Hello and welcome back to the upfront and undivided podcast with Luke and Dean'na. Hi. Hi babe. I was psyching myself up and I totally blanked out. I'm like, where are we? What is going on? You are thrown because we have guests. We have special guests in our podcast studio. I'm excited. It's so fun to say studio. It does. So yeah, yes. This is the real deal. Who do we have today? We have our good friends, Torrie and Dustin. We've been. Hey, thanks for having us. You're welcome. Sorry.
We don't have like a clap machine. That was beautiful. We have no canned sound. We are the cans. I'm excited. I'm excited that they're here. I'm excited that you guys are taking time out to come and hang out with us today. Do you want to give some background of Tori and Dustin or no. No, no. You want me to? Yeah. Okay. So I am super stoked. Number one, it's what happens. This is what happens. This is what happens. This is exactly what happens. Yeah. So we absolutely love you guys.
Absolutely love you guys. We are privileged and honored to have you guys in our home, in our family, because you guys are family. If anybody knows Tori and Dustin, you do not meet a stranger. You guys pour into our kids. You pour into other people's kids. You guys have probably one of the most amazing marriages. We get to sit kind of literally behind you on a regular, which is really neat to watch you guys just the way that you guys love each other and the way that you love God.
Not necessarily in that order. But we are absolutely ecstatic to hear from you guys. We asked Tori and Dustin to come and just talk to us because you guys have some really good solid nuggets, some really good solid things in your lives that I know that you can bring to the table. We were talking just before you pushed record, just kind of not trying to prompt you guys whatsoever. We just want the Holy Spirit to just speak from you from your hearts, whatever you guys want to share.
We are excited and I know our listeners are going to be blessed just to hear you guys. Thanks. Thanks for having us. We're excited to be here. So I'll kind of start with just kind of giving a little bit of backstory on Tori and I. So we've been married. It'll be 17 years this August. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. We should know some stuff, right? Where did you guys meet? Almost 20 years. Where did we meet?
Yeah. So we grew, both of us grew up in Illinois, kind of right in the middle of the state. Well, I grew up in the middle of the state in the farmland and Tori is a big city girl. She grew up a little bit south of Chicago. And then we met at Illinois State University about 2004 or five. Very cool. Yeah. We went to the same house church, go into the same church, same kind of college age ministry thing at a big church in normal Illinois.
And then we both got assigned to the same house church and she saw me and I just was taken back by how handsome I am. Pretty accurate. But no, she yeah. So we just got to actually we just got to hanging out, started hanging out as friends and got with a group of about oh, 10, 10 other people our age, college age, early 20s and started doing everything together. Started playing volleyball, sand volleyball. What else? We did everything. We went on a missions trip to Arizona, all kinds of stuff.
Hung out at a coffee bar called the Jesus Coffee House or bar something. It wasn't a bar. It was Jesus Coffee House. Oh, yeah. That was another place. Coffee bar. Yeah. So we just ran around all over central Illinois together with these friends and just had a blast together. So definitely started as friends. Yep. Definitely. And after about what, a year or so? Yeah, I mean, what side of the story are we telling? I was just going to say how we transition from friends to. Shebang.
Now we're married. I love that. It's like movie magic. Shebang. Shebang. We're married. Shebang. Definitely didn't happen like that. So I approached Justin twice because I felt like the Lord had said numerous times when I in prayer just seeking the Lord on my future and that I heard the Holy Spirit say that Dustin was my husband. And so I approached Justin twice and not one time, but two times he rejected me. Oh, no. Politely. Because boys are slow. Yes. Very slow.
I mean, even to the point that you literally dug him out right there. That was pretty quick. It's true, but you didn't have to go out and say that. Thank you, Luke. And so, yeah, because even at one point, I don't even know if you remember this, but at one point he was like, yeah, the next person I date, I'm going to marry. And I just don't think I don't see myself dating you. And I was like, wow. I do not remember saying that, but she has a really good memory.
So. Yeah. God bless you for being straight forward. Crikey dude. So, needless to say, we kind of parted ways. I ended up moving back to Chicago. He stayed down in central Illinois. And then I was gone for probably three months and I get a random call from Dustin and basically professed his love for me and that he can't live without me. It came to my senses, Luke. Good job. Proud of you. He was slow. He was very slow to the game, but he caught back up. Slow to speak. Yes. As the Bible says.
That's right. There you go. It is getting sick in here. So then we did long distance because I was back in Chicago. He was two hours away. And we kind of, where did we go from there? We did a long distance for a while. So that was in December and then we got engaged in May and we did kind of the Christian fast route to get married and got married in August. So we were engaged three months. Nice. That's your parents. Sort of. Well, from meeting to marriage was three months for them. Oh wow.
