Jake: When we were first married, my addiction came out and we went through like the biblical counseling route. I kind of just walked through the steps. I showed up and that was about it. And then kind of went back to life and then dove head first back into addiction. After that, basically the entirety of our marriage, I had been hiding it.
And then it all came out, not out of my own confession, but out of being crowbarred out of me. You know, my wife crowbarred it out of me and I mean, so much lying, much manipulation. And even when I was confronted with where I was at, it still took so much effort on my wife's part to get the full truth out of me.
Brandon: I want to welcome you guys back to the Grounded Union podcast. We are on our season finale, which is our ninth episode in season three, doing live call ins with couples working through stuff just like you. If you are new to the podcast, you can listen to the last eight episodes after you listen to this one and get caught up to speed with those other interviews that we did with couples that are healing. Jake and Ashley, thank you so much for hopping on. We would love to jump right into your story and see how we can support you, in this hour together.
Ashley: Yeah. Thanks for having us.
Jake: Thanks for having us. Looking forward
Brandon: to it. Jake, maybe you could just kick us off and tell us kinda what is what is healing what are you guys healing or working through right now, and what are you trying to establish in in your relationship?
Jake: Yeah. So just surface level, just a quick overview of where we're at. We've been married for ten years. When we were first married, my pornography addiction came out. I I confessed to what I was doing.
I said I had this problem and I wanted to deal with it. And we went through like the biblical counseling route and I kind of just, you know, walked through the steps. I showed up and that was about it. And then kind of went back to life and then, you know, dove head first back into addiction after that. And I have been hiding it for the last, basically the entirety of our marriage.
I had been hiding it. And then it all came out, not out of my own confession, but out of being, you know, crowbarred out of me. You know, my wife crowbarred it out of me and you know, just the, I mean, much lying, so much manipulation. And you know, even when I was confronted with where I was at, it still took so much effort on my wife's part to get the full truth out of me. And this was in, 2023 where this started to go down.
So after that, it was a big traumatic, not a good situation. We did a short separation. We started therapy and came back and we did just some polygraph testing, which didn't go well. And you know, so that kind of blew things up even more. So we did another, separation.
And I can dig into details as we go. I'm just trying to give like a 30,000 foot view. So then we, you know, separated again. Things were basically like, yeah, this marriage is done and over with, but we don't even know how to explain exactly. It's just like, you know, I kind of came to grips with the fact that, you know, that this is what I've done.
These are the consequences of my actions. And, you know, I was just like, whatever God wants of my life, I'll let him make something of it. And if my wife chooses to leave, then that's what she chooses to do. And I deserve it at this point. But miraculously, we did end up coming back together and basically ended the separation in January '24.
And then I did pure desire group for ten months in that year and things were going really well. And then after that I kind of thought like, okay, you know, I went through the big traumatic experience and all that. And, you know, I did ten months of pure desire and, you know, I went from pornography use daily to not at all. And so I'm like, okay, we're doing all right. Pretty good.
And so after that, we kind of I kind of started posting back into life and then it was just like small issues relatively like lust problems and things like that that I wasn't talking about, wasn't being forthright about. And then it eventually started getting bigger and bigger to like looking at advertisements on my phone and things like that. And then there was a couple of times where I was on a work trip and then there was a smart TV and I relapsed at that point and so a couple of times. So again this was what, two months ago?
Ashley: October.
Jake: Yeah. About two months ago she had, you know, intuition basically. And she's like, I know something is going on. Like, know, I know it. And so then that's when I said like, yeah, I've had relapses.
Then that's kind of where we stand at this point. I guess we can dig into details a little bit probably later, but that's kind of overall where we currently stand.
Brandon: Jake, thank you for sharing what you did share with us. One of the things I appreciated just off the bat is there was a level of ownership in the way you shared your story.
Caitlyn: Mhmm.
Brandon: So I didn't hear a lot of minimizing the details. You kinda acknowledged what it is and what it was and what it's been. I wanted to ask one clarifying question. You said at the beginning was it at the beginning of your marriage when you came clean about it the first time? Yeah.
So that was you had an internal awareness and you came to to Ashley with that. What what was that? What prompted that?
Jake: Well, first of all, I spent eight years lying and manipulating and minimizing. So I'll just throw that out there too, but I appreciate
Brandon: Prior to that or prior to the beginning of your marriage?
Jake: Well, prior to you to prior to giving you my story is what I was saying.
Caitlyn: He's saying he sounds composed, but he's been yeah. Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah. You're in good company. I'm yeah. Yes.
Jake: But yeah. So that at the beginning of our marriage, she actually approached me, and she asked me, like, is this something that you're you're struggling with? And, you know, I didn't I mean, to the best of my memory, I don't think I denied it. I don't think I ran away from it. I was forthright at that point.
Okay. So you She address it with me. Got it. Got it.
Ashley: Not nice to me one night and it just popped in my head, like to ask him. I don't know why. I just had that thought of like, you know, just ask him if he's he's looked at it. But our whole relationship, you know, as teenagers, he was like, no, I'm not into that. I'm just not that type of guy.
But just that one night, I was just like, I just need to ask. And so I looked him in the eye and just asked him, and he he admitted, yes, I've been addicted to pornography our entire relationship.
Brandon: That's helpful. Mhmm. Because you had said you've been forthright. I thought that there had been a time where you, like, you had, like, this, like, awakening. I'm gonna come forth, but this this is still, like, incredibly helpful.
Mhmm. Sounds basically like our first, like, six months into our relationship when we were married, and Caitlin's like, do you look at stuff on the Internet? I was like, no. And she's like, you're lying to me. I'm so okay.
That gives good context. I feel like how many other follow-up questions for you, Jake, yet? Ashley, could you dive into what the last ten years have been like from your your seat in the car? What's that been what's that been like?
Ashley: Yeah. So I think I was raised very Christian biblical, you know, go to God for everything. And so at the beginning of our marriage, when that first came out, take on it was forgiveness immediately. Just be forgiving, show him as much grace as possible, be that loving, submissive wife and I'll win him over. So I was kind of stuck in that for several years, but as years went on, it's like, I would catch him even looking at other women when we were out and I just felt like something was off.
Never caught anything. He was really good at hiding it, but it just felt off. So after 2023, I discovered things and that's kind of when I lost it and what I had been trying of showing grace after grace, for so many years just wasn't working. So we decided to go into therapy about six months later. That's when we took the polygraph test and he failed.
Then I started sharing with my mom, sharing with our pastor, just like getting it all out there because I didn't know what else to do. Was just full blown panic trauma. And I was just totally confused for years. I had told him, you know, I don't care what you've done. If you just tell me the truth, like that's all I care about.
We can work through anything if you just were honest with me. And so the fact that he wasn't, was just shocking to me because I thought that was, that was really it. And then, yeah, so we went through the separation. It was really traumatic. We had four kids at the time.
I took all that on, you know, people at our church knew he wasn't showing up with me. It was just, it was awful. My family, there's a whole side there. They were very, ashamed of me. Didn't want to talk to me for a little while.
I should say some of my siblings. It was just, it was awful. It was an awful time. Then, you know, he started slowly coming back home. I started feeling like, you know, I really leaned in with God, really put my trust in him that, you know, no matter what my husband decides to do, he's going to stay faithful and I'm going to be okay.
