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I had an entertaining and humorous conversation with Michael Jaquith, filled with valuable advice from his personal experiences. Michael tells his raw story of growing up in an abusive home, navigating the fallout from it, his conversion to Christ, and raising a family. He gives fresh perspective on how men can gain victory over addictions and live an abundant life in Christ. You will enjoy this interview!
Transcript below!
Biography
Dr. Michael Jaquith is a Ph. D. Chemist who left the corporate world and now helps men everywhere discover how to escape addictions and live a more meaningful and fulfilling life. Certified through the Life Coach School with specialization in addiction, he combines cutting edge science and coaching expertise with the time-honored teachings of the Faith. Michael is married with six children and lives in rural northern Idaho.
I offer both direct one-on-one coaching and a group program. These programs are designed to help men make big improvements and transformations in their lives. They will grow as husbands, fathers, employees, and in their faith.
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Transcript:
Michael Jaquith
[00:00:00] Diana Winkler: Hey, that’s me. I’m glad that you’re here. Glad you stopped by to listen. I’m hoping that the podcast episodes, the guests and the resources are helpful to you in your healing journey. That is my goal. I work very hard to bring you the best to improve the value of the podcast. So if you don’t know already, I have started to include the transcript in the show notes for you, and the YouTube videos have subtitles. [00:00:43] And I know you’re saying to me, Diana, it’s nice of you to catch up with the rest of the world. I know I’m a bit slow to learn the technology, but I’ve got it done for you, so [00:01:00] I hope that brings value to you. Now shortly, I will be doing some 30 second advertising before the show, just a heads up on that. It will not be interrupting the podcast in the middle of the interviews like some podcasters do. [00:01:23] I don’t think that’s a very good idea, especially with the delicate subject matter of the show. But I need to learn how to monetize my show with the minimum amount of annoyance. Right? Okay. We have a wonderful show for you today, A male survivor story. He’s a life coach with a different perspective. We’re going to be talking about faith and addictions, marriage, and [00:02:00] real solutions for healing. [00:02:03] The ladies listening, you might get an insider’s look at how your man thinks. Are they struggling, how to help him. So my guest is Michael Jaquith. So let’s hear a little bit more about him. Dr. Michael Jaquith is a PhD chemist who left the corporate world, and now helps men everywhere discover how to escape addictions and live a more meaningful and fulfilling life. [00:02:40] Certified through the Life Coach school with specialization and addiction. He combines cutting edge science and coaching expertise with the time honor teachings of the faith. Michael is married with six children and lives in rural [00:03:00] northern Idaho. [00:03:01] So I hope you enjoy my conversation with Michael. [00:03:08] Please welcome Dr. Michael Jaquith to the show. Thanks for coming. [00:03:16] Michael Jaquith: Thank you Diana so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation a lot. [00:03:22] Diana Winkler: Me too. You are our first Catholic guest on the show. [00:03:28] Michael Jaquith: Hopefully that also means I’ll be the best one, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. [00:03:31] Diana Winkler: Yeah, when I was like thinking insert Catholic versus Protestant joke here. Right? [00:03:36] Michael Jaquith: Honestly, Diana, I think right now we live in a time when what’s coming against us as Christians is so big and powerful that we don’t have time to really get into real, It’s, the jokes are always fun, but like the really, the deep, divisive stuff, there’s just not time for that anymore. [00:03:51] The opposition is too strong. [00:03:53] Diana Winkler: Thanks for being brave enough to come on and talk with a fired up Baptist. [00:03:59] Michael Jaquith: [00:04:00] It’s my pleasure. [00:04:01] Diana Winkler: Corny jokes aside, regardless of the denomination that we subscribe to, the principles of faith when it comes to healing from abuse are the same, right? [00:04:13] Michael Jaquith: I think we are. [00:04:13] Diana Winkler: And I really wanted the listeners to hear your story and your faith journey. Male survivors are still hiding in the shadows, not sharing their abuse with anybody, and they’re not getting any help. [00:04:27] Michael Jaquith: That’s true. [00:04:27] Diana Winkler: So, I’m really glad that you’re here today. And there may be somebody listening who’s Catholic or maybe a loved one that, that needs help that’s Catholic. [00:04:37] This podcast exists to provide resources and help and healing for all Christians. So, let’s start out with what was your life like growing up? [00:04:50] Michael Jaquith: I was raised in northern Michigan, but it was this little tiny town and my life was not great. [00:04:56] And so let me kinda set the stage. My, my parents were pretty poor. [00:05:00] My dad had never finished college and my mother got pregnant before they were married. And so it was kind of a shotgun marriage and she had a plan for career and that fell apart after she became pregnant several times in a row. And my dad was not ready to be a dad. [00:05:17] And I’ve talked to him now as an adult and we kind of talked through some of what happened. And he told in miss, he probably should not have married her, like he just wasn’t ready. But his dad basically drug him to the altar and said she got pregnant, so now you’re gonna put a ring on her finger. And so growing up, my dad. [00:05:34] I think he really was trying hard, but he had no patience and he had no self sexual control at all. And so it was a great deal of verbal abuse, a tremendous amount of physical abuse. There were broken bones in the family. There was, I remember one time I was probably eight trying to help my dad work on a boat trailer, and we lived in northern Michigan, lots of lakes, and couldn’t understand what he wanted me to [00:06:00] do. [00:06:00] On the other end of the boat trailer. And all I remember was he got so mad, he took the big old, vice grips and chucked them at my head. And it hit me right above the eyebrow, like left a goose egg, like, probably two inch wide goose egg. And as soon as he threw it, he felt bad. And so we went inside and we got a frozen bag of peas. [00:06:16] I still remember these details. We put the frozen bag of peas on top of it, but there were multiple broken bones there were, cuz he would just lose his temper. And I think my mother kind of tried to run interference for the kids as mothers often do in these situations. And so my perspective of her as a young boy was that she was just trying to appease him. [00:06:38] And so there’s this tumultuous beginning here as I, I’m coming out into this age, probably fourth grade coming, approaching fifth grade. And as a boy, you’re kind of like trying to understand what does it mean to be a man? And so I’ve got my dad and I see what my dad does, and it’s worth knowing that I had already been exposed to pornography by him at this point. [00:06:56] And it was clear at one point, even to me as a [00:07:00] fourth grader, there was something going on with him in another woman, and I didn’t ever know the details, but I could see kind of that going on. So you kind of have a sense here, like I’m a very confused boy, but to top it all off, we’re Christians. We go to church. [00:07:14] And so I’m living this life where I’m like, this is horrible. Like my dad’s beating the kids up, he’s also beating my mom. He’s yelling and raging at all of us. Sex stuff is outta control, but don’t worry, we’ve got Jesus. So we’re all good. Right? So I guess I’ll give you one guess what happens in my heart towards the faith, And I’m like that stuff doesn’t work. [00:07:35] So then the real big slunk, the real big fist to the gut comes in when in sixth grade it determines that he had been doing things to my sister. And he pled guilty to that and went to jail for 10 years. And