Yeah. But it was nice because we had that foundation of friendship. That's good. Which I think that's kind of where we pull on, that's kind of in our reservoir of being able to go back to that friendship establishment. And so we were married for what? A year and then life kind of dramatically changed. Yeah. So I'll take it from here. So yeah. So we were married about a year and in the fall of 07, I, so I'll just back up a little bit. I lived with pornography in my life.
So we just went from zero to a hundred. So for anyone listening, okay. So I had always been around pornography. I grew up around it. It was nothing to see, you know, magazines or pictures, big posters, just everywhere that I hung out and worked and hung out with family and friends. So I was 27 at that time. So yeah, so about, you know, 20 years of this or 15 to 20 years of this.
And then, you know, I thought like some guys do a lot of men, I think, do, you know, they're either addicted to it or they're on their way to being addicted to it. And they think, well, as soon as I get the ring on her finger or her ring on my finger, this is surely going to, my love is going to be so much greater than my, you know, the whole of pornography in my life and just all this stuff, and it's just a total lie because it's, you know, it's a condition of the heart more than anything.
And so, yeah, so we've been married about a year and I was lying behind her back and sneaking and lying and just, you know, and I won't go into too much detail because you don't really need to, but was not living the life that I knew I should. And the Holy Spirit convicted me in the fall of 07 and basically said, you know, today's the day.
It was, I finished work and was driving back home and I just knew without a shadow of a doubt that today I was going to, I was going to tell her everything and she knew nothing. She knew, she didn't know that I'd ever seen any other woman, you know, naked. So, you know, and so just feeling the weight of that, you can just imagine the pressure and just the, you know, just worry like, is she going to leave me?
So all this stuff is going through my head as I'm driving up the hill to our apartment and I'm talking on the phone with her and just my hand is trembling and I have tears just, you know, just rolling down my face and said, I need to talk to you. I have to talk to you as soon as you get home. I have to tell you something. And she's just freaking out about it, you know, thinking something was wrong. I was in an accident.
So anyway, she comes home and we sit across from each other in our apartment and I dumped, you know, 20 years of just, you know, lies and just living a double life for that long. And I told her everything and I really felt like we had a, oddly enough, there was a stone that was within a, it was within 20 yards of our apartment building that I read every day and it said, the truth will set you free. And I read it every day.
And when I got home that day, it was like, God, it magnified that and said, when you tell her, you tell her everything. Yeah. There's just something about whether you're a new believer or you've been a believer for a long time, but there's something about telling everything. There's something about getting everything in the light. And I knew, I knew, I knew, I knew that if I withheld anything, even to protect her, I really felt like he said, I will protect her.
You need to get everything in the light. And so I did, I obeyed, you know, and I, and I, I just knew that, that that's what I was going to do and it was not easy. You know, you know, you watch your wife deflate right before your eyes and you know, she, from the neck up, she's turning bright red and just like, you know, her eyes are a water and she's just like in complete shock. She was confused. She was hurt.
Yeah. And, you know, and as a man, like, you know, I did that to her and I just kind of had to watch that take place. You know, I'm not sure how much to share, but like, so she ran out. I don't know if you can take over any time, but she ran out of our apartment after I had probably for 15 or 20 minutes straight told her everything and ran out, didn't say a word. What did you, you said, I'm, I'm confused or you said something like, I'm what I'm confused and just ran out.
She just stormed out and slammed the door. You know, I just sat there and I thought, well, I just, you know, that could be the last time I see my wife. She, you know, so it was, it was a weird feeling because I was, I was scared out of my mind that I could have just lost my new wife of a year, but in the same sense, I felt the lightest that I had felt in 20 years. So it was just kind of like, wow, what a strange moment that I'm sitting in. I don't know where my wife is right now.
I literally did not know where she went. Later she would come back. It was about probably 20 minutes. I sat there and I just continued to bow my eyes out and just, just kind of talking to the Lord and in about 20 minutes goes by and she, she comes back in the door and walks right to me and sits as close as she can to me and puts her arm around me and squeezes me really tight and says in my ear, we will get through this together. And, and I mean, just complete shock.
I could not believe what I was hearing out of my ears for me to be able to get just, you know, just a life of garbage, just darkness and just like lies and all this stuff. And for her to like wrap me up and squeeze me and encourage me, it was just, you know, it was just a life changing moment for me.
And so from that moment on, you know, and for anyone that has been through this or anyone that is contemplating, you know, taking this, these steps of, you know, confessing, you know, maybe a hit, a second life or a hidden life to someone that you love, you know, it doesn't, it wasn't a hug and we'll get through this and, and then the birds were chirping in the window. So it got ugly. It was very, very, very, very hard for about three days. We didn't speak really a word.
Well, yes, I did come back in. So I had left and I remember I had called Sherry, my mother-in-law, and just kind of said, I don't know what to do because, you know, I was never raised in, pornography was not something that I knew. It wasn't something that, I mean, I don't hear me. I knew that that was out there, but it wasn't something that my inner circle of friends, like it wasn't something that was discussed or talked about or anything like that.