And it was a really sweet time with the Lord. It really was. Then he started coming home more and I started seeing a lot of change in him. He wasn't on his phone like he used to be. He set up guardrails on his phone.
We have, you know, what do you call
Caitlyn: them? Blockers.
Ashley: Filters. The blockers. Yeah. Our filters on, on his phone. He just started, you know, being honest with his heart, honest with lust, not trying to sugarcoat things anymore.
And so that built, started building back trust with me. And then I actually, I got pregnant and I have a condition during my pregnancies that sends me in the hospital every week. I get very, very ill. And so during that time, I knew it was an incredibly stressful time. We have four kids.
I homeschool. All that's going on. He just got a new job and you know, was very stressful. I'm in the hospital for, you know, days at a time. So I felt like we were getting disconnected through that struggle, but I just kept telling myself, no, God did a work in his life.
He did a miracle overnight and we're good. We got through the hard time. We'll be fine. He'll be fine. He's not gonna, he wouldn't possibly go back to that.
And then two months ago when I just could not, there was no attraction from me to him anymore, which is so abnormal. I just felt like I just knew something was off. I started having like a couple nights not to get too spiritual about it, but I had some spiritual experiences that, that just made extremely uncomfortable. And I just knew that something was off. And after about two days, well, probably a little longer of trying to get it out, he finally did.
And I guess my world just crashed again. We separated again for about a week. And so at this point I'm just trying to find a different route. We were given much of the advice that you guys shared, you know, that counselors and therapists shared with you was given to us about, you know, it's okay for Amanda to lust. Just don't do X, Y, and Z.
And I've always known that, no, if you lust, you're gonna get there eventually. And I don't want that in our marriage. I want connection. I want honesty. I wanna love you for who you are.
I wanna know you better than anyone else. I don't wanna do this. You go to group and you confess these things, but don't tell your wife. So we've been really getting to the heart of things and also digging into his childhood, which our biblical counselor told us, no, don't do. You don't have to do that.
I know men that, you know, have gotten out of like heroin addiction and didn't have to dig into their childhood. Like basically saying that I am like discounting the power of God by digging into his childhood.
Brandon: Dang it Ashley. You're against dang it. That's always
Ashley: scared me a lot. So I'm trying to get past that fear and actually do that work because I'm seeing a massive change in both of us doing that.
Caitlyn: So Wow. Yeah. Also crazy. I always find, like, you know, what's the harm in exploring your childhood? Let's just say that's not the biggest unlock.
Let's just say that doesn't free you. What harm would it bring you though? Right? So when I hear that, I hear whoever that person is that shared that has something in their childhood that's still impacting them to this day. So easier to call you wrong.
Say, you're wrong. Don't suggest that. Because if they say, oh, you're onto something, what does that mean about them? That they would need to then go look at their childhood. That's much more difficult.
So it's easier to take this position. This happens a lot in the church. And obviously, from people who have listened to all the seasons, you know that we as well love Jesus, and at the same time, are not really quite interested in a lot of this religious jargon where it's like, there's this person that has this position of power that they're almost they're using against you. It's okay for that person to say, you know what? I've seen people get free without exploring their childhood.
And if that's gonna work really well for you, kudos. Like, go do that. For them to take this position of authority and power and go, you cannot do that or you will do something bad. It's like very like, why? The only the only logical answer there is because there's something that they need to explore that they feel uncomfortable with.
Yeah. Which you guys have heard that podcast. That's exactly what we rubbed up with. And the one thing I was hearing in both of your guys' stories that I wanted to speak to is because it really addresses the heart or belief system of what what we believe about sexuality. And the first thing is, I think the word lust actually, if we look at like the because we use lust a lot actually in the church to describe unwanted sexual behaviors.
The dictionary definition of lust, think is just sexual like desire or attraction. So lust like which is funny because we would never be like, I am lustful of Brandon. Because you would think that that would not be how I would describe it.
Brandon: It has an evil connotation.
Caitlyn: Yeah. It has an evil connotation. So I don't actually use the word lust, not because it's not a good word to describe it, more because if someone wasn't raised in the same Christian background that we were in, they'd be like, wait, what? Lust isn't bad. In the church, that's just like the word that we use.
I like to use like, you know, sexual brokenness or, you know, like an unwanted sexual experience or I even like to use the words attraction, which most people would rather in the church. Oh, I just realized this. You would rather use the word lust than attraction because in the church attraction is 100% okay.
Jake: Right, Brad.
Caitlyn: And for us though, I don't wanna use the word lust because lust is actually sexual desire. And all of my lust, it even feels funny, I'm still having to unwire that myself. All of my lust Careful. My sexual desire is funneled here in my union, and I don't have any attraction side of my union. Right?
And so the church is kinda flip flopped those words where it's like, okay, let's make lust this bad thing, which is just sexual desire. Which if you think about the church, this is a total side tangent. But most of the church said the sexuality in that kinda topic is very taboo. So it's like, okay, let's just call all sexual desire bad and not good and let's not talk about it much. And then attraction, that's okay, like you said, as long as you don't act on it.
And your story, Jake, is exactly the story I like, it's exactly it makes complete logical sense of like, you tried to adopt that mentality of, okay, I've confessed my sins or I've revealed what I've done. We could call it if you're not coming at it from a spiritual lens. It's like, okay, I've shared with you the the ways that I've wronged you. And so now I'm going to be like automatically free except for I'm still gonna be dabbling with these little bits of attraction or I might not totally manage and get free from the way that I view women online, the way that I view women in person. So what's happening is it's I like to think of it as like a snowball effect.
It's like you didn't actually clear and heal out everything. You probably also didn't like I think I've said this on every podcast. You probably also did not share in-depth all of your sexual experiences. You've probably done most of them. You even said you didn't pass the polygraph test.
So it's like there's things that haven't been disclosed, haven't been shared because you have ten years just together, I'm assuming, does your porn addiction go before being married?
Jake: Yes. Mhmm.
Caitlyn: Yeah. Which most of the time it goes all the way back to childhood. So probably since childhood, you have all of these sexual memories, and I'm assuming, would you say that Ashley does not know every sexual experience and memory that you have? Would you say that?
Jake: I mean, within my best ability, I've shared everything that I can.
Ashley: At this point.
Jake: At this point. Yeah.
Caitlyn: I like that answer.
Jake: I think you're you're right about that. Because I think if I back up a little bit, I think framework that I kind of built for myself is within the spiritual side of it is like, okay, well lust is something that I battle within my mind between like God and me. So I kind of confessed that stuff and so I could almost kind of hide behind that and even convince myself that I was okay and I was doing the right thing. Right? But then when I go and and the snowball effect gets worse and then I fail, then there's a shame cycle there where I'm like, shoot.
I thought I was supposed to be healed. Like, I can't share this.
Brandon: You know? Oh, yeah.
Jake: It's like, I thought I made progress here. Right? And so I think I trapped myself within that framework a little bit, which even caused me to lie more and protect myself And so then to your point, there were definitely some things that I shared with her within the last two months. I'm talking like kind of depths of my heart and my thoughts and my my mind that I had not shared with her prior. So there's definitely some of that.
