Katie: It's just been sixteen years of it. We've done couples counseling. We've done individual counseling, 12 step group. I was part of a betrayal trauma group. It feels like we have just like dug, tried to dig deep, but we just quite can't get there.
Dave: We're at a point where something has to change. We've been, it just seems to be getting worse and worse, just the pain and our arguments and the way we interact with each other. The pain seems to get worse as time goes by here. So average set of place where we need guidance. We need somebody who's been through been through this to give us some light in the dark.
Brandon: I want to welcome you guys back to the Grounded Union podcast. We have another courageous couple that is going to be talking with us today. Katie and Dave, thank you so much for joining us. Our heart in this episode and then in season three is to be able to have real conversations with real couples working through real stuff just like you are as as a listener. And so our heart in this episode is to dive into Katie and Dave's story and see how we can support them.
And feel free to take any of the the tidbits or the insights from what we shared into your story. So Katie and Dave, thank you so much for for joining us.
Dave: Yeah. Thank you guys for having us.
Brandon: What is top, we'll say it's not top of mind, but what brings you here? Where's the pain? Where are you guys at in your relationship right now?
Katie: Do you want to start? I think we're just kind of feeling like we're kind of like in a season of like hitting a, I don't know if it's a breaking point of just like right at that cusp of the mountain and can we do it? And just like a desperate desire to break free from the cycle that we have felt stuck in for like a long time, like sixteen years.
Dave: It's been part of my life, whole life. So something I've struggled to break free from and tried and tried my whole life. And now obviously it's in our marriage and yeah like Katie said we're at a point where something something has to change. Like yeah. We've been it just seems to be getting worse and worse.
Like just not just the pain and our arguments and the way we interact with each other. The pain seems to get worse as time goes by here. So average at a place where we need we need some guidance. We need somebody who's been through, been through this to give us some light in the dark.
Brandon: Yeah. What's, where is the pain stemming from? Or what's the thing that you said that that's entered into the relationship? What are you referring to?
Dave: Pornography addiction. I mean, that's the main sort of outward expression of my character defects as it were. I am in a 12 step group, celebrate recovery. I don't know if I'm allowed to Yeah. Say.
Brandon: That's great. Mhmm. Yep. Yeah.
Dave: So I've been going to that for two years. I'm in a step study with them where we're going as a group of guys, we're going through a going through all the steps together. So I'm working through that. But yeah, it's just been, I'm discovering so many, so many character defects in myself. It's just, it's overwhelming and it's, yeah, it's overwhelming both of us.
Katie: Yeah, I think like, obviously I had no idea going into marriage that any of this existed until about four months in. And then it just started that cycle of like, I didn't know how to deal with it because I didn't even know existed. It's just been like sixteen years of it. We've like, like I said, we've done, like, we've done couples counseling. We've done individual counseling 12 step group.
I was part of a betrayal trauma group. It just, yeah, it feels like we have just like dug, tried to dig deep, but we just quite can't get there.
Caitlyn: And so then the pornography addiction you've stated that has outdated the marriage, right? And we'll circle back to when that started. So that's outdated the marriage, came into marriage, and that is still continuing on. Just wanna make sure I grasp the whole story. That's still a significant, we'll call it, like, burden that you face each day.
Is that correct?
Katie: Yeah. Okay.
Brandon: I had one follow-up. As far as, like, I'm I'm weary to, like, say sobriety dates because it can create, like, a very confusing, like, false sense of, like, we're free now. But as far as the use of pornography, we'll just refer to hardcore pornography at this point. When was the last date of use?
Dave: I think it was about two months ago now.
Brandon: Two months ago. Okay. So within the 12 step groups and all the work, there's still been I'm going to use we'll use addiction language, even though we're not big on this. What this conversation is going to be is a lot about plucking you out of the boxes you feel like you're in. Like, we've got Dave.
He's in addiction recovery. Dave is in this cycle. Dave is edging. Dave is relapsing. We'll just use some of the language, but then we're gonna pluck you out of that box.
And then, Katie, we're gonna I think, I don't know why this is the phrase, but I want you to like turn up your pain, frustration, what's the word, fed upness. Not with Dave, like you love Dave, you guys are sitting shoulder to shoulder, it's clear you guys love each other, we're done with the cycle. Like, you guys Sixteen hours long. Feel like, I'm sure they're sure there's heated conversations. But right now, you both I see it in your eyes.
You're done with the cycle. You're not done with each other. But if you can't get out of this roller coaster, one of you both of gonna die from throwing up so much, this doesn't doesn't work.
Katie: Yep. That's exactly where we're at. We're just like, we want the same goal when we're in, like, those moments of clarity. We both want it to succeed, but then it just like, the pain and the trust and everything just Right.
Brandon: Yeah.
Caitlyn: You've been kinda looping on the same thing for sixteen years now, which is a really long time to keep looping on everything. And I wanna get a little bit more foundation to understand the story. How much of the podcast or our community, like, how much of that do you understand kind of about what we walk people through? Have you guys listened to the podcast and then are you in the community?
Dave: Oh, okay. Yeah. Katie first suggested the podcast to me a few months ago, and I've listened to the entire first season and I kind of started over at the beginning again because like I can't move on until I start absorbing some of this because there was just so much. Pretty dense. So I binged it over the course of like two weeks.
Katie: Okay, wow.
Dave: And so that's kind of my, that's where I'm at with it. Okay.
Katie: Yeah. For me, like when I found your podcast, felt like a breath of fresh air. Like it was the first time that I felt like my side of the story felt validated because so much of our journey has felt like it's on Dave's addiction and Dave's pain from that and not being able to do certain things and I, and to mold me to be something different so that he could do that. And it just, it, there was so much that I resonated with in your story and just like this desire to write our own story because we have done everything. I think that we have taken stuff at it.
Like if we go to a psychiatrist and they say, you should do this, then we do that. And it's like, hey, this still isn't working. And it just like, I realized that that it's not going to work because it is so complex and it is our own story. And we are the biggest advocates for it. And I'm just, yeah, I'm tired of just like doing the same thing.
I just Yep. Yeah. What? Yep. Something different?
And that felt, like, the first time in years that I felt something different listening to your podcast. Yeah.
Caitlyn: Yeah. It's kind of the the classic journey we always explain where it's like, you've genuinely given it your all. Like, both of you have probably given it sixteen years of effort. Right? And here we are still talking through kind of how to move into a whole new season because you're cycling on this same roller coaster.
Right? And so I just always like to make sure that there's a a foundational understanding of what we're kinda gonna take or walk you through. I always like to start, and you maybe have something you wanna say too. I always like to start with going back to since we're talking about pornography here, and you know this you guys know this having listened to our podcast, and you all who are listening to season three, hopefully have listened to the first two seasons as well, you know that we do not associate with the belief system that we're only tackling the pornography here. Right?
The pornography, it's like, I literally like to reference nature in a lot of things. It's almost like we're looking at a weed. Right? And so it's like the top of the here we have the soil, and the top of what's sprouting up is the pornography. And underneath is actually the root cause of what's going on.
