Brandon: Welcome back to the Grounded Union Podcast. We're in season four episode eight. We're talking about signs that your spouse is lying to you. And this is a heavy one, but it's why you're all here. It's one of the things we're most known for because we talk about the nitty gritty of dishonesty of what's really underneath the surface. And I think that I'll give you this, a little bit of a health class here.
If you're willing to swap your genitals together with, with another person sex, then everything about you, like it's the most vulnerable, intimate thing you can do. If you're going to bring children into the world, like, gosh, like there's nothing more intimate or vulnerable than being seen in your weakest state, your most vulnerable state, experiencing pleasure together, that there would be parts of you that you would withhold or that you would lead to believe that there's some, this is what I lead you to believe about what I do or who I am, but really I'm somebody else. It's torturous to the person that's on the receiving end, but also on the giving end. I don't think a lot of men would say like, you know, my deepest desire in life is to be known and to be loved.
I'll see if I can get the words for it. Usually intimacy, connection, closeness. These are kind of words that we prescribe more to what women want. Men often in our spaces talk about wanting peace, joy, connection too.
Caitlyn: Fulfillment.
Brandon: Fulfillment. And when you lie to your spouse, you're holding back parts of who you are that prevent you from ever feeling that sense of fulfillment, satisfaction, pleasure, exhilaration. Like you, you, part of you has to stay dead if you choose to leave big parts of you from your spouse. So for a lot of you, you started maybe when in your dating relationship, you're fooling around with somebody else. You never got clean about that.
You brought that in the marriage. You've had this double life, which we're going to talk about, but now you're at this crossroads because you're like, well, we've been married all these, all these years, but under the agreement that I was going keep part of me from you. And now you're at this place where she's seeing the real you or you're seeing the real her. And it's like, it's ugly because she didn't know who you were because you kept part of you behind. You kept parts of your actions unknown that you know would destroy the relationship and are destroying the relationship.
So that first step we always talk about in the seven steps is leaving that trap of denial that says it's better if parts of me don't get seen. And if part of you stays hidden, part of your actions, behaviors, the lies, the betrayal, if part of it stays in this, in the dark, part of you will never experience fulfillment and, it increases the likelihood that your relationship isn't going to survive. So we're gonna talk about these signs like that there's still dishonesty and like our mentors told us like lying starts with lying to yourself. So if you want to know how to stop lying, you have to know yourself. You have to ask yourself, like, why do I believe that it's better for me to keep a part of who I am a secret?
And I think for most men, when it comes to sexual brokenness, the reason they keep it a secret is they think it's part of who they are. There's a lot of shame, but they actually don't believe that they can change it. They've been told from so many religious circles, counselors, books, content that says, this is how you are learn to live with it. So me telling you, like, why would I tell you, you know, like, you've heard it too. Like, if this is, I'm going deal with a sexual brokenness thing about visual man, like, why am I being honest with you about something that's going to be a struggle for the rest of my life?
And that was something that clicked for me. It's like, I only don't want to tell Caitlyn because I'm doing damage control. This is what we tell. We say a lot. We were talking about this about in the car is a lot of counseling, a lot of encouragement to people in addiction.
It's a learn to live with it approach. We believe you can learn to live free. Therefore honesty is required and it's also the door that unlocks your greatest freedom.
Caitlyn: Yeah. So let's talk through some of the signs on how you know if your spouse is keeping something from you. One thing I'll even just say is most women actually just intuitively know. We don't even have that as a no. But as you think about lying, as you think about your spouse lying to you, and of course this could this could be flipped, know, could be both spouses lying, oftentimes that actually really is the case.
Or lying, people sometimes don't like that word. When you live in denial, play mind games. When I use the word lying right now, you might think I'm not lying, I'm keeping a secret. Right? That's that's
Brandon: Or leaving out details. Omission omitting details.
Caitlyn: Just leaving a couple details out. I just I just made it sound less significant than it really is. I just told, yeah, part of the story, not the full story.
Brandon: Swap definitions.
Caitlyn: Yeah. I just gave it a different name than what it really is, you know. Whatever whatever the story is, it's like, oh, I'm not lying, so this doesn't apply to me. See some of those mind games there that you start to play? So really, if you wanna heal, you drop the mind games.
And that it's like, oh gosh, that feels so complicated, but it's really not. It's like stop playing tricks on yourself and thinking that you're doing any sort of service to yourself. You're not. You're doing a disservice to yourself. Hence why you're watching this podcast.
Anybody who's watching this podcast is not because they're having a thriving marriage. It's not because everything's going great. They feel incredibly alive. They feel connected in their union. Like, if there's any of you watching that are in that place, like, incredible.
I love that. Most people that find us, it's because they resonate deeply with the fact that they're in their broken state right now. So the mind games you're playing are doing you a disservice. So back to women being very intuitive, I knew there was something off. I couldn't put my finger on it.
Again, I'm young, I'm 19 when we get married, slightly naive, slightly innocent, childlike, all the things. I just could tell there was something off. Right? I also intuitively knew what I wanted. I knew what sexual connection was that I wanted to create.
I knew what type of level of freedom and wholeness I wanted to be living in together. I know that a lot of women really resonate with that. They watch our content, they comment on the videos inside our community, coming to our events. It's like, oh, I already knew my husband was acting out in some sort of betrayal. You might not know the exact details.
So it's like, the first way to know your husband is lying is listen to your intuition. And a lot of times you might be asking your spouse. I used to ask Brandon all the time like, are you watching inappropriate things on your phone? Like when I go to bed? No.
You know, we'll talk about defensiveness in a minute. Right. That's a big conversation. But you might feel intuitively into something and you might be asking questions, you might be starting conversations and they're probably getting shut down. That doesn't mean you're wrong.
That doesn't mean your intuition isn't right. Like lean into your intuition, you most likely already know because again, I'm like, you know, people might be like, how would I know? How would I know? You united your soul with somebody. Yeah.
You became one when you decided to get married. So we're not two separate beings anymore. Like, of course, yes, we are. And at the same time, no, we're not. Like, we've literally created life form.