Caitlyn: Yeah. That's huge. So good. I think yeah. So what's happened is there's this snowball effect of and I'm so glad that you spoke to that because I think that, like, tons of people are gonna relate to that concept, which we've done two episodes on, you know, like, the spiritual belief systems linking to kind of addiction.
And they're the only podcast we get negative reviews on. If you go to read any of our reviews, it's like, this is amazing. You've saved my marriage. And then it's like, these people are a part of a cult and blah blah blah blah. And like, it's hilarious.
Like, if you kinda touch on it a little bit too much, it sends people just spiraling and freaking out. So I love that you've touched on it as the one who's being interviewed here.
Brandon: Take it from Jake.
Caitlyn: It doesn't even have to come from us. What you just pinpointed and you worded it so well, and it's your actual lived experience, you essentially created what I like to call denial structure. Which is a framework you filter that through of like, okay, if it's in this category, then this is between me and God. Right? I don't need to tell my wife.
But that didn't work out very well for you. Like you said, eventually it snowballed and created what we call what you are calling a relapse to where you're acting out an addiction again. So our whole belief system is when you don't clear everything out, bring it all out into the open and look at it, then there's the energy is still there. And so then what happens is you're eventually going to have to relapse. It's like going on a diet, being like, I'm not gonna have any donuts, and then going to a donut shop every single day.
Eventually, you're gonna eat a freaking donut because you just went to a donut shop every single day. So when you say, I'm not gonna relapse, and then you never share the entirety of, you know, look at it yourself, bring it to your spouse, or even like unwire or rewire everything like what we talk about with the four r's, it's still in there. So then it's still a part of your existence. You can't clear it out. And then it's like given the right opportunity on a trip by yourself with a smart TV, and there you go, there you have a relapse.
Where if you go through the process to see everything clearly, bring it all out and heal it all, you can go into a hotel room and not even equate TV by myself, must look at porn. First though, you have to actually heal that all, clear it all, rewire it all, so that you can create a whole new brain and a whole new existence for yourself. So I feel like what you've identified here is going to be really empowering for others to hear of like, woah, yeah, this is why you actually have to see it all. Because if you don't, you've lived ten, like a whole decade of your life trying to just share the bare minimum or just take a look at the bare minimum, just do enough steps here and there, and here you are still relapsing and acting out an addiction. Like, that's a lot of years trying things that aren't working.
So, thank you for sharing that. I think that depicts the the imagery really, really well, and yeah, you have something you're gonna share.
Brandon: I've got a lot.
Caitlyn: If you see Brandon taking notes over there, it's it's funny because we're always like, we always have like something we both wanna say.
Brandon: Jake, you know, Caitlin said you did the bare minimum and I actually wanna I disagree and I do agree. You did what you were told to do.
Caitlyn: True. That's great. That's a good point.
Brandon: You did what was framed up for you as what freedom means.
Jake: And I was excellent at that, by the way. Was really good at doing what I'm told to do, and that was a big part of my downfall.
Brandon: Now what you're gonna I just need a new twist. Now you're just gonna do what the shift that will happen for you too is instead of doing what you're told to do, you guys are gonna get a vision for your marriage. Mhmm. And then you'll take action from what full intimacy and union looks like, sounds like, feels like. And everything else gets discarded.
So when you go to another counselor or if you go to another counselor and they say, yeah, Jake, don't, you know, I think Ashley's got some healing to do. I think she's put a lot of pressure on you. It seems like that's maybe why you relapsed. You go, that's not at all what happened. Like, thank you.
Probably actually don't need to pay for this session because this was so bad. Then you so that's actually the shift. I think you've actually done because you've stayed in this and actually desired, like, to do the programs, to do this stuff, to go and Ashley, you've gone to pastoral support family. You're like, you guys are saying we want this. Right.
And this is what this is what breaks our hearts, not the word. This is why we're so what ignites our passion to share is couples just like you are actually trying very hard. True. Like this is ten years, guys. It's not like you guys just been dillydallying.
You're like, I probably wouldn't plan to do this for another ten years if I didn't have to. And you've gone to the programs, you spent money, you spent time, you've humiliated yourself in your communities to like share your honest story and what you're going through. You've been the guy that confessed in the small group. Yeah. I struggle with this.
You're the one that oh, he's not at church this week. Lou, I wonder why. Oh, he's not here next week. Like, what's going on? Oh, she separated from him.
Like, you've gone through all of it, what are you left with? Still, like, hey. You know, you should have just prayed more. I hope, you you just got to trust God. It's like we need a little bit more clarity and a little more freedom than that.
And I think what I wanted to touch on with why, why would you share? Cause so like you have shared, like we talked about doing what you're told you, you went through the polygraph. Wanna ask a couple questions about the polygraph stuff. I we didn't make it to the polygraph for me because Caitlin read my little
Caitlyn: I knew the polygraph wouldn't work, which I'm actually so glad you shared that. It didn't work because you were still hiding stuff. A lot of times now, I think there's a lot of studies where once you become so good at lying to yourself, you actually can pass a polygraph while still lying. So you you didn't pass a polygraph because you you probably I I'd be curious. You probably had stuff that were deeper subconscious that then you then couldn't lie about.
But, yeah, I I just knew. I was like, this polygraph isn't gonna work.
Ashley: Actually advised to by our therapist at the time, a sex addiction therapist, by the way, to only share what he's actually physically done, not his thought life where I'm telling him absolutely share your thought life with me. So there's that I'm
Jake: I'm like severely traumatized after the failure because like, I'm like, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm writing all this stuff down, and I'm thinking this is gonna work because I'm writing this everything down that I have done and not writing down the stuff that's in my mind. And so I'm thinking it's gonna work. And then when it doesn't, it's like, oh, it's all over.
Caitlyn: Wow. Yeah.
Brandon: Did you end up passing the second time?
Jake: Was that?
Brandon: Did you pass did you take it again?
Jake: Yes. I took it the I took it the second time, but that's the time when I was still I I failed it the first time. And then, okay, I'm writing later. Yeah. We did another one a month later.
So that's when I'm writing all this stuff down. And I'm literally like writing down like thought life and things like that. And he's like, no, don't put that on there.
Ashley: Now he just took one last month and did pass. Yeah.
Caitlyn: Okay. Okay.
Brandon: And so here's where I think we'll call it helpful if that's the right word. I don't even know if it is helpful. Did it we could we could go this route. For somebody who has just found out their spouse had an affair or there was a certain type of behavior, and they just need to know if they're like safe to like a certain degree, like just get me in the ballpark of what's going on. I can see why a full therapeutic disclosure augmented by a polygraph.
I understand why they're done. Cause like, okay, you had an affair, nothing you say is trustworthy. We need to at least understand like how many affairs, like things that would be very difficult to trick yourself from not seeing. It's like, I didn't sleep with anybody else. Your brain be like ding, ding, ding.
But like when we're talking about full healing, you said, like your counselor's like, he's literally in your in your court saying, you can leave all that stuff out. We'll deal with that later. That's kind of what it is. We'll deal with that later. After you stop doing all the addictive stuff, that stuff will kind of work itself out or you're kind of just grating your for the rest of your life.
Yeah. You're done grating your teeth. And so what I wanna talk about is why would you share your thoughts, your fantasies, and not even like your your deep dark fantasies that you really want to have happen. These these just these ruminations, these loops that go on through your mind, the the flashbacks from the porn you've seen, the the fantasies or the the phrases that go through your mind when you see women or the way you look at women, these things that go through your mind when you guys are trying to be intimate. Why would you why would you do it?