from there, things just got worse because now I’m in sixth grade, I’m going through Puby myself. [00:07:55] I’m trying to understand masculinity, femininity, [00:08:00] what is sex, what is all this stuff? And Diana, I have to confess, I was a very hurt young boy at this point. I was angry and I was also very smart. So I go to school and I could level the sharpest insults at my peers and my classmates, and while I was smarter them so that I could like really jab him hard. [00:08:18] And so what I had to respond with, they respond, My dad did to my sister, and accusing me of the same things and the same labels. Oh. And so this builds this inner shame cycle all the way through high school that I just was bluntly being crushed under. At this point, my dad’s in jail. I’m the oldest son, so my mom, [00:08:37] Lord love her. She was trying her best. But for those who haven’t heard the term triangulation, that was a big factor for what was going on. Lemme just define that real quick. If you were to draw the relationship between a husband and a wife and then make a third point, which is the kid, the distance, the relationship between the husband and the wife should always be closer the distance between either spouse and a kid. And triangulations [00:09:00] when the distance to the kid gets closer. [00:09:02] And this doesn’t seem at first, that it would mean much to be like, Okay, so one parent’s really close to a child. But what happens without conscious control is the parent starts to rely on that child in a spouse like manner. And while it’s not overt sexual abuse, what was called psychologists called subtle sexual abuse, and the effects are actually very similar because the child doesn’t understand proper gender [00:09:26] identity with himself, with a spouse, what’s proper relationship? He’s not, or she sometimes his dad’s and daughters. It can be this corruption of the natural order of parent child. And so they leave very confused about this time my mother dissents into alcoholism and I’m I’m done with this poop show. [00:09:45] I graduate from high school, I drive to college. And I’m like, I am leaving every piece of my life behind me. I want nothing to do with any of it. I didn’t call my mother, I didn’t call my sister or my brother. I didn’t even call my [00:10:00] grandparents. I’m like, I’m out. I chased what I call the church of hedonism, if that makes sense. [00:10:05] Oh yeah. So that kind of maybe sets the stage for where my starting point was. [00:10:11] Diana Winkler: Wow. And you had suffered some really damaging things. And so what was the fallout from being raised in that abusive environment? [00:10:24] Michael Jaquith: I think there were a lot of big ones. The first big one was that I had a really negative perspective of the Christian faith, all of it, Catholic, Protestant, muzz, all of it. [00:10:33] I was like, this all is total bogus. Like I can’t handle that. I can’t believe it would be true cuz if God loved us, what happened to me growing up wouldn’t have happened. But the second really big fallout was that I was running away. And so I have tried to run away from my family from my second point and even from the emotions I felt inside. [00:10:55] And a lot of guys, I describe it the way that guys work is. We take this big ball [00:11:00] of emotions that we don’t know what to do with, and we shove it into an internal trash compactor. We try to squeeze it down into the depths and be like, Oh, if I just squeeze harder what happens if you’ve ever overloaded a trash compactor? [00:11:10] Especially with gooey, yucky things, it’s kind of flows and goos out the side and makes everything else sticky and yucky. And the same thing happens to a guy when he does the emotional trash compactor. So I hit college and I drank like a fish, like I was I shutter to think how much alcoholic could put down. [00:11:25] I chased ladies, like there was no tomorrow. I wasn’t very good at it. I didn’t really know what I was doing with ladies. I was so badly triangulated. I didn’t know how to even talk to a lady, but I chased them and I watched a lot of porn. Like I would say that in the college dorm when I was in porn was on more often than not, probably a lot more often than not. [00:11:44] And so as I’m going through college, I really tried real hard and I pretty quickly figured out that hedonism it doesn’t really pay out the promises that it seems to get will. Like you wake up the next morning, hung over having ped your guts out on the carpeting next to your bed and you realize, golly, this wasn’t the promise that I thought I was being [00:12:00] made. [00:12:01] And so as I start going through this college experience, I kind of leveled a little bit out and said, Okay, I need to aim for something bigger. So I graduate from undergraduate with two degrees, and I then decide I would go apply for graduate school and I apply, I get accepted to Cornell University to go work for a chemistry PhD. [00:12:18] I’m like, Cool, this is changing my life, right? This is the change I needed. I’m onto the right thing finally. And I go there and I work through the five and a half years, and it was really kind of the end of undergraduate and the beginning of graduate school that the question of faith was reopened to me. [00:12:35] There was a young man named Paul, ironically, that I met in ninth grade. And Paul, praise the Lord for Paul. He was just the most determined trooper of all time. And so Paul and I shared two great loves. We loved to argue and we love the outdoors. [00:12:53] those two to go together really well when you live in the middle of nowhere, okay. Like in the wintertime we were cross country skiing. In the summertime we were [00:13:00] hiking and the fall time we were just like getting about having fun. So Paul and I became very good friends. I got to know his family. I noticed something different about Paul’s family. [00:13:10] You’d walk in the door and it wasn’t like any of the other families of any of my friends I knew. There was peace in the household. There was just like you walk and could breathe a little bit, and I was like, What’s going on here? And so Paul and I started getting into arguments about the faith. And I was a shifty arguer. [00:13:26] Like I was devious. Like I, all I knew is that I was angry. I’m not even sure I knew that fully. And so my arguments would drift left and drift right? But I was always determined never to let anything good be said about the faith and about Jesus Christ. 12 years later, Paul finally started to win. Just to show you just how stubborn I am. [00:13:46] I talk to people, they’re like, I kind of knew the right thing. I knew I needed to convert. And so it took me five years. I feel really bad. It took me long. I’m like, five years. That’s amazing. Took me 12 years and I probably go longer. God had hit me upside the head with a two by four. And so this kind of started a [00:14:00] little bit of a crack of me, but that’s jumping ahead of the story. [00:14:02] So meanwhile, go off to Cornell. Paul and I are still friends and I start working my way through graduate school. I start to settle down a little bit in the pornography thing a little bit. The chasing the one night stands and I start getting into a little bit more serious relationship with girls. And I realized that the girl I really wanted to marry [00:14:19] probably was gonna be a Christian girl. The values that I wanted deep down, coming from a family that was not only divorced but badly broken, I knew that I wanted somebody who valued the permanence of marriage, who valued, self-sacrifice. And the idea that kind of, I didn’t really wanna read the Bible, but I knew a little bit about it to say, Okay, there’s something there about sacrificing to each other with spouses. [00:14:40] And now what I didn’t know at this time was I still have this nuclear bomb of like trash compactors, squished emotions sitting at the bottom of my gut. Oozing, gunky everywhere, but I’m ignoring that right now through this whole part of the story, right? And so I’m going through graduate school, I’m doing good work, I’m doing a little bit less drinking, eventually a lot less drinking. [00:14:59] I’m just playing with [00:15:00] Frisbee. Finally start making me pay a little more attention to health. I even ate a piece