that sermon that day from our pastor that really just wrecked you. And at the end of it, you. You. I mean, your hands shot up when he gave the invitation for salvation. [00:38:20] Speaker A: Well, I think. I think one thing I really. I really connected with that so well is because of the soldier and. And there's redemption in what you do. And I had spent. But I had spent all those years while I was in the military doing things to other people just so I could perform. And you carry that with you. And some people, it doesn't bother. And you have my undying, you know, respect because it ate me a lot. But I could identify with the Roman centurion just because he was a soldier. And to me, that story was about no matter what you do, no matter where you go, no matter who you hurt, no matter what your actions are, if there's a willingness to be forgiven, there is forgiveness. I wish it was that easy. But it is easy to be forgiven. All you have to do is just ask God. God, I am so sorry, but it's not that easy. It's the. [00:39:28] Speaker B: It's the condemnation that you feel from Satan and even your own. [00:39:32] Speaker A: But I went before everybody that I knew the first time. We're out the next day. [00:39:37] Speaker B: Well, you went that day down to the front of the church and told one of the pastors what had happened. [00:39:41] Speaker A: Right. And then the next day, I went to your parents. [00:39:43] Speaker B: My parents. He confessed everything. And that was hard them to forgive him. [00:39:47] Speaker A: Yeah, that was very, very hard. But she was. Her mom and dad are really great. She comes from a great family. Now. The other part of the family, I'm still working on. But it'll happen if God wants it to happen. You know, in God's timing, everything is perfect. [00:40:04] Speaker B: It was a lot of damage control. [00:40:06] Speaker A: It was. Shanna hasn't told him everything, and there's just some things that we want to keep inside the house for a while and eventually. But. But right now, I just. [00:40:20] Speaker B: Yeah. What that was. That was kind of the turning point, I think. And, you know, when you look back at it, you think, okay, the Lord was. He answered our prayer. The very things we were praying back in July, he answered in September. And, you know, because there's been. There have been moments where I have been like, lord, I don't understand how you let this happen, blah, blah, blah. And then he would say things like, I answered your prayer. You asked me. You asked. Because there were things I asked the Lord for on your behalf before this happened. I was praying. I knew that in your heart, you were still a prodigal. You had come back, but you weren't surrendered. I knew that I. I went like, if he. If he would ever get to know the Lord the way that I have. [00:41:08] Speaker A: Get. [00:41:08] Speaker B: Have been able to get to know him and experience his love, you would be wrecked in a good way. [00:41:14] Speaker A: Well, it's not. [00:41:15] Speaker B: That's what I prayed for. [00:41:16] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not as easy as saying, God, I love you. Yeah, it's not that easy. You've got to surrender. [00:41:21] Speaker B: And it. You did not want. You. You. You didn't want to surrender. [00:41:24] Speaker A: I didn't want to. I enjoyed my life, you know, I mean, I didn't enjoy what I was doing to my wife, but I did enjoy my life. To me, following God all the way is. You have to consequences. You can't do anything fun. [00:41:36] Speaker B: And. And on that note, there have been consequences that we have endured the last eight or nine months. Absolutely ended up getting out of that job. You haven't even gone back into nursing. [00:41:48] Speaker A: Now everybody that we talk to says, nope. Yeah, now it's not the time. [00:41:51] Speaker B: It's just staying out of it, being obedient, following in the Lord. But the financial. I mean, we've been under a financial strain, obviously, you know, because we lost that income. [00:42:03] Speaker A: God's been faithful throughout our income taxes last year, pretty telling what we made and what our bills were did not match up. And then. And then we're trying. We're looking at you like, okay, how'd that happen? You know, we kept our home. We kept our cars. The lights were still on. We ate. We were eating really bad around that time. But everything was provided for us from the Lord. And I got to tell you, man, that that is such a humbling thing to look back on and see is that someone who was as broken as I was, someone who just. I didn't want to live, you know, I was so messed up. And to see that God's favor can find me with a wife like you and with. And with providing sustenance to us was just. It's just humbling to think about today. It makes you develop a love relationship with the Lord that you've never had. [00:43:02] Speaker B: And that's what you said to me. We were in the living room. This was, like, right after you had been home a few weeks. We're working through. I mean, we're just at that point, just now starting to, you know, kind of really understand what in the heck had just happened, you know? And you said. You were crying. You said, I have fallen in love with