And that's why would you share that with Ashley? Why would you bring up that unnecessary pain for her? You've already hurt her so much. Why would you go ahead and make it worse? That's what a lot of people say.
It's like, she's already she's already hurting. One guy messaged me on on Instagram. He said he said that his wife had some more questions about his behavior, and the counselor said that she was pain shopping. Pain shopping. I never even heard that.
It looked kinda like you're the most beautiful woman in the room for him. Like, that's all you need to know. And we've, a society and even as an evangelical Christian culture, we've tried saying, you know, God will deal with the rest. And I think the way God deals with it is by creating beautiful unions and families. So why would you share?
And like you said, like, I just started sharing some of the more of the, the thought patterns and all of that stuff, the memories and experiences, because basically what you're gonna do is you guys are gonna get together. You're gonna look at each other and say, what type of marriage do we wanna create? What type of connection do we want to have? What type of sex life do we want to experience? What type of expression do we want to have in our sexuality?
Do we want to have other people in our thoughts that we have sex? Do we want to look at porn together? And all you guys are going do is look and be like, these are these things. This isn't, this doesn't define how we want to live. This does.
And so everything that doesn't match up or line up with the marriage and union you want to have is the litmus test for what stays and what goes. So then what you do and I don't hear a ton of shame, Jake, in your speaking to it. Probably the biggest shame is, why has it taken this long? Like, why am I still why are we still here? You kind of maybe feel more, like, weak or, like, disempowered to continue to keep trying to figure out what do I do next.
I've tried everything. But the why to keep going and the why to go into the depths is to look at your story and be like, okay. I've shared about the porn. I've shared about some of this, but what you gotta do, and we'll we'll walk you through this in the app, throughout the grounded in intimacy program in there, is you're gonna open up your subconscious mind, which you've done a little quite a bit. Mhmm.
But you're gonna do it like, you're gonna lift the hatch on it and say, I wanna perceive and understand every time I went to porn. What were the types of porn I went to? What were the the the ongoing fantasies or the the ongoing things I tried to use to medicate my soul, to numb myself, to feel better? What was the childhood ex what was my first childhood sexual experiences? Were you abused?
Were you exposed by a child older than you? Were you what were all your experiences growing up? And and talking through those, even, Ashley, you sharing your earliest sexual experiences and and the narratives around it. For me, I had I had seen a lot of porn, but I'd also seen sex scenes in movies where which were very prominent, like early childhood experiences. And as we were clearing up my my subconscious, those were the memories that came back.
It's like, this sex scene from this movie I saw when I was eight. I remember putting the DVD back in after everybody went to work and watching it again. And that was, like, a very prominent memory, and that that, like, kept relooping in my mind. And so why would you do something so radical? And I think we've said this on every episode of the season that everybody's heard, but what you guys are facing right now is radical.
Mhmm. Ten years of relapse, of secrets, of lies, of Ashley going through her her health stuff through pregnancy. You guys going, separations, being outcasted from family, spiritual community, counselors, feeling like trash. That's radical. Like, I don't know if you're gonna, you can't make it much more radical.
And Ashley sitting down on a nightly basis and saying, Hey, let's talk about my sexual history. You're going to get clear.
Caitlyn: Yep.
Brandon: Temptation is not even a part of that. It's just kind of like, this is starting, this is starting to make sense. The more you talk about it, the more you're gonna oh, Oh, and that's what, like, it almost bothered me as we were talking through it. Cause I didn't really feel ashamed in the sharing. What I felt ashamed was, was that I, that I resisted us having this depth of seeing each other.
Cause in the seeing, was like, this isn't that complicated. These there's narratives here. This kind of mirrors this childhood wound. This is where, like, for example, this, this example, it might sound weird to share this, but like we were doing these emotional exercises and every time we went into them, this is after I'd opened up my subconscious to start seeing all my sexual world. We would do these emotional exercises together.
And I just kept seeing other women's breasts in my mind. I was just like, like, babe, I, like, it's not like, I'm like, I'm not trying to think about that right now. Like, I have no idea why that's happening. We weren't even having sex or doing anything sexual. It was just like this feeling of affection every time I'd see it, I'd see breast or feel it.
Would see breast because I've been so locked up. And I just kept rewiring. We we talked about the four r's, which is recognizing. I'm like, okay, that thought's here. I don't know why, but I stopped asking why.
Just said it's here. Yeah. So I recognized it. I'd received peace in my body. I released that thought and I said, I'm going to replace that with this is a, there's another woman in this room besides my wife.
This is actually a non sexual experience we're connecting. And that's all you need to be bringing up for me, mine. Thank you. And what I realized in the sharing was every time in my past, when I wanted to feel affirmation or affection, which I was receiving from Caitlin, I was like fully present in that moment. I go to a screen.
I'd look at a cute smiling face back at me. When I was lonely, angry, tired, I'd pull up somebody smiling at me, half naked that made me feel that sense of affection or affirmation. So all my brain is doing it wasn't evil. Wasn't the devil sneaking in our room. I didn't see him open the door, come in.
It wasn't anybody. Nobody else was there. It was just us. There was no like spiritual battle going on, which was, was great news because I had I had fasted 40. I'd spent countless hours in prayer.
I'd prayed every verse. I'd confessed every sin. I'd prayed for other people. I'd done it all. And I was like, I just needed to see it.
And what happened was I was like, oh, my brain just needed a new new input. Mhmm. Just need retrained. It's called your reticular activating system. It takes in million of pieces of data, even right now as we're talking.
What you feel, if it's cold or hot, what you hear, what you what you're seeing. It just tells you the data that you've said is important, and it makes you aware of it from your past experiences. So all you're doing is retraining your mind to see and focus on what you tell it is important. And so that's what the sharing is so powerful is it gives you this opportunity to bring it all to the surface, see it clearly, and then align everything that doesn't align to your new vision for your marriage. And to me, that's like, it's not like simple, but I mean, it's simple.
It's not easy because not a lot people are telling you to do it, but it is pretty simple. The last thing I want to say before I kick it back to Caitlin is, I find it really interesting. We've had a lot of conversations on this about sin and temptation. This is from a Christian standpoint. For any of you listening that are not Christian, don't don't turn this off.
But from a Christian standpoint, when we talk about, like, sin and temptation, most people really are only thinking about, like, sexual sin or temptation. Like, I don't feel super like, when I when I was in that specific way of viewing things, I haven't felt too tempted to ever rob a bank. I really felt tempted to kill somebody. So when we talk about temptation in the church, it's almost like we build entire theologies around our belief about God and sin is like, how do we get rid of this sexual brokenness thing? And it's like, oh, the devil the devil because my view, like, lust and temptation, it's almost like you were, like, running and the devil shot you with the the Cupid arrow that would have the lust arrow, and you haven't been able to pull it out of your back yet because he's, like, still taking shots at you.
And it's like, if we figured out our sexual stuff in the the church world, sin and temptation really doesn't seem like much of an issue. It's not like you're like, oh, man. I've been so gluttonous. I've just been consuming so much, I've been so greedy. I haven't been giving to the poor.