of vegetable once. Don’t tell anybody. But I do actually eat broccoli if I have to. [00:15:07] Diana Winkler: I love broccoli. [00:15:08] Michael Jaquith: So, It was right at the very end of graduate school. Five years into it when I’d been going to church for a little while and I remember I was praying, sitting in my car. All right, lemme set the stage here, Diana. I’m sitting in this car, My God, I think you’re calling me to come back and join the faith. I don’t really want to. [00:15:27] Like, there’s this famous prayer by Augustine, who’s one of the doctors at church back in the third century who says, Lord, give me chastity, but not yet . So that was still kinda my prayer at this point. And I’m sitting in the car, I’m like, All right, fine, I’m gonna church. So I get out and I say, Walk into this church. [00:15:44] I want you to imagine probably about a hundred foot wide banner stretched across the church that wasn’t there last Sunday, but it’s there this Sunday, and it says, Repent today. Yep. I was like, Did you have to make it so obvious? Lord, come on. You could have been like a little more subtle. Like you didn’t have to [00:16:00] hang a whole banner just for me. [00:16:01] Like maybe he did, Maybe God knows best. Of course he probably would probably have to do that just for me. And so I, decided, you know what? All fine. It’s time. I’m not getting what I want out of life. Chasing hedonism, trying to do this on my own, and I’m a very smart, I’m a very analytical, sort, Diana. [00:16:19] I came to the faith largely first in my head, which is opposite to what so many people do. So many people, they find the face through their heart first and then grow to learn it through their head. I really found it first in my head and then had to struggle to learn through my heart, and I still struggle with that. [00:16:32] Even to today. That is not something I’ve mastered. And so I, I do it. I take the plunge. I’m into the church again, and I finished graduate school. I moved to Portland, start working for Intel. High level research job, making big money. Like as far as I’m concerned, my life has changed. [00:16:48] It’s nothing like my home front. Right. I get married, our first kiddo comes along. Remember all that trash compactor? Yep. That’s still down there and it starts coming back. [00:17:00] Except for I didn’t realize what was going on. All I know is shoot, man, I am getting angry a lot. And I remembered, and I say this, not, this is a it’s hard for me to talk about some of this time period, but I remember we’re at church and we have a one year old at this point and she was just being obnoxious brat as one year old’s often are. [00:17:20] And I take her back to the cry room and she was just ratcheting up and ratcheting up. And I was getting so angry and like I’m just like wrapped my arms, wrapped around, like too tight of a hug that just kinda squeezing her just so she can’t throw her arms and flail around. But it was too tight and I knew it was too tight and I didn’t hurt her, but like I could tell like it was too much. [00:17:36] And two things happened. Number one, I looked at myself and I said, Michael, what is going on here? Where is this coming from? And the second thing that happened at that moment that I didn’t even know about the time was another man was watching me. His name was Ben. Ben was a courageous man, but I’m getting ahead of the story. [00:17:56] So we go home, I talk to my wife a little bit, my wife talks to me and [00:18:00] you know how guys are, What are you talking about? I don’t have a problem. There’s no problem here. It’s fine. She was, it’s, it was for the best. That’s how we rationalize things, right? Yes. And I’m living this thing. Another beat goes by, another week goes by next Sunday, two Sundays after that event, this guy walks up to me. [00:18:15] Our wives knew each other, but I didn’t know him yet. He happened to also work in Intel, but I didn’t know that either. And he just walks up and he’s super cool and he holds his hand out and he says, Hi, my name’s Ben. I go, Hi strange guy. My name is Michael. And he says, This may sound a little weird, but I want to give you something. [00:18:31] And I’m like, Okay, sure. I don’t mind getting something. And he hands out a little flash drive. Now for those, for copyright ofincinados. I’m sure what he did probably wasn’t quite in accord with copyright law, but just put that aside for the moment. And he says, I’ve got on this flash drive, a number of audio talks and audiobooks. [00:18:48] That really helped me. And there was a time when I really was struggling and didn’t know what was going wrong, and another man helped me out. And so I wanted to just come and offer this to you. And look, I’m not trying to force on you. [00:19:00] If you wanna walk away and throw this thing in the trash, I’ll never ask you about it again. [00:19:04] But if you’re not, if you’re interested at all, take out some of these talks. And then he reached out and hands me his card and he says, And if you ever need to talk, just gimme a ring. I’m available for lunch during the afternoon, whatever, and we’ll talk. And I was kind of shocked. I was like, Oh, shoot, does everybody know I have this big of a problem? [00:19:21] And so I think my face is just registering shocker right now. Cause I’m like, Oh no, my shame is visible to all. And this just echoed back there. All that shame all the way back to high school when my, what my father had done was paraded around like that. Shame has been part of my story. And Ben, without knowing it through what I’m concerned, is a heroic act of courage. [00:19:39] Ben triggers that shame cycle again, me right there in this moment. And so I accept his card, I stutter something, I kind have no idea what, and I get outta that situation as quickly as possible. I shove the flashdrive in my pocket. My wife was smart, and so she doesn’t say anything at first. She waits a day. [00:19:55] She comes up, she says, So Michael, what happened there with that guy? Ah, I gave you something. [00:20:00] Not much. What do you mean? And she ever so gently starts prying it out of me. And she says why didn’t you try it? I’m like, I don’t need that stuff. I’m, I, Dan, I could. I’m stubborn with the best of them. I tell you what. [00:20:09] So God knows how to work two by four when it comes to Michael. And I eventually said, Fine, plug in my computer. And I just randomly scrolling through and a talk about anger jumps out at me, clever good. And so I queue up this talk about anger and I’m listening this talk. I’m like, Oh my gosh, this is speaking directly to my heart. [00:20:29] And my heart didn’t know it was looking for this message. And it said, anger in a biblical context. It said, anger in a practical context. About how anger works in the world, both on ourselves and others, and the fruit that anger brings and all this stuff. And I thought to myself, Shoot, I don’t wanna be the guy that, that path is, that I realized that same moment. [00:20:51] Shoot, that’s the path that leads to my dad. And that was a deep gut punch of a moment. I remember it still, I was [00:21:00] sitting at my computer and I just was sitting there listening this talk and I’m like, God I don’t know what to do. Like clearly I am not in the control I thought I was like, check off the boxes. [00:21:10] I have an amazing job. I have a good degree. I’m married. The first child is here shortly. They up to this point in the story. We’re pregnant with our second, like every measure of world, the success is at my fingers. And yet I feel that this utter failure and I get the courage out of my great depths of hero courage to listen to another talk. [00:21:29] I didn’t call it bad yet. No. Let’s not get crazy here. But I listen to another talk, that was powerful. So I started throwing a couple of the books, a couple of the CS Lewis books really helped me a lot. I really, I have a deep love for CS Lewis. [00:21:40] Diana Winkler: Wow. He’s Amazing. [00:21:41] Michael Jaquith: And I’m listening to these books and these talks and all of a sudden I have like this feeling start come up with me. [00:21:46] Like, shoot, I got stuff going on down there. Like, I didn’t know what it was, but I at least could start to see some dark sludge coming outta that trash compactor. I