The guys welcome Cortney and Marc Donelson back to the show to discuss forgiveness in marriage.
They are a happily married couple for 21 years, but Marc had an addiction that he was dealing with that he had to tell Cortney during the 13th year. At that time, he was unsure if his life would unravel and he would lose everything he had.
Through the power of prayer, digging into the Bible, and listening to God, forgiveness was achieved, and the relationship was salvaged. Since then, Cortney and Marc have built a ministry to help couples through their marriages, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Tune into this episode to learn about the power of forgiveness Through a Therapist’s Eyes!
Guest Links
Cortney Donelson – Vocem
Clay Jar, Cracked: When We Are Broken But Not Shattered
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Episode #95 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Are we live?
Craig Graves: [00:00:18] We are. Yes.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:19] All right. Thank you, Mr. Graves. Hello everyone. I am Chris Gazdik and he is Mr. Craig Graves. I am a mental health and substance abuse therapist, and he is an unbeatable mind coach. Is that correct? That’s correct. All right. We are, I’ve got a book coming out soon. I always like to mention that rediscovering emotions and becoming your best self Craig. I was tripped out actually not too long ago. That’s actually like, did you, did you catch my Facebook post on all that?
Craig Graves: [00:00:48] Yeah. Yeah. And that’s all that
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:51] freaked me out. I’m not going to lie. I was like, what is it’s on good reads? Like who, who does that?
Craig Graves: [00:00:59] That’s really cool.
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:00] It was truly strange. y’all y’all don’t know this, but I’m actually staring at my editor yet.
She, we have a repeat offender on the show, more on that shortly. we welcome you to, throughatherapist as the podcast to see the world through the lens of a therapist and a coach being aware it’s not the delivery of therapy services in any way, check out the website throughatherapistseyes.com where you can get full show transcriptions.
I said it right that time, Neil, you happy? He’s very smiling, like good job, Chris, that like only the third time you’ve done it. This is the human emotional experience. Craig, shall we figure this thing out together?
Craig Graves: [00:01:36] Hope so, man,
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:37] we got a good one tonight. welcome back, Ms. Cortney and Mr. Marc, how are y’all doing?
Cortney Donelson: [00:01:44] We’re doing well. Thanks.
Marc Donelson: [00:01:45] Doing good. Glad to be here.
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:47] Cool. We have introduced them before. Craig, do you remember how the, they talked to them about the coronavirus, that their Corona thing?
Craig Graves: [00:01:54] Yeah, I remember
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:55] they talked about the COVID and what’s happening in marriage and we gave the audience a little teaser. Didn’t we guys with?
Cortney Donelson: [00:02:04] In fact it was if you remember you, you told us to kind of. Keep our past and our secret secret. So we did. So we’re ready to hear to spill the beans
Craig Graves: [00:02:15] secrets, no more
Chris Gazdik: [00:02:17] Cortney and Marc Donelson married for 21 years. They had two kiddos aged, 15 and 11, both were adopted internationally. How cool is that?
Speakers and trained marriage mentors through the basic idea ministry based in Georgia, we facilitate small groups and weekend intensives for couples at all stages of marriage. I think you said you’re still doing that right? Is it put on hold by the COVID or whatnot? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty much, right.
Marc Donelson: [00:02:43] Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [00:02:46] From the engaged couples to the in crisis couples. And I got to tell you, Craig, this lady right here. Sorry, Marc. But this lady right here is the best editor ever.
Craig Graves: [00:02:57] I’ll tell you, she handled your work. I’m thinking you might be right.
Chris Gazdik: [00:03:01] You got to come up with some new jokes. You said that the last time to
Craig Graves: [00:03:03] I edit those Facebook posts and stuff work, Cortney I’ll tell ya never spit mad respect for you.
Chris Gazdik: [00:03:09] And most, some editing. She does ghost writing. She edited documents and books alike. Really. She makes her stuff come through and I, and I do, I want to publicly, you know, thank you and compliment you again, Cortney, because I mean that process of going through it, it was crazy. It’s weird. It’s an emotionally weird reality and you’re so calming and helpful through that.
I just, you know, I keep on thanking you because you did such a good job. I was very appreciative.
Cortney Donelson: [00:03:31] Oh, well, you’re welcome. I love doing it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:03:33] Yeah. So I’ll tell you what, man. I got a current event. You guys can pop, been in comment about this, any as well before we kind of get into the topic. Oh man. How about that for a big topic, right?
Craig, how did Cortney forgive a sex addict? Forgiveness in marriage. Wow. Right? Like, wow. That’s going to be an interesting topic, but before we kind of go into all of that and what happened, it took this current event out guys, Marc and Cortney, right? Like how they got this title, how COVID-19 might increase risk of cognitive decline.
Have you heard anything like that?
Craig Graves: [00:04:08] I haven’t heard anything about that. You know, there’s so much, we don’t know yet though. you know, it’s the first I’ve heard of it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:04:14] Yeah. Have y’all heard of anything like that. Marc.
Marc Donelson: [00:04:19] We haven’t heard of anything. And so is the article saying that. Having COVID decreases mental cognitive decline, or just the environment decreases
Chris Gazdik: [00:04:33] the zombie apocalypse.
It’s going to make us all crazy.
Marc Donelson: [00:04:37] We’re not thinking as clearly as we did 12 months ago.
Chris Gazdik: [00:04:42] Right. I know in a lot of ways, no listening to some of, this I had, Neil, kinda go through. Yeah, because I didn’t have time and I just read the whole article and I was absolutely fascinated. So this is a lady named Natalie C Tronson, and, and, and, you know, Craig, the reason why I wanted to do this as current events.
Cause you know, I have been absolutely fascinated with neuroscience. I told you that, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Oh yeah, right. He he’s, I respect his brain. I respect his science. His intellect is amazing to me. And he answered a question of on his star talk podcast. What is the most interesting and new age?
biggest development, however way you want to science topic and question today, he says neurology. What’s going on in our brains. And you remember Gwen Wilde? I
Craig Graves: [00:05:24] don’t doubt that at all. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [00:05:26] Fascinating stuff. We’ll listen to what she’s saying about COVID-19. It is clear that for many patients suffering from COVID-19 exhibit neurological symptoms from loss of smell, to delirium, to an increased risk of stroke.
And she goes on, I am a neuroscientist specialing in how a met, how memories are formed, the role of immune cells in the brain and how memory is persistently disrupted after illness in immune activation. As I survey the emerging scientific literature, my question is, will there be a COVID-19 related wave of memory deficits, cognitive decline, and dementia cases in the future.
Again, that is mental health, the brain and the body are absolutely combined together. Right.
Craig Graves: [00:06:07] Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [00:06:09] Recently became clear that the neuro immune cells that sit at the connections between the brain cells synopsis, which provide energy to M and a minute quantities of inflammatory signals are essential for the normal memory in a formation.
Unfortunately, this also provides a way in which illnesses like COVID-19 can cause both acute neurological symptoms and lasting. And long lasting issues in the brain during illness and inflammation, the specialized immune cells in the brain became activated spewing, vast quantities of inflammatory signals and modifying how they communicate with neurons.
I won’t go on further. We’ll have the article on the show notes, but that was fascinating to me as far as. How that affects your emotions, how that affects the way that you’re feeling and depression. And we know people reported like, you know, loss of taste and weird stuff that with this thing.
Craig Graves: [00:07:02] Yeah. Then I think the loss of smell and taste is well documented, but it’s she, you, any science behind that?
Or is she just speculating that possibly something could happen?
Chris Gazdik: [00:07:11] I dunno, man. She says that she’s a neuro scientist specializing how memories are formed and whatnot sounds it’s it’s it’s a good question. I understand the question. I think it’s also new we’re learning.
Craig Graves: [00:07:23] Well, I was going to say it’s on the, you know, the diseases, what, as far as we know, it came around last October, November.
There can’t be any data that says that there’s an increased risk of cognitive decline yet. I mean, I’m the researcher. You guys are a lot smarter than I am, but it just seems, seems weird to me.
Chris Gazdik: [00:07:40] Yeah. It’s, you know, I think we’re going to be learning a lot as we go along. for sure. You got, you guys have any comments or shall we buzz on
Cortney Donelson: [00:07:48] it’s up to you?
We can move on if you t. want
Chris Gazdik: [00:07:54] She has written a story named clay jar, crack Craig. I gotta tell ya. and, and, and honestly, Cortney, my, my hats off to you and Marc you as well. Craig. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to read this yet.