So when he admitted all this to me, I was kind of like, immediately there was a sense of betrayal because, you know, I'm thinking, okay, we go to church every Sunday. We tithe, you know, we met in church, like what the heck is going on here? And so, but at the same time, things were making sense because for that past year, there were moments where Dustin would get really angry and I didn't really understand why.
And so one of the side effects to the addiction was he would start blaming me for things that I had, did not do, or, you know, or had, you know, just, it was so bizarre to me. I remember thinking like, Lord, like, what is this? Something is not right, but I don't understand what it is. And so I did come back in, I did say we would get through this.
And I remember going and grabbing my Bible and sitting at the table and was like, all right, we're going to find every scripture in this Bible and we're going to, you know, we're going to plaster this everywhere. We're going to do all of this stuff. And then, and then the reality of everything started to hit me, you know, because I was on an adrenaline rush and like, okay, let's do this. I'm a, I'm a doer, like, let's fix this, you know, let's do this.
And then, like you said, we did not talk, but the part is, is I did leave him. I left him and went back to Chicago because I was like, this is too much. I can't, this is too heavy and this isn't the life I signed up for. And I, I've, I'm married to this man, but I don't know who he is. And there were things, you know, I mean, I don't know how in depth we want to go, but there were, there were stipule, there were stipulations placed on me. Am I okay to share?
Like there were stipulations, sexual stipulations that he would place on me that I'm like, this is not working for me. Like I am, I'm, I don't, I don't understand. Again, I didn't understand. So he had almost like preconceived ideas and expectations for you because of what he had seen and all. Yes. Yes. Makes sense. Yeah. You know, and like we, there was a day amount, you know, there was a, there was an amount and there was how many days that could go by.
And you know, I don't know if that's too much, but you know, that's real life. And we want you guys to be as, as vulnerable as you can. Be as real as you want. And so that, you know, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm not, I'm not a performer. Like, you know, like they're, and I remember telling him one time I was like, listen, you don't just get in your car and press the gas. Like you know, and so women are crock pots. Right. Exactly. Slow cookers. Slow cookers. You know?
And so a lot of, you know, anyway, so, so I ended up leaving him and going back up to Chicago and just contemplating everything and thinking like, Lord, like, why did you do this? Like, why, why am I going through this? Like Lord, I've given you my whole life. Like I thought I married a Christian man. Like what, what is this? And so I remember laying in bed at my house and I, the Lord revealed me to me and it was in such a way that he showed me saying my vows saying for better or for worse.
And I remember the Holy spirit saying, this is the worst. And how do you argue with that? How do you argue with yourself? And so I was like, okay, that's confirmation. That's what I needed. Went back down two hours away to Dustin and was like, you know, again, it's a process. It's not something that gets fixed overnight. Even if you love the Lord with your whole heart, you know, like there's still a process.
There's a grieving, there's, there is a stage, you know, and it wasn't an immediate, immediate fix for Dustin either. Like there was a long road. So we ended up coming to Kansas city to visit his brother, Jeremy, who had been going to the church. And so you can kind of take it from there. Yeah, so I, I, I contacted, reached out to my dad who I'd become really close to after losing my brother like a year or a few years before that. So we'd gotten really close and I'd shared a lot.
Actually I had met with him prior to all this happening like a year prior to that and can kind of came clean with my dad and really went to him for some counsel and some help with with the pornography problem and things. And, but I called him after Tori came back and, because I needed at that point, I needed some guidance. I needed someone to tell me what to do. Cause at the, you know, in those moments, like, you know, all common sense is out of the window. I had no wisdom.
I had no, no direction. I wasn't hearing the Lord. And so I just said, dad, this is what's going on. It's bad. It's really bad. And what would, what would you do? And he said, are you desperate? And without even, without even in hesitation, without a hesitation, I said, I'm desperate. Yeah, I'm absolutely desperate. He said, then you need to come to Kansas city, come as quick as you can. And they had, they had recently relocated there for the church that my brother was attending.
And we had visited that church before, before he had problems. We got engaged here in Kansas city. Oh, nice. Yeah, we got engaged. But, you know, at that point life, you know, was merry. Yeah. Life was merry, right? Yeah. Yeah. You can pretend. And, and I was doing a good job of that. But so, so I was like, you know, hung up the phone with my dad and, and the next thought was, okay, now I have to ask my wife. He's not talking to me to go to a weekend, weekend excursion. Right. Six hour drive.
That'll be fun. So I did. I asked her and, and prayed before I asked her like, God, you've got to help me with this one. Yeah. And sure enough, she, she, she was desperate too. You know, we were both desperate for help. We knew we weren't going to, this wasn't the end. So what do you do? You know, what do you do when you're desperate? You, you, you just kind of go with your gut and you do what desperate people do. You run to wherever help is. And that's what we did.