him, like the Lord. Like, I've never known him like this. And I'm thinking that right there, that's why this happened. [00:43:31] Speaker A: When you do that, you see everything so different. You know, you see that it's. It is fun being a Christian and it's work, but you see and you feel the Holy Spirit come into your heart. And once you give that point, final surrender, the Holy Spirit comes in, and he lives there, and everything about you changes. You become a totally different person. [00:43:53] Speaker B: Yeah, you're totally different. And I was. I was thinking a second ago as you were talking about that, because a lot of people probably don't realize that ptsd, typically, people will enter into risky behaviors or addictions. [00:44:09] Speaker A: And I love risky behavior. [00:44:11] Speaker B: So a lot of people don't realize that that's one of the ways when you have ptsd, especially combat veterans seem to have it more than others. But you. You do things because you want the adrenaline release. So the reason he was doing these things had nothing to do with. And this is Hard. I've had to really just take this by faith that it had nothing to do with me or. Or any deficiency in me. It was literally your brain because of the combat needed adrenaline. [00:44:43] Speaker A: Yeah. I call it. Go ahead. [00:44:45] Speaker B: Well, it had grown accustomed to having adrenaline. [00:44:48] Speaker A: I called it my addiction. Addicted to the rush. Any combat veteran can tell you that when you're going into combat, you get this huge dump of adrenaline into your body. It's fight or flight mode, and flight is not an option, so you have to fight. And your entire time that you're in that, your body is steadily producing more and more adrenaline, keeping you engaged, keeping. [00:45:10] Speaker B: You addicted to it. [00:45:12] Speaker A: And you become addicted after a while, because then this is a lot of combat veterans that I've talked to. That guy who Biz, who came and talked to me before, he's like, man, he said, we did things that the people in this. A lot of people in this world don't understand. And he said, you have to have the adrenaline in order to live. And he said, when you get out, the government doesn't tell you how to get off of that address. When I went through, when I discharged from the military, they taught me how to write a resume, and that was it. I went to see a psychiatrist. Obviously, you go through the workups, you know, you get the military, you go through the medical and all this stuff. And the psychiatrist looked at me and said, well, I looked at your record. You want to kill yourself? I'm like, no, I don't want to kill myself. Why would I want to kill myself? Not knowing that this is going to happen a few years down the road. So. [00:46:09] Speaker B: Yeah, because so many times people with PTSD don't know they have it. [00:46:13] Speaker A: No, it didn't occur to me that I had post traumatic stress disorder. I knew now when I got out, when I first got out the military, I was hallucinating really bad. So I substituted. I kept that down not with a medication, but with wine and alcohol. [00:46:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:28] Speaker A: And I drank that addiction for another one. Yeah, I traded that addiction for another one. [00:46:31] Speaker B: I just wanted to bring that up real quickly. I don't want to stay and make this episode about that. We'll do that. Probably the next one. But I wanted to bring that up because I know there's going to be some people watching this and your. Your first instinct is going to be to be very judgmental. And I get it. [00:46:49] Speaker A: Send me any comments you got, because honestly, I promise, you can't tell me a comment that I haven't already thought about myself. So I Want raw emotion. I believe raw emotion is the best way to get so. [00:47:00] Speaker B: Well, I think until. Until people truly understand the way that disease works. [00:47:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:07] Speaker B: And the people that are trapped in these addictions, they don't want to be right. And. And it took me a minute. And one of the things you keep talking about, bizarre, and so it obviously saved. Was an instrument to save your life. But he told me, because I was at the hospital about to talk to you, and he's like, listen, if you can do whatever you want, you can walk away. He said, but if you choose to stay this. He can be fixed. He can. He can learn how to deal with this. I'm telling you, because I did. And he said, I know it's not fair what's been done to you, but it wasn't fair what happened to us. That's what he told me. And it stuck with me because that kind of changed my whole perspective where I'm like, this is not about me, like, at all. This is not about me at all. [00:47:56] Speaker A: Right. I'm not bashing the military because I see the 18 years I was in the military, it's one of the best in my life. I saw things that people wouldn't believe to this day. And actually, you're the only person who knows a lot about it. She's the only person that I've ever come to. And some of the things I told her, she just looked at me like I had three heads at first, and she came to realize