New Life LIVE: October 1, 2026

Brian: Hi there, I'm Brian. Thanks for joining us today on New Life LIVE. This is licensed marriage and family therapist Mark Cameron. He's also an author and has a book in the NewLife.com store called Understanding Your Attachment Style. He also leads How We Love. He's a busy guy, but he's with us here today on New Life LIVE. And Becky Brown. Talk about busy. She's a licensed professional clinical counselor, and she's the president of New Life Ministries. And she's with us as well. Becky, good to see you. Mark, what's on your mind to start us off?
Mark Cameron: Today I want to talk about entangled affairs. There are different types of affairs, but there's one called an entangled affair, which is an affair where you build a relationship with someone. I want to talk about how they develop and what to watch out for in both your own relationships and maybe your spouse's relationships, too. Affairs aren't solely defined by a kiss or sex. In fact, entangled affairs often begin much more subtly. Typically, they develop into an emotional affair first. There are several stages that typically occur before the physical boundary is actually crossed. It usually starts with a coworker, friend, someone at the gym, or a person who shares a hobby with you. You enjoy talking with them. The conversation feels easy. They listen. They understand you. Then you start to begin looking for them when you're in those spaces. Then it progresses. The contact goes outside of that shared space. You start sharing jokes, pictures, memes, songs, and things that just remind you of that person when you're not with them. But you still justify it to yourself that you are just friends. If that moves on, that continues to personal disclosure and emotional dependence. Conversations generally become more personal as you get to know someone. If you start sharing goals, dreams, disappointments, struggles, and especially problems in your marriage, that's when it descends into that emotional affair. Sometimes people may even be seeing that you're spending time with someone and maybe making comments. Your spouse might even say to you, "You're talking about this person a lot." When intimacy, vulnerability, and emotional energy that should be protected in your marriage starts to be invested with someone else, then loyalty begins to get divided. You start comparing your spouse to this person. Your marriage might feel difficult while the relationship with this person might feel easy. You may even begin to start fantasizing what life would be like with them. If you start hiding things, like deleting a text or not mentioning that you had lunch together when your spouse asks you about your day, that's when it gets very dangerous because when honesty disappears in a marriage, temptation sets in. Typically what happens when people get here is that flirting starts to become more obvious. Then it just becomes a matter of time before both people acknowledge either the sexual tension or disclose feelings. Once you get to a point where mutual attraction is openly acknowledged, physical boundaries quickly collapse. A spontaneous kiss happens or plans are made to meet for sex. Many people assume that if nothing physical has happened, then betrayal hasn't occurred. But emotional intimacy's line of betrayal is often crossed long before the relationship becomes physical, even if it does become physical at all. Once discovered, your spouse will experience the same betrayal dynamics regardless of whether the relationship did become physical. Understanding these stages matters because people don't usually decide that they're going to have an affair before looking for their affair partner. It usually happens through a series of small boundary crossings that seem harmless in the moment. If you notice yourself or your spouse in these stages, don't wait until something physically occurs to call it a problem. Pause. Figure out what am I getting from this relationship with this person that I'm longing to get in my marriage. Affair partners typically meet a need that your spouse isn't meeting. Then ask yourself, "What's my spouse not getting from me?" Then bring that conversation to them or get into therapy because it's a lot harder to recover from an affair than it is to work through the challenges in your relationship.
Brian: If you want to stay in the know on everything that's happening here at New Life, you've got to sign up for our monthly newsletter. You can go to NewLife.com to sign up for that. Just scroll to the footer of the page and you can subscribe right there with your email address. We've got Mark Cameron and Becky Brown here and now we're going to the phones. Butch in Flint, Michigan, who listens to us on WSNL. Welcome to New Life LIVE, Butch.
Butch: Hello.
Brian: Hello. How can we help you today?
Butch: I have a problem. I've had a lot of operations and I still need operations and I'm on pain relievers. I'm just wondering if I'm going to miss out on the Rapture because I'm taking drugs. They're prescribed to me and they're for a reason.
Becky Brown: Butch, did somebody tell you that?
Butch: No, ma'am.
Becky Brown: You're just thinking, you're feeling bad because you have to take medicine for the pain that you're in. You're wondering if that affects your ability to go home and be with Jesus when the time comes.
Butch: Yes. I've talked to Jesus every night and I've prayed, but I changed the way I pray. Instead of asking the Lord to help someone, I thank Him for healing that person and it works. I've seen it work a few times with some serious illnesses.