Craig Graves: [00:08:08] I have, I have not I apologize, but I have not.
Chris Gazdik: [00:08:11] It’s a powerful, real. Genuine raw emotional story that I am told ms.
Ms. Donelson has a, has a positive end. And I’m anxious to hear about that as we get through the yuck, the pain, you know, I think I’ll tell you from the get, go somewhere in my notes. I had said this, but it comes up to me now and seems to fit in introducing your story. I have really begun to believe that.
People are tuning into this story, forgiveness in marriage, because you know, it, it is, it is such a required necessity because people get to their worst spot emotionally. I feel like people become the most vulnerable. You know, in your book, you talk about being on the floor, you know, more, more than once in a very genuine and powerful way.
And, and I feel like people, I see, and, and, and I’ve experienced my own deep pain in, in, in marriage at times, this is such a thing that’s so close to our heart. I see people become suicidal at this time. Like, what I’m trying to say is this is one of the. Big mental health hitters in what we’re dealing with when a marriage goes South.
Right. So I set that up because again, I don’t mind foreshadowing. If we had a positive outcome, we want to figure out what happened, how you got through that. So we can get hopefully at some point there. Right?
Cortney Donelson: [00:09:48] Right.
Chris Gazdik: [00:09:49] So what is a clay jar Cracked? What happened? Let’s get in a little bit to the story you guys game.
Cortney Donelson: [00:09:58] Yeah. I, and I have to give props here to Marc for being so willing over the years to continuously share this story. I mean, it’s not easy to open your darkest moments to the world
Chris Gazdik: [00:10:14] I know Right.
Cortney Donelson: [00:10:16] Yeah, and he’s done it over and over, so, and he’s gonna do it right now.
Chris Gazdik: [00:10:22] Yeah, absolutely. I, here we go. You know, I, again, you know, too, and I’m glad I remembered to set this up this way.
You know, these two shows we don’t want, we did before you was about letting go. It’s a very powerfully cool process that, that, that, ms. Janice Booth, and thank you again, miss Janice, you’re still out there listing and to, to, to, to share her stories of what she. Did and, and, and these two shows really are following up from our show that we did on racism.
We spent a part, one, a part, two talking about our national, experiences with racism. And I thought what, what better way to kind of go and Craig, I’m sorry again, by the way we, we, we came out of our break and you’re like, we’re going to hit easy issues. We’re going to hit simple topics. We’re going to like cruise, right?
It’s like always done racism, you know, personal stories of, letting go. Now we’re hitting marriage and affair. And, and, and, and, and. Challenges or forgive is we didn’t, we didn’t start out easy, but that’s by design guys. That’s by design because we need to deal with these things, which is what I get excited about doing on our show.
So, yeah, just to start you out a little bit, you, you talked about the book, not being about, a story of marriage and, and betrayal and forgiveness, but rather the power of prayer digging into the Bible and, you know, and listening to God, you know, quote unquote dash, no matter what that came through in a lot of your, your story.
So how do we start what happened?
Marc Donelson: [00:11:42] Yeah. So I guess I’ll kind of give, give the background because without the background, you know, it’s, it’s a discussion about forgiveness. So there’s obviously something that needs to be forgiven. and that’s where I come in.
so Cortney and I have been married for 13 years, when, when basically I, I basically let her know that, you know, up until that point in our marriage, there was a, there was a whole side to me that, that she didn’t know about, that I had hidden from her, very purposefully, in very carefully.
and really it boiled down to, you know, being addicted to pornography and, and yeah. Well started there and then led to, you know, more, more than one affair. and, and really the Chris, I mean, you know, it’s is I went through my counseling. I mean, it’s, it’s a pretty standard kind of addiction story.
you know, there were. Things that lies that I believed about myself and things that, you know, w one of the things that I still work on is, you know, trusting that feelings are good things. you know, a lot of my life’s thinking my way through life. and so when I would have, you know, negative feelings, I would say stressed, I didn’t know what to do with those feelings.
So I would look for, you know, any way to escape. and while some people run to substance abuse or, or certain things, you know, I had some things growing up that kind of pushed me towards, towards some, you know, pornography addiction. and, and, you know, it started slowly and after years and years and years, you know, it, it grew to the point where, Yeah, it was difficult to go more than 48 hours without looking at something.
and you know, with the, with the internet, it was so easy to find. I mean,
Chris Gazdik: [00:13:30] it’s exploded.
Marc Donelson: [00:13:31] I mean, it, you can do it whenever you want. I mean, I had, I had no problem finding anything. so, and then, you know, one day I, you know, was out on, was out running one night and just felt this voice telling me, Hey, you know what.
Hey, bud, this is the time. do you need to go home and tell him and come clean and tell court? to which I thought that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.
Right…
Chris Gazdik: [00:13:54] what am I thinking?
Marc Donelson: [00:13:56] I don’t know whose voice that is. Like, you’re an idiot like that.
Chris Gazdik: [00:14:01] so that’s, that’s the way it happened like that for you, man. So you just kind of going along with addiction, along with all the things that we cause, you know, I don’t know if you know this Marc, but we’ve had this as a topic on our show.
I referenced the audience too. You know, Joshua Shae, we’ve talked about addiction, you know, once or twice Craig, right. You know, and, and, and the sexual applications of this is part of what we talk about is the, the four process, addictions, eating addictions, gambling, addiction, sex addiction, and, Oh my God.
Brain fart. What’s the fourth one, eating gambling. So, Oh, and online video gaming addictions. And, and so, yeah, you, you say a standard story of addiction. That’s a kind of a funny statement. I, I understand what you mean. But it’s, it’s, it’s a lot there and it’s, it’s fascinating to me, you know, as you just put it there that, you know, everyone knows uncle Bob, he just decided to put the beer down and never drank beer again.
Right. I mean, I don’t understand that in my clinical brain, I know what happens cause there’s a lot of process and relapse and struggle that a lot of times goes into there. So if you, if you don’t mind me asking, how long are you clean?
Marc Donelson: [00:15:08] so that, so we’ve been married 21 years. So that was eight years ago
Chris Gazdik: [00:15:12] or eight years clean.
Marc Donelson: [00:15:14] Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [00:15:15] Oh man. That’s that’s awesome. Congratulations. That’s that’s absolutely fantastically sweet.
Marc Donelson: [00:15:19] Yeah. And I mean, it, it took, it, it was a process to get through. I mean, it was, you know, a couple of years of counseling and retraining my brain and to, you know, what’s healthy, what’s normal. What’s true.
What’s not true. You know, learning how to, you know, trust emotions and not running and be scared from them and being able to lean into negative emotions instead of escaping. and so it was, you know, and I think that’s one of the things that we’ve seen. so couples that we’ve worked with is, you know, that, that fear to really dive in and, and one of the.
One of the things that really encouraged me early on when, you know, my life was blown up, I was, you know, I was fully expecting to never see my wife again, never see my kids again when I came out of this but the therapist I was working with, you told me, you know, your. Yes. You had some things that kind of pushed you down this road, but your decisions brought you here.
and, and to me that was what was it? Was it wasn’t fun to hear. It was very encouraging to hear, cause it also meant that my decisions can pull me out of this. I’m a complete victim and like, It’s out of my control. It’s not like there are active things that I can do in steps. I can date. They’re not going to be easy.
they’re not going to be fun.
Chris Gazdik: [00:16:44] just a plug for anybody listening out there that is, or knows any form of addiction, pot pills, drugs, alcohol, doesn’t matter. You reach out, get help. Like you do not do not be alone with addiction because that will be a death nell. We know that in the substance abuse field, but you know, it’s interesting.
I wanted to comment again to Marc, you know, you said, you know, the story of addiction is, is like other stories of addiction. It is, but you know, there’s a little bit of a different flavor with sex addiction. Yet. We still got a whole lot of stigmas and stereotypes types and weirdness around it. And I’ll tell you one that happened to me just in this moment, a few moments ago that I never even thought of before, but that I wanted to go back and kind of correct.
Because you said, I asked you a question, how, how, how long have you been clean now? Somebody who’s not in the substance abuse field might be listening to this as a marriage show about forgiveness, which is exactly what it is. But I asked you that question. You’re like, Oh yeah. Well, because you know, Craig.
Yeah, porn is dirty sex, addictions dirty. So that’s weird. He asked him if he’s clean, that’s like condescending. That’s awful. That’s weird. You know, I never thought about it because when I’m talking to somebody, who’s an alcoholic, that’s the term that you use, but people with sex addiction, even like you could think of that, like it’s sort of a weird, funky way.