didn’t know what to do with it, but I thought I got one guy who saw me do something dumb and didn’t immediately [00:22:00] judge me. I’ll go talk to him. [00:22:01] So I called Ben. Ben said, Yeah, let’s meet at lunch this Wednesday, such and such a place. Like, All right. I show up this lunch, I walk over there, I sit down and Ben’s like, Hey Michael, how’s it going? And I’m like, Ah, shoot. How do I start this conversation? I’m like I guess there’s no other way a good way to do it. [00:22:17] Ben, not so good. And so we had this talk and Ben shared his story, and I had never heard anything like this before. I think one of the problems in this world is that guys are afraid to admit and to share the stories of when they’ve failed, of when they’ve screwed up, of when they’ve been weak, of when it’s so hard. [00:22:32] , like, I think there’s a lot more support and a funny way for a woman to be womanly and to share her weaknesses, but for a man to share his weaknesses is deemed as unmanly. Yeah. And the ironies, I think nothing is further from the truth. I think what all human beings, of both gender need is someone to be able to, in a safe situation. Don’t go out and find some random person on the street. For guys and girls, if you’re listening, don’t find a stranger. But to be able to, in the right setting, [00:23:00] Share that deepest innermost shame and have someone else look upon it and say, I see you through it and I love you. [00:23:05] Even if it’s just the love of Christ, I love you through it is powerful stuff. And so we met, not every week, once every month or two and we talk about stuff and things start to get better. And, but Ben quickly uncovered and he was smart enough not to poke the sleeping bear was that I still had a tremendous anger towards my father. [00:23:28] Cuz you have to look at, I was angry at my dad, not only cuz he was abusive to me, Not only because he was abusive to my sister. That the fact that what he did shamed me for the next 10 years of my life and forever wounded the family, said my nuclear family never fully recovered from that. Right? And so all of this woundedness is still there. [00:23:46] Living my heart is a raw sore. And I remember one time Ben ever so gently touched it and something flared in me like a dry sleeping dragon snapping his jaws out. And Ben saw my eyes. He pulled back and he said, Maybe you should find someone to talk to [00:24:00] about your dad. That’s all he said. And it took another two or three years before I had the courage to do that. [00:24:05] So like, we’re not giving me any medals for courage or bravery here in this moment. Oh. But so, I end up I find this therapist and I don’t know what your experience has been like with therapists, but you kind of tend to, takes a little while to find a good therapist. Like you gotta find one that fits you. [00:24:21] You gotta find one whose style’s compatible with you. And I tell people all the time, if you’re looking for help, don’t just ask one person. Ask and ask and ask. Like the story of the man who’s asking for the bread in the middle of the night. Just keep asking more people because there’s one out there who can help you. [00:24:35] And if you find them, that starts a transformation, that your life will never be the same. So I find this therapist and he was good and he started working with me about what my dad had done. And what I had taken away from that, and the wounds that I still was holding onto from that time period were affecting how I acted to my wife, how I acted to my children, how I acted to coworkers, how I [00:25:00] acted to both male and female coworkers and women in general. [00:25:03] All of those wounds were still there. In fact, it was about this time that I’m now promoted at Intel. I’m building my career. I feel like I’m still a extreme worldly success. Like I’m the man there. When my boss pulls me off to the side one day, he says, Michael, we gotta talk. And said, sure boss, what’s up? [00:25:19] I, this is my happy place. Everyone loves Michael at work, right? So he pulls me to the side room and he says, Okay, this is not what you’re expecting. Like, Oh, we get some different results, I expect. He’s like, no. This is not at all what you’re expecting. Every single one of your team wants to quit cuz they can’t stand working for you. [00:25:33] Ooh. I was like, Oh, that was not what I was expecting. I handled it better now than I did then. I just was speechless, but he looks at me and says, But I see tremendous potential in you, and if you’re willing to take feedback and to grow, I will give you another team. This man, as far as I’m concerned, is the best boss in the world. [00:25:53] He was so phenomenal, and for the next two years, he lived up to that 100%. And [00:26:00] now I’ve kind of got this two-fold attack work, and I got Ben working on the spiritual side, and I’ve got this boss working on the work side. They were doing the same work. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but the work was in essence how to reconnect to my emotional self to make emotional connection to others. [00:26:14] And so, in fact, the boss was between the two of them. They were so good at this. The two years later I have my new team. My new team is thriving and I happened to have a meeting I ran where one of those original team members who disliked me so strongly they wanted to quit. They just got, all got transferred elsewhere, was in that meeting room and we walk out. [00:26:31] His name was Josh. Josh grabbed me by the shoulder, almost physically pulls me aside. Michael, we gotta talk like, Yeah, Josh, what is it? What’s up? What happened to you, Michael? . Like, What do you mean? He’s like, That is not the same person that I knew two years ago and I need to know what happened to you cuz I want that too. [00:26:50] And praise Lord for Josh having the courage to say that. And so I told him kind of what I’m going through, I didn’t tell him all the nuts and bolts. I didn’t tell them stuff with my dad, but I told him some of the core parts [00:27:00] about me and wounding and emotions and connection and what Gary my boss had been doing for me and all this. [00:27:06] And this was the first moment when I realized the power of some of this type of work of healing. Because in two years I transformed so much that man who had one point hated my guts so much, he never wanted to see me again. Pulled,, me off the side, wanted more of what I had to offer and like that was just mind blowing to me. [00:27:24] So our story keeps going. It was, I was not yet ready to forgive my father. That’s a work in progress. And I’m gonna jump a little bit ahead of that part of the story just to say that one is never ready to fully forgive that sort of a wound. And even if you do it once, you still get to do it again and again over and over again. [00:27:40] Every time you think about it. And it is but by the grace of God alone, that we ever approach that level of forgiveness. And, Diana, I think one of the things that had to happen in my own story was I wasn’t ready yet to open up to God the father. To receive his grace because [00:28:00] my own experience as a father was so broken and so bad that even the word father had profoundly negative interpretations and meanings with me on every level. [00:28:12] Like I, There’s no way I was going to really open up to be vulnerable with God the father and Jesus was too close to the associated with the Father figure. Like I don’t know exactly what it means to be three persons and one God, but I’m like, You know what? I’m not taking any chances like I got burned once. [00:28:25] I’m just staying away from everything that has to do with that sort of relationship together. And so God then chose these men to come into my life and to work this change on me slowly bit by bit. He’s patient. God’s so much more patient than I am. I wish I had even a tenth of the patience. Yep. Like a millionth of his patience. [00:28:44] But the story’s not over yet because I’m starting to see some of my dirt. I’m still a long way from fixing. And so how does God do when we have a little bit of progress and we start like, I dunno if you ever, have you ever climbed a big mountain where you’re climbing up and you reach what’s called a false summit. [00:28:58] It looks like it’s