And we knew that my family was there. We knew that there was a great, uh, thriving church in Kansas city, um, and things. And so, so anyway, um, so we made the awkward six hour drive. Wow. We actually had to talk because we got lost. And so I'm like, Hey, you know, Hey, uh, can you help me read this map? Cause I, we're lost. So it ended up taking us an extra hour to get to Kansas. It was a seven hour, not a six hour.
So, uh, so we, so we, uh, so we finally made it there and we met my dad in his driveway, um, in Lee's summit, Missouri. And it was a Friday night and it was about seven o'clock or so. And he's, you know, hugged us, hugged us around the necks and you know, you know, and, uh, said, you know, it's so good to see you guys, but we got to go. There's a church service tonight. And so if we hurry, we can get there. I think worship might be over, but we're still going to go. And so we did.
And we, we jumped in his car and, uh, and, uh, so went into church that night and, uh, we were walking in as, um, as the pastor, uh, was kind of starting his message and long story short, he preached this, uh, the pastor of the church preached a message that was absolutely, um, a hundred percent for me that night. Um, it was exactly what I needed to hear. Um, it was just kind of more or less talking about how to overcome darkness and things.
And, uh, and I, I remember, um, it's called adapted to demons. Is that the one that was, I remember that sermon. Yeah, it was adapted to demons. And that was the first night for me that it made sense. Cause remember I was struggling with why is this not making any sense to me?
And so the message was that, you know, um, he, the way he had explained it was that, um, the addiction, the addiction is the issue, you know, in my eyes, you have free will just stop, you know, but you know, like, come on, control yourself, you know, but, but because of the demons that, that were being entertained, it was like talons had been punctured in the back of his neck. And so it was forcing him, you know, it wasn't necessarily free will.
It was that, um, for so long, it was overpowered, overpowered him for 20 years. And so for me, I got that understanding. Okay, wait a second. It's not Dustin, you know, so good. It's, it's the enemy that is, has attached himself to Dustin. And so it was causing him to, you know, it was the first thing he thought about when he woke up, it was the last thing he thought about before he went to bed. And so he, it was, um, it was too much for him.
And so then I was like, okay, you know, I did marry a God loving man. He just needs some help. He needed freedom in the area of where this, this addiction, the enemy had kind of overpowered him. And then I started to receive healing because it was, I'm not, you know, it's so easy to be mad at Dustin. It was easy to blame him. It was easy to say, you know, come on, like, am I not good enough? And those were the voices that started to entertain my thoughts.
Which completely takes a woman on a spiral, what on earth? And so then I'm spiraling. And so that kind of set me on my course of like, no, the Lord put us together. I believe that we've been put together because he is my husband. He is the person that God created for me and that we're going to get through this. It's going to be a process. But that night I watched Dustin, you know, I like to say that there was a time where Dustin could go up and get prayer.
And so he ran to the front and I remember looking at him and it was like he had been encased in saran wrap, just or shrink wrap, not saran wrap, shrink wrap to the point where he is being suffocated any source of life, real life. And it was like the power of God and the Holy Spirit just came with this huge machete and just cut. And I could physically and visibly see him take a breath for the first time in a long time.
And so that's when hope came for us, you know, that, you know, we're going to be okay. You know, like I said, we're going to get through this together. And we did. And, you know, there were times that he had to dig it out and God brought people into his life and that really were available to him. And that's really what it comes down to, too, is that God gave Dustin people, but he also gave me people that I had to learn from and glean from because, you know, females are such different creatures.
And so we compare ourselves. And so, of course, that's the thing that's going off in my mind is, well, I don't add that up, you know, this. But then the reality of it is that's not real. Right. Right. None of that is real. Right. You know, it's all staged. It's airbrushed. It's fake. It's plastic. It's not real.
And so, you know, one thing I will add, too, that I've learned through this process that I would recommend or I would suggest to any female listening to this, if you find yourself on the other side of it as a wife, don't ask questions. Don't ask details. That's good. Because you can get caught up in those details and they don't matter. Yeah. You know, and I feel like that sometimes for me is where because he was very honest and he should have been very honest.
But there were some details that probably should have been left out. Yes. Because I think that's where the foothold came for me. You don't need that movie clip playing in your brain. Exactly. Yeah. And so, prayer, lots of prayer. Get yourself around people that can speak into your life and that you can because you're really down on the trenches at that point, you know, like really help pull you up and grab your hand and walk you through it on both sides for a wife and for the husband.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Were there any certain things kind of like what Tori says as far as anybody that really just kind of just stood there with you and just kind of pulled, kept coming up, kept saying, you've got this, you've got this? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I wanted help. And so, you know, anybody, anybody that is currently, you know, struggling with this addiction.