We've created four little life forms from unifying ourselves together. Right? We are interwoven now. That's how you know. Yeah.
Because Brandon is not separate from me and I'm not separate from him. So it's like if he's out there doing anything in secrecy, yes, he thinks it's a secret, yet I am having inclinations, I'm having intuitive thoughts, I'm having sensations or feelings or knowings, whatever word you want to put in there, because it's as if I'm doing it, as if I'm a part of it, because we have made ourselves one. So if intuitively known, even if you've been shut down or dismissed or minimized, really lean in and listen to your intuition. I was persistent with my intuition. There was the the final straw, the final night where I caught him.
I think I had to ask three or four times in a slightly different way that same question I just modeled up. So when I go to bed, you don't watch inappropriate content? No. Well, how do you like, how do you not see inappropriate content because you're just binge watching car videos on YouTube? I just don't.
But I don't understand because if I was binge watching on YouTube and just scrolling like random things would pop up. Well, sometimes it does. See, like I had to just keep listening to my intuition like, no, this answer isn't right here. And Brandon finally goes, k, crap. Like, I gotta come clean with the truth here.
Brandon: You might think, well, my wife accuses me of things I'm not doing. So that's Ari, that that denial or defense mechanism saying, like, she doesn't know what she's talking about. That's some of you I it's funny. You know, my wife is convinced I had an affair and I didn't. But Yeah.
She did catch me on other things of like The Bernardino stories. Well, okay. I'm gonna tell you tell us to you, but, you know, that you know, I did watch porn and I did you know, I I was flirtatious with this gal at work, I never had an affair. Don't know why she thinks these things. I I wrote a round of her and all these things.
And she thinks you know, it's like, and you want to make it about her thinking that she did something I didn't do. Well, if your relationship has deteriorated to the fact that your wife feels so disconnected from you, your actions have shown you're such an untrustworthy person that she would rather bet money on the fact that you had an affair than that you didn't.
Caitlyn: Right.
Brandon: Then the details absolutely matter. And it's time to swallow your pride and trying to convince your wife you didn't have an affair. And it's actually just time to begin cleaning up the deterioration of your relationship because she knows everything you've done up to this point is it's loud and clear. So you're like, my wife. Yeah.
If you've worn your wife down and you're like, I'm not sure if she's intuitive like Caitlyn, she just accuses me of things. If you've worn your wife down for years, I'm sorry, bro. Like, whether it's intuition or exhaustion, or she just doesn't trust you or feel safe with you. They all matter. So lean into the fact like this is, this is, these are the alarms that our relationship is disconnected.
If you let this settle in, if your wife doesn't feel close and connected to you, like that is mayday, mayday, we have something to address here. It's not like, oh, she's always going to be in the state. No, like if you take an honest look at your actions, your behaviors, the secrets, that's what's destroying your relationship. That's what we always say. It's the lies that destroy the relationship.
A man that's willing to say, you know what? I go to strip clubs with the fellas. I don't care. And the wife knew that getting into into the relationship. She's gonna be less upset than the guy that pretended and was a good boy, went to church, did all the things for ten years, and the wife finds out you were going to strip clubs.
Caitlyn: Yeah.
Brandon: What? At least be honest. Yep. At least be honest. She knows, okay, my husband likes to sleep with, to sleep with prostitutes.
I get the decision to know if I want to stay with that or not. Right. Some of them might want to stay with that because we're not listening to this podcast, but give your wife and who you are. Don't make her feel crazy for trying to like see the different versions of you try to decipher through you, your behaviors. If she has an inclination that something's off, then something's off in your relationship.
Not like, no, well, doesn't see clearly. If she doesn't feel connected to you, something's off. This is your this is this is important. And if you're willing to see it, it's like, okay, well, where where have I withheld parts of me? Withheld, withheld, withheld the truth, put her away so I could meet my needs in secret.
If you're not willing to examine that and she'll know based off of your responses, which we're going to talk about, Caitlyn's really good at that. She'll know based off of your responses, how authentic you are. Cause if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to hide. But if you have something to hide, it's loud and clear. It's loud.
Caitlyn: Yeah. There's a couple stories. They're not funny. And they're kind of funny of our past events this last year, where I'll share one of them is at our Maui Lumeria three day intensive, and, you know, the couple's there, they flew in, all the couples flew in, and the husband and wife, I think it was the last no, second to last day. And we pretty much just say the same thing over and over again, which is stop lying and go to your room and tell the truth.
Right? And I've shared this before too, there was a different couple. He'd been to all of our events because that was our that was our last one. Right? Yeah.
That was our last one of that year. So he'd been to all the previous events. He'd even been inside of our community. On the last day of the very last event is when he came clean of his marriage long porn addiction. They're older than us.
So I don't know how many years, probably thirty plus years Porn addiction he had. He had to go to four events and wait till the last was pretty much the fourth day to share it out loud. And all I'm saying in every single event, you guys, if you've been to our event, we say the same thing at every single event. It's like stop lying and tell the truth, and I just say it in a couple different ways till finally someone goes, oh, she means stop lying. She means tell my wife I've been looking at porn for thirty years.
Brandon: Which again is, I think for a lot of people that are in the line, which majority is men because of you're you're hearing our story and you're in a similar place. They heard enough of what the transformation looks like. Yep. To be like, oh, well, shoot. If there's a way out, they're they got enough information to be like, I'll step out of the boat.
Right. Because this boat's sinking. Yep. I'm dying. What you guys are describing as a new way of living.
Like I actually can, I can, that's why I decided to try out rewiring my mind? Cause I'm like, gosh, Caitlyn, Caitlyn looks like she's enjoying her sexuality in her life. It's not scary. I'm gonna step over here. So I think when people finally get open, it's not because they hadn't realized they needed to tell the truth.
It's kinda like, well, what do I do after I tell the truth? And when that's all been laid out, they're like, okay. Yep. But, yeah, continue with that.
Caitlyn: Yeah. It's like, oh, I say this all the time. Like, oh, I'm dying. Like, what do I have to lose in trying something new? Like you said, like, boat's already sinking.