Right. And I thought to me,
Cortney Donelson: [00:18:06] yeah,
Marc Donelson: [00:18:07] I mean, I, I I’ll talk to, You know, friends or, you know, as I’m sharing my story with, with people, you know, I’ll say I’ve been sober eight years. and immediately they go too oh wait. You were an alcoholic too. Like sober is not alcohol clean is not like it’s, it’s just sober from the addiction.
It’s just so yeah. I mean, it’s weird the way we associate words with, with different things.
Chris Gazdik: [00:18:33] Right.
Craig Graves: [00:18:34] So, Marc, let me ask you something, you said. You were out running and heard of and heard a voice. Yeah. So that was just out of the blue. Were you struggling with bringing us out in the open and this voice culminated it or did it just hit you?
Marc Donelson: [00:18:45] So I was, so I w I was at a point where, so throughout the entire addiction in my entire life, you know, one of the things that really identify me was my faith. and so this whole time I had this hidden life. You know, we were going to church, we were leading Bible studies. and, and I was, it was actually, I was starting to get a little frustrated with, with God that I saw cort doing all this cool stuff with her faith.
and I wasn’t doing anything. and I kinda was having it out with God a little bit to say, Hey, why aren’t you putting things in my path too? To to do when instead, you know, why her and not me.
Chris Gazdik: [00:19:27] be careful when you ask that question, Craig,
Marc Donelson: [00:19:31] you know, a week later, so I’m not on this run and you know, heard this voice say, you know, this is, this is the time you need to, you need to come clean.
and so for the next, you know, the whole run hall and I’m like, alright, What little tiny nugget of truth or half truth. Can I share to get this voice to shut up and still be able to, you know, not, you know, keep my secret secrets or my secret secret, and you know, it, and really that night it started probably a three week.
Reveal process of cort asking questions. and for the first time, the questions were questions that I, I couldn’t figure out a way to Dodge or I couldn’t figure out a way to spin or tell half-truths. and, and eventually over that time, I mean, everything came out. and in, in, you know, a month or two later, you know, through support groups, I can remember being outside.
Yeah, again, having it, not with God saying you’ll got it. This is such a big problem in the world. Why isn’t anybody talking about it? right when it was that moment, as soon as those words came out, I’m like, Oh, please let me pull those back in, because
Craig Graves: [00:20:42] Yeah, I gotta say, I think you said that you didn’t expect to see your wife again. And after telling her that that’s, I have to admire your faith in, in doing what that voice told you to do anyway.
Marc Donelson: [00:20:56] Well, yeah, and again, like my plan was not to come home and say, Hey, sweetie, I’ve got a whole bunch of like, really I was looking for the smallest nugget that I could share that in some way I could spend to making me look good.
Chris Gazdik: [00:21:13] And, you know, Marc, I’m glad you put it that way. Cause I really do want to throw in there, you know, whether it be visa vi. Now be careful here. I don’t mean necessarily details. We did a show in recovering from the new fair Craig. I don’t know if you remember that, but I would refer the listener to that.
That’s a big part of this, because you do want to be careful about being detail oriented in your book. Cortney, you ask about like, you know, I want to know everything. I want to know every detail that’s actually traumatizing. That’s not what I’m talking about here. When I say one of the great. Level mistakes people make, especially with sex addiction reveals is they really do that small minimal nugget reveal that you’re talking about Marc.
Then they get pushed a week later, a month later and they’ll pop out another one. Yeah. But that’s it nothing else. Then a week later, a couple of months later, they get pushed and pushed and pushed and then they pop out a third. And in a month or two and fourth, then a fifth and this onward process goes on that and that, and the reason why I say this, because that’s a real life experience, Craig experience before I knew what sex addiction was early in my career.
And it was horrifying. It was really like, so not the way to go. So just a, I didn’t plan that, but I wanted to highlight that Marc, that was it’s important.
Marc Donelson: [00:22:28] And that’s exactly what happened here, except it was really over. W once I knew I was completely trapped, and there was no way around this. It was either get in my car and drive away.
You never see anyone again or all right. Like the big stuff is about to come out. I mean the big stuff came out a little bit every day for nine over nine day period. in, in, by the end it was like, this is, you know, and every time cort said, all right, just, just tell me everything. Just like, I don’t want to be surprised anymore.
Just tell me everything and I just couldn’t make myself do it. cause one, I had to admit to myself that I, yeah, like this was you. I did this wasn’t this other Marc somewhere. I was, I had to reconcile that. This was actually me and I was hurting the person that I loved the most in this world. and I never, you know, that was never the intention.
That was never my, my desire, but it’s, it, it it’s what happened. So it, you know, it took me a while to wrestle with it, to figure out, all right. I need to keep, I need to keep talking here.
Chris Gazdik: [00:23:30] Right. So this is about forgiveness. How did you forgive Cortney? Now? That’s a joke sort of, but it’s foreshadowing. It’s not really a joke, Cortney.
What do you do? Take it from here? Like, you know, and y’all need to read this revelation process. It’s such a well-written story book and it’s as far as what you lived, I mean, Cortney, what’d you do with all this? How’d you manage this? What, you know, nine days. I mean, you know, what, what are we, what are we dealing with here on, on your end?
Yeah.
Cortney Donelson: [00:24:05] Well, I get this question a lot. Cause as soon as we, you know, as soon as Marc shares that second side of him, then turns to me wondering why I’m still standing next to him with a ring on my finger. Right. So, and, and certainly in, in those nine days, I did not believe that we would be where we are today.
so what happened was, as Marc said, it was a complete surprise. or there were no red flags. I didn’t catch him. There was no indication. And so my world was literally kind of torn apart in an instant and then kept being torn apart for those nine days. So, luckily like Marc, I had a very strong faith and I don’t know that I can.
Talk about this level of forgiveness that’s required without, you know, referencing the amount of faith it took, because you have to believe in something bigger than yourself in order to move away from the pain enough to heal and to give the pain away, you know? cause you don’t want to keep carrying it.
That’s what’s, you know what that’s what weighs you down. And so it takes a measure of humility that. Without my faith. I wouldn’t have, I am no Saint. I am no superwoman. I am no, you know, magician. and the only way I can explain having the Camille the humility to say, there’s a bigger picture here. It’s not all about me.
And, you know, forgiveness is, is kind of critical here is because I have a relationship with God. Yeah.
Marc Donelson: [00:25:44] And one of the things that, that Cortney said early on, In, in, in our recovery process. Yeah. Even in our, my reveal process, I mean, she looked at me and said, look, when we got married, I said, I would love you in sickness and in health.
And until I know more about. What you’ve done. And if this is addiction in addiction, I’m going to look at this as a sickness. which was about the last thing I was expecting to hear. and, and, but you let me know, like, Hey, just cause you didn’t hold up, your end of the vows doesn’t mean that I’m not gonna hold up mine.
and so she had that, even that type of perspective early on, that, that was again amazing to me. cause I, I don’t know that. That would have been my reaction if you know, the, the shoe was on the other foot,
Chris Gazdik: [00:26:35] that would have been your reaction. What do you mean that say more about that?
Marc Donelson: [00:26:38] I mean, if, if court had come to me and told me everything that I had told her, and she was the addict, I don’t know that I would have had the, the patients exactly the grace and the clarity of thought to say.
You know what, this might be a sickness. And I told you, I would love you till we die, in sickness and in health. And in that
Chris Gazdik: [00:27:01] we, you know. Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think I want to point out for our listening audience, what I see all over the place when I’m dealing with these issues and whatnot, or just even in my personal life and, you know, times that we’ve struggled and, you know, the, the realities that we all deal with with human beings, right.
Cortney and I read your. Your book, you know, up until the ends part. Like I will, I did want to point that out cause I wanted to get that fresh directly from you for this, for the show, but that doesn’t happen immediately. People. Like, we’re not, we’re not talking about Craig, you ever see like, you know, mama on the news channel nine and the kid gets shot and he’s lying dead on the street.
And the very next day they’re interviewing a woman and a woman, or we were maybe a guy’s like sitting there saying, well, I forgive the man who did this,
Craig Graves: [00:27:48] right?
Chris Gazdik: [00:27:49] Yeah. Listen, forgiveness happens in pieces. Just like I said at last show, Remember I was talking about letting go happens in pieces. Will I apply that to this too?