It's like, nobody really even focuses on their their sin life of of those areas. Really, we just wanna be sexually free. And then we can have more robust conversations, but that's, that's just a little side tangent.
Caitlyn: Yeah. I want to say something. And then I was going to see Jake, if you could explore a little bit of your, your childhood sexual exposures and experiences. And one thought I wanted to say about the polygraph is the reason why I wouldn't necessarily I mean, guys have already done them. The reason why I wouldn't outright recommend them to anybody else is your perfect example of you've done two of them and here you are months later and you're still not at you you haven't arrived at freedom or wholeness.
Right? And so it's almost kinda like I think it's like the fast food approach to healing in my opinion. It's kinda like, okay. I just wanna get I want like the quick result to being free, which you even said you part you're partnered it with Pure Desire Group with the whole ten month spiel and everything. We're very familiar with Pure Desire.
That was the track we were gonna go on. And same as you guys, we hit the same exact roadblocks, which I'm not trying to throw any shade at this pure desire framework, and I want to bring enlightenment to frameworks I don't believe lead you to true intimacy, which is into me you see, where there's no more secrets hidden or seen is when it's kinda like this process where we share most everything and keep something separate, and we just do a polygraph to kinda check the big boxes, we're not healing at the root level. Right? And so, for example, there was somebody went to our Maui intensive, and they had this whole story, and their wife was like, kinda like, I know you've slept with this person and the the spouse is like, I definitely didn't sleep with this person and they're kinda getting in this whole battle about if they slept with somebody. Pretty crucial information for the marriage, right?
And I'm sitting there and I'm like, oh, I see why people would do a polygraph because there's no way he could lie sleeping with actually, you know what? I wouldn't be surprised. And most people think there's probably no way he could lie about sleeping with somebody. Right? So I'm like, I see it.
And I don't really care if he slept with that person or not Because I see the bigger issue here, which is all of the other lies, all of the other addictions, all of the stories. It's like, do we need to know if you slept with that person? Yes. And I need to know everything if I'm your spouse. So it's like cool that we got to hook you up to the machine and now we know the in your peer desire group, you're probably familiar with this.
We know the big uglies, right? Well, the small uglies, I'm using quotes because it's all really not it's it's all a counterfeit, all ugly as in actually it's not our true self, right? We need to know all of the uglies because it's these small things that led to the big things, and you're the exact example story. You are not the only story. That is the epitome of every story, is all of the little things add up to the relapsing.
Like, you didn't just wake up one day and go, yep, I'm gonna look at porn today. It was all the little micro dopamine hits of seeing a hot girl or feeling some sort of sexual arousal or attraction and not knowing what to do with it. So to say, let's just do the polygraph and try to clear the big things and let's not focus on the mind, let's not focus on the thoughts, let's not rewire any of that is a disservice which you're witnessing for yourself because then you can't actually live a life where there is no pull or desire or relapse or temptation because you still have the same way of thinking. Like I said this on the last one, it's like trying to head in this new direction of life while bringing with you all of your same belief systems and like patterns and baggage. It's like, you can't go a whole new way and take all of with you what you had going that way.
Like, you have to clear all of that direction. So as a lot of this is really fresh within the last two months for you guys, like, you're you're at this pivotal point where it's like, okay, we're actually clearing out all of that so that we can head into a new direction. And the only way to clear it out is to actually see it clearly. I say this all the time, to heal, you have to see it clearly. When you see it clearly, you can heal clearly.
And one thing that I want to bring awareness to is, we'll go into your your first sexual experiences, And I like your languaging a lot, so I can tell that there's a level of a denial you've broken free from. And with everything being so fresh, meaning like within just a couple months ago, this all came to head again. There's also going to be some denial that you still have. And what denial does is it keeps you from seeing everything clearly. Right?
And so we say this in every podcast as well and it's crucial for people to hear it a 100 times. Do you know people paid like one guy paid he came to all three of our events, so he paid like what? Like $11,000 for the year, maybe more. Oh, more because he would have had to fly, get Airbnb's, all this stuff. Like, let's just over $11,000.
Okay? At the third event, I'm still mind blown. At the third event, on the last day, is when he finally confesses his porn addiction to his wife that he has had their entire marriage and they've been married a lot more than ten years. I think it was like fifteen years, right? Fifteen years of marriage, confesses his porn addiction after 11,000 paid to hear that we don't say anything new.
I don't have anything new to say, you guys. On the podcast, if you wanna join for all the rest of the seasons, I have the same freaking thing to say, which is stop keeping secrets. So I'm gonna say the same thing here, and everyone who's joined for all nine of these season or episodes is like, shoot, she said it so much, and I'm gonna say it over and over again. Because when the denial structure is so thick, you have to pierce through over and over and over again till it's like, oh, that's what she means by don't keep secret. She means share my porn addiction.
You know, it's like, we laugh because it's so outrageous And you know, it's like when you've lied to yourself for so long, it's hard to then unlie to yourself. So right now, you you you told yourself ten years of a story, probably a lot more years than that. In your marriage, you've had a ten year long story going. So now you're rewinding that entire story. As you rewind, you're gonna be like, oh, I had no idea I did that.
Oh, I had no idea that was a core memory. Oh, I had no idea I've actually still been keeping this from you. Oh, there was this significant experience. Oh, I forgot there was actually this time I also looked at porn and masturbated. Oh, there was also this girl that I had an emotional relationship with.
Like, things will begin to unravel. So if you try to go with the story, which I liked how you said, you said to the best of my ability I've shared. And that's what we like to teach people is you can say, right now what I remember is this, and I'm dedicated to remembering everything. Because what happens there is it's almost like there's a lid that gets popped open and your subconscious goes, thank you. You wanna actually see everything, Jake.
Okay. That's great. Here's the rest of the things you don't see. When you turn into a denial structure and go, oh, that was enough, that was good, that was like, I've gotten most of it out, like, don't I just need to tell her I've had ten years of a porn addiction? I'm not saying you think this.
These could be some thoughts that pass through your head at times, you know, or counselors could try to feed them to you. And so, you know, you might even hear like different pastors phrases or different count this happened to Brandon where it's like, well, this counselor and this pastor, well meaning told me this. You might have these things that pop up and it's like, okay, you keep reminding your mind, you keep reminding your soul like, I wanna see it all. I wanna clear it all. Because then what happens is your mind, your soul, your body goes, perfect.
I wanna partner with you in this. I'm everything clearly. So the more open you become, then Brandon already answered why we do this. So the more open you become, the more your mind subconscious goes, here's the truth, here's reality, here you can see it clearly, then you're bringing that to Ashley and going, this is the truth, this is reality, this is what's taken place. She's already said in the beginning of this, all she wants is the truth.
Right? She most likely, I was in the same boat, we're not surprised. After years and years of relooping on the same thing, she's not gonna be surprised if you're like, well, okay, there was actually this other time I looked at pornography. She probably knows. Like, she's caught you every time.
Dreams, spiritual experiences. I like to say women have like the peephole into the door where it's like, you think you have the door locked, it's nice and cozy with all your secrets back behind there, and you forgot there's a peephole, and we can see straight through it. Mhmm. So it's like, you can't fool anybody anymore, and you're probably not trying to. You fooled yourself ten years ago, ten plus years ago, and you've been a great fooler of your own self.