Everything's already, like, you know, shit already hit the fan. Like, what do I have to lose? You have nothing to lose. You've already really lost everything, and you actually have so much to gain. Right?
So this other couple is is coming and the wife's like, here's why I know that my husband slept with somebody else. This is a pastor from a small church. And and she lays out all these details in the story. Right? And there's many different stories and I'm listening.
And and the husband's claiming his question is, how do I help my wife understand that I'm not lying to her? I did not sleep with anybody. Okay? So pretty hard place for me to be in because I'm like, I
Brandon: don't know. Not hard for Caitlyn.
Caitlyn: But also kind of hard because I'm like, shoot, I don't wanna just be like, yeah, you're lying because she said so. And I'm also not gonna be like, well, just because you said so, you know? So I'm like, okay, give me some more details. Like, what's going on here? Tell me the stories.
I hear the stories and I'm kinda like, okay, dude, I'm not gonna say his name. I'm like, dude, do you hear how this is pretty freaking confusing? Like, I definitely feel like you slept with somebody by hearing these stories. I'm like, are these stories true? And he's like, all those stories are true.
Right? And there's stories of kind of like he had to go fellowship with this woman. It was supposed to be a lot of other pastors, but then it ends up being just her. Wife doesn't know, but she calls the husband. He's just with her, has to randomly hang up.
She said his voice sounded exactly like it does when they're making love. And I'm like, so did you stay with her in a hotel room by yourself for multiple nights? And he's like, yes ma'am. I'm like, okay. And you're trying to tell me like you didn't sleep with her?
He's like, no, I did not sleep with her. So we kinda dialoguing back and forth. I'm like, you've got more to explore here. Like, you've got more going on. Right?
And again, he's coming into this conversation like, please tell my wife to shut up because she's wrong. She's not intuitive. Right? And then second day, they come up and he comes out of the room. He's like, I had more.
You were right. I had more secrets that I needed to share. And it's like, okay. So you might initially go, my wife's crazy. She's not intuitive.
She's getting it wrong. And maybe she is getting some of the details wrong, like Brandon said.
Brandon: Know why she's getting some of the details wrong? Because she doesn't have them.
Caitlyn: Yeah. She doesn't have the details, and you're one way one way one day, and one way the next, right? Which is another sign that we'll talk about. And at the same time, someone who's ready and willing to explore their brokenness is ready and willing to listen to their wife, even if she's wrong or got some of the details wrong and go, woah, I'm hearing that you feel like I did a, b, c, and d. Maybe there's parts of me I'm not even seeing clearly.
I'm gonna dedicate the next forty eight hours to doing my embodiment, journaling, going for walks, sitting outside, watching the sunset, reminding my subconscious to be open and honest, reminding my heart to be open and honest, and I'm gonna actually check myself, and I'm ready to see it. How different of a response. Like, if your spouse hears that response, they're like, okay, we're getting out of this. We're getting the truth out. That's so much different, which we can jump right into being defensive.
That's so much different than, I didn't do that. I know I've been looking at porn for fifteen years. I know I've done this, this and this, and I've been sleeping with the secretary, but I definitely didn't sleep with that girl. Like shutting the door, getting defensive, getting angry, getting loud, getting dismissive, walking out of the room. That's ding ding ding red flag.
You 100% have more that you are hiding. 100%. It does not take like a brain expert, special scientist, anything. Like it doesn't even take the smartest, smartest, smartest person ever to realize like, oh, you're hiding something. I always say like, you're only defensive about something you want to protect.
Look at nature. Look at mama bears with their cubs. Look at look at any animal with a small cub. Right? You get close, they get protective and defensive.
They start to get angry, they start to get riled up because they're gonna protect their young. Right? Your young cubs are your little lies that you're keeping, your little hidden stories, your little secrets, your whatever name you've given them, whatever label you've put on them, that's what you're getting defensive of. Guarantee that if you are defensive, I'll say it again, you are hiding something. So if you're the betrayed spouse and your spouse is getting defensive every time you ask questions, they're still hiding something.
Caitlyn, how do you know that with 100% honesty? Because when you're not hiding anything, you feel and again, this is only within your union. You feel okay and safe to be seen. Intimacy, into me you see. You're only defensive when you're trying to protect when someone's getting close to your baby cup.
Oh, she's gonna see me. She's gonna pull that out of me. Or she asked me the question the wrong way, like, oh, what if I slip up? What if I say something? Then she'll know the real truth.
That's why you're getting defensive.
Brandon: Kinda like what we already alluded to with why it takes people a long time to finally come clean. It's just like, well, yeah, easy for you guys to say for me just to be honest, but if I'm honest, we might get divorced. We might have to sell the house. Might have to, it'd be hard on the kids. Like, and the, we'll call it the addict's mind.
It's easier to think about making a game plan to continue to cover up the truth or to minimize the damage and be like, okay. Yeah. No part of what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah.
I I could spend less time on my phone or whatever. And it's like, but I'm not gonna admit to the the reality of it because if I admit to the truth, then I think that could could take us out. I just want you to consider that we say this all the time, Caitlyn's like, cause you're in union, what you have done, whether or not it gets communicated, just so you guys are clear. It doesn't erase it. So like Caitlyn, not knowing that I sexualize everybody that I walk by.
If I don't tell her that she still feels the impact of it. If you've had an affair, if you've had that ongoing addiction, if you have feelings for another woman and your spouse doesn't know that, you're not protecting them. You're also not protecting your chances of a thriving relationship. Right now, how your relationship currently is, is as good as it will get. It's actually only going to get worse.
And I think a lot of women, sadly, when they know something's wrong, they don't have the courage to stand up for themselves. They have to let a part of themselves die. Cause if you know that something's being kept from you, you have a choice to either draw the line in the sand and like, speak up for yourself, move out, start over, or you have to let a part of yourself die where you're like, you know what? I know he's keeping things for me. I know he goes out with the guys.
