Well, good afternoon everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Covenant Eyes podcast. I'm your co-host today, Rob Stoddard. And, sitting with my normal co-host, Karen Potter. Say hello. Hey, everybody. We are live from the Founders Conference, so we're not in our normal studios today, but we are really excited about today's episode. We've got two amazing guests joining us. We have Johnny and Emily Spiegel. My order. Did I say that correctly? Right. Well, right. All right, well, we are really excited to have this conversation because this couple has been where a lot of you have been in your journey, and they have got a ministry that really serves couples, as they walk through the challenges that are faced in marriage when addressing pornography. And I'm going to let them introduce themselves how they got this ministry started and a little bit about their testimony. Emily and Johnny, welcome to the show. Please share with our listeners a little bit about yourself. Thank you, Karen and Rob, we're so glad to be here today. So, obviously I'm Johnny and sitting next to me is Emily. We've been married now for 37 years, married in 1987. And, we have three children, three grown children and five grandchildren. But, my story, my journey started at eight years old when I became exposed to pornography through my dad's, hidden stash. And so from there, it just kind of, you know, moved on to what the natural progression was to, you know, looking at it more to, chronic masturbation and viewing early sexual experience as through my teen years, that then I was able to abate for a short period of time after I met Emily and was able to stay away from that for four years until the tail end of my military years, when I picked up my pornography habit again. Then that just kind of continued for a while, and, around 2007 time period, my pornography moved from, from just what was on the page or what was on video to physical relationship tips. Where then for the next 11 years, I would have three sexual relationships with women that were not my wife until discovery, in 2018. Yeah. Well, that's that's a story that we often hear, obviously. So that led you to recovery and a ministry called beyond, Broken Vows. You can tell us a little bit about how you started that ministry and, really, what, what kind of work you're doing with that? Thank you. So I'm going to just start start it. And Emily's going to finish it. So I, I'm the one who tends to be more transparent in telling my story. Even when I was hiding the darkest part of who I was, I was still very transparent. I learned to really kind of look at that as fodder. I could let a lot of things about me be transparent to people without actually letting them see the real dark stuff that was going on behind the scenes. So I was really good at it. And 25 years in Pastoral Ministries, I did a lot of speaking on Sunday mornings and teaching and classes and things like that. So telling my story was was very natural to me. So I knew at some point that I was going to be telling the story. But Emily has been a little bit, closer to the to the vest on on that. And so I'm going to let her tell the rest of that story. Yeah. Well, after we, decided to stay married and work this out, and Johnny got into recovery, and I started, getting into some betrayal trauma recovery for myself, and we, went on this journey together for a couple of years until we, just entered year two of recovery. We renewed our vows and had a ceremony. And then it was, I was trying to figure out something else to do because I. I was pretty shattered, obviously, when this all happened and the the business that I was in, I was self-employed as a, a nutraceutical rep, and I just lost all my confidence. I just lost all my desire to even engage in that. And so, eventually I came out of that, got my confidence back, and decided I wanted to do something a little bit different to stay, home and help, you know, bring Johnny home, retire him out of landscaping so that we could spend more time together with our new marriage that God gave us are redeemed and brand new marriage. And so, went to some into some schooling and, you know, for, online business and, wasn't working out real well. You know, I just wasn't finding my niche, and I wasn't, finding that that offer, that thing that I wanted to, you know, share with people and, and compel them to, you know, latch on to and so eventually my, my sweet, wonderful, savior and Lord gently started to nudge me that it was time to tell my story and, publicly and we had shared it with family and friends and actually had about 75 people at our, vow renewal ceremony. And those were people that had prayed with us and walked through that with us. So it I was, you know, sharing my story, but not on a grand scale yet. And so God said, you know, this is my story. He said, and I want you to tell it. And so, he sort of put in my lap this, idea of podcasts. I came across it on the internet and I was like, he said, that's it. And I was like, what is podcasting? I, I've never even listen to a podcast before. And so, I, I found a coach in a and of course, and I jumped in and we, we, started our podcast, on, Memorial Day of 23. Yep. Memorial day 2023. That's right. Yes. And so we've been doing that for a while. Not just a little while. And, and then we started, coaching or we went to, we became life coaches and specializing in marriage recovery. And so that's what we've been doing now for a little over a year. Yes. And we're just loving it. We're just, you know, God has been so good. It's it was a painful it is sometimes still painful journey. And the journey is not over. You know, obviously, we're going to be working on this the rest of our lives, on