If you want help, then you need to really take a deep breath and know that you're going to be okay because there's people that want help and there's people that don't want help. For me, you know, people have told me like, wow, I can't believe you all, you know, we relocated to Kansas City and we moved here for this church. And people over the years have said, you know, wow, what an incredible faith step you took in moving here.
Yeah. And I just kind of look at them sideways like I would have died otherwise. I just did what anyone that was dying would do. You just move. You have to move, not literally move, but you all, but you have to do something, take action. Yeah. And so, yeah, you know, we could flip through a Bible and I could find a hundred verses to show you when you are desperate and when you want God's help and when you put him first in your life, expect help to come. And that's what happened for me.
I was immediately surrounded by strong guys. Yeah. Yeah. Your wife cannot be your accountability partner. It needs to be somebody outside. Oh, no. For something like this. Yes. No, she can't be your... No. And that was one thing that we communicated through because I said, okay, you tell me exactly what you need from me. And you said, I need you not to ask for a little while, you know, because you had your person, you had Tim and Tim was very available to you.
And knowing that he had somebody that was available to him around the clock, because you're basically an emergency room in those types of situations. And he made himself very available to Justin anytime, all hours of the night. And so that was peace for me because I knew he was pursuing that. And so that was the one thing we communicated was I'm not going to be his accountability partner because I'm not going to be mommy. Yeah. To make sure you're doing right. Sleep with your mom.
Right. And I wasn't going to be that. And so until we had gotten some time past that, then it was, I think I asked maybe one time and... Yeah, you weren't real. Yeah, you were really good about not being overbearing and just asking all the time. So are you looking at... I mean, you really weren't at all. I know. You really just let me, which was kind of scary and, you know, on my side, you know, this rides on me. And God literally sent a guy. He's still a close friend of mine.
His name's Tim. And we love Tim. And yeah, who doesn't love Tim? Yeah. Big shout out to Tim Diekmann in Nashville, Tennessee tonight. And he's a lifesaver. He really is an angel. He made an offer to me. I'll never forget where we were standing. And he looked at me and he said, I believe that we're supposed to be friends. And I was like, that's okay. Okay. And he said, anytime that you need to call me, I'm available 24 hours a day. And this is no joke.
I didn't say this to him, but I thought in my mind, you have no idea what you just said to me. Now, was this before or after he found out what you were walking through? Oh, no, this is after. Okay. But still, that's huge. That's a huge commitment. He worked nights, so that helped too. Oh, there you go. The guy never sleeps. He still doesn't sleep. But he made that offer to me.
And I say this jokingly, I thought you have no idea the offer you made because I found out through the years that I'm different than most guys. Most guys hear that and they go, oh, that's cool. Like, yeah, maybe I'll call him sometime. In my life, I was still desperate to get help and to become the man I needed to be, become the husband I needed to be.
And I knew that he was going to have to live up to what he just said to me because I'm going to use him because I've never really struggled with asking for help. And I think that that comes out of losing. I lost my brother when I was 22 in a car accident. And so you're just throwing... I was thrown at an early age into, I need help. I need someone to hug me. I need someone to listen to me type of thing. And so I understand.
And my heart goes out to people that it's not as easy to be open and to ask for help. I would say if you do struggle with that, get around someone like me or someone that's been through some difficult times, someone that has been through tough things and has made it a lifestyle to humble themselves, go to someone older, someone wiser and say, hey, and walk up to them, walk right up to them and look them in the eyes and say, I need help. I need you to help me.
And so literally Tim made that offer to me that day. That night I was at my job doing security. We worked for the same company and I called him within five hours and I called and I called his number and he said, hey. And I said, hey, I need help. I need help right now. I need you right now. I'm walking in a parking... I'll never forget. I was walking in a parking lot and I'm in trouble. I'm spiraling. I need someone to speak, just to pray for me, to just encourage me.
And he just went right at it and just began to just... With just confidence and just knowing everything's going to be okay and just said, you know what, Dustin, I just speak peace over you. And I don't know what he said, but just it calmed me and it just, it got me through the night and we continued that for a long time.
And what I believe is that was preparing me for, in my opinion, how you become free and how you have longevity and freedom, whether it be with pornography or anything, is you first have to learn how to be transparent and open with people. You have to be able to share the ugly, the raw with a living person that you can see and feel. Okay, that's step number one. And that's a huge step for some people.
But I believe from that point, that's the practice ground to the real good stuff, but extremely hard. And that is taking that raw emotion, those when you're up against a very, very tough obstacle in your life, emotions are high, fears high, anxiety is high. And then you are now taking all of that emotion and you are now projecting it to God. Because people like Tim are around and they should be used, God puts them there to be used in those times.
But I think God, he wants us to eventually graduate to where we're bringing the ugly to him. And so that's what I really felt like with Tim was, okay, looking back now, I didn't know it at the time, was I was practicing. Eventually I didn't need to talk to Tim anymore. I stopped calling him. I didn't need to. But guess what? Years after that, I regressed to be completely honest and transparent. We had our second born and I started to kind of regress back into some old habits.