And it sounds like for sixteen years, you're just plucking the same top of the weed, and you're not actually getting below the surface. So we all know this, what happens if we pluck the top of the weed? We can't get to the root of what's actually underneath there. Right? So then, a little bit of water, a little bit of sun, and the weed grows back up.
And so as much as I think that pornography needs to go in people's life, it's not really the main thing looking for. I'm looking for what's beneath the surface. Because once you get that, you don't have to worry about feeling tempted about pornography any day. They like, I'm here to say, because I remember many counseling sessions where we sat down and the person's like, they would have looked at someone like you and gone, okay, you know what? Just some men like you struggle with this for the rest of your life.
Just keep praying harder, keep battling, keep trying to read all of the books. But essentially, what I'm saying is there's fundamentally, with something wrong with you from birth, none of any of that makes absolutely any sense. And so what we're here to say is there will be a day that you live not even thinking about pornography. It's not even gonna be like, oh, I'm tempted, you know, because there's this one train of thought that's like, okay, you're tempted to look at pornography but you don't, then you're victorious. And it's like, does that really sound very victorious?
Like, do you actually wanna live like that? No. You don't wanna live like that. You that's just another layer of bondage. Right?
Where you're still bound to the belief system that that has power over you. Our core message is that you can break free from all of the power that that has over you to where it's not an urge, a temptation, a desire, a pull, any of those words we wanna throw in, where you are completely free, able to enjoy the bliss and beauty and connection of your union. And so I always like to take it way way way way back to the beginning. So when do you remember first having an exposure to a sexual experience? That could be a in person relational, like, body to body experience, or this could be exposed to an image, photo, video, that kind of
Katie: a thing.
Dave: Yeah, that's definitely something I've been digging up. And it's only something you learned about somewhat recently that I mentioned it. I was sexually molested. I think I was eight, seven or eight by a neighborhood kid who's boy who's about 12. He's older than me.
And it's something I just, I shut down. I never told anybody, didn't tell my parents. I don't know if he told me not to tell anybody or if that was just something I just knew this was wrong. And I just tried to bury it in my mind, in my life. And yeah, that's what I've done up until a few years ago.
I just kind of thought, well, you know, it was when I was a kid, sort of forget about it. But as I'm digging through all this stuff, I'm realizing it probably is one of the most profound influences on what I would call my shame identity, which I've never, outside of one moment a couple of years ago, I've never dissociated shame and guilt. They've just been equals in my mind. They were the same thing that guilt equals shame. Yeah.
Yeah. So that would be the first memory that I have of any kind of like sexual exposure like that. But there are other like pornographic exposures as in addition to that too around those years.
Katie: Mhmm.
Brandon: I wanted to you said it felt like thank you for sharing that. And I don't even know how to, like it's more like, obviously, words never it's like when you talk to somebody that's either had a loss or experienced abuse. I don't I there's no words I could offer that would fill the void from what was taken from you, Dave, in that experience. It's devastating.
I I have an eight year old. It's like, in your state of innocence, that was taken from you. And it sounds like even though the the memory is unclear if he that your we'll call it your abuser told you not to tell somebody or not, it seems like you knew that. So it probably he probably did tell you that.
Mhmm. We we have no idea. But I just find that that's such a like you said, you've already kind of started digging that up to realize like, wow. There is something just fundamentally off with me because of this experience I had that was done to me that maybe it it potentially felt good, maybe it was painful, but it just basically marked that sexuality is outside of my control and it's bad. And this is like, it associates pain, but it also, there's still pleasure involved with any sexual experience we have because of the way we experience pleasure in our bodies.
What I wanted to do, I wanted to explore the story more, you're really good at that. I wanted to talk about like cause we talk about porn a lot, and I think in our modern world, some people think porn's not a big deal. Why does everybody care? Like, we watch porn together. Like, who cares?
So I wanna more speak to cause we have a very broad audience of people listening that think porn isn't a big deal or people that are like, no, of course, porn hurts. I wanna kind of identify, like, why does porn hurt? Or why do we think porn lessens our experience of sexual intimacy and safety in the marriage? I wanna speak primarily to the person using the porn first. So, Dave, in this instance, it was you.
And then, Katie, I wanna speak to, what what it signifies for you as as the person that finds out. I think what porn why porn hurts is, for you, Dave, specifically, I I haven't met anyone that basically pursues porn out of a place of, like, clear identity and, like, a full cup. Like, they feel, like, really full in who they are. They know who they are, and life's going great. I had a wonderful day.
Therefore, I end the day with porn. It's actually stemming from anxiety, trying to regulate emotionally, feeling depressed, feeling lonely, feeling angry, bored. All these things are actually the primary reasons we pursue porn, or seeking affirmation, seeking affection. If you're not receiving affirmation from your relationship, then you go to porn because there's somebody that's naked and smiling at you, and that's not happening in your relationship. So that's why but that system and this is what most people don't touch on, which I really like to make this clear I don't think I think there's a lot of reasons porn is hurtful because one, you know, there's all the abuse, it's not your spouse, it's all these all the implications it does to your mind and distortion.
All of that is true. As a man seeking porn, when you, what's it called, extend your sexual energy to somebody that doesn't reciprocate it to you, it basically takes away all of your strength, makes you a very weak person because you're giving out this sexual expression to something on a screen, but it never gets reciprocated back. And so it creates this the feedback loop actually, like, falls flat and flat. So then you feel ashamed, then you feel weak, then you feel like a loser, and then it perpetuates. Katie, porn hurts, and I'm I'm just going to generalize.
You you probably have specific reasons for why porn hurts for you. For most women, if their spouse, if their husband's using porn, it brings up insecurities. Of course, why is my husband getting aroused looking at other men, women's bodies, and mine not being good enough? It's also a it's a betrayal of the safety and the trust of what you how you guys have committed to using your sexuality. It brings up all these questions, all this debris, all this junk that's like, why am I not enough?
Is is the primary thing. And a lot of confusion like, why didn't you come to me with what you were feeling? Why didn't you come to me with your sexual desire? Why was I not enough? So I think that's why porn, porn hurts.
And I think why porn is used or sought after is just to feel something. So if, if, if you are not feeling, you're feeling depressed, if you're feeling stuck in life, if work's not going well, if your kids are frustrated, whatever is going off, it's like, you know if you go to porn, you'll feel something. It will take the ache of the aching feeling in your body to feel something different. Now you just feel pits in your stomach because you did it again. The reason I give all of that context is I think, like Caitlyn said, it's not about the porn.
The porn does matter because it wounds you and it wounds your spouse. Dave, I wanna know why you don't love your life. This is like a rhetorical question, but you can answer it too. Why have you tolerated a life that you do not love? And what I would say with that is, where is your pain?
Like, what are you running from? And are you willing to face, like, that person? Like, who you are that you don't like? The feelings you're afraid of feeling. Because if you're willing to face that, then we never need porn again.
And you're gonna be empowered to face all the the repercussions and the pain that Katie has been through because you're willing to step into that new identity. So what what's the pain that you're running from, Dave?