Which we, which, by the way again, listening audience, we did a show on racism, part one, a part two. We did something about letting go last week. Do you hear the follow through insofar as forgiveness this week? Like these things all tie together. And that’s the reason why I kind of chose to do things this way, because you do this in pieces.
You do this in steps. This is not like an event, right? Cortney, you correct me if I’m wrong.
Cortney Donelson: [00:28:28] No, I like it too. pealing an onion. So you take off one layer and it makes you cry and then you take off another layer and it makes you cry. And then you finally, you know, after dozens of layers and lots of tears, you, you finally hit, you know, the core and, and you’re done,
Chris Gazdik: [00:28:45] It is messy.
Cortney Donelson: [00:28:46] It’s very messy, but it also, I think it encompasses the whole, like your whole being, like, if you just forgive with words that is surface level and that isn’t true forgiveness, if you, if you think you’ve forgiven, but you haven’t spoken it, you haven’t felt it. You haven’t in your spirit, you know, understood that the, the baggage of the pain is gone and you release all of your anger, then you haven’t forgiven either.
it wasn’t until, I mean, it was, it was a good year almost before I was able to fully forgive Marc and feel that weight lifted and, you know, not want any type of revenge or Harbor, any bitterness. I mean, it was a long process.
Chris Gazdik: [00:29:30] You said a full year.
Cortney Donelson: [00:29:31] Almost,yeah
Chris Gazdik: [00:29:33] Is it possible that that still processes is happening?
Cortney Donelson: [00:29:39] no, I don’t, I don’t think for this situation.
No, of course. On a daily basis we have to forgive ourselves,
no, I, I. I don’t like, I’m not the paranoid wife. I’m not the checking up. I’m not the bitter. I don’t hold it over him and say, do you remember when
Chris Gazdik: [00:30:01] after or whatnot? I’m not the co addict.
Cortney Donelson: [00:30:04] Yeah. Yeah oh you read that,
Chris Gazdik: [00:30:07] I did. Yeah. And what I mean by that is, and, and, and if not for you, I think it is probably possible to do a super thorough job and whatnot, but also, you know, for fleeting moments, you know, when you have a before and after life event, it is very normal Craig to kind of go in through the process again and again, and again, and again, and again, You know, because our human bodies in our amygdala and our subconscious, our brain, our neurology, if you will, we pull things back that’s normal.
So it is, you know, for people out there that are saying like, Oh, well, you know, I thought you forgave me, you know, three years ago. Why is, why are you bringing this back up again? Well, you know, the very first time you used words, it might’ve been, you know, superficial in the first step, but that’s a step and then another step and then another step and another step.
And you might, you, this. 15 years later, hopefully by that point, it’s super snappy. You know what I’m saying? You’re very, very quick. But is that, does that make sense?
Cortney Donelson: [00:31:06] Yeah, it does. especially if there are, you know, triggering events, thoughts, memories, things like that, that come up or, you know, I mean, especially with addiction, it’s not uncommon to regress or things like that.
So.
Craig Graves: [00:31:23] I’m sorry,
Chris Gazdik: [00:31:23] what’s that Cortney,
Cortney Donelson: [00:31:25] you would have to re forgive and those instances I would think and go through the process again.
Chris Gazdik: [00:31:29] Re forgive is a good word. Yeah.
Craig Graves: [00:31:33] I’m just going to say that those bad memories still come up. I mean, do you still, I mean, I know you’re not, you’re not checking up and you’re not, you know, I heard you say those things, but those are those bad memories still ever surface.
Cortney Donelson: [00:31:46] no, it’s. They don’t, it’s really strange. Cause I, I had to, there was a whole room full of people I had to forgive. Right. It wasn’t just Marc. It was, there were lots of people. you know, the other women, you know, stuff from his childhood, there was a lot of forgiveness happening.
Chris Gazdik: [00:32:05] when you hurt the most, you grow the most.
I think that’s a true reality.
Cortney Donelson: [00:32:09] Yeah. I think I knew that I had reached that full forgiveness when over time, you know, I could, I can think about, you know, These other women and not Harbor any animosity at all. And it was at that point that I knew I had gone through every level of that onion
Craig Graves: [00:32:32] Pealed it all the way off.
Yeah.
Cortney Donelson: [00:32:36] I think, you know, it was interesting. I was, I was teaching a class years ago and someone in the class, it was, we’re talking about forgiveness and someone mentioned, well, You know, you mentioned having to still having those feelings, like memories come up and still feel a little bit of anger. But she was convinced that she had gone through a full forgiveness process.
and after the class, after talking through it all, she realized that she hadn’t because she was still harboring some resentment. And
Chris Gazdik: [00:33:06] that’s okay. I think it’s my message to the listener. I mean, that’s normal and that’s, you know, give yourself the grace to reengage that, but go ahead, Craig.
Craig Graves: [00:33:15] I was going to say, you know, you’re the, you’re the therapy guru and I’m not, but I would argue that, that what Cortney’s found is true forgiveness.
If she’s still bringing this stuff up three, four, five years later, there’s still something going on there. I mean, maybe it may be complete. Forgiveness is not been given.
Chris Gazdik: [00:33:31] Yeah. Well, I think what I would say, Craig is the intensity level. You know, I mean, it is a matter of fact, here’s a good way to instill this.
I, I teach this in, in, in my therapy rooms, awful often, you know, oftentimes people will ask what is true forgiveness. I get the question, what is a resolved emotion? And I actually have this in my book cause I’ve used it as a staple for a very, very long time. A truly resolved emotion is one. Not resolved where you feel that the same intensity now as when it first happened, that’s like obvious.
Okay. But I would also submit that is probably equally unresolved. If it feel like no emotion connected to when you reflect and whatnot, because you compartmentalize that back that up and you, you know, it’s gone true forgiveness. If you will, or a resolved emotion is a gradual decline. Maybe it’s quick.
Decline over a month or so, or few, maybe it’s a year, maybe it’s five. But what we want to see is a gradual decline in intensity of emotion so that you get to a point that it’s really, you know, really small almost, maybe even not unnoticeable Cort. Does that make sense with what you’re describing?
Cortney Donelson: [00:34:45] It makes perfect sense.
so, so. Well, I just lost my train of thought.
Chris Gazdik: [00:34:52] It’ll come back to gradual decline of emotional experience with the intentsity on it yeah.
Cortney Donelson: [00:34:58] I can still put myself in the past in those moments that hurt the worst. And I could still feel all of that emotion. The difference for me is because I have forgiven Marc. It’s not directed negatively towards him.
It’s just. emotion for the experiencing trauma. We went through together, or I went through on my own, but it’s not a bitterness or anger towards him for causing it. So to speak.
Craig Graves: [00:35:25] Cortney, if you don’t mind, what did that year look like? You said it took a year. Yeah. what kind of emotions was there?
Anger. Resentment. I mean, what, what was going on during that year and how did you overcome all that
Chris Gazdik: [00:35:37] betrayal, insecurity fears and confusion and depressions and sadness and gleeful and joy. Right,
Cortney Donelson: [00:35:45] right. I mean, I went from I in minutes I could go from anger to despair, to. to forgetting exactly what I supposed to be doing in that moment and not living my life or functioning even on a daily basis to, you know, compartmentalizing.
And it just, it was all over the place. In fact, we do not condone this or recommend or, or anything like that. But
Chris Gazdik: [00:36:14] Marc is looking around like,
Cortney Donelson: [00:36:15] I was so angry in the beginning. There was a guess, a moment where in my anger actually actually hit Marc in the arm and I didn’t remember doing it. And the next day I saw a bruise on his arm.
I said, what’d you do hit yourself or where’d you get that or something? And he stared at me, like, do you not know?
Chris Gazdik: [00:36:37] Wow, really?
Cortney Donelson: [00:36:39] I mean,
Chris Gazdik: [00:36:40] yeah, you know, this is, again, this is messy. There is listen. There is no ideal perfect way to go through this process. This Craig, this, this is a, this is a therapy experience in is not out of a textbook.
You don’t sit here and go, okay, let’s say, step one, step two, step three. And step forward. You know, I could write a cool blog. I’ve seen people go through this and I know people love blogs. It’s like, you know, the five steps to recovering your marriage or whatever. Okay, come on, man. It, it goes up and down.
It’s messy, it’s emotional. It’s a lot of gray and you’re not going to be perfect going through it. That’s the only thing you did, ma’am. And you didn’t like down five gallons of alcohol a night for a few weeks, you know? Okay. You’re doing it alright. You know,
Marc Donelson: [00:37:29] at the time while we were going through this, You know, our oldest one was five at the time. and we were talking, we were talking with them probably, I don’t know, a few months ago. and somehow the conversation came up, you know, when, when have you really, you see mom and dad upset at each other or really angry at each other?