Brandon: I say, Jake, you're doing a terrible job keeping this a secret. You've done a good job as well.
Jake: Well, the interesting thing is like, you know, you mentioned earlier about not having a lot of shame and it's like, once everything got crowbarred out of me, I'm like, okay, the shame there is gone. Right? But the struggle that I have is like the ongoing sharing of where my mind is at. Like that's where I have a lot of shame. I'm just recently like realizing that, that like, okay, have a shared all of this for the last twenty years of my life.
But if I sit down and I tell her that I found somebody attractive at the store today, like that throws me into a loop, you know, and I'm like, why is that so significantly shameful after everything that we've been through? Like, that's something I'm kind of digging through now.
Brandon: That's good. I think what's so good about what you just shared is this was something I was very hesitant to. I actually was hesitant to telling other couples to do this because True. I knew the discomfort that went through my body or my mind, emotions trying to do this. And then I had to and we've, like, had so many conversations of, what was the end result?
And it was so worth it. So when we started talking about, like so I had removed my porn was social media because I was in ministry. Was such a good boy. I, you know, I I couldn't watch real hardcore porn just because that was, you know, that would have been like, I sure would get kicked out of ministry. I need to look at stuff that if I got caught, that I'd still be able to keep my job, but ended up losing anyways because our marriage was in in in shambles.
Like you said, you can't really can't really keep the thing the boat going. But for me, was like, okay. I under I don't agree with, you know, porn, no porn, no social media porn, no half naked women, but like, can I actually get free from how I look at women outside? And when I was like, when we had to have these like really long conversations, I'd be
Jake: like,
Brandon: yes, I absolutely can be free. I'd walk outside the next day and look at a woman's backside, look at her chest, and then look at her face. And I'm like, I didn't feel like I had chose I didn't feel like I chose to do it. Like, I'm like, I even had to, like, pre commit it. I'm gonna talk to Caitlin about any instances today where I look at women that way.
And I come on and be like, I looked at these, like, seven women, and I saw this billboard, and I looked at this thing, and it was the first thing I saw was was the breast or the butt. And I'm like, do you want me to keep sharing? She's like, and that that was where I wasn't really fully owning, like, I believe I could be healing. Cause I, I had not experienced a different reality up to that point in my life. I'm like, I thought this is just how you see things, but the more we talked about it, the more I was like, I'm kind of tired of living this way and not from like a, like a, not like beating myself up just kind of like, okay, Caitlin knew.
And Ashley, you spoke to this, like you, she wanted full intimacy, a full knowing of who we were and it just to be us. And she's like, I knew Caitlin wasn't lying to me. She's like, I'm not walking around feeling pulled, drawn, looking at men this way or looking at their body parts. And we knew other women that did look at men that way. So I was like, okay, well, Caitlin experiencing this level of feeling.
So I'm like, I'll just try it. So I started doing the the four r's, which I alluded to, but I started just writing down every instance at the gym, at the grocery store, driving any thoughts that went through my head. Mhmm. Like one time this was, this is like a very graphic thought and it wasn't, I didn't even know it was there. I had like, I was pulling out of a parking lot.
I saw this woman that looked like she was in her forties. She just drove by me. We like made eye contact. And I had this random thought went through my head. I was like, if she doesn't have her period anymore, we could have sex and she wouldn't get pregnant.
Like that thought went through my head. I'm like, who? Like, what was that? Like, and it almost feels like, okay, that sounds like temptation. I'm like, I'm not going to go.
I don't even feel tempted to do it, but there was something that had been wired in. And so I just started writing down. Okay. Well, I have this thought go through my head. I looked at this woman's body parts and looked away and actually looked back and it was all these subconscious things.
And as I just started looking at it and taking ownership for it as though it's like, it's not her fault for wearing yoga pants. It's not her fault for having a low cut top. Because I recognize I'm looking at anybody wearing anything. It wasn't like a specific type. There were certain people that I noticed more, but it was just like all across the board.
I'm looking at everybody wearing anything or not wearing anything a certain way. And so I just begin to take ownership for like, this is the experience. This is how I'm looking at people. I'm ready to unsubscribe. Like, I was like, this isn't I'm not enjoying this.
Like, I I cared about Caitlyn. We had done a lot of the deep diving of, like, her being seen and validating her pain. I'm like, Caitlyn leaves me. I still don't wanna see women this way. If I have a a free card to just look at women and and masturbate and have sex with everyone, I'm like, I don't even want this.
So I started just rewiring thought after thought, glance after glance, memory after memory. And mind you had been a few months of like kicking and screaming, not really wanting to do it, but like having these open dialogues. After thirty days of actually saying, I'm just going to own own, like, I'm gonna take responsibility for how I'm looking at the world around me for the memories I have. I'm just gonna own them. And I'm going to rewire them.
After about thirty days, I had a couple of days where I started going outside and I'm like, I'm seeing people's faces. I don't have to look down and then look up. I'm just looking at them as a neutral person. They don't have like a pull over me. I'm not seeing things out of my peripherals where I'm like, oh, what's that?
It's, was just like something had started shifting radically. My thoughts were clear. My emotions were clear. A lot of times I was anxious outside was when I would start objectifying people a lot more. Cause that's how I was like trying to regulate my mind and my emotions was like, okay, where's the cute girl in the room?
Okay. There she is. Okay. I'm I can calm down. All that had gotten sifted out in about thirty days.
Now some of the days I rewired, like, 30 to 50 thoughts, and we talked through every single one of them, and it was uncomfortable. I felt shameful, and eventually the shame started wearing off, and it was just kinda like, I wired this in. Of course, I wired this in. I scrolled on social media and looked at half naked women for years. I watched lots of porn in high school.
I watched all this stuff, all these sex scenes and movies. I had this way of seeing women for my whole life. Of course, there was a lot. Of course, there was a lot of things and memories, and and it was automated. That's why I didn't think it was mine because it was automated.
It's like, well, your brain doesn't, you don't sit down and you go to tie your shoe and go, let's see. Where do we start here? You just tie your shoe. And the craziest thing in this whole rewiring process, I actually stopped and paused and I learned to tie my shoes the right way. I've been tying them more like, I was like lacing them and they would be like sideways from I'm like 25 at that point.
And I'm like, you just start going slower and saying, is this the way I want to see my world? Is this the way I want to tie my shoes? And your brain will learn a new pattern if you're willing to look at the current one. And again, why would you do that? It's not because you want to make your wife think you're a pervert.
It's not because you want to like shame yourself. It's actually just because like, you just want to acknowledge, this is my current reality. I see the world like this. This isn't, this doesn't line up with how I want to live. So then you just, okay, I'm gonna unsubscribe from this way of living.
I'm gonna opt out and I'm gonna wire in the new way. And that's, that's how simple it really is. And in the process, think about how it builds trust. Like Ashley's walking, watching you, which she's already said, I, I just want to know the truth. She's watching you not wrestle with it, but she's watching you observe yourself.
And she's watching you maybe be surprised or maybe have moments where you see the patterns like, oh, like, I yeah. That one girl broke up with me in high school, and ever since then, I've been having this ruminating thought of, she want I was I wanted this girl like this. Right? I'm not gonna pursue girls like that, or I'm gonna think this derogative thought about women with hair like that and make it a a sexual thing. And and, like then you, like, see it, and she's like, oh, he sees it.