Becky Brown: Are you wondering if you pray the right way that maybe you wouldn't have to take the medicine?
Butch: I've tried it and it's not very pleasant. No.
Becky Brown: Let me ask you something that's not about the pain. Who is in your life, Butch? Friends, family, wife, children, coworkers?
Butch: Just friends. I have children, but they're in another state. I talk to my son every morning and evening.
Becky Brown: What does he say about this, Butch?
Butch: I've never presented that problem to him.
Becky Brown: Without getting into a big theological discussion, my belief is that if you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you're okay. You're going to make it. But I think your life here right now needs some other people to carry the weight that you have going on in your life. This is a burden to you. We talk around here a lot about having redemptive relationships, people who are in our lives who can pray for us but also can be people that we can share our concerns about. I'm sure I don't know if you are able to get about in the world. Are you able to drive or walk at all, Butch?
Butch: Yes. I was going to a church, but I just heard things that I learned 50, 60 years ago. If I could find somebody like David Jeremiah, that would be such a blessing.
Becky Brown: He's one of the classics and he's still doing a lot for the Lord, but it's more than just the sermons. It's really about having those people around you. I don't think that you're going to be condemned because you have to take painkillers. On the other part of that, I want you to be able to have people who are ministering to you in other ways so that you can have that human support. Mark, what would you say?
Mark Cameron: Butch, how old are you?
Butch: 76.
Mark Cameron: You've got a lot of experience. I'm so sorry that you're in pain. I heard you say that you're in pain relievers. You've had a lot of operations. I hear this worry that you have that you'll miss out on the Rapture. Are you also fearful about death and dying?
Butch: No. Never felt the Lord, nobody else. But if the Lord wants me, I'm not scared.
Mark Cameron: When you say that you're fearful of missing out on the Rapture, are you talking about going to heaven or are you talking about dying before the Rapture happens?
Butch: I'm talking about when I face the Lord in heaven. Will my name be in the Book of Life?
Mark Cameron: I'm hearing that you have a lot of worry. I know that the Bible does clearly outline that if we have a personal relationship with Jesus, if we submit, if we confess our sins, if we live not a perfect life, we can't do that, and that's the whole point of Christianity is that Christ came and died and we're saved by grace. But He also says if you love Me, you'll obey My commands. If we get up every day and we confess our sins and we try and be more like Jesus, I think the Bible clearly outlines that we're His child and we're going to be in the Book of Life. What I'm hearing is you have a lot of worry though still and you carry that around with you. But it sounds like you don't have a lot of people to share your worries with. You don't have friends or family. Do you have resources to have a counselor?
Butch: Not really. I only get $14,000 a year and it doesn't go very far.
Mark Cameron: There may be some resources out there for you to be able to find somebody to talk to to be able to just process some of these worries. Sometimes it helps to be able just to talk them out because worries are real even if the thing that we're worried about may not be real. Worries themselves are real and it has an effect and it has an impact on us. Finding someone who's safe just to be able to talk these out with us can often be helpful. You said that you're still ambulatory and you can get around and I think you said that you had a car. Being able to go to church and maybe find a pastor that you can talk with there too, that might be able to provide a space for you to be able to talk through some of these things.
Becky Brown: One more thing I would offer Butch is that you can talk with your doctor about decreasing maybe. I've worked with clients in the past where sometimes the medication starts to get to be too much. The doctor only knows what you share with them. I can hear a little bit of concern about I don't want to go off because the pain is too much and I hear you. But I also think that there are ways that you can have the conversation about is this the best medication? I don't want to be addicted to something. It impacts me in a way that I get concerned. Like what you just said, Mark, that could even be a byproduct because sometimes anxiety can be a result of medication. I just think it's good to explore that. I agree with you. Go to church. Get some connections. You can listen to Dr. David Jeremiah, too.
Butch: He's good. We've been cutting back the medication and I endure pain because of it. All the preachers that I ran into, they don't help.
Becky Brown: But here's the thing, Butch. What you called us about is, "Will my taking the pain medication keep me from being called into glory or will I be?" I can say it will not keep you from the throne of Christ. It will not. However, because you're concerned about it, I think that there is a process that you can get some freedom here on Earth before you get there.
Brian: Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Don't be thinking that.