the top from a [00:29:00] distance. Yes. And you get there and you realize, shoot, that’s not the top. Nope. It goes down and goes up to a whole lot more. I reached a fall summit about here, so I’m kind of like Josh has got my back. I talked to the therapist guy. I put the check in the boxes. I love checks and boxes. [00:29:16] You may have noticed that I got more checks and more boxes. I have my new promotions, I have now three kids. Everything is great. And it’s, God says, Okay, time to go for the next summit, Michael. And I’m like, What? What? No, wait no. This was it. This was the summit. We don’t need another summit. No. [00:29:32] I’m good. And God said, Okay, we’ll see about that. So what does God do? He starts taking even more things away. So about this time, God made it very clear, it’s a separate story, that it was time to leave Intel. And time to move and he made it very clear where to go. God understands he has to work with me. He doesn’t give me subtlety. [00:29:49] I don’t pick up on it how much the same way she’s learned. Like she’s gotta tell me what it is. Cause like I’m just too dense. So God makes it Exactly. God makes it super clear. You gotta move to Idaho and work for [00:30:00] Micron. Like, nah, why not? That sounds fine. That’s safe enough, right? It’s about the same thing. [00:30:04] And I don’t like, I don’t like big cities. I was raised in little cities, so I’m happier for a downsize of a city. So I move to Boise and we get pregnant and then get pregnant and then get pregnant and. It’s a long story and it’s her medical story to tell, but there are some medical situations going on with my wife and me, and about a year into working for Micron, it was just undoable. [00:30:26] I went from literally the world’s best boss to the world’s worst boss, and it was so bad that I basically was the boss in the group. I organized all the team, I ran the people, I cheered them on and kept them moving and he yelled and screamed at everyone using curse words oftentimes, and just insulted people in front of public meetings. [00:30:46] Was belittling to people, had unreasonable expectations. All the list of stuff that you know, you really shouldn’t do as a boss, but he didn’t. It was interesting because there are still to this day, even though I’ve left Micron now years ago, there are still people who worked at Micron that come for advice. [00:30:59] So [00:31:00] I’m going through this transition and it’s about then that my wife’s mother’s husband is out of a job and she’s like, We should buy a business. My wife has a business background. She loves business. And so they buy this contracting business. I’m like, Sure, why not? God is blessed with money. My wife wants a side hustle, My father needs a job. [00:31:17] This is perfect. You guys gotta do that. Have fun. Right? No, not only did she quickly become pregnant after buying the business, and that’s a bad deal when you’re running a business that requires you to travel a lot. But it just wasn’t working. I remember coming home and seeing her screaming, pulling out her hair with frustration, and I felt like the one part of my life that might almost be put together, my home front was really crumbling, and that includes the physical connection with the wife, which, coming from my background with my sexual issues was something I hadn’t really dealt with yet. [00:31:45] Right. And you know that, I think that will probably be a lifelong struggle for me, to be honest with you, in different levels. And. So it was very clear between how horrible Micron was and what’s failing in the house, that I can’t keep up with this. And so one of the most difficult decisions in my life, I [00:32:00] remember, I’m praying and I’m praying about this for over an hour. [00:32:02] I’m like, God, I don’t know what to do here. And eventually he just had me get a piece of paper out and I wrote down every reason to stay at Micron and every reason to just leave and go help out with this other business. And every single reason to stay was about not trusting God. And every single reason to go help the business about choosing my family. [00:32:17] I said I don’t like that argument. God, that’s not a very helpful argument. I wanna the other way around . So I take the plunge and I leave and I go run this other business and what do you know? But my wife is pregnant again. It’s now pregnancy number four, and this time the bedrest sets in and her medical story is hers, but she literally can’t get outta bed for three months of that pregnancy. [00:32:38] Oh, wow. She barely can even get to the bathroom. So you can imagine what this does for a physical connection. And then few months after this baby is born. I’m struggling, trying to get this business going. She, we get pregnant again this time. She’s on bedrest for six months. So for six months of her life now, she literally can’t get outta bed. [00:32:54] So like, just give you a sense here. Like, I’m getting at four in the morning, I go get the contracting team going with the business. [00:33:00] I come back at eight, get the other five other kids this I, four other kids up, give them breakfast, get them diaper changed, get them set up with stuff kind of all the way to lunch, get them lunch, full-time [00:33:09] dad. I put ’em all down to naps. Then I get two hours to go deal with clients for the business. I have to come back, get ’em up, do dinner, get through to 7:00 PM, put ’em into bed. Then I get to go do all the paperwork part of the business, get to 11:00 PM. Rinse, repeat. Woo. That’s so, what’s missing in that? [00:33:28] Any sort of connection with my spouse whatsoever. Wow. And so, as I said, God will take away the idols we have that we aren’t even aware of. And so now I’m at this point in time, my story gets dark again. Cause I fell into pornography again. I’m just totally cut off like it’s 11:00 PM. She’s only able to get outta bed. [00:33:44] No one knows. Everyone else is asleep. And that triggers that old shame cycle again. . So this goes on for a couple years and God sent a great spiritual advice in the form of our pastor. And as a Catholic, one thing we do is we go to confession, which means in confidentiality, we confess our [00:34:00] sins to a priest. [00:34:00] And I will say that like it or not, one funny thing about confession is when you know you have to go to somebody you’ve already told, you’ve watched pornography and you have to tell it to them again. That’s a little bit of a deterrent. That’s a little embarrassing. Especially when you have a shame complex still churning away in the background. [00:34:19] So by the grace of God, I break free from that and it was a long haul. And that’s all. Again, we’ll leave that story for another time. And we end up getting ready to sell this contracting business. And this is kind of pulling us up to where we are now. I had this opportunity where I realized that God was giving me kind of a little bit of a fresh start, like I’d been through these trials, all these different forms. [00:34:39] He said, You know what, Michael? I’ll be real blunt, and God gifted us with a goodly amount of money when we sold this business. He said, You get to reinvent yourself however you want. And after all these different turns, after all the different times, the different therapists, I skipped another couple therapists along the way there, a couple marriage therapists as well. [00:34:55] One amazing marriage therapist, two that were not amazing. Gotta keep looking folks, [00:35:00] keep looking. He said, You get to reinvent what you want to be. And I look back and I look at my time at Intel, the most transformational moment I had in Intel. Was when Gary helped me to really change who and how I was, and how I connected. Ben in his work, [00:35:15] echo through to me. And I looked at moving on to Micron. My bad boss, as bad as he was, gave me a chance to shine with his other employees. And I could just see the joy lived in their face. When I had my contracting business. I was able to take two guys who worked there who had been locked into generational poverty, who never, no one in their family had ever made real money. [00:35:31] And I inspired them to start their own business. Then I coached ’em through it for the first time in their life. They had real money and then they had