I don't know what they do. I'm just gonna pretend that I'm gonna play dumb. I'm gonna play dumb like aloof. Like, I don't know what's going on. That comes at a cost too.
So what we're trying to get you guys to see, and I can hear the digital light bulbs going on where it's like, if you were willing to believe in the path forward, you'd be willing to be honest. So this isn't about you're only dishonest because you don't think it's going to actually benefit you or the relationship. And I'm telling you, you're dying. You're living a life of lies. There's not much left.
There's not much of you left. There's not much of your relationship left. And because we exist in this relational world, it's, it's a very isolating place to live in when you're living that double life. So I think for us, that's one of the biggest things to look for is that double life. And I think that's.
We're trying to give like pastors a bad rep is just like, that's, we were on the, I was on the ministry track. I was a missionary. That's how we met. It was a pastoral nonprofit ministries. Then I stepped into being with child's pastor, children's pastor, and I lived a double life because I fundamentally was dishonest with myself because I thought I had to be flawless, sinless.
This perception I had of what it meant to be a pastor to be able to lead others. So there was that part of me. Then Caitlyn is bringing up these character flaws or things where I'm not following through on where I'm dishonest. I'm like, stop. I am pastor Brandon.
You can't treat me that way. Otherwise I'd have to let go of this identity to take to heart what you're bringing to the table. And that could cost me my identity in the community. Our tiny salary of, from our nonprofit that was barely enough to live on, but that, that I would have to let go of my acceptance of my identity to actually take a second to listen to what you have to say. So one of those signs that your spouse is lying is you can clearly see, you are one version out there in the world and I get a different version of you at home, which means there's not a congruence congruency to who they are at their core.
Caitlyn: Burnt out pretending. That's why They're they're at
Brandon: acting, they're paid actors, they're professional actors because they're they are, which again comes back to approval seeking behavior, trying to be what you think the world needs you to be, which you end up being what the world, don't, you can't be anything to anybody. So if you see your spouse able to put on a show, that's a massive red flag that there are things that they are keeping from you and from others, because if they can trick everybody else, that they're a connected loving husband. And when you guys show up to church together and they've got their hand on your hand, they greet everybody around them. But then when you get in the car to leave, they're shutting you down. They don't want to spend time with you.
They're not happy. They're not connected. It's kind of like, but nobody, nobody would know because they're living that double life. And that's how somebody in addiction lives and survives is they have to shut down part of them, into denial, compartmentalize everything in their life. Because if they lived in reality and in the present moment, it would be too too painful.
Be too painful to be like, this is who I am. This is who I am all the time. You gotta know I'll be this person here, this person here, because at least I can put on, I can change clothes enough where I'm confused at who I am. I've told myself so many different stories about who I am, but I have an excuse waiting for me at every door. It's like, oh, okay.
Well, Caitlyn wants to know the honest truth about me. Okay. I'm going to open this door. Oops. I'm actually a pastor.
I don't tell, I don't lie. Well, you're my husband. Oops. Sorry. I got to go to work.
I'm actually a businessman. You can put on all these hats that fuel the double life so that every turn you don't have to face reality. You don't have to face yourself because you're hiding behind something you're not, and it's all a facade, and it will come crashing down very soon. Mhmm.
Caitlyn: Yeah. Our first counselor who did end up kicking us out, he did have a lot of good golden nuggets in the beginning. He's actually said that anyone who lives with a sexual addiction
Brandon: I wonder if he listens to the podcast.
Caitlyn: Anyone who lives with a sexual addiction
Brandon: you love if you listen
Caitlyn: Has a double life. They have to have a double life. So that's why why do we know that that would be a sign that your spouse is lying to you if they have a double life is because to live an addiction, you have to create a double life. That's how you cope. It's a coping mechanism because you actually don't feel good about the addiction.
You don't feel good about how you're acting. And so you have to have this alternate version of you that you do feel good about. So then you kinda, you know, in in the church religious world, it's like, you know, the good and evil side of you, right? The devil and then like the holy spirit side of you, of course. And so you have this side of you that you can kinda, okay, now step into this side because I feel good being him, right?
But you can't really sustain that because that's not your true self either. It's still this pretend show version of you that you're trying. Remember, if you have to try to do anything, if you have to try to convince, try to be somebody, that's not who you are. And then you have this other side that you step into, which is the side where you're acting out in an addiction, whatever the addiction may be, it's probably concoction of addiction. So you have these two personalities who sees that.
Your spouse sees that. Your spouse is probably the only person who sees that, which is why we talked about this in a different episode. This is why the betrayed spouse feels a little crazy, because they've actually been living with two different people. But they've united their their soul with this person. And the two different people that the the spouse has been acting out an addiction is playing is not even their true self, neither of them.
Wow. So there's actually like a third person here in the room who is the yeah. Real You you haven't even met that person yet. That's the real true core person who were go you know, that's what all of our frameworks to lead back to coming back home to yourself. You have to read people.
Brandon: Was the exact experience I had coming clean and that process. Was like, I actually don't know who I don't know what it feels like to live from the authentic me, where I'm not having to, like, balance these different things, but actually just living from authenticity was was a very foreign
Caitlyn: Mhmm. You're rediscovering who you actually are, which is why in our framework inside of our our community, we have you look at your childhood because you started out as your core self. Right? And then there was trauma, there was woundings, there was exposure, there was choices that were made and you lost touch with yourself. You probably even created a double personality from a young age.
Right? And that we could get into psychological terms for this, you know. And really everything you've already heard this us say this, everything is healable. You have to want that and choose that. If you have a double personality, no big deal.
Like, don't have to label you as schizophrenic, as a psycho, as anything. It's like most of the world is walking around with a double personality. So most of the world can choose to heal. There's not everybody will. Not everybody will choose to heal.
And there are those of you who are listening who are like, yep. I'm ready to heal. And you can heal having a double life. How do I know that? Because I watched my husband go from being a narcissist, I'm using air quotes if you're not watching us, from being a pathological liar, from having this double personality, to being a whole, vibrant, alive human being, fully himself, fully here, fully with me, fully in union.