Because Ashley knows if you see why you were bound and you you you were the one with the keys and you're you're opening the door to your own prison, she watches you walk out of it. She's not afraid of you relapsing, and you're not afraid of your re you relapsing. And it won't even be a porn blocking software, or it it won't be something that stops you from relapsing. It will be because you have awakened to this new way of living, and you realize like, oh Yep. I am in the driver's seat of my life.
And you had just taken your eyes off the road for a while and told somebody else to drive, and they they had terrible driving skills.
Caitlyn: Yeah. You don't need any tools because you're actually gonna rewire your entire brain. So it's like, you won't need to live off of like, an men's accountability group that you check-in with. You're not gonna need to live off of having any blockers on your phone because your whole being is renewed, is new, is back to truly how you were meant to be. And what I always like to to explain with like, why do we recommend that everyone bring their thoughts out to their spouse?
Well, first, that's we only recommend what we actually have done. And that's where I like what I like to call the kicker is. And we most of the time, we don't even get to talk about that as much because most people are just still trying to actually share the full, what we'd call the big uglies. Most people are still actually hiding giant things. Like, they'll come to our events and they're like, oh, I've disclosed I've had four affairs, but they've actually had 15 affairs.
So it's like, okay, yeah, we can't even get to the rewiring of the thoughts until you tell me how many affairs you've had. And so it sounds like you guys are at that step where it's like, we're willing to let take a look at everything. We're willing, like, incredible, Jake, that you are willing to, like, address this part of you, that you've you've now said, okay, I trust these crazy people on the Internet that are telling me that I can totally rewire my brain and live in a full new existence free, honestly. And what happens is when you when you share this this experience you have, maybe you objectify somebody outside. When I say objectify, it's like you look at their body parts or whatever for some sexual gain.
Maybe you have like a sexual flashback, whatever it is, and you write these down if you're not together. You can Brandon would do it on his phone on like a little notepad. You go through the four r's and then you sit down and go through those together. What's gonna happen is you're gonna see clearly for the first time ever. For me, it makes no I can't even picture another way because I can't find the logic in it.
The quickest way to break down your denial structure is by seeing clearly because the denial is the opposite of seeing clearly. Denial is the stories that we tell ourselves that aren't true. How do you break down a story that you told yourself that isn't true? You see the story clearly, right? It's uncomfortable because you have a denial structure you're rubbing up against, but the quickest way to just come with hammers and collapse that thing is by seeing clearly.
You'll see very clearly if you want to when you begin to address how you view people online, how you view people in person, which we would recommend that you take a break. Oh, it sounds like you've taken a break from social media anyways. And anyone that's listening that is finding themselves in pieces of this story, like, I would recommend you quiet the noise of social media, then reorient. But if you're taking a look at how you see people and the thoughts that you have, you will see clearly for the first time ever, and you will realize the stories, the patterns, the narratives, everything will begin to make a lot of sense. Like, Brandon was like, oh, this is why I looked at this type of porn.
This is why I was attracted to these types of women. This is why I, you know, try to kind of come in in a almost like caretaking pastoral role for these types of people. Like the whole story is like a puzzle. And when you bring when you actually choose to see it all clearly, all of the puzzle pieces connect and make a lot more sense. Mhmm.
Also, when you try to pretend like your thoughts and the way that you see people don't impact you, it's like trying to like throw out a couple puzzle pieces and like pretend like that creates a whole picture. It doesn't. We're missing crucial components of information here that reveal to you the truth Yeah. And reveal to your marriage the truth. So when you see that all clearly, then you can actually break free from patterns that have trained your brain to view things a certain way.
And the other thing you can do even if you're feeling that like that shame or that like, oh, why am I doing this? Why am I gonna do this? This is so uncomfortable. It's like coming back to that vision of this is your clearest path to living a life with no relapse. Like, what do you have to lose?
Right? I love saying this to people. You genuinely tried everything. Right?
Ashley: Yeah.
Caitlyn: Ten years in and you're still addicted to pornography. What happens? Guess what? What happens? There's gonna be no cost to this by the way, but let's just say the cost is only breaking free from your denial structure and feeling super uncomfortable with yourself.
But let's just say you do it. You're like, I'm going all in. I'm sharing every thought. I'm rewiring everything. I'm leaving no trace, nothing behind.
And let's just say six months from now, let's just say it takes you six times longer than Brandon. Let's just throw out something really radical. Six months from now, you shared every thought. You see yourself clearly for the first time maybe in your whole life. Your wife has actual intimacy with you into me you see.
That has nothing to do with sex, but I'm sure your sex will get way better with that. Your wife finally sees you clearly. All of your five kids have the most connected relationship they've ever had with you. Everything you touch feels so good because you're at home with yourself, able to be your true self. You're alive for the first time in your life.
You don't objectify any woman outside and you wake up and never even think about looking at pornography, masturbating, looking at another woman. Like, would you actually tell me today that that felt hard? Like if I told you six front months from now, here's your here's your past, You never objectify another woman, you never feel attracted, you never feel like looking at porn, you could spend a week in a hotel and it wouldn't even cross your mind. Your marriage is connected, you feel alive and everything is blossoming in life. Would you actually feel like it was that hard?
You would be like, holy crap. Give me my pass. I'm ready to start running. Like, give me the baton, essentially. Like, I am ready to run this freaking race if that's what you're telling me is on the other side.
And that's what I'm telling you is on the other side. And honestly, nobody gave us that baton. Like, we're just like out there in the dark with no baton. Like, does this even work? I'm just crying my eyes out every single night, can barely go to sleep.
I don't even know if Brandon telling me all of this shit even makes any sense. Like if it will even do anything good for us. Like I literally am just crippled. Like I don't even know if this is gonna work, but I would rather live in a marriage with truth and honesty than I would live in a marriage. People are like, wouldn't that bring her so much pain?
It's already happening. I can't prescribe to that like situations like, if you're already going outside looking at other woman and feeling tempted to look at pornography and you don't tell her, she might not know but she knows. She feels it. Every woman right now is going like this, is gonna be listening to this because they understand. Just because you bring words to it, it doesn't it's not gonna magnify the pain at all.
She's finally gonna be like, yeah, I already knew that. Thank you for finally telling me. And now we can finally actually heal because now you're willing to see clearly. That's just a protective mechanism of like, oh, I can't tell her that because that will cause more pain. No.
It's because you don't wanna cause yourself pain. And so the moment you're ready to be like, okay, I'm getting this all out. I'm taking the baton. I know that at the end of this road, I'm a freed man. This is a connected union.
Like, I'm going all in. Like, I 100% guarantee. Like, I don't even feel at all, like, nervous for you. I'm not even nervous to recommend this to anybody. I 100% know it will work because I lived it and I experienced it and I'm watching other people live it and experience it.
Like, I know it works. The only reason why it won't work is if someone is not willing to be able to actually see it all and rewire it all. Whenever people come, there's people on the the last ones when they're like, you know, we're I've disclosed some things and it's not working and this and that and like nicely, but kinda good cop, bad cop. I'm kinda like, you're probably hiding some other things, aren't you? And they're kinda like, well, yeah, actually I am.
