Erin F. reviewed Every Heart Restored : A Wife's Guide to Healing in the Wake of a Husband's Sexual Sin (The Every Man Series) on + 5 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
From the back cover...
'addresses the questions and real-life issues that matter to you most. Whether you are facing the startling new revelation of your husband's sin, dealing with a long-term problem, or cleaning out an old wound, Every Heart Restored will meet you where you are and guide you to healing greater than you imagine possible.'
'addresses the questions and real-life issues that matter to you most. Whether you are facing the startling new revelation of your husband's sin, dealing with a long-term problem, or cleaning out an old wound, Every Heart Restored will meet you where you are and guide you to healing greater than you imagine possible.'
Victoria T. (justicepirate) reviewed Every Heart Restored : A Wife's Guide to Healing in the Wake of a Husband's Sexual Sin (The Every Man Series) on + 350 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
This book is aimed to comfort and help women who are dealing with their husband's sexual sins (from lust, porn addictions, to affairs). Many women suffer from their husband's sexual addictions and this book is out to help women try to get inside a man's head to understand what they have gone through so that they can try to encourage them towards purity. We are able to learn of male and female perspectives and how differently we are made so that we can try to see what each person would be going through. It doesn't try to yell at women or men, but tries to help each person understand the other (and the authors are a married couple who have been through it).
The book opens up about how Fred & Brenda Stoeker met and their issues emotionally, physically, and spiritually that each of them was dealing with because of Fred's lust & pornography addictions. It continues with stories from women who have been pained because of the way their husbands treated them (or didn't treat them at all) because of their husband's sexual sins. Both Fred and Brenda state their Biblical based opinions and trying to understand what these women might be going through while also trying to understand what the husband is going through. Overall, this section deals with the betrayal felt in a woman when she finds out about her husband's sexual addictions.
In the second part of the book we learn about what a man goes through and how he connects a lot of his love through what goes on in the bedroom. Women have to learn how easy it is for a man to become stimulated and how visual they are. One thing that was mentioned was about Fred and Brenda's son Michael who was 11 years old and approached his mother explaining that he couldn't get images of women in underwear out of his head because he saw ads walking past the Victoria's Secret store in the mall. He wasn't going out looking for that image and at the same time it was dwelling in his head for the first time as he started hitting puberty. The section tries to vocalize what a man does with those images and how visual men are with simple things. It also tries to help women know that they are not to give their bodies every single time that their husband wants them through intimacy, but that they should realize that men's brains are made differently from theirs. While women have much more of a communicative brain (where they can connect things with both sides of their brains), men have it only on one side of their brain and instead have much more sexual demand going on in their brain in comparison to a woman's. Therefore women need to realize that men can't be women and women can't be men, so they both need to be there for each other sexually and emotionally for one another to meet each other's needs (without being controlling, demanding, or insensitive).
In the third part of the book we learn how different situations can really impact the way a guy feels about sex in general. A lot of boys tend to masturbate and get involved in sexual sin due to having a lack of their father in their lives and wanting to be appreciated by them. Also the church tends to not want to state that masturbation is wrong, so they encourage it and sometimes will try to make their messages "relevant" by using ungodly movies as a way to present their message without stating the content within the movie, causing teens and children to want to see it, and often they will fall into lust because the church isn't doing enough to try to protect them from harm. Here's what was said, "In our quest to remain hip and relevant, our churches have become irrelevant to the greatest issue of our day, playing right into the hands of the Enemy whose clever temptations reveal a deadly understanding of male sexual hardwiring." About a page later, "You already know that our male hardwiring is prone to addictive lusts of the eyes. Now you can see how our own churches wound us with their desire to be 'relevant,' promoting and approving the very things that rev a guy's sexual engine into the red zone. Once there, however, masturbation eats our spirituality alive." The remainder of this section talks about how the root of a lot of porn addictions started long before a man gets married at all, and tries to help a woman understand the hard-wiring of lust addiction and how their husband needs to have encouragement so that they can "re-wire" what they have put into habit for so long and that it has nothing to do with the wife (even though she will feel rejected and that it was because she wasn't "good enough")! I think this was probably my favorite section of the whole book.
The last section of the book is to share how there can be healing in a marriage even after feeling betrayed because of sexual sin. There are examples of many women and how long they may have had to wait and go through the pain of rejection. A big subject mentioned here is divorce and what the Bible says about it. There was a lot of love in this portion through the statements because women who read this might be suffering from deep wounds. I really like how we were able to see examples of stories of women who had a hard time with how their husbands expected them to do whatever they want sexually on demand without sharing the intimacy needed to nurture the relationship for marriage. While a lot of women may want to have control over their husband's change, the man needs to be willing to make efforts to change. There is a lot of talk in this portion about the prayers of a wife and how important they are!