And he picked some, you know, innocuous things that happened six months ago. You know, like the time that dad left the ice cream out or something, mom lost it or vice versa. That’s what you remember us being angry about. We protected. You pretty much behind closed doors pretty well. Cause that’s what that anger was from from eight to 10 years ago.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [00:38:16] Well, you know, it’s funny and I apologize. I, I was the one that snapped my fingers for the listening audience, because sometimes, you know, you’re, if it was a whole, I thought you were going in a different direction. And the reality of it is kids. You know, particularly if they’re a little older than like, you know what, three to four, even five or whatever, you know, that people.
They can relive this stuff too. So, so it’s interesting. You, you picked up on them. They they’re just not on this at all.
Marc Donelson: [00:38:41] So yeah, I mean, like they know the story. I mean, I w we we’ve shared it with them, but, but they, they don’t remember, you know, they don’t remember the tension in the house and they don’t remember.
you know, mom and dad not talking to each other
Cortney Donelson: [00:38:55] or not sleeping in the same room
Marc Donelson: [00:38:56] sleeping. yeah, there were, there were many nights where I would. After the kids went to bed, I sleep on the couch and it, you know, five o’clock in the morning I’ve set my alarm and I’d get back in, get back in our bed because, you know, we don’t want the kids to know that we, that there was any issues going on.
But anyway, so that’s, so it, it, it just, when you talk about that, that anger and some of the emotions that, that went on it, like, it was definitely there, but it’s not a, it was never a linear process. I mean, it was always every time I thought I was out of the, out of the. Yeah, the fire, and the fire for a day or two, and then what we’re at back into it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:39:35] Yeah. Yeah. And I was going to ask you Marc, you know, like how you, how you kind of, cause you know, we’re not talking about the addiction part of the side of it tonight, but you know, in insofar as the marriage component, You know, as she’s going through this, we haven’t talked too much about the characteristic of betrayal and we haven’t talked about the, you know, the characteristics of, you know, forgiveness and, and, and how that operates in summit.
We’ve talked a lot about the messy emotions and stuff, but, you know, as she’s going through this, on her side, over that process, like, what are you doing on your side, particularly recovery based and your community and your, you know, there’s a whole other side of it, which is why I asked you, how did you forgive Cortney?
Yeah.
Marc Donelson: [00:40:17] So, so it it’s a weird dynamic because before she anything, you know, I, part of me was miserable, because I, you know, I was battling this, this double life in, and then once. No once I let that out and let that secret out, then, you know, part of me is so relieved almost so happy that all right, I’m finally on the right path.
I’m finally doing the right thing. So, well, I’m trying to be proud of myself. Like everyone else in the world hates me.
And you, you know, you brought up support groups. I mean, I, I. My therapist recommended a specific support group. and it was great because it, it was the one place that I could go to each week that, the, the people got it. the, that people understood, you know, where w we were all in the same place together.
and so we could, we could be happy for our successes, even when, we realized that, Is it that even starting down that road was causing pain to other people. so, and it, you know, as far as the paternal goes, you know, that was probably the worst part of it. because yeah, I had, like I said before, I had heard the person that, That I never wanted to hurt.
in fact, a lot of the reason why I didn’t say anything sooner was because I w in my mind I was protecting her. I, I didn’t, I didn’t want to hurt her, so I’m not going to tell her she doesn’t know, she can’t get hurt,
Chris Gazdik: [00:41:47] quote unquote in my mind. Right,
Marc Donelson: [00:41:49] exactly. which just prolonged everything.
Cortney Donelson: [00:41:52] And of course, yeah, from my perspective, That, when someone that close to you, when your spouse betrays you, I mean, that’s the person closest to you on this planet?
That’s a deep, deep hurt I would argue is not just, I mean, it’s not just mental, it’s not just emotion, it’s physical, it’s spiritual. It’s. I mean, it cuts to the core of who you are. And so, I think it was harder to work through the process of forgiving Marc. then it was forgiving everyone else.
Chris Gazdik: [00:42:25] You know, it’s funny that you say that we’re perfectly in step Cortney, as it seems like we usually are betrayal and the definition what it is, you know, I, I sometimes I’ll do some Google hits just to back myself up on what I’m thinking about.
And we’re kind of want to try to accomplish and stuff to kind of help people that are in there listening audience, you know, grow from this stuff. Right. Betrayal is the breaking or violation of presumptive contract trust or confidence that produces moral or psychological conflict within a relationship amongst individuals, between organizations or between individuals and organizations.
So that was actually a Wikipedia because. Because the other definition that I found said betrayal is the act of betraying of another
Craig Graves: [00:43:08] that’s all that I just saw it on the notes.
Chris Gazdik: [00:43:12] It’s better. Listen to his vocabulary. Dot com has several deliver to an enemy by treachery or disappointment. Prove undependable to abandon forsake caused someone to believe an untruth, give away information about someone, reveal unintentionally, be sexual unfaithful to one’s partner in marriage that they had like several definitions of betrayal.
And I looked at the that. I was like, wait a minute, man. What? So what is truly the definition of betrayal? Like. Can we even define that experience? I think people have a hard time of getting a true definition of the simple word. Love I propose to you. A proposition is betrayal defined as the opposite of love. I don’t know, this is just pondering quiet thoughts because it’s a visceral to the core experiences and it Cortney and it, and, and, and Marc, you’ve been betrayed at times.
I’m sure. In life as well, like this is a weird thing to wrangle with itsn’t it.
Cortney Donelson: [00:44:23] Yeah. I mean, you can’t really talk about forgiveness without talking about trust. I mean, people ask all the time after that kind of betrayal. Especially over that many years. And then how do you ever trust Marc again? and my answer, which may sound jaded or sad or whatever is, well, I don’t, completely trust him a hundred percent
Chris Gazdik: [00:44:48] and we do any human beings.
Cortney Donelson: [00:44:50] Exactly. And that’s my point is that we’re all human and, you know, there are times I don’t trust myself to make good decisions. You know, we’re all, we’re all gonna walk through difficult times. We’re all gonna make really poor choices. But what I do trust again is my, is God, it’s my faith. And I trust God with Marc.
So that everything I wake up, I choose not to be that bitter unforgiving spouse. And he wakes up and chooses, you know, makes his choices. And I just try, I just have to trust that no matter what we’re going to be okay. Whether, you know, mistakes are made we’re together, we’re divorced where no matter what happens in this world, I have a creator that I trust.
100%, but as far as daily trust, I mean, you ha you should trust your spouse on a daily basis, to have a good relationship with them. And so,
Chris Gazdik: [00:45:45] yeah, I oftentimes think of it as a scale of one to a hundred people like to think I trust you or I don’t trust you. All right, Craig, I trust you did. You’re gonna be here on Thursdays when we record.
And Neil, if you start screwing that up, you know what, I don’t trust him anymore Neil. All right. Let’s get somebody else because I don’t trust him. I think that that’s the way we think of it in that simplistic of term. It’s like, no, I trust on a scale of one to a hundred, a hundred is absolutely solid. You’re right. I ain’t got anybody that with God and I’m going to be honest with the audience I’ve shared before.
I’m not a Christian counselor, but I’m a Christian on my own journey. You know it, and I do counseling. I wish I trusted God on a hundred. I do. I don’t, I it’s. It’s it’s hard, man. It’s terribly hard, but, but I’m dang sure. Not going to be on a scale of 95 or even 90 with another human being and have too many insecurities are too unstable.
And you know what another aspect of this is, I’d rather develop my faith relationship with a creator because there are a heck of a lot more trustworthy than my daggum self. All right. God, self spouse, children, family, only friends. And then work order of priority, generally accepted. We’ve talked about that on the show, Craig, right?
Yes. You don’t know, dynamic stuff. Wow. How are you guys feeling? There is a therapy question. I’m sorry for that.
Marc Donelson: [00:47:09] I still don’t do feelings well. Chris,
Chris Gazdik: [00:47:14] there’s an emotional challenge here, Marc. Let’s two minutes on how you’re really feeling really.
Craig Graves: [00:47:22] Dive a little deeper on the trust thing.
Chris Gazdik: [00:47:24] Oh, he’s taking, he’s saving you.