You 100% can heal your double life.
Brandon: Which that's something we talk about, when we talk about the four r's from the previous episode and like re your spouse being I don't if that was the previous first one of this season.
Caitlyn: Lots of episodes.
Brandon: Lots of episodes. But when we talk about going through and rewiring your mind, the reason that process is so important is I saw the ways when I, when I like opened up my subconscious to see how I sexualize other women, all my memories, I begin to see the ways I lied to myself or the stories I told myself that prevented me from seeing it as dishonesty or as my responsibility. And the reason that Caitlyn was like, I trust him or like, I know what my husband walked through is she literally watched me dissect the lies I created that were the foundation of my life.
Caitlyn: Mhmm. With willingness.
Brandon: No more defenses. Also heard me share things that were so uncomfortable to share that it's kind of like, oh, like me being surprised. She saw me become surprised by my own wiring. And I think that when couples talk about diving into the story, it's like, don't want to hear the details. The betrayed spouse might not want to.
It's like, it's still real. Like, how are you ever going to trust the man that will call him a cycle of pathological liar? You're going to trust that man. If he just went away on a weekend with on a retreat and now he, you trust him and you think that he's, you don't even know what he went through. You don't even know how he arrived to the other side.
So I think that when there's been lies, it's, it's very fruitful for you to see your spouse who lied wrestle with what that produced in them. Because when they wrestle with it, they begin to see, I thought I was lying to protect others and to protect myself. You're like, holy crap, like these lies produce this in me. These lies led me to believe this, led me to be powerless in this place in my life, led me to hate myself, led me to judge women, led me to get out of shape. Like all these things they begin to see and like my whole life's been a lie.
And when you see your spouse, when Caitlyn and Sami go through that, she's like, we're getting somewhere because he's seeing like, I'm not just trying to convince you. I want you to live a certain way. I want you to see it for yourself. And when, when, when dishonesty is at the foundation of everything, it's because we've, we've tried to play the game of life on principles that aren't real. We're trying to move chess pieces so that the real us can't be seen.
The only you is the real you. And that's sobering. There is nothing that you do or say that is not real, that is not reality. So when you begin to look at it and see it and explore it, that's what changes you. That's what allows you to make the changes that we talk about in this podcast, because until you're willing to see it and your spouse can see it too, then it's like, why would I trust you?
How would I you haven't even looked at it yourself. You haven't been willing to face what you built.
Caitlyn: Mhmm. If you're saying, oh, I don't want to I don't wanna hear all of the details. Right? Or if you're saying, don't wanna share all the details. That's really just the smallest component of this.
Just because you're not gonna say it out loud or you're not gonna hear all of the details, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. It doesn't mean it isn't felt. It doesn't mean it doesn't have an impact on the relationship. So skipping that part is actually a disservice to your healing. I always like to say this inside of our community.
This is like, you know, see this as like a detective case. Right? So you go from defensiveness, you go into willingness, you go into curiosity. Brandon used to use this word all the time. He developed a curiosity to find himself, to rediscover how he got to where he was, where he had this split personality, had all this addiction, had all of this denial, all of these different lies he had told himself.
How did he get himself to this world? Right? There's a curiosity to see it and then a curiosity to heal, and a curiosity as to what he was creating to move forward. So curiosity is the opposite of defensiveness. When your spouse is in defensiveness, they're still in denial and they're still hiding.
When they move into curiosity, that means they are open to healing and are healing. Right? And so if you're just automatically like, I don't wanna hear all the details because it's so painful. Like, I hear you. I do.
As a spouse who heard all of the details, there was not a single night that I thought that that was fun. Yet now, what I've created on the other side, I've said this in another episode, I would do that over again, over and over and over.
Brandon: What was it like as a spouse when I didn't want to see the I didn't wanna share the details, or I didn't wanna I didn't wanna know the details, like.
Caitlyn: That's torment.
Brandon: That's torment. Catch me at that, like you, that night you described 2019. You catch me in the initial eyes and you're like, well, what else? And like, I don't know. So maybe you've heard that.
I don't know.
Caitlyn: I don't know.
Brandon: Is that healing?
Caitlyn: Right.
Brandon: No. Caitlyn's like, you don't know what else? Like, no, I don't know. Yeah. You want to know the details.
Right. What did you do? I don't know.
Caitlyn: Right.
Brandon: I don't know what I looked at. Mhmm. I forgot. I tried to forget. I don't know who I I don't know who.
That's not healing. No. That's not freedom.
Caitlyn: And it's not you're not knowing the details because you're having some sort of confessional experience. It's not like, tell me all the details right now, like, waterboarding you for the details and you're gonna have this confession experience. You have to make the switch to, like, it's not like, okay. I'm a good boy, so now I do my confession time. It's I'm curious.
Why are we sharing all the details with each other? Why is the betrayed spouse am I receiving, hearing, knowing well, first of all, you're hearing for the first time what you've actually always felt unknown. So you're finally just getting words to what's been going on in your relationship the whole time. To not hear the full details does not mean it didn't happen. It just means you don't know.
And why do you wanna live in a marriage where you don't know what happened to you? What happened to your union? The destruction of it. When you understand what happened, you're getting core facts, clues, elements as a detective with curiosity that help you solve the puzzle, that help you solve the mystery. This is how you see clearly together.
Oh, this is how you got to where you were. Oh, this is how you told me these stories. Oh, this is what you did. This is where you learned it. This is where you picked up on it.
Here's the patterns. Oh, you had this happen to you when you were a child, then you were exposed to this. Your mother acted this way, there was a meshment and triangulation, so then you went to these porn videos, so then you outlet it in these relationships. You start to see the whole process. And now it's not this big thing that makes no sense.
It's not like, oh, how did I get here? Why am I the way I am? Woe is me, I'm so bad. I'm fundamentally flawed. I've got something wrong with me.
It's like, it all starts to make sense. It's a big giant puzzle. So you're like, this isn't just like a confession and a dumping and a like torture session to get the truth out. It's a puzzle piece that you're piece by piece finally putting together so you can see your whole picture clearly. I always say that seeing clearly is healing clearly.