As a whole the book was pretty good! If you have a husband who has a sexual addiction, this is wonderful. My husband has been through a lot of what was mentioned and one story in particular was so similar to my own that I started to remember a bit of what I felt when I suffered through my own husband's porn and lust addictions of the past. I can say that there is hope and a way to get through it even though it may seem like it is not possible.
I give it a 3.75 out of 5 star rating.
[I wrote this review on http://rubyeyedokapi.com as well]
The book opens up about how Fred & Brenda Stoeker met and their issues emotionally, physically, and spiritually that each of them was dealing with because of Fred's lust & pornography addictions. It continues with stories from women who have been pained because of the way their husbands treated them (or didn't treat them at all) because of their husband's sexual sins. Both Fred and Brenda state their Biblical based opinions and trying to understand what these women might be going through while also trying to understand what the husband is going through. Overall, this section deals with the betrayal felt in a woman when she finds out about her husband's sexual addictions.
In the second part of the book we learn about what a man goes through and how he connects a lot of his love through what goes on in the bedroom. Women have to learn how easy it is for a man to become stimulated and how visual they are. One thing that was mentioned was about Fred and Brenda's son Michael who was 11 years old and approached his mother explaining that he couldn't get images of women in underwear out of his head because he saw ads walking past the Victoria's Secret store in the mall. He wasn't going out looking for that image and at the same time it was dwelling in his head for the first time as he started hitting puberty. The section tries to vocalize what a man does with those images and how visual men are with simple things. It also tries to help women know that they are not to give their bodies every single time that their husband wants them through intimacy, but that they should realize that men's brains are made differently from theirs. While women have much more of a communicative brain (where they can connect things with both sides of their brains), men have it only on one side of their brain and instead have much more sexual demand going on in their brain in comparison to a woman's. Therefore women need to realize that men can't be women and women can't be men, so they both need to be there for each other sexually and emotionally for one another to meet each other's needs (without being controlling, demanding, or insensitive).
In the third part of the book we learn how different situations can really impact the way a guy feels about sex in general. A lot of boys tend to masturbate and get involved in sexual sin due to having a lack of their father in their lives and wanting to be appreciated by them. Also the church tends to not want to state that masturbation is wrong, so they encourage it and sometimes will try to make their messages "relevant" by using ungodly movies as a way to present their message without stating the content within the movie, causing teens and children to want to see it, and often they will fall into lust because the church isn't doing enough to try to protect them from harm. Here's what was said, "In our quest to remain hip and relevant, our churches have become irrelevant to the greatest issue of our day, playing right into the hands of the Enemy whose clever temptations reveal a deadly understanding of male sexual hardwiring." About a page later, "You already know that our male hardwiring is prone to addictive lusts of the eyes. Now you can see how our own churches wound us with their desire to be 'relevant,' promoting and approving the very things that rev a guy's sexual engine into the red zone. Once there, however, masturbation eats our spirituality alive." The remainder of this section talks about how the root of a lot of porn addictions started long before a man gets married at all, and tries to help a woman understand the hard-wiring of lust addiction and how their husband needs to have encouragement so that they can "re-wire" what they have put into habit for so long and that it has nothing to do with the wife (even though she will feel rejected and that it was because she wasn't "good enough")! I think this was probably my favorite section of the whole book.
The last section of the book is to share how there can be healing in a marriage even after feeling betrayed because of sexual sin. There are examples of many women and how long they may have had to wait and go through the pain of rejection. A big subject mentioned here is divorce and what the Bible says about it. There was a lot of love in this portion through the statements because women who read this might be suffering from deep wounds. I really like how we were able to see examples of stories of women who had a hard time with how their husbands expected them to do whatever they want sexually on demand without sharing the intimacy needed to nurture the relationship for marriage. While a lot of women may want to have control over their husband's change, the man needs to be willing to make efforts to change. There is a lot of talk in this portion about the prayers of a wife and how important they are!
As a whole the book was pretty good! If you have a husband who has a sexual addiction, this is wonderful. My husband has been through a lot of what was mentioned and one story in particular was so similar to my own that I started to remember a bit of what I felt when I suffered through my own husband's porn and lust addictions of the past. I can say that there is hope and a way to get through it even though it may seem like it is not possible.
I give it a 3.75 out of 5 star rating.
[I wrote this review on http://rubyeyedokapi.com as well]
Shawn H. reviewed Every Heart Restored : A Wife's Guide to Healing in the Wake of a Husband's Sexual Sin (The Every Man Series) on
Helpful Score: 1
very insightful, helpful and eye opening.