Craig Graves: [00:47:26] So, so, so Cortney, if, if what Chris is saying is true, trust is on a scale of one to a hundred. I’m sure. When you found out this thing, your trust level went down to zero probably, right.
Or right there, number one or whatever. So how do you begin to build that back up to, to a higher level? And maybe it’s never completely 100, like Chris said, but how do you start building it back?
Cortney Donelson: [00:47:48] That’s a great question because at every given every given day through that whole process in the beginning, I had to ask myself.
So, do I leave today? Or do I stay, because you know, things were kept coming out. I didn’t know how much more I could take. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to trust Marc again to a level that I would want for a marriage. I mean, it, I had to keep asking myself, is this, am I working? What kind of marriage am I working for?
If I don’t get there, what happens? and so, you know, it took. Ha, it took me seeing change. him being, you know, compliant with his therapy visits, things like that, but more so than just checking off boxes. Cause he read books, he went to the support groups, he did therapy and that that’s great. You can check off the box, but what I mean, what I saw that helped.
Was a change in his ability to share his emotions. Like all of a sudden it wasn’t just, I think this, I think that, or it wasn’t just silence. It was I’m feeling this I’m feeling that. And when we could start communicating on that feelings level, then I could see the change that was happening as he was getting sober and going through his recovery.
So that helped my trust level go up.
Chris Gazdik: [00:49:03] And, and I’m glad you went there in that way. And Marc, I do. I want to come back to you and put you on the spot a little bit, if it’s okay. If it’s not, we’ll move again. But it’s funny because I asked that question and I know that it’s a tough question. It’s funny because I, I supervise or, or facilitate placements for a physician assistance students.
We had one on our show. Remember Craig? Yeah. Yeah. And they asked me a question one day. They’re like Chris. Well, one of them, they said, Chris, they said, you don’t really ask that question. Like how, how does that, how’s the client for you? I need to wait a minute, man. I guess I don’t very often I get at it.
I talk with people and I’d like to compliment you again, Marc. You’re, you’re tremendously engaged with this conversation and Cortney complimented you earlier because it is absolutely courageous. Like, you know, but I would like to ask you, you, how are you feeling talking about this? Because this is tough.
Cortney Donelson: [00:49:56] Are you going to bill us for this hour?
Chris Gazdik: [00:49:58] I know right… no… sorry,
Marc Donelson: [00:50:03] it’s a fair question. and in it, there’s always some level of, of mixed emotions. what, when we get an opportunity to talk about it and to share our story, you know, there, there’s a level of excitement because I feel like this is the story that we were given. it may not, it’s not the story I would want.
but it’s, it’s the story we have. So I feel like this, you know, being able to speak to it is. it’s exciting. It’s, it’s fulfilling. on the other side, you know, it’s terrifying. I mean, last night we were sitting in court and Cortney were sitting in the living room, like, like what’s the plan tomorrow?
Like, like, how open-ended is this going to be, what questions are going to be asked? Cause like, usually when I share, like I’m kind of in control. All right. I’ve got my script. This is what I’m going to say. so I can kind of control what what’s coming out with. Some she’s like, Marc it’s just a conversation.
And like, it was to be honest, it was freaking me out a little bit and I’m like, no, what’s going to be asked. And so there’s definitely some, some nerves and it’s still uncomfortable leading up to it. usually once I get in the conversation and get in talking about it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:51:16] Yeah. You get accustomed and whatnot, but listen, it’s.
Anytime you’re doing something new. I love public speaking. There’s always that energy about it. And I remember asking a colleague, you know, one time, you know, I’m getting ready to play baseball, softball, it’s time. He’s into sports psychology. I just pop them out of a question. You know, when I was many, several years ago, like, is it normal to like, to be anxious before he play a softball game?
You know what he said to me? And Marc, what I would say to you when you’re doing anything like this, anytime, a conversation like that comes up. You wouldn’t go into it flat. Can you, can you imagine if you’re going into softball game, he was like, all right, man, I guess I’ll, I’ll try to get a hit, you know?
Alright. I’m going to go on a podcast tomorrow, I guess. I don’t know. I guess I’ll just talk about it. You don’t, I mean, you’re gonna feel energy about it. And that’s, that’s like for folks that are dealing in marriage at home and dealing with forgiveness and what, like, like that’s normal, it’s very messy again, but we pushed through it and we get through it and we go through it.
You know, my favorite life quote right now, I’ve told you this, you remember Craig. My favorite life quote from Winston Churchill.
Craig Graves: [00:52:23] I can’t remember it
Chris Gazdik: [00:52:24] when you’re going through hell,
Craig Graves: [00:52:26] keep going.
Chris Gazdik: [00:52:27] Right. Just the next best step. You know, my pastor talks about that all the time. We’re just guiding people for the next best step.
Right.
Craig Graves: [00:52:38] Just gonna ask you guys, is, is this story part of your ministry to couples? I’m assuming so.
Cortney Donelson: [00:52:44] Yeah, it is. I usually give couples in our groups, a copy of my book. but we share it up front because we also want to disarm, couples who are going through their own crisis and re, and just to understand, Hey, you know, we’re not perfect.
We’re not here trying to give you all the best answers and teach you anything. We’re just here alongside you. As people who have gone through something really hard.
Marc Donelson: [00:53:09] Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That people can relate to people who have gone through stuff. I mean, there’s just, there’s just no, no other way to put it.
You know, I remember a funny story I had in a church, so I was watching a Joel, this has been 20, probably over 20 years ago, but I was watching Joel Olsteen and he was talking and about drug addiction and divorce. And he said, How do I know because I’ve seen it and I’m like, you’ve seen it. So then like two weeks later, I was in a small church here in Belmont and the pastor said, I don’t know what he was talking about, but he said, and how do I know.
Cause I’ve been there. He said, I’m the dirtiest person in his whole church. And I thought, wow, I can relate to this guy. This is my guy right here.
Chris Gazdik: [00:53:51] Yeah. I think it’s funny how people look at therapists and think we don’t struggle with any of this stuff. I mean, I’ve, I’ve admitted, I think on the show before.
I mean, you know, you think I got this stuff down, it’s always hard.
Craig Graves: [00:54:02] I always joke that all the therapists, I know they actually need a therapist.
Chris Gazdik: [00:54:06] It’s not a joke. It’s real. We, you know, but you know, Cortney I want to get back to something, I think, because I found this and I mean, Oh man, can we go have two more hours, Craig, did we always say that?
You know, and then we need to get to the end of the story and what you mean by that. But, but I had this on bold Craig on the show notes. If you notice powerful advice, Cortney. Do you remember, you know, in your story, the advice that you got from your friend, it was a particular point where you’re struggling.
Do I stay, like, go with doing, what is the deal? Do you remember what she said to you
Cortney Donelson: [00:54:44] about love?
Chris Gazdik: [00:54:46] yes. Yes.
Well, it’s hard because you love him. She went on. Right. She went on and she says, you know, what you do is you go until you feel there’s no more progress. And then you assess where you are and you decide if you can live with it.
Yeah. I do that was like, now be careful listening audience out there because you’d be trying to assess your partner and what kind of progress you make. Nice. Yeah. I don’t see anything get rid of, see, do anything, you know, you to have that kind of thing going on. So don’t get me wrong. But I really was struck by that.
Can you talk about when you received that information? What, what that did in your mind? Because you’re struggling should I stay should I go. I goes, she says, well, you know what? It’s hard because you love him. You go into, you feel there’s no more progress. And then you assess where you’re at. You decide if you can live with it.
Cortney Donelson: [00:55:37] Yeah. No. Well, first I should mention that, that friend of mine, she’s one of my best friends and she’s, she’s also a counselor therapist. So therapists,
Chris Gazdik: [00:55:48] what did you say? you despised therapists
Cortney Donelson: [00:55:52] No they are wise.
Chris Gazdik: [00:55:54] Freudian I heard… I projected and I heard Craig I projected,
Craig Graves: [00:55:55] don’t know any wise ones. I’m just saying.
Chris Gazdik: [00:55:57] hey you told me I was a smart person when we were picking on me for being from West Virginia. What’s a truth, man
Craig Graves: [00:56:03] ahh, I am just kidding
Cortney Donelson: [00:56:04] yeah, it’s funny. There are certain moments during my story that I can vividly remember. I can remember I was standing in our bedroom.
I was pacing back and forth. Marc was not home and I was struggling because I didn’t even, I wasn’t even sure if I still love Marc at this point. Cause I was so hurt and you know, she said, no, you know what, why you still love them one, you know? This can’t change. Love if love loves, not just a feeling. And so like, let’s not be confused about, about love.