And that really messed me up bad because I thought, hey, I'm free, I'm over this and that's long gone and everything. And that's when I had to learn how to eventually communicate some of this stuff to the Lord. And really, I mean, Tim moved away, Tim's gone. I don't have that safety net anymore. I had other close friends too that I would talk to and they were gone. And so it was kind of like God was just up there saying, I'm right here, I'm waiting. When are you going to come to me?
And anyway, I could talk about that for a while. But that's my heart now is to just encourage guys. And I'll interject there too. And he did come to me with that second, with the regression. And because we had kids now, now we got a different fight. And so I looked him square in the eyes and I said, listen, you opened that door in our house. It ain't going to touch me. It's going to touch your children. What are you going to do about it? And so it was a different place.
And now we're talking about our babies and I know Dustin loves his daughters and would do anything in the entire world to protect them and keep them safe. And I know that me saying those words to him was kind of eye opening. When we're in those moments, I mean, you want to know how we communicate over the years, we're in those moments. Yeah, please do. Yeah. I'm not sweet. I'm not sweet. Yeah. No, she isn't. Chicago comes out of you. Yeah. Try it down. The Chicago way. Chicago comes out of Tori.
I'm like, oh, you ain't playing. Yeah. Yeah, no. I just, and I let it go. And that's good. And I'm glad she did that. And then she, another thing she said to me was, if you do that again, I'm, it's, you know, I'm gone. Like it's, it's like, yeah. It puts a different fight in you though, doesn't it?
Yeah. And I, I can say with some of the things that Luke and I have been through singularly and plurally, whenever you put a kid in the midst of that and you're like, cause again, the foundation of how we built things with us, we were like, no, we've got literally this beautiful brown eyed girl watching. Yep. Whatever we do, she's going to follow. Right. And that does it. It, it, you know, coming after you is one thing, but yeah, you got those sweet babies of yours.
And it, it stirs something different. So that, that was, I was wisdom, I believe of the Holy spirit inside of you, even though it was coming out fears out of your wife, but just, I mean, God knew what you needed to hear in that moment. I needed it. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes just, you know, being faced with the reality of what you could lose. You need to hear that. Yeah. And I didn't need this, the cotton candy, you know, oh well, yeah, I'm sorry that happened.
I'm not pulling out the Bible and we're not underlying scriptures anymore. Right. Yeah. Like mama bears coming out and those are my cubs and, and if you're going to protect us, then you got to get, get the, you got to get yourself, yeah, get your life right and things.
Yeah. And, and I'll ask, I mean, especially for, for that first, you know, Tori, you said that you had some, some really great women around you that helped and Dustin, you had some great men around you and, and you guys, you, Tori, you said you weren't going to be his accountability partner because that wasn't your role.
But I, I'll ask how, how did you two get together and, and kind of basically get back to good to, to where you could be unified and, and come through on the other end successful? So kind of what did that look like? That's a great question. There was a lot of talks. We spend a lot of hours and just communicating through, you know, what, what, what did we want to see our life to look like? What kind of marriage should we want to have?
You know, I remember Dustin saying like, you know what, I'm not going to settle for status quo and, and he would say numerous times, like, I want to have a great marriage. And so it'd be like, okay, well, what does that look like? You know, and for us, we communicated through a lot of it. I'm, I'm a more of a realist, you know, and Dustin's more of a, I'm details. He's big picture, you know?
And so, you know, he would talk big picture and I would say, okay, but no, but you know, what does this daily look like? You know? And so we, we'd went to marriage classes. We would talk about, you know, at through our church and we would talk a lot about, what did we talk about? I mean, just probably just being real, real stuff, you know, and the good, bad, the indifferent, all of it. Yeah. We had a lot of hard talks, you know, a lot of good talks.
We had, you know, of course casting vision for our marriage, but honestly, like, I feel like our ugly, loud talks, our arguments, our fights, honestly is what plowed the ground for where we are today. Yeah. Yeah, they were loud. Break up the ground. Break it up. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's funny, but you know, we, we always, I think as Christians, we see addictions and we see unhealthy patterns and we see these things as we've got to get these things out of our lives pronto.
And, you know, and that's like, that's the goal is, okay, how quick can we get that cast out of you? Come here, boy. Right. And just, and just, you know, and go after that. And we got to pray that out of that young man.
You know, he's got this thing in him, but there's some truth to that, but you have to understand how God works and how the kingdom of God works is looking back now, if I had not been through what I went through and had the, had the, the, the addiction, had the problems in my life, we would have never been led to where we are now to where we were the healthiest. Right. And I, and I just said about our talks and they're not talks. We had fights and we, we yelled and we called each other things.