that I was telling the truth. But the military does it. They know how to train you. And this is what biz don't. He said, they train you, they put you in combat. You use that training, but they can't fix you. They can only give you medications. They can only. They can only mask what's going on. But he said, but they don't fix you. They don't. They can't take out what they put in. And. And that rings so true because, unfortunately. [00:48:42] Speaker B: You had to have it to survive. [00:48:44] Speaker A: You have to have that training. You have to have that, but your. [00:48:46] Speaker B: Brain doesn't know when it's over. Hey, you're safe now. You don't have to do that anymore. And it's really hard because what ends up happening is you've got to figure out a way to get this adrenaline, which I said, we'll talk about that later. But I just. I just feel like. Want to throw that out there. I know there's going to be judgment, and I get it, because I was in. I was sitting in Judgment for a while until I began to really research it and understand ptsd. [00:49:10] Speaker A: Yeah. The sexual addiction, too, played a large part in it. And you combine those two together and it's just a bomb waiting to go off. But there is hope. [00:49:22] Speaker B: But I will say, and we didn't talk about this a lot, and I know this is a super long episode, so we may have to break this up into a couple. But you also, when you went down that day at church, God immediately delivered. This is crazy because this is not something you're not going to hear. This if you go to counseling, which I highly recommend, or they're not going to talk about this. But there was an actual deliverance that happened in you to where God took that desire completely away. [00:49:56] Speaker A: I had gone before the church, a church intolerant that we were going to. I guess just hearing, hearing what I got out of the sermon about the Roman Centurion was God loves you no matter what you've done. You know, and when I was a kid, I'm not bashing Southern Baptist. Everybody knows Southern Baptists have their own. They have good things about Southern Baptist. We are non denominational now. It's spirit filled. [00:50:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:20] Speaker A: And all you were beat with when you're growing up throughout your life is the ten Commandments. Thou shalt not. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. And I did both. And hearing about the Roman Centurion and knowing that God just said, you know what? I don't care about the past. The past is forgiven. You're a good person. You have a chance at complete redemption. Just say, lord, save me and I will save you. If it hadn't broken down that easy to me before, you know, who knows? But that day when I was in front of that church, God took my sexual addiction away. It's not there anymore. I know some people will probably say no, addiction is always addiction. For some it is. But when you bring the Holy Spirit and you bring the God of the universe into things, things change. [00:51:17] Speaker B: Things that we cannot do. [00:51:18] Speaker A: Yeah, things completely change. And there's a. When you hand over your life to God, there's a change that happens to you physically and mentally. Where even if you start entertaining things like that was a big horror movie about, I used to be a ghost hunter. [00:51:38] Speaker B: And that was because you wanted the adrenaline. [00:51:40] Speaker A: I wanted the adrenaline. So I did ghost hunting for a while. And that was cool. But it allowed bad things to come into my heart. We'll tell that story about what happened when we met. [00:51:51] Speaker B: That'll be fun. [00:51:52] Speaker A: Yeah. It will. But after, after you give yourself over to the Lord, you don't want to do those things anymore. Those things are past. You are a new man and you're a new people. You know, And I think that our marriage is new. Yeah, it has been. It has its bad days. [00:52:11] Speaker B: We're still healing. [00:52:12] Speaker A: We're still healing and we're still coming to terms with things that have happened. But love each other through the bad days, men or women, if you're the one who cheated or if you're the one who has post traumatic stress to. I give perks to the women who served in combat, just like I do my brothers. Be patient. Don't. I know I still have this problem. I still get kind of defensive sometimes. Whenever we. Whenever she wakes up in the morning, she's like, I'm struggling today. You know, the eye roll is the worst thing that you could do to your spouse. And I do it. Even to this day. It's a struggle to sit there and listen to it because I'm having to relive it again. And reliving the hurt that I caused it is just heart wrenching. Some days I'm better than others. But if you're the offending party in your marriage and you have cheated, or if you have post traumatic stress disorder and you do have a suicide event, or if you're struggling, listen to your spouse you can about what is going on in their hearts and in their minds. Because I promise you, when your spouse can feel like they have a voice and when they feel like they can actually talk to you without you brushing it off and saying, that