​St. Josemaría Escrivá did not write soft spiritual encouragement.

He wrote like a man who understood the interior battle firsthand and had no patience for men who were losing it while pretending otherwise.

I love his direct, challenging writing style.

He said: "It's hard! Yes, I know. But, forward! No one will be rewarded - and what a reward! - except those who fight bravely." Source.

That's it.

No softening [yes, we love the easier, softer way].

No footnotes.

Just the truth about what recovery actually requires and what is waiting on the other side of it.

Yes it is hard.

Escrivá is not disputing that.

He is not promising it gets easy or that the temptation eventually disappears or that the fight becomes something other than a fight.

He is simply saying: forward anyway.

Because the reward is real and it is waiting and it belongs to the men who did not stop.

Here is what that reward looks like for a man in recovery:

• Sobriety that holds under pressure.
• A marriage rebuilt on something real.
• A conscience that is clear when he wakes up in the morning.
• Not having to hide his phone or computer activity.
• Not having to come up with lies and remembering the lies he came up with to cover everything up.
• The ability to look his children in the eye without the secret running underneath everything.
• The freedom of a man who is no longer hiding.

That is not a small reward.

That is a life.

A life that's making it.

The men who find it are not the ones who had it easy.

They are the ones who heard it was hard, agreed that yes it was, took direction and action and kept going anyway.

"I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me." [2 Timothy 4:7-8]

St. Paul did not write that from a La-Z-Boy.

He wrote it from prison, near the end of his life, having paid everything the fight asked of him.

The crown was real.

The fight was worth it.

And for the betrayed wife reading this: you are also in a fight that is hard and that nobody asked you to sign up for.

The reward waiting for you on the other side of this, a marriage that is real, a husband who is present, a life that is not built on secrets, is worth the forward too.

2 Practical Tips:

To Battle Lust: Name the hardest part of your recovery right now. The thing that makes you want to stop. Write it down. Then write next to it: forward. Put it somewhere you will see it tomorrow morning before the day starts.

To Help Your Wife Heal: Ask her today what forward looks like for her. Not for you. For her. What would it mean for her to keep going and believe the reward is real? "I know this fight has been hard for you too. I want to know what keeps you going. And I want you to know I am not stopping."

It's hard.

Yes.

Forward anyway.

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—Steve
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