Dave: Well, you actually kind of mentioned it earlier. You mentioned, I think you said like a general dissatisfaction with who I am. And I have kind of always known. I haven't always been able to put words to it, but I've I've always not known. That's not good language, but I've felt that I I've always felt that I'm defective in some way.
That there's something something wrong with me. I always felt like it could not be good enough. I grew up in a legalistic church and I think there were a lot of rules around that. I felt like I was going to hell, like, and there was nothing I could do to keep myself from going there. I just couldn't do all the right things.
I was always making mistakes and yeah, it was just a a shame identity and that I felt like I was fun. There was something fundamentally wrong with me at my core. And I've I've been trying to figure out what that is and yeah, that's been part of my journey lately. I mean, I've been trying for years, but digging deeper and deeper as I go, trying to find out what the source of that is. Where did that come from?
It could be that sexual abuse I that happened to me when I was eight, seven or eight. I could have been the start of it. And maybe just other things being exposed to pornography since then. And just family dynamics, you know, I think I've, I don't know if this relates to the question, but I have always, I can, from my earliest memories, before I even understood what sex was or knew anything about it, I had sexual desires. I remember six, seven, eight years old, feeling sexual desires in my body, and I don't know why.
Brandon: Well, that's good. That's good. That's none of those things are bad. That's actually Kaitlyn's got something really good. I just wanna say that that actually is the we'll call it the construct of religion.
I'm not saying Jesus. I'm not so anybody that's listening that's under that, I'm not you from a young age thought that your sexuality was evil. Instead of being like, yes, I'm gonna harness it. You probably were and you were exposed to a ton of stuff. You were abused.
Like, of course, it's it's being distorted, but you are not evil. And so what I would say is become more sexual in the sense of actually knowing what sexuality feels like in your body. And, like, not just, like, the story of sexuality, but the feeling of it, and it will never lead you somewhere outside of Katie. Like, it won't lead you to, like, looking at the woman down the street to to fantasizing about your neighbor. Like, it literally will just if you go into what does feeling sexual feel like, it's relate sex sex is relational.
It's not conceptual. It's it's literally like an actual relating activity we do within the confines of of marriage union, which is what we've chosen to do, because it creates that synergy that's safe and and and protected. So I would say sec your sexual even that narrative was like, oh, it was so bad. It's like, no. It's just like it just didn't have the right parameters for me for whatever reason.
Caitlyn: Mhmm. Yeah. Have a couple areas I wanna go, and I wanted to add to that that you're just bringing up here, is that you you can remember, you know, predating, you know, before even the abuse, feeling sexual feelings in your body. Maybe even not knowing if that was good or bad. Something I always like to bring awareness to, which you can sit on as you reflect your story more, is what was your your did you have mom and dad in the house raising you?
Dave: Yes. Yeah. Until I was 16. Yeah.
Caitlyn: Okay. And so one thing I always like to bring awareness to that you can reflect on even as this as this episode finishes, is you may or may not know the sexual energy that your father and even mother were actually bringing into the home. So possibly you do or don't know this. It's possible that your own father or mother or both was addicted to pornography or some form of sexual. They could have had experience of being exposed to something sexual, brought that into the home, and then been engaging.
Because that's a real actual energy. That's why your guys' people wanna be like, oh, that doesn't make a lot of sense. It's like, well, why is your marriage crumbling? Because the energy that you're bringing in with pornography is a felt energy that nobody like, it's like kinda like what's that saying? Where there's like something in the room and you can't like, nobody can see past it.
Can't The elephant. It's the elephant in the room. Right? It's like, it's obvious that there's something going on here. So if you were six, seven, eight, even before you were, you know, molested and abused, there was possibly sexual energy, the elephant in the room that you were feeling.
And did you, at that age, have your dad sit down and have a really healthy, wholesome, enlightening conversation about your sexuality? I love adding in all the words. Always, you guys can't see them. They're laughing. Because the more you add in those words, the more people laugh because they're like, wait, I'll let you answer.
But did your parents, your father specifically, sit you down to have any sort of conversations that felt really edifying?
Dave: Never.
Caitlyn: Never. Right. The answer is sadly always, almost never. So potentially, this negative sexual energy is coming into the home. No one your parents are not sitting down to have this conversation.
Why aren't they sitting down? Because they most likely have not cleared and cleaned that within their own souls. How can they walk you through what they haven't walked through themselves? So then you're left feeling that energy in the home. You have no idea if that's good or bad because no one sat you down to talk to you.
You're an innocent soul. You don't know you're six years old. Like, brain is not even slightly close to fully developed. And then so then we tackle on, which again, do you know if your dad struggled? I'll just ask.
Do you know if your dad struggled with any pornography addiction? Did he have affairs, that kind of a thing?
Dave: Yes. Okay. He's one of my earliest exposures was in a movie that he put on. It wasn't a pornographic movie, but there was nudity in it. Nothing was said.
And that is what ended my parents' marriage was an affair.
Caitlyn: Okay. Okay. Okay. I was sensing that even just through the conversation. So I just wanted to confirm it to confirm my thesis.
So what's happening here is that's the energy your dad's bringing into the home. So you're now from a very little age actually feeling, I'm really really glad that you yourself identified and said that you've always felt like there was a defect. Right? Because I had written down one of the first things you said was you used the phrase two times, character defect. And I wrote it down because I wanted to note it to circle back to it, because I love paying attention to people's language, because it reveals a lot about the heart.
We wanna hide a lot, and we can't. It comes out through our words. And I think that this is really, really key here. And I also wanted to note that you had said that it seems like it's a recent realization and maybe even bringing to Katie the incident with the abuse. Is that right?
Like, your your body has recently allowed you to see that memory again. Is that accurate?
Dave: Yeah. Yeah. It's something that I've, every once in a while would pop up, but yeah, I would just squish it back down, but this most recent one, which was probably a couple of years ago now. Yeah. I actually put words to it to somebody else for the very first time ever.
Caitlyn: So it's just recently that you begin to link those things. So as I'm hearing your story, I'm piecing it together like a puzzle in my own head. There's a lot more puzzle pieces you'll be invited by your own soul to fill in even after this call ends. And that's your dad's bringing in this section. And this is no shame to your father.
This is we always like to say, we look at our childhood with honesty and honor. So we can honor your family of origin while still being radically honest, because that's where your healing is. And so we're looking at it honestly where your dad, maybe even your mom, is bringing in this somewhat dark sexual energy. Right? Because this energy, like Brandon's saying, where we're we're giving away our sexual energy and it's not being reciprocated, is making your dad lose all of his power.
Right? So you're living in a sexually powerless home with some sexually dark energy. Now, you're feeling that as a six year old and almost putting that onto yourself, which is what children will do. That's why they say children actually that were abused will automatically feel like they did something wrong. Because there's an in built loyalty to the to the people that we love, to people that are older than us.
So automatically, you're already receiving that narrative from a really young child of, this means something is wrong with me to my core. And so how old are you, Dave?