happened months ago, that happened a long time ago, it doesn't matter anymore. It always matters, it always will. And you will have to make a lot of changes in your life. The offending party, you might make a lot of changes in your life. You have no personal life anymore. But I think we can get in that the next time, right? [00:53:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it's accountability. [00:53:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it's accountability we'll get into. That's a whole thing on its own. [00:53:59] Speaker B: What, what we're working on now, and I think we can kind of maybe end here is we're working, praying. [00:54:08] Speaker A: Right. [00:54:08] Speaker B: Asking the Lord to take what we have learned in the past nine months. [00:54:14] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:54:14] Speaker B: And format that into some kind of resource beyond just the podcast. Because obviously we're going to keep doing this, but this would be like support group. Or it could be like a book that we write. [00:54:27] Speaker A: Yeah, we already got plans for the book. [00:54:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Or. Or it could be the coaching. I Know that we are really leaning towards starting to coach people through this, because I think that was something we were missing. I mean, when you look back at what we went through, we've had some. We have one really good counselor. We have one that's not so great. [00:54:47] Speaker A: I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna call names, but they're not very good. [00:54:50] Speaker B: We have one that's amazing. [00:54:51] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:54:52] Speaker B: But I think what we were missing is if we had had someone that has, like, they were a couple and they're like, oh, we have been there. [00:54:59] Speaker A: Right. [00:55:00] Speaker B: Let us tell you. [00:55:01] Speaker A: And the good counselor has been there. [00:55:04] Speaker B: Yeah. But I think a couple that had some kind of structured program to help walk people through it, I think that's a component that you need to bring in. I don't think it's enough to just get counseling. [00:55:15] Speaker A: Right. [00:55:15] Speaker B: I think you need more support than that when you're going through something as traumatic as what we had gone through. And that's. I feel like where we're going with this. [00:55:24] Speaker A: Absolutely. I think. I think in time, old wounds will heal. I think in time. [00:55:33] Speaker B: As long as we keep bringing it to the marriage altar. [00:55:35] Speaker A: Absolutely. The marriage altar is a wonderful thing because you bring all of your concerns, you bring all of your hurt and pain to the altar. What happens when you go to the altar, people? You go to the altar and you confess your sins and you say, father, I need help. The blood washes it away. [00:55:55] Speaker B: And, you know, scripture says that we confess our sins to another and we'll be healed. [00:55:59] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:56:00] Speaker B: And I think that's what happened that day, is there was. There was true, honest confession. And because of that, you got to experience the healing. [00:56:10] Speaker A: I don't think that if I had come up to that church that day with the heart that. And the brokenness that I had, I don't think it would have turned out as good as it had. Yeah, I don't think so. Like I've said a hundred times, you've got to come to the Lord with an open heart. You gotta come to the Lord with a repentant heart. Because you can't say, okay, Lord, forgive me for all my sins, and then hold on to that, you know? But you've got to let it go, because God can't help you if you don't let it go. He's not going to force you. He's not going to force his way into your heart. He's not going to force his way into your life. We have free will, and he's going to let us do what we want, but we also have a blueprint of what not to do, and that's called the Bible. And the Holy Spirit is very, very good at speaking us through that Bible, too. [00:57:02] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think that. That we accomplished a lot today. We wanted to tell the story and just kind of get you guys familiar with we have been. Yeah. Who we are, what we've been through, and our heart. [00:57:17] Speaker A: Yeah. We're just normal, everyday people. You know, we don't have a 9 to 5. We have jobs, but we're just normal people. We're parents, we're grandparents, children of our families here on Earth. We're also a child of God. I think the one thing about this podcast that I'm hoping catches is that we're real people. You know, we're not educated. I'm not educated in any type of mental acuity. I'm not educated any type of psychology. I'm not anything. I'm coming to you as a man who was a veteran, and I was broken. And I still have my days. I still have my days when I don't want to be around anybody but just two normal people who are in love with each other. And we love God and we give God the glory for everything that we have been through and everything that we have gone through through him. And I just want to say right quick, before