to figure out what to do with that. Cause that’s actually a bit of a transition process. Okay. And I coached ’em through that. And the deep satisfaction I got from watching these people that I could help to step on their life, I said, I think I wanna keep doing that. [00:35:51] So I went up and I became a life coach. And Diana, I wish I could tell you it’s all, easy riding from here, there on out still, God never makes it too easy for us. We still have to grow. [00:36:00] Yes. But it was finally, it was last year at my grandfather’s funeral when I asked my grandmother, I said, Look, can I come over and just get power at one bedroom in the place to talk to my dad? [00:36:15] And she said, Yeah. And she knew what we needed to do. And so I sat down and I said, Dad, this is really hard for me, but I need to say the words to you. I forgive you, and I need you to know that I’m gonna have to say them to you again. And I was crying then like, I’m actually tearing up little bit right now for those you can’t see it. [00:36:35] . And he looked at me, I’ll never forget, he said, I’m not worthy of forgiveness. I’m not good enough for that. And I realized that he was trapped in an even deeper shame cycle that I had. And it’s still a daily grind for me. There are still wounds that are there that will get fired up when [00:36:55] the kids act up, or my wife, for whatever reason’s, cold or whatever, there’s still [00:37:00] life. But that cycle of surrendering finally to God and saying, All right, I’m gonna stop doing it my way. Stop choosing anger. Stop choosing justice. It’s so hard to actually make that surrender. But God had been chiseling away at the stone in my heart for years, and I said that to him, and I could tell that he at least believed me, is the sort of thing where he’s on his own journey. [00:37:22] And it’s his journey to describe, not mine, but the change it made in me was profound. Cause I was finally able I hugged him. It was we talked for an hour and a half and the rest of the conversation, I don’t want to relay, but at the end of that hour and a half I left. And my grandmother, she’s a wise woman, she’s 90, whatever, something. [00:37:40] And she looked at us walking out, she didn’t say a word. Her facial expression did and she was glad cuz she saw that something had shifted and she didn’t say anything. I was so proud of her for that. Like she just gave that girl wise old motherly look. Right. And then I took off, went back to the family. [00:37:55] We ended up driving, we drove in a car with six kids from Boise, [00:38:00] Idaho, to southern Michigan. Cuz that’s from our grandparents lived. That’s an adventure too. But I’m not getting another story plan. If you wanna try that event. And so that’s where I’m now. [00:38:11] Diana Winkler: Wow. And you talk about your conversion and I heard you saying in your story about we expect that our conversion and getting right with God and being in the state of grace, as you would call it, that it would cure your addiction. [00:38:34] That was your experience, huh? [00:38:37] Michael Jaquith: Oh, I wish that was enough to cure it. Oh my. Here’s the analogy I use. Right now, if one of my kids fell out that my kids are playing outside, we have a zip line and trampoline out there, and if one of them, Lord forbid, fell and broke a bone, I wouldn’t just go out there and say, I will pray over this bone. [00:38:52] I would take them to the doctor, and it’s not a lack of trust in God that would take them to a doctor, but a recognition that God ordained it [00:39:00] in his plan, that all people contribute to building up the community, to building up the kingdom. And does God have the power to miraculously heal the arm? Of course he does. [00:39:11] I don’t want to deny that for a second, but does he choose to do it? No. Not because he’s not able to, but he chooses instead to allow others to participate in the glory of the mission of redemption. And that’s what I would invite anyone who’s under that unfortunate expectation to consider. Is the grace of God real? [00:39:33] Yes, absolutely. Is God all powerful? Yes, absolutely. But he allows others to participate in that mission, to bring greater glory. Tim Keller is this awesome minister over in New York City. I listened to stuff. I love him. And he has this beautiful image that he, I forget who he took it from, but it’s this idea of the dance. That the spirit and the father and the son, this perpetual dance in heaven, this dynamic motion. [00:39:56] And the ultimate dream is to invite the human being into the dance, to [00:40:00] participate, not be like, my experience is, high school dance. You stand on the sideline, you kinda stare at the dancers. Like, I wish I could do that, but nobody wants me out there. And so God’s intention to draw us into the dance is done by one little step another, allowing us to enter it with other people as well. [00:40:15] And God had to bring into my life. Gary, Ben, other people I haven’t even mentioned in the story, Other therapists, Matthew several others. That help me. And so what’s great is by allowing them to help me, by allowing me to help Eric and Brandon and Gian and all these other people I’ve helped, it’s an invitation into the dance, not because God can’t, because the greater glory comes as we all join in together. [00:40:45] Diana Winkler: I’m glad that you mention that or explain that to us, because Yeah, a lot of times we think once, once Jesus comes and takes over our life, then everything is [00:41:00] going to be perfect. And it’s not gonna be perfect, but He’s gonna be with us. He’s gonna be alongside of us and helping us through these rough times that are coming. [00:41:10] I wanted to ask, You did touch on a little bit. What’s the difference between a therapist, a coach, and your spiritual advisor, whether it’s a pastor or a priest? [00:41:24] Michael Jaquith: This is a really common question and maybe I’ll start with the sports analogy. I think maybe a lot of people might connect with that. [00:41:30] If you have an injury in sports, you go to a physical therapist, right? And their goal is to restore your body because your body can’t function. And so they literally use their body to help you restore your body. I had this great German therapist after I had an ACL surgery, he would walk in and then my knee wasn’t working right? [00:41:46] So he’d walk in, do this stuff with his hands. I’d be like, Oh, it hurts so bad. He’s like, Good, That’s my job. He’d walk out like, I’d be walking, he’d walk later, I’d be like, It’s feeling better. I will fix that. He walked over. Oh, excellent. Excellent therapist. [00:42:00] So actually I recovered so far ahead of the curve cuz this guy. [00:42:03] But I wanna say that’s a therapist. But now what does a coach do? A coach takes a player whose muscles and joints are functional and trains them how to perform at the very highest level. Okay? It’s the same thing in the psychological realm. A therapist psychologically helps a human being whose nervous system cannot process an event that’s so traumatic. [00:42:24] This was true for me for a while. What had happened because of my dad, when I tried to go back in time in my own brain to those memories, I would try to touch them and I would recoil. So vicious that I couldn’t process it at all. It was so horrible. And so the therapist would just sit there and help me one step at a time, walk the story using his nervous system to interpret the events that my brain from that childhood couldn’t understand. [00:42:48] But then eventually you heal the trauma and the therapy is done. And that’s where the coach comes in. The coach comes in, okay, you’re able to process your life, but you don’t really know how to use the various [00:43:00] facilities to achieve the level of greatness you want. And Diana, a lot of people are pretty happy with where they are and cool, that’s great. [00:43:06] But a lot of us want something better. And you get one life, you get one chance to love your wife or husband. You get one chance to care for your children, point them to God. . And you can do it the halfway. You do it a whole lot more. And that’s where the coach comes in to say, You’re functional, but let’s get you to excellent. [00:43:23] But that brings in the third point, what is the spiritual