Aftershock - Confronting Your HusbandSample

How to Respond to His Response: Possibility 2

Possibility 2: How to Respond If He Makes Promises but Keeps Returning to His Damaging Behavior – If your husband has continued his damaging behavior with no overall progress or trajectory toward health and “sober” living, now is the time to pull in some additional resources and stage an intervention. The input of other people your husband respects could have a significant impact that motivates him to change. The process of staging an intervention and confronting your spouse in this way is a challenging but necessary line in the sand.

To help you prepare for an intervention, you may want to seek professional advice or consult websites for suggestions on how to go about it. Consider the biblical model from Matthew 18:15-16: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.”

A formal intervention affirms the serious nature of your husband’s sin. It also demonstrates that your complaints are valid and that resolution can only be achieved through penitent actions on his part.

There are two key steps you need to take in staging an intervention. In the next two sections, we’ll look at each one more closely.