Dave: 46.
Caitlyn: 46. Great. This makes it really simple math for me. So for forty years now, you've actually believed that there's something wrong with you. Four decades of believing you have a character defect is a really long time.
And you probably know this, and I love just saying simple things out loud. But if you believe something's wrong with you, then it's really easy to continue doing wrong things. Right? If you actually believe the truth about yourself, all of those wrong things, I use air quotes because I it's just like, these that's the perception of how you view things. All of these actions that are counterfeit actions, they lose all of their power source
Brandon: Yeah.
Caitlyn: When you understand how valuable you are to your core. And so for sixteen years, you've tried I'm not there's nothing against the 12 step framework. I think that's incredible. Keep doing it. And for sixteen years, you tried to put a lot of band aids on things.
Right? You've tried a lot of tools, tried a lot of this and that, and it's like, this is inner core work that is not a tool. It's all of what we teach is looking it's looking at your sexual story. So it sounds like you were, you had that incident at eight, and then walk me through the next couple of incidences that you remember being exposed. And then walk us through when you remember, when you can remember feeling like your addiction, as we call it, started.
And I when I'm when I say addiction, I mean when you trained yourself to compulsively always look at porn or whatever it may be it was.
Dave: Yeah. I mean, this this could get real. So my first memories of exposure, one, like very negative. They were very negative. And to circle back too to my my abuse there, I don't remember feeling any pleasure in that.
It was it was just awful all the way all the way around. I did not enjoy it whatsoever. There was no like, oh, maybe was it good, was it bad? And it was all bad. And then my first exposure to pornography was a friend of mine.
We just ended up at his uncle's house for some reason. It was just him and I were waiting for my parents to pick us up. And he just grabbed this VHS tape, put it in, and it was just hardcore pornography, like right from the get go. And I couldn't understand what was happening, but I just felt this sense of dread come over me. And for years after that, every time I would think about that incident, the same dread would just come over me.
Just darkness would come over my whole body. And I would just try and forget about it similar to the, the molestation. And then again, there was that one scene in the movie that my dad had put on. It was just him and I, and there was just one scene with nudity in it. And I just sort of felt that same feeling come over me.
Like this is weird and wrong and nothing was said. We just kept watching the movie and never addressed it. It just was, it sat so wrong with me and it was just very awkward and weird. And then there's in my memory, there seems to be a gap between when sexual things caused me dread and maybe it's just puberty, I don't know, but when they started to turn good feelings and desirous things I wanted, I had bad influences as friends, you know, we would always look for that kind of thing and see if we could find pornographic materials and go to the store and try and buy some or whatever, that kind of thing. And I think it was, I always wanted it from that point on.
Caitlyn: Walk me through the ages a little bit here of the uncle.
Dave: 12 to 14 sort of puberty age for me that it turned, turned that corner into dread. You still dread with it, but to actually enjoying it. It was, I think it was probably 13 or 14 when I, when I discovered masturbation is when that cemented it. Was just like, that was it. It was my escape for everything.
And on you know, any kind of negative emotion in the household, anything in my personal life going on, it was just like I had that place I could go to, like you said earlier, to soothe my emotions, comfort myself, whatever it was to get out of my family's kind of tumultuous emotional environment. I could run there and escape.
Brandon: Yeah. Mhmm. I wanted to switch to Katie for just a second. So put a remember where we're at here. Katie, as we're talking through this, I can tell you're feeling a lot.
I wanted to just pause, and I wanted to acknowledge one thing, and I wanted to ask you a couple questions. What is it like hearing Dave talk about this again? Because it sounds like you've talked about this stuff. This isn't new subject matter. It kind of feels like we're going through the merry-go-round.
What are what is your soul crying out for right now? And then, as Katie talks right now, I want you to actually there's so you might already feel the dread drop onto your body right now. As Katie speaks to what her heart cry is, remove the feeling of shame of, I'm so bad. I did this to her. You will not help her heal from that place.
I want you to say I want you to basically posture yourself here as, like, I'm curious to know what the cry of Katie's heart is, and just kinda allow yourself to feel like I've been saying this a lot recently, but picture that you are the only person on the planet that can be the healing agent Katie needs. And you just found out you got the call, and I can be that healing person. And now your job to do that is to heal or is to listen and engage with curiosity. So I'm not gonna have you, like, ask her a bunch of questions right now, but more just that's your heart posture. Shame isn't gonna help you do that, that curious desire of understanding where she's at having gone through this roller coaster.
So Katie, what's the cry of your heart right now?
Katie: I like it's so convoluted. Like when we talk about the pornography, I think it has transcended for so many years that doesn't even feel like where the hurt is for me anymore. It's just like when the shame spiral happens and I often feel like the finger gets pointed at me if I like, well, if I was more inviting for him to share, or if my pain wasn't so big, then maybe he'd be able to care more. And there's a lot of resentment and a lot of frustration. And it's confusing as the person that's like, well, I didn't actually choose this as my story.
I'm just having to walk it. And I think like the hardest part for me right now is just feeling the weight of all the shame and the lies and the deception and just having this, like, I have this like an eight bit desire to just like, can we just put it all on the table? Cause it's like trickle effect of it just like continually hitting me. And then I'm having to like heal on my own what it feels like. And I've just, I don't think I've ever gotten the truth about anything about his accountability, like especially accountability.
I think that's like the hardest part for me is just
Brandon: What is that specifically? What do you mean by the accountability?
Katie: Well, just taking responsibility for his actions when it does happen that oftentimes the shame gets so big that it becomes, it moves past the stage of talking about what happened and it just makes a mess of everything. So then it just makes the marriage feel like the problem and how I don't listen is the problem or it just culminates into something so much bigger that we can't even tackle.
Brandon: Yeah. Yeah.
Katie: So
Brandon: basically the shame spiral of Dave feeling we'll just I will say it bluntly. Kinda Dave feeling sorry for himself. Mhmm. He doesn't actually have strength. He doesn't have
Caitlyn: Self loathing.
Brandon: Like that. Self loathing. Then Katie's like, wait a second. I'm supposed where how are we not able to focus on what I'm feeling from this? And now we're fighting and we're not even talking about what happens.
Katie: How we can get
Brandon: through You also said that it felt like there's still kind of the lying and deception piece. Does it feel like you haven't gotten the full picture yet of what what's transpired before and during your relationship? Is that an element of it?
Katie: Well, I know it now, like as of a few months ago, he did say, and he said he wasn't even aware of it, but there has been stuff that has been withheld that we're working towards discussing. But even in day to day stuff, there's still like just partial honesty. And I know that there's stuff being withheld for me, like I can see it and I pointed and he's just, it's just like the brutal honesty part is not there.
Brandon: And I'm
Katie: a very trustworthy person. And I think that's maybe why I have stayed in it for so long because I see the good in him and I see his heart and I see what he wants and I see him fighting, it's just like, I've been devastated by just feeling like I can trust again, only to find out that we never actually got to the bottom Yeah, of exactly.