You can't heal if you can't see. You have to see what shaped you, what created you, so that you can go, oh, woah, I'm healing that. I'm creating a new pathway. I'm creating a new journey. I'm creating a new outcome that I'm moving into, that I'm creating with my spouse.
I know where I'm coming from and I know where I'm going to.
Brandon: One of the other signs that you can look for so that first one we just hammered home for like twenty minutes for you, which is the double life, and then why the double life exists. Another practical one when you're looking at your spouse and thinking like, are they being are they living an honest life? Is when there's massive amounts of screen time and we'll call it phone phone addiction or phone dependency or video games, screens. Sports. Sports.
When there's a life that's being lived vicariously through somebody else or with large amounts of entertainment and dissociation. So dissociation is essentially the means in which we try to separate from our, our, the real word world to attach to another one. So if you witness your spouse living the majority of their day on their phone, on social media, on all these things, then, you know, man, they're living, they're living this, this life that's that's separated from reality. The reason Caitlyn had an intuition or thoughts that like Brandon's doing stuff on his phone because I spent copious amounts on my phone. I actually chose my phone instead of her so many times.
And I was lying about being on my phone. A big one. I was lying about playing video games, but then that's like, okay, he's lying about video games, what else are you lying about?
Caitlyn: So So
Brandon: if you see your spouse, like need their phone to survive their life, then they have lost a grip on how to use their phone or their technology around them in a way that's constructive and advantageous to your relationship. So I would say, you know, you press the buttons a few times about like, so tell me like, what do you do on social media? What comes up for you? And then you wait for a response. It's like, Oh yeah, I am on my phone a lot.
I use it for work and I'm taking care of these things. Like, tell me more what you are. If that's not the response, if it's, what do you mean? Why am I on social media? Back off.
Oh, ding, ding, ding. There's more there. Whether it's a conversation with another woman, it's a porn site, it's some raunchy accounts they follow. It's something they've agreed to. Now that's a, that's a huge one.
I'm going go on this for a second is a lot of men, especially like we'll go for the spirit in the spiritual religious world. They commit to one thing. I said to Ken so many times, I won't get on my phone after you go to bed. And I got on my phone.
Caitlyn: Every night.
Brandon: I committed to the things that made her feel safe.
Caitlyn: True. Verbally
Brandon: commit. Verbally, verbally commit. The issue was once I broke that, I knew it was like kind of too late to then be honest. I'm like, I already messed it up. So I just, I got to keep messing it up.
And so a lot of people dig their dig their grave because, like, they they've committed. I won't go do these things. I won't do this. I won't do this. Now they've done so much of it.
The guilt and the shame has gotten so big. It's like, how would I tell her now?
Caitlyn: You know, they're saying, like, really nothing good happens past 10PM. I really think that really nothing good happens past, like, twenty, thirty minutes on social media. Like, what else do you need to do after twenty to thirty? Like, we work. Like, social media is that's how you're going to find this podcast.
That's how you find our events. That's how you find our community. That's how you watch our videos. That's how I share motherhood thoughts. So we're on there actually as creators, right?
Which anybody I used to tell Brandon this all the time. He hated it. He got defensive back before 2019. I said, if you're not creating on social media, get off social media. You're automatically a consumer.
You cannot be a creator and a consumer. How do you know if you're a creator or consumer? Look at your screen time. As creators on social media, our screen time on social media is like twenty to thirty minutes. I'm literally making posts on there, I'm posting stuff on my stories, I'm responding to your guys' messages, I'm interacting with people and I have a small amount of stories that I watch and that I engage with that are my real, real life friends, like real people that I connect with.
Right? I'm literally I'm not on there scrolling. I'm not on there just endlessly watching videos. My screen time is so small and you might be again, everyone always goes, well, that's so extreme. It's like, no.
It's a life giving place to me. It is not a dream to me. Nothing sexual is bombarding me there. Nothing negative is bombarding me there. Nothing outrageous isn't bombarding me there.
Like, it's literally a place for me to create and for me to connect. That's actually really the core beauty of what social media is. And once you cross over thirty minutes and you're getting to an hour, two hours on social media, it's really the same thing as staying up past. That's really like the same thing as staying up till 5AM. Like, you're just gonna find yourself doing things you don't wanna do on there because you've essentially lost control.
And this has this has everything to do with addiction and nothing to do with sexual addiction. Like, if you're a woman on there that's just we we interviewed a couple on on a podcast season three, and, know, the the most triggering part for them was when we said give up give up social media, give up consumption, because that was a hot topic for both of them. Even for the wife who was not acting out on sexual betrayal, because it's a form of dissociation, it's a form of addiction, it's a form of coping, and when you get into those lengthier times on social media, you are leaving, like Brandon said, the reality which you actually don't really like and escaping into one that you're pretending that you do like. Cut out all that extra time and figure out what in life you do love and figure out how to go do that instead. Right?
And I wanna piggyback off the lying concept. If you're lying how do you know your spouse is lying? If your spouse is lying about stupid things, like somebody else on season three podcast, this is how they knew their spouse was lying. Their spouse was like lying about what even was it? It was like, I don't even know.
It's normally like food related or video game related. I think it was like, oh, was just looking up. You guys will remember this if you listen to season three. He was looking up, like, what to do because he had, like, tailbone pain or something. Yeah.
Brandon: She Hemorrhoids or something.
Caitlyn: Yeah. And he he was supposed to always ask before he looked up something online. And she was, like, could see that he was looking up something, but he lied and said he hadn't gotten on his phone. He didn't even do anything inappropriate on his phone, but he was lying about that. Why?
I challenged them and said he was hiding and lying more. I said I told them, I said, if you're lying about stupid things, you're lying about bigger things. He said, no, he wasn't. He emailed later back after we did that podcast and said, I need to inform you that actually was lying about way more. He said, I even went and rewatched that podcast.