director? So I looked spiritual direction as one facet, probably the most important facet, which is the spiritual alignment. And it tends to be kind of like a trustee compass. And so you kind of get a little bit lost in the woods. You pull your compass out, okay, this is the way to go. [00:43:43] But here’s the real truth. I think where the practical comes in, most of our spiritual directors are too overwhelmed to be able to engage with people in the level of detail that a coach can engage, right? Like imagine for a second that you maybe played in band. I played the trombone of the baritone, and we had a [00:44:00] phenomenal band coach. [00:44:01] And every so often he would bring in an expert, a phenomenal player, so much fun, right? And the expert would give us a couple, two, three hours, whatever of his time, and the kids would gather around, we’d ask him the questions, he’d demonstrate for things we’d play, he’d help us, give us tips to make better. [00:44:15] And it was phenomenal. This guy was traveling the world and there’s whatever, hundreds of thousands or whatever of high schools out there, and there’s not enough people there to really be on the ground. So that’s where you need to coach for the day to day grind. Check me in keeping you moving along. And I have deep respect for spiritual advisors, but the truth is they don’t have the time and availability to engage in the level that people need. [00:44:37] If you want to consistently get your life going, if you’re the sort of person you’re like, Look, I’ve got a pretty good situation. I read. I get my own self going. I actually need to pointer every now and then. Cool. I’ve had several of my clients who said, Here’s a real problem in my life and I want to make something change. [00:44:52] And we do that. And he says, Cool. I’m gonna work with my priest, with my pastor to keep pointed in the right direction. I say, That’s amazing. Check back. Anymore help. But the [00:45:00] coach is there when you really wanna make that big change. Does that help explain that? [00:45:04] Diana Winkler: Yeah, that’s a great analogy. And I’ve had a torn rotator twice, so I had a great therapist. [00:45:11] Ooh. And yeah, he was wonderful. And I’ve been through a few churches in, in my abuse history that they’ve got it all backwards. It’s okay. You all you need is Jesus in the Bible to overcome your pain your addictions, your abuse. And they try to do the coach and the therapists when they’re not qualified to do so. [00:45:32] And they don’t believe in going to a doctor and getting medication. And so I think that the spiritual advisors are a part of our healing. They are not a therapist and they’re not a coach. Right? [00:45:49] Michael Jaquith: Absolutely. Yeah. And they don’t have the training for it. Like, to be a good therapist or a good coach is not easy. [00:45:55] Like, I will bravely, but delicately say there’s quite a few in both those camps that honestly aren’t [00:46:00] particularly good. And that’s just the reality of it. That’s there’s a human, there’s a spectrum everywhere of capability and whatnot, and, but there are some amazing ones out there. [00:46:08] Diana Winkler: Now you touched on this before. How do men find somebody they can trust to help them through this without feeling judged or shamed? [00:46:19] Michael Jaquith: I think the first step I have to say is it’s not easy. It’s, our culture lives eats and breathes some pretty bad ideas about what it means to be a man. And towards that end, I think the first step is just to admit you need to find one and to start looking. And to have the patience and maybe gumption to go through a few bad ones. [00:46:39] And you may find I went through people who, when I started telling them, the story started to shame me. Had various parts and stories, particularly about the pornography was a common one for my story where I was deliberately shamed. And a Lord loved them. I’m sure they were just trying to inspire me, but that was not helpful. [00:46:53] At my point in that journey, it was quite the reverse. It pushed me away from that help. And it was only by [00:47:00] the support of my wife, by the support of Ben and other men in my life that I was able to keep looking for someone new. And you’ve gotta be willing to risk, It’s, in a way, it’s almost kind of like dating, right? [00:47:11] Like you’re a guy, you wanna find someone. If you never ask a girl out, you’re never gonna find a girl. And so you gotta risk that rejection because reward is worth it. I see by your spot right now. You agree. You ladies are always worth it when you, God sends us the right spouse, it’s worth asking the questions. [00:47:26] And you gotta practice before you get there. But finding help this way is the same way. You’ve gotta be brave enough to say, The first guy might not be the right guy. The second guy might not be the right guy. But I’m determined because I want to make a change in my life for this, for my own sake, the sake of my spouse, for the sake of my children, for my extended family, for my community. [00:47:45] I want to become the best guy I can be. And that means making a change in this part of my life. So just that determination to keep pushing forward. [00:47:53] Diana Winkler: Yeah. I would say the same about marriage counselors. [00:47:56] Michael Jaquith: Oh, so true. So true. Yeah. [00:47:58] Diana Winkler: You just, you gotta keep [00:48:00] trying. Don’t give up and find the right fit for you and your spouse because yeah, there’s some really bad ones out there. [00:48:08] It just makes it worse. [00:48:09] Michael Jaquith: Yeah, that’s true. We had one of those ones that literally made us fight more. [00:48:14] Diana Winkler: Aw, that’s terrible. Now I know you’ve been addressing the guys mostly today, but for the ladies out there, how can we wives, how can we help our guys? [00:48:24] Michael Jaquith: I’m gonna challenge the wives here a little directly and so you’re gonna have to hang with me here, wives, Cause one might be a little hard to hear, but I, when I look at the great sins throughout all of Christianity, the worst sin of all has always, by all the church fathers been considered to be pride. [00:48:40] And yet, in our current time, the Christian community Pros and Catholic everywhere has made the worst sin to be lust. Is lust a grave sin? Absolutely. Does it deserve a serious response? Absolutely. But our culture in our community has placed sins of lust as being oftentimes what I call [00:49:00] unforgivable sins. [00:49:01] Yeah. And while they are grave, they need to be treated in line with all of the grave sins. Sins of pride, sins. I I don’t want to find mince is A worse than B. That’s not my point merely. But to say they need to be in line with all the grave sins. And here’s a common thing I hear from a husband relayed by it from his wife. [00:49:22] If you ever do pornography again, I will leave you. And my response to women who have that perspective, and I say this as loving as I can, is his grave sin does not then justify you falling in sin as well. And the truth is that all of us sin all have sinned. Yes. And fall short before the glory of God. [00:49:42] And what every sinner needs is support. And we never wanna support sin. We don’t ever say yes, that action’s, right? If it’s a sinful action, we don’t wanna support the action, but we support the person. We affirm the good of the person. Your husband may be struggling with addiction to [00:50:00] pornography. What’s not helpful is to pile the shame on top of him. [00:50:05] support him as a good person. Encourage him to find help. The sin needs to be stopped, the sin needs to be changed, but the person needs to be supported. And I honestly think this is meant to, in our culture, have put lust into a sin that goes beyond the sin and condemns the person as well. [00:50:24] And that’s one thing I work with a lot of men who are addicted, pornography. And one of the barriers to healing that addiction is oftentimes their inability to tell their wives about it. Cuz they believe right or wrong, I don’t know, that their wives will leave them if they find out. That’s a barrier cuz you wanna talk about the shame factor that doubles down the shame cause it’s an inner shame. [00:50:44] Cause even if she doesn’t shame him, he’s then