Brandon: One last clarifying question, and then, Katie, did you say so you said Dave told you there are things he wants to disclose to you that he has not yet. Is that what you said? So we've got there's like
Caitlyn: So you know there's stuff there, you just don't know all of it. And Dave, is that because you don't feel like you know all of it or you just haven't been ready to share all of it?
Dave: Probably the latter. We haven't been through like a formal disclosure process. So it's been what kind of, again, like sort of addiction terms and recovery terms. It's like a staggered disclosures it's more discovery on her part rather than disclosure on my part. So she'll find something.
Caitlyn: Gotcha.
Dave: And I'll be, yeah, I've just recently discovered how fun, how dishonest I am. I just, I lie about everything. I'm just covering up and covering up and covering up and all. It was just a childhood thing I did to try and save myself from pain is to lie. Just hitting myself, hitting me how dishonest I've been and Katie sort of alluded to it as well.
It's maybe less about the pornography and more about just my lack of honesty. And yeah.
Brandon: Dave, do you want to see your own story and actions? Like, say with it for a sec. Do you want to see because you'll have to see it first before you can disclose it to Katie. Are you prepared to see your own life with clarity?
Dave: I think I am. I mean, I I'm that's what I'm striving for. Like, with this the steps that I'm going through in my recovery group, like right, even right now, we're going through the spiritual inventory and it is like, I did one a couple of years ago and I'm kind of going through it again right now. It, I mean, that's my goal. That's what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to see it all with clarity.
Brandon: Yeah. I'm more more of like, so like, because there are things you can't see right now. Yeah. So what I would say is this is like a very common theme.
This is not performance. So it's not like I think I can do this or I think I want to. It's more of like
Katie: Do you want to?
Dave: Do you
Brandon: want to be, like, brutally awakened to everything you've ever done? And you don't have to I don't need you to even have the answer to how. We'll we'll give that. I just wanna know if you actually want to see everything. Because Prescribe, it will allow you to see everything, but it's scary because you'll see it.
I just wanna know, if there's this a switch on the wall and you could turn it on and see everything you've ever done, do you wanna see it?
Dave: I'm terrified. Good.
Katie: That's an honest answer.
Brandon: Okay. Yeah. I like that. Yeah.
Caitlyn: Yes. And I'm terrible.
Katie: From my side, it's like, I think just after everything and being the encourager and sitting in and trusting again, I think I've just hit that point of like, it's either that happens or I can't keep doing the merry-go-round because I'm
Caitlyn: Exactly, because also I always like to say this, it's like, it's either that or there's no intimacy. Because intimacy, you guys have heard this because you listen to the podcast, is into me you see. Right? And so Katie can't see into you. Right now, you're actually trying not to even see into yourself.
And so this is why we always talk about, like, with denial, you lied first to yourself. So that's why you have to want to see it yourself. Because she's gonna keep catching you, you know that. You've done sixteen years of this. Right?
This is not very much fun, is it? It's not. People are always like, oh, it's so extreme what you recommend that you we share everything with each other. And it's like, can you guys say that does sixteen years of what you're going through feel pretty extreme?
Katie: Feels insane.
Caitlyn: It feels insane. Right? And it's probably gonna end in divorce if it doesn't get cleaned up. Right? That's where it is.
And so is it actually, I love bringing it back to the practicals to reality. Is it actually that extreme to suggest that if you wanted to see it clearly, to bring it all I like it's Katie. You said put it all on the table. You wanted to see it clearly and put it all on the table. I love that visual.
Is it extreme to suggest that then, on the other side of that, you genuinely love each other, have true intimacy. Into me, you see. Wake up every day in love, satisfied, excited to see each other without any of the shadows or the pain or the darkness. It's like, when the more I talk about it, the less extreme this route gets. Right?
The reason why it sounds extreme is because that's our denial structure in our head trying to go alert, alert, alert, freedom's over there. Yet, the path to it is that terrifying forest of all the truth that I've tried to hide and run from. So to get to that other side of freedom, you actually have to walk through the terrifying forest. Right? Now, people are like, Caitlyn, you're insane.
How could you recommend that they walk through the terrifying forest to get to the freedom? It's like, the other route over here is live in a perpetual state of hell, where you constantly don't like each other, you don't like yourself, you don't like your life, and there's no goodness on the other side. Right? I can't there's nothing you're going there's nothing you're going through and out of. Where this one, it's terrifying, yet enlightening, yet leads to freedom and wholeness and beauty.
It's like, it is so clear and evident which path makes true logical sense, and emotional clarity and sense is even brought through that. And I think here, I think that the key points here, if I'm gonna just lay it out on a practical, and then I'm always good at bringing in a practical, and then Brandon's gonna have a lot of other really great things to say, is your healing journey is simple and terrifying. Terrifying. Yeah. Because what it's gonna require is that, Dave, you take a look at your life with honesty.
And I want you to start back at six, because that's actually when you remember having sexual feelings in your body. I want you to go all the way back there and you're gonna recount everything. You might even be thinking right now, and some of you listening like, oh gosh, I'm not gonna be able to remember everything. I guarantee you, you can. I guarantee you.
Caitlyn, how do you know? I watched Brandon do it. I watched him remember what most people would classify as the most insignificant memories of a time he thought someone was kind of cute at the at the coffee shop and just looked at her for a millisecond. He might have he might have not even really objectified or just thought she was pretty and emotionally felt something for a second. I I watched him recall that five years later to get that out and clear it out and cleanse it out.
Everything that you've experienced is a real physical energy and memory stored inside your body. It can be accessed if you want it to be accessed. You are the only one who holds the keys to your memories. Katie can sit there and ask a bunch of questions to try to spark a bunch of memories, and that'll drain the tank super super fast. If you both mutually wanna sign up for that, you can try that to spark the memory.
And at the same time, I know, cause I've seen it happen, that you can unlock all of what's been there. It's already probably unlocked. It's probably spinning all right here. And what we come face to face to with, this is why it was season one episode one of the podcast, is our denial structure. In shame, people normally have one, I like to say, they have like one teddy bear buddy of the denial structure that's their favorite.
Shame is your favorite, and that's strong language. Shame is what you've told yourself and trained yourself to turn to. That's your form of denial. So it's like, here's this thing that I've done, and so I'm gonna shove it in the closet door and label it behind shame of feeling gross or bad or character defect or whatever it is. So that memory is gonna get shoved back there, and it's not gonna be allowed to come into the forefront of my mind, and it's definitely not gonna be allowed to come be spoken out as truth.
Right? So for you, you're going to be doing daily embodiment to be able to be into your body and go, woah, I thought that there was something wrong with me. I thought that I had a character defect. I thought that I was supposed to carry this shame and this guilt. I'm unlocking that door right now.
I'm opening up all the memories hidden behind that narrative, and I'm bringing them all out. And I want to say too that I don't actually believe in a therapeutic disclosure. We were recommended that. We did not do that. I know that the therapeutic disclosure, and this might come across as rather extreme to some people or intense, and if you if people feel like they wanna do that, totally do that.