And if we didn't call each other things, we thought things that we shouldn't have been thinking about each other. I'm just being honest. Like, that's the stuff. I wouldn't, I wouldn't go back in like with a Christian eraser and go, well, that wasn't Christian. So let's get that. I wish that part would have never happened. No, I do. I, I'm glad that those things happen.
Yeah. Those things had to happen to, you know, when you get in your twenties and thirties, you know, you accumulate things in your character and in your heart and in your mind, you develop ways of thinking and ways of feeling and just how you receive the world. And there's layers upon layers. And so I would not change our story. I would not change how we ended up where we are now. I think it's crazy that you guys asked us to talk about marriage because I'm just being honest.
Like I'm joking, but honestly, like last year we were in a lot of trouble. Like, I'm just being honest. Like we're 17 years married this year. Last year was our hardest year. Yeah. It was our hardest year, even compared to the year that I can, you know, we went through all that stuff. This was tough. That was tougher.
And I'm just telling, I'm being honest and I'm telling people that because God has a very creative and unique way of, of developing his children and getting real character and roots into his children. Yeah. I got free of pornography, lived really at the height of Christianity and like was enjoying like this, you know, on the mountain top experience, you know, I was going to porn stores and standing outside so I could correct the people stand working in them.
Like, I'm like, let me tell the world what, what they're doing wrong. Like, and it was, you know, so to, to go from the heights. And then to regress. Now why would that happen? Well, it had to happen because God is always trying to develop roots in us to hold us down for 80 to 90 or however long we're, you know, he's going to let us live. And if I would not have regressed, I wasn't going to make it longevity wise. Yeah. Because I think, you know, again here he's, he's big picture.
I'm more details. I think because that, that addiction then turned into an addiction towards religion. Oh yeah. Wow. And so we've had to kind of process through that. I don't know if this needs to be a two part series. It might be, but that's good. And so that was something that, what? Yeah, I just laughing. I just agreed with what you said. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was an addiction towards religion. Yeah, I went from one addiction to the other.
Yeah. And, and so we've had to, that's kind of what he's alluding to in the whole last couple of years is that, you know, he, he now is free from religion, you know? And so, and, and I, I, I was spoon fed religion growing up and so I can, I can spot it. I can, and if it's in my, it was in my home. And so it was another like major obstacle to get through.
And so, but again, like I would have to say things and let him process through those things and question, you know, like, you know, question it, question, I mean, that's the other thing. Like how do you, how do you tell your husband, Hey, you know, I know you love God and you're really loving God, but, and I finally told him like, you are so spiritually minded. You are no earthly good. Yeah. Yeah. And in our home, you suck. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, that's the real, yeah. Because I'm sorry.
I love you. I was sucking it up. No, it's okay. I was. Yeah. And you know, how do you, it's that practical stuff that we were talking about earlier. And I am very practical. Yeah. And I was reading the Bible more than you, but I couldn't, couldn't load a dishwasher or take, take care of the girls or pick up. Yeah. So keep going. Yeah. I'm agreeing with you. No, that's good though. And yeah.
So it was more of a like, Hey, listen, like what you've got going on right now is not something that I want to transfer to my children. Yeah. You know, like I want them to love Jesus. I don't ever want you mad at me. I don't know. I've seen her go at you on the prayer floor. Oh yeah. I like when she's mad. Yeah. I like when you take me down. It's good. I mean, I've got some good. Hey, I need, I trust me on this. No other woman. Yeah. Would have been what I needed.
I needed a, I needed a Chicago Tory to hold me or to hold me to a standard, call me out, call me out on things. And there needs to be a lot more wives like that, that say you're being a jerk. What are you doing? You know, you're lazy. Get up, you know, and just honestly, like we need to hear that. Right. You know, that boy in us, you know, that doesn't want to grow up or.
Well, and it was more so like he would say he'd give, he'd call me and be like, Hey, listen, I've really have spent some really great time with the Lord and I'm going to come into the house and I'm going to go right into the room and I'm going to shut the door and I need to spend this time with the Lord and I, you and the girls cannot interrupt me. I said that. Yes. Oh wow. I apologize. I would have thrown something and I'm not from Chicago. And for a while I was like, okay, Lord, let it be.
And then I was like, you know what? No, you've, we've got two kids. We've got life to live and you know what? I love that you love Jesus, but you need to start loving Jesus by loving your kids and changing some diapers and helping the other. You needed your husband. Yes. Yes. And so there was conflict there because how do you tell somebody that you love Jesus too much?
Yeah. I, I think the way that you said it though, genuinely, because it, and this is kind of, this is again, the raw, the real, the stuff that we told you guys, this is why we're doing what we're doing because these are the conversations that a lot of people don't want to have. Sure. They, they, or they want to do it behind closed doors or, and the enemy wants so much to keep you in a space. He wants to keep you in, in religion or whatever addiction might be happening in that moment.