earth, you know, until we see Jesus, it's always going to be a part of our life. But we have been just been given this brand new, intimacy and connection that we never had before. And so we're really excited about that. And we want to help other people find that. Wow, that is an amazing story. And I love that the Lord has used the ashes from what was and turned it to beauty. And you guys have really blossomed and been able to help so many people by sharing that testimony, because that's one of the most powerful things that we have to share, is our own personal story of being redeemed by the Lord and Savior. And I just love that. I want to talk a little bit about, you know, from your perspective, Emily, you know, we don't talk enough about the the experiences that a spouse goes through and the hurt, the betrayal, the trauma, the things that you have to go through during this journey. Can we talk a little bit about how you were able to find support during this time and even now, you know, what kind of, you know, I'm sure you have a community around you, but talk to us a little bit about what that's been like and what you could, what advice you have to offer others. Yeah. It's, community is so critical for recovery in this. And you're right, there's not much focus. Been on the betrayed wives. There's more and more I'm finding more and more, which is great. But, when this happened, we were fortunate enough to be a part of a church that was very, compassionate and sensitive to this topic. And they they just, circled around us and, and gave us some resources. And we we did go to marriage intensive and, and we had some, you know, counseling. And then, our pastor encouraged me to tell some people and some women in the church, and I was really terrified at that time is so full of shame, so embarrassed, and, didn't want, you know, my, the perfect marriage and, and kids and Christian family life that I had portrayed over my, you know, 25 years or 31 years at that time of marriage was, you know, it wasn't there. It was it was gone. It was all a lie to me. And so I was really, hesitant to talk about it. But I did tell, three of my three best friends, which was such a relief to be able to get that out, first of all. And then I did connect with some women in the church who had had similar experiences. The pastors connected us with them. And, and then I found a wives, healing trauma group and, got it got to be a part of that, which I continued to this day. They have, monthly meetings where you can pop in and get some encouragement and some training. And so, yeah, it's been really good that I've had these, resources in place. It was a challenge to, open myself up to them at first because of the shame. But, I'm so glad I did because that's, you know, isolation is is where Satan does his best work. And so, coming out of that isolation and, and allowing people to, speak into my life has been an amazing thing. Are you or someone, you know, struggling with pornography and ready for a breakthrough? Well, download victory, a free app from Covenant Eyes. You'll get instant access to expert led many courses and practical tools that guide you toward real freedom. Don't wait. Take the first step toward a healthier, stronger you. Search victory on the App Store or Google Play and start your journey to freedom today. Now back to the show. Tell us a little bit more about your life coaching. How are you connecting with people? And, you know, what are you finding that you're able to bring and give to to these couples that are coming in, you know, maybe, maybe coming from the same place you been in the past? Oh, that's a great question. Thank you so much for asking it. The primary way that folks get in contact with us is by listening to our story through our podcast, Beyond Broken Valley's podcast. We don't have a lot of avenues outside of that way. We're working working more on it. But when folks tune in and listen to us, what they get is a very real, honest and raw Johnny and Emily Spiegel. Meyer. We we made a decision that if we were going to do this and this is God's story and he's telling his story through us, then we weren't going to we weren't going to cower in shame that we were going to tell everything. So we we said basically what we have is our three pillars, which is transparency, vulnerability and rigorous honesty. And what not only do we project that in and coach that into our clients, but we hold ourselves to that same standard so that that's what you'll get on the podcast. So transparency is allowing ourselves to be seen so that others can see us for who we really are. And so whereas we verbally do it because we're audio only podcast, we just we just put it all out there. Vulnerability is sharing to the point where you risk rejection. And so we say things on there. That is our story. And nobody can nobody can say it's not our story. And so that's what we've, we've committed to is just to tell our story and how we've worked through it. And some of those things are quite vulnerable. And, then the rigorous honesty is the idea of, it's really kind of a hunting term is that you're tracking down and you are apprehending the truth at all cost. What will you do? What will you invest to know the entire truth about yourself, for better or for worse? So, you know, I discovered on my recovery journey some very ugly things about myself that I did not want to be true. I believed myself to be a good moral man. But how is that possible if I've got this secret sexual sin in the background and I'm not, and I'm not being honest in that way. So I had to come to terms with some with some very ugly truths about myself. But I had to also come to terms with some very beautiful truths about me. Things