projecting that shame onto himself. And so I think that in the same way that women need emotional support, men also need emotional support. And as Christians, it’s incumbent upon all of us to never approve the sin, but to always [00:51:00] love the sinner. And the image that I love the most from this regard is when the woman caught in the act of adultry is brought by the Pharisees before Jesus. [00:51:07] And Jesus is not confused that the action was wrong. And what is he saying? Said after slowly getting rid of the Pharisees, he says, Is no one left to condemn you? And she says No. And he says, The neither do I condemn you, right. Go forth and sin no more. He draws a clear distinction. The sin is wrong. The person is to be loved. [00:51:29] And that’s what I want to invite all of us, we live in a spot right now where there’s a lot of different sins out there that are deemed particularly bad and all sins are bad, but we need to always, as Christians, maintain a love of the person. And I think right now, in our current times, the sins of lust are ones that wives, when you can love your husband, never approving the action, but love your husband, that doesn’t mean you have to give him everything he wants. [00:51:53] That means you also don’t condemn him as a person. That can be a very powerful step to healing him and the marriage. [00:52:00] [00:52:01] Diana Winkler: So what would you say about a husband who has an addiction that refuses to get help? What do we do then? [00:52:10] Michael Jaquith: So that’s a really good question and I think my follow up to my previous statement is, husbands, if you have an issue, you have to get help. [00:52:15] Let’s separate a couple impacts here. First off, are there children involved? and is this addiction threatening the children? And in every church, Catholic, Protestant, wherever, when you have one spouse who’s unworked upon errant behavior, threatens the safety of children, their action is simple. [00:52:30] You need to remove the children to a place of safety, the goal is not permanent. The goal is that will be wake up call, so the person will take action to work on that problem. But you raise a good point where, when someone truly is in addiction that they’re not willing to reconcile, not willing to work on, then that can sometimes justify further action. Maybe there’s not children, or maybe this particular addiction doesn’t affect the children as much. [00:52:51] Then I think it is fair for you as a wife to say, This is what I view as a sinful behavior. I believe it to be an addiction. [00:53:00] I’m going to draw a boundary case. Maybe for example, let’s just say it’s alcohol. I pick one example. She might say, if you are drunk, I will never allow you to travel in a car with the children. [00:53:11] I will never allow to travel in a car with me. I will not have intimate relationships with you while you’re drunk. These are my boundary conditions that I feel I need to draw to keep the family safe. And that’s a hundred percent reasonable. What’s not reasonable then to say, you are a horrible person. [00:53:25] Now, if he breaks those boundary conditions and creates an unsafe situation, then yeah, that’s a situation for separation and to remove the children to safety and hopefully, Lord willing, that will cause like, Whoa, she meant this. Now, what’s not good though is idle threats. And I think a lot of times what I hear from people in these situations is they’ll say, If you ever do this again then I’ll blank, and I would encourage both spouses, don’t ever use those words unless you mean them. [00:53:52] An idle threat is worse than no threat by far, because what you do is you train your spouse and your threats don’t have meaning. [00:54:00] And I consider those sorts of boundary condition statements, threats. If you wish to be a double binding statement where you need to look at them before you say them. Am I willing to live by what I just said? [00:54:11] . And if not, then don’t say it. And that’s why I think a really crystal clear boundary that particularly focuses on safety is a good starting point for that. And I know there’s a lot of different addictions out there. There’s a lot of different ways that people can be dangerous, but more often than not every time, but more often than not, I have seen when a wife still supports, the husband condemns the behavior, draws lines for safety, but supports him, it creates more space for him to feel safe to go out and find help. [00:54:43] Diana Winkler: That’s a really wise words, wise advice. And I saw that you had Isaiah Cruz on your podcast. He was on the show here four weeks back and he’s amazing. [00:54:59] Michael Jaquith: He is. I liked him [00:55:00] a lot. [00:55:00] Diana Winkler: Yeah. I’m a pharmacy tech, so that aspect of using medication for addictions particularly porn was fascinating to me. [00:55:11] And Sounds like it helps a lot of people. I was gonna invite you to tell the listeners about your services and what resources you have to offer. [00:55:23] Michael Jaquith: Absolutely. I first have to just nerd out for just a second. I am a chemistry PhD . Absolutely. I loved his perspective on that. [00:55:30] I never considered these types of medications, the dopamine, reuptake inhibitors, and the different dopamine blockers to be useful for addiction. I was like, That’s amazing. Yes. Why are we not all talking about that? Like, that should be broadcast everywhere. Like, so I am a PhD Chemist which means I love chemicals and medications and all that kind of stuff. [00:55:48] Right. And I think there’s a valid reason why so many people are afraid of medication. There has been real abuse, but at the same time, those medications in the right applications used [00:56:00] responsibly can be so powerful to help change people’s lives. And update nerding up. Back to your question, So what do I do? [00:56:05] So I do coaching with men and I am a Catholic and I believe my faith needs to be part of the most powerful part of who I am. And so you can find me at Catholic life coach for men. Very simple. You can find this, my podcast name. That’s my domain name, tapa.com. On the end of it, if you’re Protestant, I’m happy to work. [00:56:22] I have Protestant clients. When I say I’m Catholic, I mean that I am Catholic. If you can point to your finger to heaven and say, Jesus Christ is Lord, that’s enough common ground for us to work together. Yes, because I’ll be honest with you, coaching is hard enough without the divine physician jumping into an aid. [00:56:36] I’ve done coaching of secular clients. It’s a lot harder and it feels like I put one hand behind my back trying to do that. So If you can profess Jesus Christ, Lord I will help you. What do I do? I’m super analytical. I’m very conservative in the faith. Like I am a strong faith presence and I’m also very observant. [00:56:56] And so I’ve helped a lot of guys who have complicated [00:57:00] situations sort them out. Check on my podcast Catholic, that coach for men. Check out the webpage. If you’re at all curious, if I could help, I will give you a one hour of my life totally for free and we’ll see if there’s something I can do to help you out. [00:57:11] A lot of guys are shocked. We’ll get on the call and be like, I’m here cause my wife said I should do something. And they’ll end the call being like, This is one hour’s changed my life forever. So I encourage you. Check it out. [00:57:20] Diana Winkler: Wow, that’s exciting. And one hour for free. You have nothing to lose. [00:57:25] by taking advantage of that and I just loved your story, listening to you tell it again and I love how you weave the faith in there and your conversion and your relationship with God and how God’s helped you through your struggles and your family. And he’s still gonna continue to do that. [00:57:46] I appreciate you coming on the show today. It’s been awesome. [00:57:49] Michael Jaquith: Thank you so much. It’s been fun. I, it was a lot of fun. I always enjoy talking to fun people. [00:57:54] Diana Winkler: Yeah. Come back again sometime if you have anything new to promote [00:58:00] and keep in touch. Okay? [00:58:03] Michael Jaquith: Will do. Thank you so much for having me here, Diana. [00:58:04] It was a lot of fun. God bless. [00:58:06] Diana Winkler: God bless you.