That's not gonna be the cure and end all of your marriage and your relationship. If you wanna add that in, go ahead. And what I'm what I'm about to walk you through is an actual authentic therapeutic disclosure. Normally, the therapeutic disclosure is, Dave, try to remember all of what you can, which is probably gonna be the little bit you just shared with us. And then we'll just say like, oh, sixteen years of pornography.
And it's like, we just do this big old cover, you know. It's like, and lots of objectifying women. It's just like, hopefully, if I can just give you a big old basket of sixteen years of what I did and not actually have to peek through it, which one sounds easier. Right? Just saying I looked at pornography for sixteen years sounds pretty pretty simple, right?
Now, if I tell you go to that basket of sixteen years of pornography and pull it all out and tell me about all of it, I wanna know the type of pornography you looked at, I wanna know when you looked at pornography, I wanna know what you were feeling when it's like, woah, that's detailed, right? So the therapeutic disclosure where you just give a general statement of what you've done and try to be as detailed as possible. I'm doing air quotes because you're not really gonna try very hard because your denial structure's gonna protect you. And then we hook you up to the lie detector test, and we go, Oh, did you get everything? It's like, yeah, you can If you lie to yourself so well, you can lie your way through anything, including a lie detector test.
So this is way beyond a therapeutic disclosure and a lie detector test. This is you coming at home to yourself and saying, I want to know the truth, and I want to bring this to Katie. And I say this every time, and I'll always say it, this isn't you going to your church, this isn't you going to your 12 step program, this isn't you going to your small group and saying, here's all my dirty laundry and I'm gonna air it out for you. No. This is you going to the one that you united your soul with, that you have become physically one with and saying, this is me and I want intimacy.
You don't need intimacy with your 12 step small group. Now if you want accountability, go ahead and have that. I'm talking about creating intimacy into me you see with the one on your wedding day you decided to unify unify your soul to. So when I say you're sharing everything out loud, it's only to Katie and every if if anyone else, that's completely up to you. But freedom is sharing everything out loud with Katie the from the moment you were six and you have those memories to the current day moment at 46.
And that is your freedom to never looking and struggling with pornography again. It's so simple, yet also our our brains will try to trick us, whenever it's simple, tries to trick us into being like, that's too simple. I need something scarier. I need something harder. That's just the denial structure protecting you.
Because if you believe it's too simple, guess what? You won't even try it. And I always like to say, what do you have to lose? What do you have to lose by telling her everything? Nothing.
Right? You've tried sixteen years of everything else and you're about to lose your marriage. What do you have to lose by being fully seen and known? For the first time, I'm gonna guess for the first time for you, knowing your story a little bit now, this will probably be the first time ever in your entire life you will be fully seen and fully known. It is the greatest gift you will offer your own soul and your marriage.
What do you have to lose?
Brandon: Dave, I normally I've been sitting with this for, five minutes just
Katie: Listening to me talk.
Brandon: So good. I normally wouldn't ask this so pointedly, but it was coming to the surface. Are there any physical or emotional affairs that you have not disclosed to Katie?
Dave: No, I haven't had any physical affairs.
Brandon: And the emotional affair component, what's there?
Dave: I haven't had any like anything like it's been intermittent, I guess. There was one time when several years ago when Katie and I were having a rough time, very rough time. Used to let me just put it this way. I used to be friends with one of my
Brandon: exes. Okay.
Dave: And ever since we broke up, we kind of just stayed friends. And I did kind of vent to her about some frustrations and that I was said some things I shouldn't have said about our marriage. And it wasn't I can honestly say it wasn't with the intent to connect with her. Could have been a guy. She just texted me, Hey, how's it going at that moment?
And it came out. And Katie is the one that made me realize that that was actually an emotional affair because I was like, didn't want that. It's not like I was interested in her or wanted to be emotionally close in an intimate way with her, I guess in a positive intimate way, but I did do that and
Brandon: I want you to practice, Dave, next time and going forward. You sounded I don't even know how this happened, but you almost sounded like the victim in that situation.
Dave: Okay.
Brandon: Like, your ex girlfriend texted you, how dare she, and Katie had to identify that this wasn't a good thing you did.
Dave: I am very passive, although I'll I'll admit that.
Brandon: Well, no, you're not passive.
Caitlyn: It's not passivity. It's the it's the you've embodied a narrative that you are you've you've adopted that belief system that you are a victim, which you actually were a victim of abuse. Yeah. Right? And you're now no longer a victim.
And that's a great point of like, it's possible that the way that you're seeing it, which sounds like even is Katie's whole thing, is like, somehow it gets spun to almost as if you didn't set out for this to happen.
Dave: Yeah. Let
Brandon: me give you like how Go ahead.
Dave: Go ahead. Sorry. I really appreciate you bringing that up because I think that's what we've been missing. I think that's why Katie reached out to you is we see we're just floundering around in the dark and I say things like that and I don't have it reflected back to me like, Hey, wait, that just sounded like you're making yourself a victim. Like, I don't see it.
I'm completely blind to it. I think that's just been something we've been missing is that I talk to you guys and you see it because you're objective. And as much as it sucks to hear that, it's like, I I need to know that, right?
Brandon: So, two things. So how long ago was that?
Dave: That was three years ago, probably.
Brandon: Three years ago? And Katie, this is not new. I assume this isn't news to you right now because you said you were aware of this situation? Yeah. Okay.
Katie: Found it. I got that good old discernment gene Exactly. That just keeps
Brandon: So Dave, if I told you I was texting one of my ex girlfriends that's been a friend over the years, what would you think? Would you as a man to another man, do you think that that is an activity you would encourage me to do? I wouldn't. Okay, that's great. And if you you don't even really know me.
So I would hope you want even better for yourself, Okay? And this isn't about getting caught. It's not about being bad. Now, what I want you to think about so a shift that will take place, and Katie will see it, and you will see it. When you begin to talk about your past, it will not be to sugarcoat it or make it less ugly.
Katie: Yep.
Brandon: If I were to ask you, let's just say, two months from now, Dave, have you had any emotional affairs? Now there could be stuff that comes out in you guys exploring this that you haven't told Katie.
Caitlyn: There is stuff.
Brandon: There is stuff.
Katie: You said that out loud.
Brandon: Yeah, you said like there is stuff. What needs to happen is for you to be able to answer that question and say, yes, I have. Three years ago, I was texting my ex girlfriend I'd stayed in touch with for thirteen years of my marriage, and I complained to her about my wife, period.
Caitlyn: Noticeably different.
Brandon: And it's like, I don't even need you don't even need to, like what I want you to think about is because shame you have to explain yourself, and I want you to separate from what you've done from who you are.
Dave: Yeah, that's the
Brandon: You've done some dumb shit. Sorry for anybody listening. Well, you shouldn't be listening to this podcast with kids if you're listening.
Katie: Judgment if you're listening.
Brandon: Your kids will benefit. Please don't listen to your kids. You've done some stuff that is dumb, but you are not dumb. So when you talk, I want you to actually you will benefit so much from I want you to pretend, like, anytime Katie asks you a question, anytime you're looking at the stuff, put magnifying glass on it. Make it big, hairy, and ugly.