And I'm like, yeah, that's why it doesn't work. It doesn't work if you still wanna keep your bag of secrets. If you wanna bring all your secrets out, I guarantee I know it works. And so when you feel that tension, you have the gift of hearing other people's stories reflected to you knowing it works. So it's like, okay nervous system.
Okay. I'm getting back in my body. I'm nervous to tell my wife about this. And I know that telling my wife about this means that soon on the other side, I'm a freed man that doesn't live this way anymore. I'm gonna have a rewired brain that sees the world and interacts with the world in a whole new way.
So although I'm scared right now, I know that this is good. I know that this is worth it. And the more you do that, the more your mind and body is not gonna feel shame or even nerves. It's like Brandon eventually was like, I'm just ready. Like I knew every single night we're gonna put our kids to bed with two kids at the time.
I know we're putting the kids to bed. All screens are off, and it's me and him, and we're going through the journal of all the things he rewired. We're rewiring those together. We're, like, putting pieces of the puzzle together, and it was like most people might be like, well, that sounds terrible. That was the most connected we had ever felt in our marriage.
Yeah. Because finally we knew each other. Finally it all made sense. Finally we were getting free. Finally we were headed in the right direction with some Like finally we knew there was there was light at the end of the tunnel, right?
And so it's like you guys, you're gonna go through your day and you're gonna the more you calm your nervous system and remind yourself why you're doing this, the more you're gonna be ready for this. Then you're coming together, you put your five beautiful kids to sleep, and that's you time to go through the things that you're rewiring, to go through the four r's, to put the puzzle pieces together, and to heal.
Brandon: We were gonna dive into your childhood, but I just realized what time it was. I know.
Jake: That'd interesting. Part two finale?
Brandon: Hey. Hey. That's Possibly. So you guys are gonna dive into your childhood, which we'll walk you through in the grounded intimacy course inside of the app. Two things I wanna leave you guys with.
I actually feel a lot of hope exuding from you. Even Ashley, like, I want you to still have full permission to be as broken and frustrated and hurt and to honestly share that because we we know you you voiced that you've been the forgiving nice wife. Yep. And you've already laid your body down for Jake to trample over it for years. And Jake, I'm not trying to, like, shame you, but, like, true.
Ashley has given from that place. And I think what will actually be so healing is for, for Ashley, for you to get really honest with how this has impacted you and, and to bring that to Jake, because as Jake hears from you and actually practices owning, not him being a bad boy, but owning the action action and and how how it it impacted impacted you you and the questions it put in you and the insecurity and the pain and the disconnect. The daily ownership of, yeah, I did that to you. Tell me more about it. Allows you to heal as well and allows Jake to feel empowered as the the healing agent that you are Jake in the relationship because nobody else is gonna help Ashley heal.
She wasn't getting she nobody else is, like, really even accepting her. They're all rejecting her. It's like, you're gonna help her heal by saying, I did lie to you for all these years, and here's how I did it. Here's when I did it, and here's how often it was. And and I did it when I was mad at you.
I did it when you wouldn't have sex with me. And I just went, took care of myself after you went to bed. And like those tears you cry together, they won't be like the last tears you ever cry, but it'll be like some of the most, like, healing tears you cry together because you realize you're not against each other, that you're, that you're on the same team. And it's you guys against the problem. And it's not even like against the problem.
It's you guys towards the solution of saying this disease was killing us. This addiction was killing us, and I'm going to look at it for what it was, and I'm going to take ownership because I've seen the light and I know that I have power to change. The reason we experience shame in this process, and this one when you think about as you rewire, as you step into that process, is our sexuality is relational. And I think even though we didn't know everything you know, when you're when you've addicted for years, you don't feel super emotionally alive or vibrant. So you're like, don't look at porn because I wanna have a relationship with somebody that isn't Ashley.
I don't I don't do it because of, you know, that it really turns me on. I just do it to kinda get the job done. It's like, well, deep down, our sexuality, regardless of how we engage it, when we when we, we'll call it manipulate our sexual impulses and biology to try experience a feeling or a release. It's connected to our relational parts of us. That's why we feel so ashamed because if you were to say, yeah, I thought about having sex with a 100,000 women and I put a little bit of, of my sexuality towards them.
It's like, that sounds really like bizarre, but it's like, if we just call it what it is, like, was trying to sexually interact with all these people online in my mind in microwaves. Like, you see it for what it is. You're like, oh, that's why this is so uncomfortable. It's because like, I don't actually want to have sex with all these people, but I've been tricking myself into having sex with all these people in my mind to experience an orgasm, to experience relief from my circumstances. That's why it's so uncomfortable.
It's like, if you just label it though for what it is, it's like, that's what I was trying to do. I decided that didn't feel like very fulfilling to my soul, to your soul. And we just call, we label it for what the action is and not for you being a bad little boy. That process of taking ownership. Some people, when they go to like rewire, they're like, okay, I just now I'm committing to share all my naughty thoughts and feeling like bad.
Like I'm so, yeah, and I did this and I did this and I did this too. And I had this thought this isn't about like sharing to mommy, the naughty things you did. It's like, here's what I took ownership for today. Here's what I remembered. Here's where I took charge.
Here's where I was intentional. That's what you're sharing together. It's not reporting to her so that she can decide how bad you were. It's like, she's like, oh, like, oh, he's taking ownership. So that I'd, I would encourage you with that.
Before we log off, I wanted to see if either of you had any questions or anything we could answer here at the end of the episode.
Jake: I've talked a lot. Did you wanna say something?
Ashley: No. I it's really helpful. It is. It really is. And it's encouraging because, know, a lot of what we've heard, we got like two minutes before we gotta grab the kids here, but a lot of what we've heard, you know, was that from our Christian pastors, counselors is that he's always going to live with this.
And so to hear your guys' perspective is really encouraging. We actually have been, you know, going through the deep thoughts as bizarre as they may be every night, we call it our confession session and just spending a couple minutes doing that. And it, you know, we're kind of, we're just shooting blind here, hoping that that works. So to hear you guys, you know, reiterate that like, this is what we did and this is where we are five years later is like really encouraging to me that we're on the right track. And so we, I really appreciate it.
Jake: And I'll add to that too a little bit. You know, I feel like even doing those confession sessions, like, that's kind of been, like, the first tiptoe steps into that type of intimacy that I think I've really truly taken. And I do still think that there's maybe a little bit of me that's kind of teetering on the fence back and forth with it. And so that whole idea that you're talking about of like really taking the full ownership over it and being like, Oh, this, was this bad or was this good? Should I share this or should I not share this?
Like taking ownership over it and then bringing that to the table just for my own mindset is kinda helping me push myself over that side of the fence to to get there even more. So I appreciate that.
Brandon: Huge.
Caitlyn: Yeah. And this is not a curse that's over you for the rest of your life. Like, you will live a life, I guarantee it, where this will not be your day to day existence ever again, and that's for everyone that's listening to this. And I don't know why that's the narrative, and I will scream from the rooftops for the rest of my life that everyone has the cape the 100% capability of healing anything that they choose that they wanna heal. And that's in any realm of life, including this one.
So you totally and will completely heal and rewire your brain and live the life that you were created to be or to live.
Brandon: Well, I thank everybody listening.
Jake: Good news a
Brandon: lot. Yeah. Thank you guys for joining us on the podcast, and, thank you guys for joining the finale of season three. We look forward to seeing you in season four.