we, you know, I got to say my spiel about va, if there are any veterans. And I believe that God has divine providence, and I believe that God can put something in your path, even if it's this long podcast. If you were hurting, if you have reached the end of your rope and you are contemplating. Sue, please don't do it. Please don't. You have value. There's something on this world that you have to live for. Pretty sure you probably have kids. I've got a whole story with my kids from my previous marriage. And they keep me alive. My wife keeps me alive. My daughter Allie keeps me alive. My grandkids keep me alive. Because the world is better with you in it. A man or a woman. The world's better with you in it. Taking yourself out is not God's plan. That's not what God wants for you. So if you're hurting, please call the VA hotline. They saved my life. [00:59:27] Speaker B: What's that number? [00:59:28] Speaker A: I think it's 988. I believe it's 988. Call the and say, you know what, man? I'm sitting here in my living room right now, and I got a shotgun in my hand. I want to die. They will get you help. All the stuff that we went through, all the treatments and stuff, we never received a bill, receive one bill for 16. But they paid for all of my mental care at the treatment facility. They pay for all of my meds. They paid for all of my counseling. They even pay me to drive back. And I'm not saying the money is the reason why, but what I'm saying is, please don't do it. There is a way out, and the spouse is of people who have been cheated on, who have been hurt. Now, physical abuse is a totally different story. There's never a reason to physically hit anyone because you're hurting spouses. If your husband or your wife is in the middle of a flashback, just be present. Don't try to shake them, don't try to touch them. Don't try to do anything other than just be there. Be in the present with them and love them, because that is the best thing that you can do to keep from getting hurt. But if you're hurting spouses, go to the Lord. Don't let Satan win because you married that person or you're with that person for a reason. And don't let Satan win and get the victory and say, well, I knocked out another marriage because he couldn't be faithful or she couldn't be faithful. Spouses have to stay together. You've got to stay together. You've got to stay strong in the Lord. You've got to stay strong for each other, fall in love with your spouse again. But you've got to get help. You've got to get treatment. Because without the treatment, it's a continuous cycle. I think there's how many suicides a day? [01:01:23] Speaker B: 22. [01:01:24] Speaker A: 22 suicide deaths a day. That's 22 of my brothers and my sisters who are gone. [01:01:29] Speaker B: And you are almost in that cycle. [01:01:30] Speaker A: I was almost in that 22. And that is terrifying to think about. You know, as a Christian, we're supposed to want to go to heaven, but I want it to be at God's timing now, not at my time. My hand will never hurt anybody or myself. If you need to put a message down on the comments, I'll call you. I'll text you to talk to you. I think that veterans these days aren't as connected as we should be. I think that there's a big stigma about a veteran that needs help. I think there's a stigma about a veteran that professes to be a strong Christian. That's all we need is the Lord. But you're not taught that when you're in. You're taught how to shoot. You're taught how to sacrifice. You're taught how to get back home. But just don't do it. Please don't do it. There's. There's people out there that can help you. There are spouses. Stay strong. Hopefully through this podcast we can show you that there is redemption at the end. [01:02:33] Speaker B: There's hope. [01:02:34] Speaker A: There is a lot of hope. It's not always going to be easy, but worth it. But it's so worth it. It is so worth it. [01:02:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So hopefully you stuck with this through this two hour episode. [01:02:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:51] Speaker B: And I just want to say, you know, if, if this touched you in some way, please, like, please subscribe to our channel. Please please share this with, with someone, maybe possibly even a veteran. [01:03:03] Speaker A: Yeah, we are busy people and we will put another podcast as we. [01:03:08] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll be doing this weekly. That's where we're starting with, is weekly. But, you know, just help us get the word out. There's someone that this, this story could touch and give them hope. Please share this podcast with them. That's pretty much it. [01:03:22] Speaker A: I wish you guys nothing but the blessed, happy, happy belated Memorial Day to the Gold Star families out there. You have a very special place in my heart. I lost good friends in Iraq and Afghanistan and they are always on my mind. So thank you for your family. Thank you for your sacrifice, giving your son and your daughter up to defend this country. You are heroes. You have been through war and you're amazing. Thank you so much. God bless. See you soon. [01:04:07] Speaker B: Don't let it grow cold in the night.