Can't believe I even said I wasn't lying about more. So if you're lying about stupid things, you're lying about bigger things. If your spouse is lying to you about stupid things like where they went, what they ate, what what video games, like I'm gonna out brand it on this story because it's funny. And this is this is before 2019. This is a video game story and this is how I knew he was lying to me more.
I had gone to a friend's wedding at the time. Again, we got married young, so we're still in that 19 year old phase. All our friends are still getting married from high school. I remember the first two years of our marriage went to a lot of weddings. I was in this wedding.
So as a bridesmaid, so I fly I flew it from Idaho to Oregon. Brandon stayed at home, and it was just a really quick trip. We didn't need to go together. He had communicated to me.
Brandon: We'd go together now. We'd go together now. Forget why we
Caitlyn: didn't. We were disconnected. We didn't really like each other. We were pretending we did. So he had communicated.
It was already like a set thing in our marriage that he did not play. He was not gonna play video games. Right? He was
Brandon: Not because mommy had mean rules. Akhil actually bought me an Xbox from my garage sale one time when we were We getting were married. It's because if I played video games, it was for hours and hours and hours, and it became something that took over my life. So I had again. I don't wanna play video games because it destroys me.
So it's not like Exactly. More video games. Like, we decided video games was not healthy for our relationship. Mind you, Caitlyn wasn't playing Candy Crush on her phone.
Caitlyn: Nope. I didn't play any video games. I have never played video games in my Go
Brandon: go ahead with
Caitlyn: that. Find it to be one of the most unattractive things a human could do. Like, if you guys are playing video games on your phone, stop.
Brandon: Stop it.
Caitlyn: Stop. So it's a mutual agreement. We neither of us are playing video games. And I go I'm I'm I'm staying with my family and going to the wedding. I come home and my dad's laying on the couch playing a video game on his phone.
And I'm like, who are you playing video games with? He's like, your husband? Maybe I didn't even ask. He probably said,
Brandon: hey, I'm playing video games with you, with Brandon.
Caitlyn: And like, oh, really? Video games. So I go to the back room and I I tell my dad the whole thing. Like, I'm just like, watch this. This gonna be hilarious.
I go hilarious and I'm angry, furious. I go to the back room. I call Brandon. Hey, babe. What you up to?
This is like classic like movie story, right? And he's just sitting there, oh, just laying, resting. I forget what he even said. Cleaning the
Brandon: house, think. Cleaning the
Caitlyn: Even better told me he was cleaning the house probably. I'm like, really? Flash the camera over to my dad. Cause my dad said you guys are playing video games together. Right?
So again, we end up going to counseling for this. And of course, and we get some sort of band aid answer and band aid fix. At that moment, I didn't know the gravity of what was going on, but I was like, well, if you're willing to lie, if you're willing to lie about something that stupid, like literally that stupid video game use, you are lying about much deeper and much profound things. So if you are trying to figure out if your spouse is still lying, still keeping secrets from you, if they're lying about stupid things, they're lying about big things.
Brandon: Which leads to a few other things that may be happening if your spouse is being dishonest, we wanted to, to give you guys in this episode is if there's a baseline disconnection in the relationship, then there there's something that's not known about each other. And that's kind of what we covered at the beginning. But if there's no connection, then there's no intimacy, then you don't know the soul of your partner. So if you're connected, if you're willing to like, say your spouse isn't willing to be intimate with you emotionally or sexually, spiritually, like if they want to keep you at a distance, it's just clear that there's parts of them that they're withholding from you. Another piece of that is them staying busy.
Yep. So that can look like working, volunteering, trying to avoid time with you, staying busy on their phones, staying busy.
Caitlyn: It can even be busy with good things. Yes. Church activities, community support, kids sports.
Brandon: Because if we can just be busy for the next decade, then I don't ever have to face all the mess I've been that I've created under the table. So staying busy is a strategy to to prevent having to face the reality, prevent you asking questions or getting curious like, oh, why is he acting funny? It's like, we're just so busy. We hardly see each other. So you get lost in the stories of your head and it's my strategy to stay so busy that why, how can you question me if I'm not even around you?
So that's another, very, very common thing. And I think that another one we give you is, so you've got no connection, the defensiveness, staying busy, and then blame. Blame's a huge one. So many times when Caitlyn would ask me questions, I'd blame her for being insecure. I actually forgot about that.
Like, no, baby, this is just like, you're kind of feeling insecure about this, but like, no, there's nothing here. This is about you needing to kind of heal from that back there. But what happened years ago, like, kind of like, stop asking me about that. You're, you're needing to take a look at you. Let's take the focus off of me.
Let's look at you and blame is such a, a powerful strategy because it, she probably, she did feel some insecurity. She's like, oh, you're right. Like maybe that's what it is. So it's that shift of focus. If I can blame you or it'd be like, Hey, you said you were going do this and then this, and I'm like, oh yeah, I was late because of this, this happened, this excuse it's excuses, it's blame.
It's it's the stories that take the responsibility off of you and it, it makes you feel silly for asking the question, but that's a sign that there's dishonesty when, when pressed blame comes out. Well, oh yeah, that was, I wasn't, I wasn't like talking to her for that long. She, it was somebody at work that talked to me and then she, she sat down and we ate lunch together. It's like, I didn't eat lunch with her. Like, wait, wait, what?
Like it was her. She messaged me. This website came up. I didn't go look at porn. Porn came to me.
I didn't do that. So they can lie to your face because they're blaming somebody else. So listen to that in the language of, I didn't do that. This happened to me. I didn't choose that.
I just happened it just happened to be there.
Caitlyn: Mhmm.
Brandon: These are victim words. These are things where everybody else is to blame. If they're blaming you and blaming others, they're lying. Mhmm. Pay attention.
Caitlyn: And even I wanna add this caveat because there's many layers to lying. And if your spouse has even done a polygraph, you've even done what you call a therapeutic disclosure, you've even done a time where you've shared what you say is the full truth. So let's just say you're in that situation, right, where it's like your spouse has actually shared the truth with you or what they're saying is the truth. If they're acting out in any of these ways, they did not share the full truth with you. Yeah.