And so I, I absolutely loved what you said though, because one of the things that we have said in the past was I've been at this church for 18 years, right? And I've watched people instantly. And then I've watched people walk things out and I've done all this stupid, dirty stuff in church, right? And I've watched what God has done inside of me. And there's some days where you say, God, you can instantaneously, absolutely miracle, right?
When you met me on the floor and you told me that you're pregnant again, you know, God doing what he's doing. And then there's those other moments where it's like, okay, God, I know you delivered me, but this has become a habit and this habit has to break and it's going to take time. Yeah. And just like those broken bones, broken minds, broken hearts, broken spirits. We've watched, all of us have been here for quite some time now. We've watched where literally it takes time. Oh gosh.
It takes time. And we've got such a loving God, such a good gracious God. He doesn't that that brings people because I had almost some verbatim conversation with Luke right before we had gotten married here. Look, everything. And he basically did. You literally basically did exactly what Luke did. Just loved me. Put Jesus with skin on right where you just stand back and you go, okay, father, you're showing me literally the unconditional love of who you are, but you're not going to leave me here.
You don't want me to stay here. And you've got somebody in my corner now that will walk with me, that will remind me, you know, however loud she has to be, you know, to remind me of who it is that I am, who I get to be. And I don't have to live back here anymore. But even if it creeps up, you know what? No, that's not who I am. That's not who I am. And to have somebody that loves you enough to do that with you, to fight with you and walk it out together.
This is why you guys have an incredible marriage. This is why we look at you too. Because incredible isn't you don't have fights. This is what we say on a weekly isn't always successful, always victorious. No, gosh. Incredible is we got the living hell beat out of us just now. What? The what? And you want to use every explicit right there in the moment and just stand back and say, okay. All right, God, but we're still standing. Right. And we're standing on you. Now what?
We obviously can't do this without you. So now what? Yeah. And that's what makes you guys incredible to us. That's what makes us incredible makes you guys incredible to us. Genuinely bottom line, because of the tenderness of who you are, because of what God has created you and molded you into even in the midst of because of the fierce tenacity, the compassion that comes out of you. I can grab you talking to you, Tori, for those listeners. Because we always talk about video.
She even asked us, we're not doing this video. Are we? No. No. You know, but to have somebody that comes along with you and says, I know what it is to fight, the enemy fights dirty, but I do too. Yeah. I have no problem throwing something, whatever we got to do to make it through, we're going to make it through the other side and we're going to make it through together. And that's what we see with the two of you guys. What is it they say? The only fair fight is the one you lose. Oh, wow.
I don't. I mean, I go on against the enemy. It's true. It's true. But we've got the ultimate. We do. Champion. We've got it. I love it. I love it. Are there any other? I was going to say any nuggets or here's the ultimate key to success hidden in your pocket that you get to share with everybody. I mean, you guys gave a whole lot of stuff right there. That was so good. You know, just be as real and raw as possible. Remember your vows. So good. You know, and sometimes I have to repeat it.
This is the worst for better or for worse. Sometimes this is the worst. I think Dustin's new favorite line right now is grow slow. Love that. I like that. Grow slow. I didn't come up with it. I wish I would have because I'd be sound really smart, but I did not come up with that. But it is it is how I'm trying to live my life now. That is trying to shape us and change us and transform us over a lifetime, not in a moment, not even in a series of moments. It's literally a lifetime.
A culmination of trust and humility and bending and messing up, getting back up. And yeah, nothing good ever happens quick. So yeah, I would you know, marriage marriage is without a doubt the hardest thing that we've ever. I mean, it's the toughest thing that I've ever done. But with with with the Lord and that's really the foundation of really why we're still together and why we're able to talk with you guys.
And if we have any encouragement to give it anybody is it is solely because it is by the grace of God is by the mercy of God that we are still going and I've I love her. I love this woman more than I ever have. And that is like I'm not saying that because I'm on a podcast. Like I love this woman more, way more than I ever thought I could and more than I ever have. And it's because of the digging. It's because of the raw. It's because of the fights. I encourage fighting in marriage.
Like get get it out. Get it. I have I have the only success I've had in my life is when I got everything out in the light and trust the Lord. Follow the unctions that he gives you. And and I dare you to fall on his arms and just watch how great your life will turn out. And it has turned out great for us. And I think we're going to be able to help a lot of people just because we've been through a lot just like you guys. Yes. Yes. A lot of marriages, you know.
I want to talk to a married couple that hasn't been through a lot. I want to I want to hear about some people that have scars and that have like black eye. Like what what did you do? You know, tell us about it. I want to hear a story. Tell us stories. And yeah, we have them. That's awesome. Yeah. Thank you. I love it. Thank you, too. So good. Love you guys. Love you. Thanks for having us. Thanks for coming. All right, guys. Have the best week. Enjoy the journey.