453 - The Danger of Controlling Our Life by Controlling Other People

Pure Desire Podcast

Pure Desire Ministries

Healing, Aa, Christian Recovery, Sa, Self-improvement, Christianity, Sexuality, Celebrate Recovery, Sexual Addiction Recovery, Recovery, Porn Recovery, Health & Fitness, Religion & Spirituality, Betrayal Trauma, Porn Addiction Recovery, Biblical Recovery, Education

4.8 • 750 Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2026

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Debby Flanagan dives into a common but often overlooked challenge in recovery: trying to control life by controlling other people. We explore how this pattern can undermine relationships, fuel relapse, and distract from personal growth. Debby outlines telltale signs that someone may be exerting control and offers strategies for self-reflection to recognize if we are doing the same. For spouses or family members, we discuss clear boundary language and how to set limits that protect your health while maintaining empathy. We also explore the freedom—and fear—that comes with allowing others to make their own choices, and how recovering addicts can focus on their own healing instead of trying to manage everyone else. Debby shares guidance on repairing harm caused by controlling behaviors, from sincere apologies to meaningful amends, and offers practical ways to cultivate personal safety, security, and relational integrity in long-term recovery.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, hello there, good listener. I am your host, Nick Stumbo, and you are listening to The Pure Desire podcast, your biblically based and clinically informed approach to healing from betrayal and breaking free from all forms of compulsive sexual behavior.
0:19.7	Whether today is day one of your journey or
0:22.0	day 10,000, we're here to have conversations that you've maybe never gotten to hear before.
0:27.7	Today is episode 453 and here joining me as my co-host throughout this series is Stuart Blade.
0:35.1	Stuart, welcome back once again. Yeah, thank you. It is great to be here. Yes,
0:39.3	good to see you. We are on episode four out of five on the series that we've been doing on
0:44.8	avoiding relapse in later recovery. Yeah. I think for us recognizing that just because we've
0:51.7	done some really good initial work, or maybe our spouse
0:55.1	has established sobriety, that can be a great thing. Absolutely. But it doesn't mean the work is
0:59.4	over. Yeah. And sometimes down the road, challenging habits become more clear. And I think one of those
1:05.9	is today's topic of the habit or the danger of trying to control other people as a way to control our life.
1:12.6	Yeah, I think there's just so much fruit from this conversation.
1:15.6	Because control, as we'll dive into in this episode, there's a lot of fear within the control of like what's driving that need, that desire.
1:23.6	And so just to unpack that a little bit more is really insightful. And Debbie just
1:28.4	brings so much insight to that. Yeah, we got one of the best, one of our pure desire clinicians,
1:33.4	Debbie Flanagan, as today's guest. She brought a wealth of experience and working with clients,
1:38.9	but also sharing from her own life and principles of, and I think the reality is that any one of
1:43.5	us can have a tendency towards wanting to control others. Yes, and I think the reality is that any one of us can have a tendency
1:45.2	towards wanting to control others. Yes. And I think she did a great job of unpacking some
1:49.8	of the principles that have worked in her own life and with clients that she's worked with.
1:53.3	Yeah, it's incredible. You're going to enjoy this episode. Yeah. So whether you are, you know,
1:59.0	trying to establish long-term recovery in your own life or working
	...

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