Mhmm. Like, the make it so ugly that you're like, oh my gosh, like, this was, like, this heinous what's heinous? How do say that word? This horrific thing I did. The bigger you can make it, the less impact it will have on you for in the sense of, like, being able to own it.
Because if if you essentially, when you try to protect or sugarcoat things, you're keeping that real estate in your mind protected. You're saying, this is a part of me. There's still a sting. Like, this is who I am instead of saying, oh my gosh. Yeah.
I I did all sorts of crazy stuff. I did I trashed my marriage. I put my wife through hell. Let me tell you about it. Mhmm.
That's why some people are, like, think my account is like this public shaming thing that my wife forced me to start. Caitlyn's like, we'll share our story ten years from now. Was like, I just want to start sharing. I want to I feel empowered to do that. Caitlyn's not forcing me to share my story.
It's my story and I I our story and I feel empowered to share it. That allows you to see clearly. That allows Katie to be like, my voice matters. My heart matters. So what I want you to do is even if there's things that you have not shared yet
Katie: Mhmm. There is things you
Brandon: haven't shared yet. Yes. Sometimes I I put it that way. I put it that way more so because, like, I remember what it felt like to be blind to myself. Mhmm.
And it would I would it it terrifying is a good word. Because when Caitlyn asked me, is there anything else? I couldn't see anything else, but I knew there was still more there. And so I couldn't remember. Are you guys a part of our community app or any of our programs?
Dave: I'm not. I've never Okay. Listened to the podcast
Brandon: We'll email you after this to get you access to a couple of things. So we'll give you we're going to give you this is a thank you for being on the podcast a systematic program that you can walk through to actually go through your history. So we won't dive into that right now. But know that if you commit to saying yes to seeing the unseen, you will see it. Because what what's happening right now is your subconscious mind is is not visible to your to your conscious mind.
Katie: Exactly.
Brandon: And like you said, you've had those experiences where you've had moments of clarity whether that was at a men's group, maybe at a church service, maybe after hours of Katie asking those stinky questions, and finally, you have a moment of clarity, and then you close back up. What we're gonna give you the system to do, which is inside of our app, is opening it up and leaving it open With the purpose of saying, I'm going to see all of this, and we're gonna also show you how to rewire it. So it's not just seeing it to see it, and what do we do now? You'll have the full plan. What this does is when you when you when you open it up because it's actually very hard in a heated conversation to want to try to open it up.
Instead, if you just set your posture of, like, hey, I'm going to rip open my subconscious mind. I'm gonna remember every sexualized memory, thought, experience, lie. I just wanna see it to see it. And it's like basically not an option that you show up to your evening conversation and have nothing to share. Exactly.
So your art, and what will happen is you'll start building this momentum where you're like, you're no longer working against your mind, your mind's saying, you said you wanted to see it, and you're gonna have so much to remember that you're just like, oh, wow, this was a lot. And what you'll see is Katie will be shocked by some of the things you share, but she's not really shocked that you've got some sexual brokenness. She's just kinda like, can we actually look at it? Can we actually heal?
Caitlyn: Wants it on the table.
Brandon: She's shocked that you wanted to drag her outside of the car for this long. And you're ready. You're both ready. And so what I'm saying is I don't want you to be proud of what you've done, but I want you to be proud of who you are. And do you guys have kids?
Three kids. You have three kids, you've been married for sixteen years, and there's two ways to look at your story, and I've said this to men that are in their 80s. Why did it take so long? I've caused all this pain. Sure.
What better time there here's the other option. What better time, Dave, Katie, for you to say, you know what? I've I haven't enjoyed the trajectory I've been on. I've got three kids. I have a lovely wife.
I've got a purpose. I've got a beautiful community around me. I'm ready to live up to my full potential and be a healing agent in my marriage. There's no shame to that. And so then what you gotta do is you look at all of the ugly because the ugly is not you.
You say, wow, I want to because if you're saying I'm I'm changing gears, I'm changing trajectories, what better time than now than anything that comes to mind is, wow, that was holding me back. That was keeping me stuck. That was causing me shame. Everything comes out so that you can elevate yourself and become who you truly are and begin loving Katie from an authentic, clean place. There's no shame in that.
So I want you to sit with that. I want you to and we'll send you the tools. But I think that that is paramount right now. Because you've had to live a life where you don't like seeing your life, and the reason you're going back to porn is because you're trying to pretend that you never went to porn. Yep.
And now it's saying, okay, little buddy, like, we can go back there if you wanna feel the similar the familiar feelings. You're you're needing to feel reality, and reality feels scary, but you're you're in it right now. Katie's feeling it because she's not in the addiction. She's just feeling it. She's just like, yeah, I've been feeling it.
It must feel like crap. Let's find a new feeling. So a couple of things to be aware of on this process. What's going to happen is you will I'll give you some embodiment exercises to do, too. You're going to thaw out emotionally.
You're going to feel again. You're going to feel with more clarity, with more intensity, and that's okay. You actually were designed to live that way. It will bring you into a place of freedom that you've never, that like wasn't previously available. Also, you're going to begin to become aware of some of the contradictory things that you hear from other places, so the support groups you're a part maybe your spiritual community, maybe counselors, maybe friends.
So I want you just to be very intentional about what influence you choose to give certain priority on your healing journey. Anything that, as you're on this, like picture you're like a rocket ship going on this trajectory, if there's things that are putting you back out of orbit, headed back down, just don't accept them. Just toss them out. And that's going to serve you really well, is limiting the voices that you have on that healing process. Process.
Caitlyn: I think one of my final thoughts, and then we'll make sure if you guys have any final questions here. One of my final thoughts is that, Dave, I want to remind you that as much as you're doing this for the end goal of your marriage, being whole and complete and experiencing intimacy and connection, you're actually doing this for yourself. And this is for everyone that's listening, and I want to really speak directly to you. This is you for the first time ever coming alive. Because you've been living forty six years almost as a ghost within your own body, not fully alive, not vibrant, not here.
And so you looking at your story is yes, so you can bring it to the table, be seen and known, and experience intimacy in your union. But it's first because you've actually been running from yourself for forty years. And everything you've been running from is going to provide you the clarity and the healing that you need to experience life again, maybe for the very, very first time, to experience vitality and vibrancy and abundance. All of these emotions and sensations are most likely relatively unfamiliar for you. As you explore your entire story, you're gonna come home to yourself and come alive.
The fruit of that is your marriage coming alive. The greater fruit of that is your three children's lives all the sudden are bursting forth with abundance and beauty and bliss. That wasn't a gift that was offered to you. You didn't have that gift. And yet you get to take your life with your power and say, woah, I'm severing that story from continuing on, and I'm handing my children the keys to a life of abundance and beauty and bliss.
And you can't do that if you don't have that. You can't offer them what you don't embody. So you're first embodying this for yourself, for your marriage, for your children, for their children, and their children, and their children. And on this goes, this is so beautiful. And it's it's so simple.