Becky Brown: Brian, you know that happens because people we hear and especially now because there are preachers you can hear everywhere. If you're watching us on YouTube right now, guess what? Over in that column to your right, there's probably some that are suggested to you. But we really do need those community, the people around us that know us that we can ask these questions to and explore them within context of a relationship as opposed to somebody just telling you here's what you need to do or not do, especially when you're dealing with health issues.
Mark Cameron: The deeper work, too, is that worry is learned. You may not have thought about it that way, but we learn how to worry. We then fixate on the thing that we start to worry about and that becomes the topic of concern and the thing that we get hung up about. Instead of looking back into the pattern that we get caught up in and saying, "Where did I learn to worry?" Where did this pattern come from? What I find is if you look deep enough and far enough back, you'll probably find that it started in childhood. There was probably scary situations or things that you learned to worry about. You had to deal with by yourself. You didn't have someone to help you make sense of it. If we can learn the patterns that we get stuck in, we'll be able to not get caught up on the thing that's in front of us so much. We'll be able to learn how to break the pattern and ultimately become free. We can't get free from all worry, but become free from that chronic trait that stays with us.
Becky Brown: Worry and prayer are pretty close. We're either going to fixate on what we're worried about or we're going to say, "Lord, here's what's on my mind. Here's what I'm worried about. This is what I'm concerned about. Have mercy on me as I am worried about this." Scripture's full of people going to the Lord with their petitions, with their challenges. It's not just you and God. It's other people, too. Whether you're worrying or praying, you've got to do one or the other. I don't think it works to do both.
Brian: Butch, thanks for calling into today to New Life LIVE. Stay on the phone. We want to send you a tip sheet called Six Tools to Ease Anxiety. We'll also put that information in the show notes if you're watching us online. You can call in, too. Just ask for the tip sheet, Six Tools to Ease Anxiety, when you call us at 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Let's talk to Tammy in New York. She listens to us on SiriusXM Channel 131. Hello, Tammy. Thanks for calling us today.
Tammy: Hi, how are you?
Brian: Doing well. What's going on?
Tammy: Praises be to God. Thank you for taking my call. I have a sister. I'm one of three. I am 54 years old. My sister's 52. Around the age of 13, she had some learning issues and some motor issues. Lo and behold, I don't know if it was the environment or the pressure to overcome these things, but she kind of drew inward and she was in a catatonic state around 13 or 14. I didn't know what was happening. But then my parents made the decision to send her to get some help. She went away for a bit and then she came back and the doctors would get her well. She'd come back and then she would be sick again. But then eventually the doctor said she needs to get a high school diploma, so she went and got that. Then they sent her to live with me. I was 19 and I took care of her in college for two years until I graduated. She married a guy who ended up attacking her with a knife.
Brian: Okay, now we do need to take a break here. We were just trying to get as much information before the break, but stay on the phone, Tammy. We want to hear the rest of the story and we want to help you and your sister as well. Thanks for calling today here on New Life LIVE. A lot going on. There's a lot of hurting people out there. That's why we want to help as many as we can. Let them know about our ministry. The website is NewLife.com. Really easy to remember, NewLife.com. Let's go back to Tammy in New York who's telling us the story of her sister. She was married to a guy who attacked her with a knife, you said?
Tammy: Right. It took her a couple weeks to recover. After she lived with me in college and I graduated, she went to a group home. She found a guy. She didn't want to be in the group home anymore, so she eloped with the gentleman. They stayed together for about 25 years. On and off, he'd go in and out of the hospital. My sister pretty much stayed in the bed all day. But then after the attack, she was placed in adult foster care. She called me and said, "Listen, I need to get out of here. This place isn't for me." I brought her here to New York. This is in 2021. She lived with me. I have seven children. My youngest was nine at the time. I'm inviting my sister, not really sure what to expect after having that traumatic experience. But lo and behold, we got plugged into some wonderful clinicians. I became her conservator legally. Five years later into recovery, my sister having the learning disabilities, the attack, and she's got schizophrenia, she's doing really, well. But the problem is my parents in their 80s, they keep saying she's not. The reason why they say that is because she's put up some boundaries where she's a little overweight. They kind of will get with her and they'll invite her out to lunch and say she shouldn't eat anything. Long story short, because of these dynamics, it has really put a strain on my relationship with my parents where it's really challenging to be around them when they're telling things that are false. I have the seven kids, so I'd love for them to have a relationship with them. It's just a strain.