And so he said, you do still love him. He’s your husband. you have a lot of history together. And so what you want to do, she just encouraged me like work at it, you know, do what you need to do. go to the counseling, see if he can make progress, see what his choices are. And then when you get to a point where there’s no more forward progress, you know, is that a marriage that you want to be in and, and continue to fight for the marriage you want.
But once that progress stops is that. A place that you want to stay for the rest of your life. And, it was good advice because first of all, I didn’t remember that I loved Marc because I was so much pain and I needed to hear that. and then the second reason is because it, it helped me to fight for the marriage I wanted rather than settle.
for something and I knew I always had options. And that’s the big thing about going through this story is as soon as you feel like you have no options, then you lose hope. And part of forgiveness is forgiveness is a choice. And so you always have options. And so, at that point I chose to work as hard as I could.
And work towards forgiveness and that’s exactly what happened.
So,
Chris Gazdik: [00:57:45] and you know, another big thing to highlight that I know you wrote about. And, and, and I think, I don’t know, we may have talked about, is, is just, you have to know you’re going to be okay either way. You know, the, the, the power and strength of encouraging and confidence in, in, in, in, in, in lack of insecurity, the strength and courage inside enables you to go.
Right?
Cortney Donelson: [00:58:11] Yup. Whatever happened. I was going to be okay.
Chris Gazdik: [00:58:14] Right. That’s hard to know when you’re on the floor.
Cortney Donelson: [00:58:18] It’s hard to know when you’re talking marriage, because you’re so invested in that relationship and to become one, right. So sometimes I’m not sure if you’re going to be okay if their marriage doesn’t last, but in the end you are.
Chris Gazdik: [00:58:31] So how do we get to. It a positive story, obviously they’re here. They’re going together. The rings are on Marc. Why is this worth it to go through recovery and tell people what the heck’s going on? I had these conversations deal with emotions Cortney. Why is it worth it to, to go through the painstaking process of resolving these emotions and dealing with this betrayal going through this stuff?
What, why, why don’t we just want to like. You know what, during that nine days, day three, I’m done. I’m out like, wow, why is this worth it? Where’s the, where’s the positive that comes out of it. Tell me about the beauty here.
Cortney Donelson: [00:59:07] First of all, he’s my best friend. And so I can’t imagine doing life without him. but I think I can sum up my side of it in one word and that’s peace.
If I didn’t do everything, I could forgive him and strive for the marriage that we wanted. Our marriage is better now than it was before. And I didn’t think our marriage was bad before. but. I have peace in, knowing that I did everything that I could and, and here’s here where we’re at. And so that’s comforting if I had given up too soon or if I had chose to not forgive, or if I had harbored resentment, I wouldn’t have that piece, whether we were together or not.
Chris Gazdik: [00:59:45] So, yeah, forgiveness, I don’t know that we even defined it letting go of anger against I pull my children’s dictionary off my bookshelf, Craig, when I’m dealing with forgiveness and in therapy, letting go of anger again, that’s got nothing to do with Marc. No,
Cortney Donelson: [01:00:00] not at all.
Chris Gazdik: [01:00:02] It’s nothing to do with it him.
It’s a powerful reality.
And I love what you say with peace. That’s that’s beautiful. Marc. Why, why is it worth it?
Marc Donelson: [01:00:10] you know, it’s there. I mean, I’ll echo a lot of what, of what court said. You know, she she’d been my best friend since we met in college. you know, she’s, I have more fun with her than anyone else. you know, regardless of what we’re doing for me, it’s, for me, it has a slightly different, bend to it because, you know, You know, my therapist said, look, we don’t know what’s going to happen with your marriage.
in fact, if, if you’re, if you’re going through recovery to try to save your marriage, You’re doing it for the wrong reasons, because you don’t know what’s going to happen with your marriage. All you can do is get yourself healthy. you know, getting yourself sober, get yourself good groups of people that are going to encourage you.
Start living the human life that God designed for you. and if your marriage comes around, your marriage comes around,
Chris Gazdik: [01:01:04] two become one, but two individuals become one. Right? Right.
Marc Donelson: [01:01:10] If your marriage doesn’t come around, you’re still healthy and, and you’ll be okay.
Cortney Donelson: [01:01:15] and you’ll still have peace.
Marc Donelson: [01:01:17] Yeah. And also peace… I mean, it’s, it’s one of those and that was really different early on.
Cause you know, we, we have to trust that, that advice in that counseling, look, you need to go through it by yourself and you need to go do it by yourself. And then we’ll see if you guys come back together. and that was scary
Chris Gazdik: [01:01:37] strong and scary. It takes courage.
Marc Donelson: [01:01:40] But if we didn’t do that, we’re not where we are today.
Chris Gazdik: [01:01:43] Right. Yeah. That’s that’s awesome. Craig, what are you, what is your brain doing over there, man,
Craig Graves: [01:01:48] man, I, I just, I admire you guys. I mean, this there’s a lot in this story. There’s there’s we just talked about courage early on the early episode. There’s lots of that. There’s there’s forgiveness, man. I’m a firm believer in forgiveness.
faith, I mean, it’s it’s and now you guys are helping other people who are struggling with some of the same issues. I think it’s fantastic.
Chris Gazdik: [01:02:09] You know, going back to where I foreshadowed, you know, Marc, how did you, how did you forgive Cortney? You may have thought that was a total joke, but you know, she punched you in the arm.
She gave you, you know, she accused you of things that probably didn’t even happen. Well, what about that time? You looked at that woman in the restaurant, and I know I’m just making something up, but you know, when you’re going through a messy process, I think the thing that I’m trying to point out is right.
Like, you know, there’s apology and forgiveness cycles. We talked, remember we talked about that a little bit. We didn’t have time to do it today, but that’s okay. Because I want to do a whole show on that sometime. You know, this goes back and forth. We can throw this volleyball back and forth and, and, you know, you’re trying to deal with the emotions inside as well, apology and forgiveness on an addict,s part.
Does that make sense?
Marc Donelson: [01:03:00] Yeah. And, and it was, yeah, I, I can remember things that I had to forgive court for, but a lot of it wasn’t. The way I looked at a lot of it was, well, not a lot. Some of it was self-inflicted I’m like,
Chris Gazdik: [01:03:17] yeah, of course
Marc Donelson: [01:03:18] her punching me in the arm. I’m like, alright, I probably have to forgive you, but you know, you probably deserved it.
In fact, you probably deserve a lot more than that. So like we got, it was just one bunch. Yeah.
Craig Graves: [01:03:28] Got off easy. Right? Huh?
Chris Gazdik: [01:03:31] each tooth was not pulled out individually with pair of pliers. I get it. I know. I get it.
Marc Donelson: [01:03:36] Like if, if a bruised arm is the worst thing that’s going to happen with this whole recovery, you’re coming up pretty well there, buddy.
Chris Gazdik: [01:03:43] What I’m getting at is, you know, Dave Ramsey of all people, actually, I think it was Dave Ramsey of all people. You know, we’re not of all people. I’m just saying one of the things that he talks about is, you know, how he answers the question on the show, Craig, Hey, how are you? How are you doing Dave? Thanks for taking my call and Dave and you know how David replies
Craig Graves: [01:04:01] better than I deserve.
Right. Yeah. How are you doing better than I deserve?
Chris Gazdik: [01:04:05] Well, he says, and, and, and that is so grounded because we, we, all human beings are flawed. You know, we’re, we’re going through, she’s going through a years long process of recovering and re forgiving. And you know, she’s not going to do that well. Or if the, if the, if the woman is the sex addict and that happens by the way, people, you know, the guy as kind of going through and trying to forgive, and you’re not going to do it well.
Perfect. And right now we need grace through this process. Both ways all the way around is what I’m really trying to. get at there Yeah.
Cortney Donelson: [01:04:40] And really, I think he needed to forgive me for even before the reveal, because part of the reason he couldn’t come to me is because I had put him on this pedestal thinking he was the perfect husband and could do no wrong, which put a lot of responsibility and weight on his shoulders that he couldn’t step off and say, you know what, I’ve messed up.
So for, in that regard, even before all of this that I knew about, he, I needed forgiveness.
Chris Gazdik: [01:05:08] I need it every day, honestly. And I mean, I don’t mean that joke, you know, but, it it’s, it’s something. Yeah. And that is a, is a beautiful thing. You know, I, I know, you know, my pastor talks about, listen, I’m just an imperfect person coming to you with a perfect message from him, you know, and, and to, to imperfect people coming together to imperfect individuals coming together to create something in marriage.