It's so so so so simple. People spend sixteen years, sometimes forty years trying to complicate it. It's so simple. And I like to say it over and over again. And the reason why I correct Brandon is because when you've lived a life of forty years of lying, you'll take any little thing you can to tuck into your pocket.
The reason why I wanna keep bringing it up is because those things you know you haven't shared right now, you're gonna put this up and you're gonna share those right now. Like, I'm gonna call you out and tell you that. And anyone that's listening, if you have something in your mind right now you haven't shared, there's no good time. There's no convenient time. There's no time it feels good and right and like super exciting in your body to share something.
There's no it's like literally ripping the band aid off. You have to just do it. Like, you're putting up the phone and you're getting it all out. And like Brandon even walked you through, it's not this isn't a therapeutic disclosure of here's everything I know and this is it. End of story.
Close the door. It's here's what I know right now. Listen to my language here. It's so different. Here's what I know right now.
Also, I know there's way more. And I'm committed 100% to showing you with my actions that I'm ready to get this all out. How do I show you with my actions that I'm ready to get this all out? Every single night when the kids are put to bed, I'm coming to you with my journal that has all the things I've been remembering. All of the movies I've seen, the porn I've been exposed to, the music videos, the things on social media, the women I've objectified, the emotional affairs I've had, everything I've been keeping and hiding from you, it's in this journal.
And every night, I'm gonna sit with you, and we're gonna walk through it because there's nothing hidden. If there's anything hidden, there's no intimacy. You can't see into somebody. That's like murky water. If there's something hidden, it's murky water.
You can't see into it. Your healing for yourself and your marriage is as simple, as simple. You can make it as difficult as you want, yet you can also make it as simple as you want, as it really is. It's as simple as you exploring your story with honesty and sharing that truth with your spouse. I don't even know how it has become so controversial in churches, marriage counselors, podcasts, groups.
How has it become controversial to be honest with your spouse? I have no idea. It is beyond me. I'm bewildered. I'll be bewildered for forever.
How can people comment on our videos and say that this makes no sense and that we are horrible humans and blah blah blah blah. All I'm promoting and recommending is radical honesty with the one you've unified your soul with. If I presented that as plain and simple as radical honesty with the one you've unified your soul with, nobody would disagree with me. Now, when I call it something different, share your entire life story and all your sexual experiences, people wanna throw flames and darts. Right?
That's radical honesty with the one you've unified your soul with. And I can guarantee you that it will result in freedom and healing for your marriage. I can guarantee you. I can't guarantee if that you keep a couple secrets that you can have that same result. I can't guarantee that.
I can almost guarantee you won't. Because how can you have intimacy? You can't. I can guarantee that if you trudge through that terrifying forest, on the other side, it's so beautiful. I'm not making it up.
I don't care about making it up to have some sort of social platform. I told Brandon I don't wanna share a story for ten years because as much as I care about all of you, I don't. This is what I cared about. This is what I wanted and I can guarantee you that what we experience is so real and true and beautiful and it's so available for you. If you choose into being fully honest and transparent to exploring your story and sharing that all out loud.
Brandon: You have had an addiction, and you were the one that created it. And so whatever feels like a mystery, as you go through this, you'll recognize, yes, I made myself powerless to these things, and it was through a pattern of behavior. And so in the rewiring process, you'll recognize, like, wait, this wasn't random. This wasn't a mystery. I'm not a vic I don't like saying I'm not a victim.
I'm not powerless over this realm of sexuality. I just actually tried to use it to numb the pain I was feeling or to make sense of my earliest shameful experiences, the lack of leadership I had from my dad who ended up cheating on my mom. And then you look at it and you say, That's not the pattern I feel like following anymore. And you look at your beautiful wife and you say, This is what we're this is what I'm following. Is this intimacy, this safety?
Before we wrap up, just wanted to see, Katie or Dave, if you had any questions that we could answer before we hop off here.
Dave: Honestly, I'm just I'm thrilled that you are making that that available to us what you said, that, kind of the step by step sort of thing, that program that you're that you laid out. Like, that's, I think, part of the reason I've been so afraid other than just general terror of opening up my life and everything that's happened and everything I've done is not having guidance and not knowing which direction to go. Right? So I appreciate that what you guys are doing and that there's some, like, direction given.
Brandon: Yeah. Awesome. I wanted to add to that. And for those of you listening, we're not just what we'll propose and the tools we'll give you, and for anybody listening, is not just to not look at porn again. This is for your conscious mind to not have bombarding thoughts of sexual unwanted sexual fantasies, images, videos.
This is freedom from ever having compulsive looking at women's body parts or sexualizing women in your mind. This is freedom when you guys if you guys are are currently being intimate or when you resume being physically intimate, for there to be no bombarding memories as you guys go to have sex. This is being on your phone and not feeling like, wow, I'm tired. Like, I'm gonna go look. There's this is actually going to a place of freedom where there's no more burden.
So this isn't just so you can tell your 12 step group that you got five years from no hardcore porn, and you still have to think about your ex girlfriends when you're having sex with Katie. This is like we're cleaning all of it out so that maybe for the first time for the first time, you and Katie are like, she can feel it, you can feel it, there's nobody else, there's no debris, and you are confident in who you are, she can feel it, and it's safe. And so that's why you're doing this. It's not to just get a little better and not lose your marriage. It's like we're actually going to start the marriage on a clean slate with a clean heart, clean emotions, and that feels really good.
I didn't know that that was possible. I didn't know how far away that. Like, I thought I was doing the best I could. I wasn't even alive. I was dead.
And I wouldn't trade this for anything, like Katie said. Sorry, Caitlyn I call her Katie. It's worth it. It's worth it 1000%. And when it becomes I can already feel, Dave, listen, let this sink in.
Katie is very for you. I can see this. She's been by your side. Lock arms with her, and look at the mess of whatever there is hidden in your subconscious mind, whatever it is. Like, just look at it and say, here it is.
Here's how it impacted me. Here's how I chose to engage it. Here's how I lied to you. Bing, bing, bing, and here's the new man I'm becoming. Well, that's and you just don't stop until all the debris is cleared out.
And then what are you left with? A relationship that you enjoy and that's safe and it feels amazing. So that's what you guys are pursuing. We'll send you guys an email. I'm gonna just full of gratitude that you guys chose to share your story with us.
And for those of you listening that were not aware, we do have our Grounded Union Couples app. You maybe have heard us reference some of the grounded intimacy programs and our seven Step program. If you're interested in getting direct support for your marriage today, you can click the link in the show notes to learn more about the app. We do live coaching where Caitlyn does a call, I do a call, we answer questions. There's support there if you get stuck, and it will be all of our frameworks for helping you rebuild trust and go to the root of where you need to heal.
It's right below here in the show notes. We'd love to have you inside. And those of you listening to the Grounded Union podcast, thank you so much for joining us on this episode. We will see you guys next week with another brave couple that we get to journey with. Thank you so much for listening.
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