that because I have spent a lifetime up to this point, I had spent a lifetime destroying myself, lying to myself, hurting myself, taking my value away. And, you know, basically projecting the lies onto myself that I have no value. The world and my wife in my family would be better without me. And they would they would stand a better chance if I was not around. So that whole devaluing through our pod so that that's rigorous honesty is just coming to understand that actually, no, I am I am a wonderful man. I am understanding that I'm not a bad man, but I did do bad things and learning to separate the action from the identity. And that's a lot of what we do with our clients as well. So I would say if you were to ask us, what's the number one thing that we teach in to our clients? It is transparency, vulnerability and rigorous honesty because we believe that that is the rock steady path to true intimacy, not the intimacy that the world wants to project on us when they make it some intimacy synonymous with sex. It's the honesty, true art, true intimacy, that says that I am fully known and fully accepted. I can say today that I have no secrets from Emily. There isn't any part of me that she doesn't know. It's amazing that now I can see my husband. I couldn't really see him before because he was hiding from me and I didn't even know he was. But now I can see him. We have a connection where we can see inside of each other, you know, we can kind of see our our souls and and that's what we feel through intimacy is we, we have a connection that we, have that trust. Of course, as a betrayed wife, I want to say that I don't know that I could ever trust him like I used to never fully trust because I know what he's capable of. So there's always that little piece. But I trust him. As much as, I can, because he's being trustworthy every day, and then I trust Jesus for the rest. But it's just been, wonderful to get to know this person that I didn't really know before. I thought I knew who he was, and. And now I fully know him, and I fully accept him. And so I, It's a beautiful thing, you know, I used to be want to change him, but now this, I just I just want him. That's amazing. And I think our listeners could find a lot of value from listening to your podcast and hearing that vulnerability, that honesty. Those are things that are not easy. And those are so essential to the recovery journey and the healing journey. So that sounds like a really powerful way for people, to, to find others that have been in the trenches like they are and to get some hope that there is a path forward. I think that's so important. You guys are parents and you have five precious little grandchildren. So knowing what you know and the struggles that you've had in your marriage, and in your own life, are you taking any extra steps to protect and prepare that next generation as you think about, you know, technology and how that's impacting, younger people, are you guys doing anything different with that next generation? We try to speak to our kids and try to work with them as far as what our grandkids are able to see, but I would say that is the extent of it. Emily and I primary primarily, we focus on, Christian couples who have been affected by porn fueled infidelity, who have made the choice to stay married but are finding it really hard to do that. And so we we really focus at that point right there. We have we have bigger aspirations, as I understand many of us who come into this ministry, I want to see this get into the church on a greater, greater scale. The church as a whole is just not addressing the issue. They're not talking about it. And our church included, even our pastoral staff. That was so good. And helping us. My senior pastor, who was the one who said, Johnny, I think that you need to consider that you're a sex addict and you need treatment for it. Even at that point, they do really good on the aftercare, but we're just not seeing and we're hearing from others that we talk with and collaborate with that the church is not dealing with it on the front end, and I don't know what the answer is yet, but I know that I have a passion for that. And well, and Emily as well, she's she's there too. Yeah. No that's excellent. That's excellent. Well, Johnny and Emily, as we kind of start to wrap up here, tell us, or tell our listeners, how do they find your podcast and, and be able to follow listen to you? Yeah. So we're on every major platform, and you can just look us up by, Beyond Broken Vows. And we also have a website, Beyond Broken Bascombe. And we would also love to have people, sign up to be an insider on and get our newsletter. And that's insider dot Beyond Broken vowels.com. Awesome. We're going to put all those links in the show notes so that all of our listeners can take advantage of that. And I think that's going to be a great next step. Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing your story with our listeners. I know that they're going to find this to be very inspirational. I know they're going to check out your podcast and hopefully, we can even point some people towards your life coaching services. I think sometimes we need that extra, you know, a team around us really to get through these challenges because we cannot do it alone. So thank you so much, both of you for joining us today for this interview. Rob, want to bring us home today? Yeah, absolutely. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We, just ask that you share or like this, this post and please, look for the next ones. So until we meet again, thanks for joining us. And, Johnny and Emily, thanks again for joining us today. God bless. Take care for. Having our pleasure. Thank you for having us.