I mean, it, that’s what we’re trying to do. That’s all we’re trying. I do.
Cortney Donelson: [01:05:34] Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [01:05:36] Okay. What do you want to sum us up with? We need to taxi in Craig. Yeah. What’d you thinking man,
Craig Graves: [01:05:41] I just got one, one question for Marc. So Marc, when we started this story, you said you were almost mad at God because you felt like he was doing all these cool things in Cortney’s life and not yours.
How has that changed since?
Marc Donelson: [01:05:55] you know, he’s given me. He has continued to open doors, that every time we walk through, he opens up bigger doors and he opens up the product door. So, you know, it’s gone from, I’m going to talk to the youth group at our church of, you know, 20, 20 high school guy to, you know, now we’re doing speaking engagements that are, you know, Being recorded and put out on YouTube, you were doing podcasts that like the audience is getting bigger and bigger and we’ve got less and less control over it.
which is a little nerve wracking, but, you know, one story I’ll share real quickly. The first year we shared at our, in our church youth group, they were doing a series on relationships. So we came in and shared our story. and then we came into next year and shared the story, our stories again, and after, after that second time, this high school kid, I want to guess he was a junior in high school.
he came up to me and said, look, I just want to thank you for talking last year. He was like, I missed it. I drove here just to talk to you. Thank you for talking last year, because. I was addicted last year and it took me three months to tell my parents, after I heard you talk, but I’ve been sober nine months and I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t hear you talk.
Chris Gazdik: [01:07:06] That, it is awesome.
Craig Graves: [01:07:07] I love it man
Marc Donelson: [01:07:09] That’s alright. That’s what God’s doing
and cort said, you know, early on through our kind of recovery, you know, she was writing her book. she said, you know, if this story touches just one person, it will be worth it. And I heard that I’m like, man, if this store doesn’t touch more than one person,
yeah.
One person come up. I’m like, all right, no, I take that back. Like suddenly this was worth it.
Chris Gazdik: [01:07:38] Now I get what you, and you know what? You’re looking at, someone in the eyes and you’re, you’re experiencing with it yet. It’s a gift, man. It’s a gift. What do they say in unbeatable mind? Coaching Craig embrace the suck.
Craig Graves: [01:07:50] Yeah. Yeah. These are, these are hard things to talk about. I have mad respect for you guys for bringing it out and talking about it.
Chris Gazdik: [01:07:57] Okay. You guys remember the, you know, the, the high five we do, right. Yeah, that’s the tradition. I started on the show because of that, the courage is that it takes to share the reality of what you guys have done tonight is, is, is, is powerful to me.
And it kind of goes back to a, to a, to a moment while I was having struggles as a kid. I don’t think I ever told that story on this, this, this. Podcasts. I have, I, Craig
Craig Graves: [01:08:23] I don’t recall
Chris Gazdik: [01:08:24] where that high five comes from, yeah, I guess I kept it in my head. anyway to me it just really signifies, you know, like a connected, you know, congratulatory, like, you know, thank you like good job.
You’re acceptable kind of thing. And so when I’m sitting across the table, I like to give a high five and want to count you down to three. When we were doing zoom, we have to do a clap. So the clap signifies, you know, that high five reality, right? And so, because this is not easy to do Marc and you’re right.
Maybe there was one more person today that your story Cortney, you know, helped. And that’s, that’s, that’s absolutely my S my goal. I share, I share that with you. So you cool with doing a clap
Cortney Donelson: [01:09:00] yeah. Can I do one thing first?
Chris Gazdik: [01:09:02] Absolutely.
Cortney Donelson: [01:09:02] where to get My book.
Chris Gazdik: [01:09:04] Do what
Cortney Donelson: [01:09:05] can I tell people where to get my book.
Craig Graves: [01:09:07] Oh, absolutely. Yes. Yes.
Chris Gazdik: [01:09:11] Clay jar cracked. Right?
Cortney Donelson: [01:09:12] Yes Clay Jar Cracked.
Chris Gazdik: [01:09:14] actually It’s a little bit longer because what is clay jar cracked mean? It occurs to me that we didn’t do that. It’s a metaphor, right? I know. Right? Like what did we do?
Cortney Donelson: [01:09:26] It’s based on scripture. how are all fragile clay jars? And we go through life and our jars crack with our experiences or difficult experiences, but we don’t have to shatter.
We can be held together and our light God’s light can shine through the cracks. As we tell our stories.
Chris Gazdik: [01:09:45] It’s a, it’s a super, super cool metaphor that, and, and, and where did that come from? Can you tell me more about, about that?
Cortney Donelson: [01:09:54] Yeah, it’s the jars of clay passage. it’s second Corinthians four. And, I, I never could understand that passage and whenever I read it, it just, it didn’t make sense to me.
And I was frustrated by it, but I knew it was special. I didn’t know why. And it wasn’t until Marc started the reveal process. That God showed me that scripture again and had me go read it in a closet on the floor. And, and at that moment it made perfect sense and I could see how it was. It’s a metaphor for my life, this story, and what my future was gonna hold.
Chris Gazdik: [01:10:32] Yeah. It’s it’s, like I said, I don’t know how we didn’t get that a little while ago. I mean, because yeah, I’ve heard a lot of titles. You know, I’ve seen a lot of books, particularly more in the circles I am traveling I guess now as a good one, man.
Cortney Donelson: [01:10:46] Thanks. Thanks
Craig Graves: [01:10:49] Where do they find it
Chris Gazdik: [01:10:50] What ‘s that Cortney.
Cortney Donelson: [01:10:52] The subtitle is when we’re broken, but not shattered.
Chris Gazdik: [01:10:55] Yeah. Like you said, Craig, where do we find it?
Cortney Donelson: [01:10:58] obviously all your favorite bookstores and Amazon, but if you want a deal, I can give you my website address.
Chris Gazdik: [01:11:05] Oh, I want deals man.
Cortney Donelson: [01:11:09] So it’s, your yourvocem.com. And that’s Latin for your voice.
Chris Gazdik: [01:11:18] Yeah. And we’ll have that on the show notes. And like I said, I don’t know if we said at this show or last show, but we’re actually gonna do, if the authors are in agreement and whatnot, links on our website, you know, that pop it out to you.
We’re going to be doing some links to your book so you can come, right. If you’re having me on throughatherapisteyes.com right now, listening, you can kind of click over to the books, go in and pop the purchase of those. It’ll it’ll send you right through. It’s good stuff are happening because you know yeah know Marc.
You’re awesome. You totally courageous. To, to do this. truly man and, and Cortney, I, I gave you praise in what you do in, in your editing and your work. dudes out there, man, ladies out there y’all need to look these people up. She’ll make your book come alive. And man, can I say Marc, you might talk to somebody and make their life come alive about that.
Marc Donelson: [01:12:06] We’ll see. Yeah. I’ll just keep talking and we’ll see what happens.
Chris Gazdik: [01:12:12] Absolutely. You know, somebody told me that, you know, I was listening to radio program. What popped in my head. There was, you know, the guy, the guy on his anniversary, date of recovery from alcoholism is what it was, but he says I was a part of the living dead and I’m alive now.
Like that’s what we’re doing. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you guys for what you’ve done tonight.
Cortney Donelson: [01:12:31] Thanks for having us. It’s good to see you again.
Craig Graves: [01:12:33] Good to see you guys too. Very, very good to see
Chris Gazdik: [01:12:36] Craig take out here, man.
Craig Graves: [01:12:37] Yeah. Throughatherapistseyes.com is our website. You can find out more about us there.
We’ve done some upgrades and added some new, cool stuff to the site. You can find links to our social media there and we’re giving away the first chapter of Chris’s book. If you sign up for our email list. So if you want to get a quick preview, then be sure to get on that list. And, I think that covers it, Chris, where are we?
What are we gonna do next?
Chris Gazdik: [01:13:03] I’m gonna put you one spot, brother. You ready for that? You asked me the question. You ready for the answer? I
Craig Graves: [01:13:07] be careful, man.
Chris Gazdik: [01:13:08] Come on. Now you said we need to do a show on breathing.
We’ll see about that.
That is a good followup. So look for that.
Craig Graves: [01:13:16] I’ll see about that.
Chris Gazdik: [01:13:16] I will work on him, boys and girls out there.
We’ll see you next week.