Because dishonesty leads to disconnection. So if there is any sort of disconnection, if there's any of these signs, they're living a double life, they have copious amounts of screen time, they get super defensive, they start blaming you, they start shutting down, they're not curious, they're not open to looking at the whole process. They're not open to having conversations with you. I don't care if they did a polygraph. I don't care if they did a therapeutic disclosure.
I don't even care about those things. I don't think that those are necessary to your healing. I don't think that those are even fruitful or beneficial. Side note, I don't care if they told you that it's the full truth. You cannot be living in a reality where you've shared the full truth and still be acting out in defensiveness, still be like staring at your screen, still be blaming, still be disconnected.
If you've actually decided to open up and choose into intimacy, into me you see. Yes, you're still gonna be healing. You're not like perfect overnight. None of us are perfect overnight. Yet you're going to drop all of this.
Again, I know this because I experienced this.
Brandon: Yeah.
Caitlyn: Brandon went from shutting me down, blaming me, pointing the finger at everyone else, being defensive, being angry, avoiding conversations, trying to go to bed early, whatever the strategy was. He went from that to being eager, willing, and curious. And it was overnight because he decided, woah, I'm gonna stop telling myself stories. I'm gonna stop pretending. I'm gonna stop playing games.
And I'm actually finally for the first time gonna get radically honest.
Brandon: One more story from from our our Maui intensive we did last year was there was a gentleman there. This is so important when it comes to being honest is he was broken Mhmm. From all of his lies. So he was weeping and discovering these multiple affairs he had already shared, and then he was remembering the details of more, but he was broken, weeping. It's unclear if their marriage was even going to stay together, but he was so distraught by his own actions that it broke him.
He finally saw the house of cards finally fell down. If your spouse has been caught lying and you haven't seen them break, then they actually haven't let the entire system that allows them to continue lying get removed. Yeah. So these layers of lying, like if one lie has been discovered, that tip of the iceberg, until they've actually like seen that this has destroyed their life and destroyed their relationship, they still haven't got it out. They still haven't come clean to themselves and come clean to you because somebody that realizes that their entire life is a lie is a little unwell with that.
Is willing to weep, is willing to break, is willing to make this their sole focus, blames nobody else. They might not have every answer, but they like, I want to know. That curiosity, it's like when I realized how dishonest my entire life was, it was like, it broke me. Like I, I, I cried. I sat with myself.
I journaled. I made this my focus. So if you got caught lying now you're trying to prove to your wife that things are good, they aren't good. Because until you break, things aren't good.
Caitlyn: Mhmm. Yeah. Wanna share one last story on connection because it just came up last night actually. And I think it's so pertinent because culture has really set the bar so low for what you can create in your marriage, for connection in your marriage. Right?
And there's this couple, they're actually quite famous, and they released a book together, and they had gone through betrayal, with affairs and made it to what they consider the other side. You know, it's just a short little clip of the the wife, you know, doing her self care, which included her glass of wine, a laptop that she's watching something on, and a giant big screen TV that she's watching something on. Right? And then the only self care piece in my opinion was the red light that was on her back. And so many things that I saw in this video that I was like, woah.
Like, this is what a healthy connected marriage is is for people. The red flags were first of all, they're in completely separate spaces. He came when he was videoing from a downstairs area. They're actually disconnected. They are not connected in the same room, in the same place.
If you came over to our house at any time, please don't, but if you came over to our house at any time and our kids are in bed, you don't find Brandon and I in opposite spaces of the house. You don't find Brandon doing one thing with like three different screens and me taking my self care time way over here in this separate area. Like that is not a connected union. If you're not so excited to see your spouse, connect with your spouse, look in their eyes, have a conversation, you have some room to grow and develop and that's exciting.
Brandon: Yeah.
Caitlyn: That's so amazing. Like how amazing that we actually get to love the one we united our soul with. Like, isn't that incredible? That's not bad news. If you're calling connection, we do our our separate lives in separate rooms and we are like looking at 14 different screens.
Like that's not self care. Right. That's not connection. That's not union in your marriage. That's not intimacy.
That's just maybe you heal from something yet you're not in love. You're not best friends and there's even more connecting to go. The dishonesty leads to the disconnection, but there's so much connection that can be created. So much joy, so much life, so much vibrancy, so much health that can be created when you first decide you're not gonna lie, you're gonna be fully honest, you're gonna track through and make it to the other side. And the other side you guys is so good, it's not that.
It's not that I watch 14 different things or it's not that I have my laptop open and my screen open, you guys already know I don't have a TV. It's not that we're in separate rooms. It's that we love each other. Yeah. It's that we love being together.
It's that every moment we enjoy as a family, as a couple, with our community outside, like life is so so good. You don't have to stop at good enough. The bar is not low and it's not because we're gonna climb the ladder. It's because we believe in something so good
Brandon: Yeah.
Caitlyn: That we're gonna keep going till it actually feels so good in every aspect of our life.
Brandon: So good. If you're a couple that's like, we're ready, ready to kind of break through the barriers right now. We're just a couple of weeks away from our two week or two day, you can come two weeks, our two day workshop in San Diego, it's August fourteenth and fifteenth. You can see right below here how you can sign up. You can sign up virtually or come and be in person with us there. There's still tickets left. So make sure to check if the page is active, there are tickets available.
You can also, if you need support today, don't wanna wait all the way to August. You can also apply to be a part of our couples community where we do weekly coaching. We have our grounded intimacy program, all the step by step work that we talk about in the podcast.
If you're looking to take a step further, you can see that in the show notes. We'd be honored to walk with you in that capacity. And we look forward to seeing you next week for our season finale for season four. Thanks so much
Caitlyn: And your book.
Brandon: Oh, I also wrote a book.
Caitlyn: No big deal.
Brandon: Yep. sevenstepsbook.com. We're gonna be doing a big launch for the book.
Caitlyn: Mhmm. Should be out very soon by the time this releases.
Brandon: Yep. You can get all the details at sevenstepsbook.com or take a look at the show notes. Look forward to sharing that with you guys.