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- [00:00]
A
Sam, welcome back to season two, episode number four. We're calling this one Does My Spouse really Want to Change? And this feels like a really important episode. This is one of the main questions that we get is, hey, my spouse is saying that they want to change. Hey, they're starting on the journey. They're listening to the podcast. They're going to your workshop. They're doing the things, yet they still keep lying. They still keep reverting back to old patterns. They still keep hiding. You know, they're still kind of cycling back to maybe some of their old ways of being. So how do I actually know if my spouse really does want to change? How do I actually know if we head down? I think a lot of people are like, I want to know before I exert a lot of energy, before I go through all of this deep work that you guys suggest that we do. How can I almost guarantee or how can I know what are signs that I can see and understand if my spouse is actually ready, willing and wanting, desiring to change? So we're going to dive into some of the aspects of our story that are a little bit more detailed and a little bit more nuanced than we have gotten into in some of the other episodes to hopefully give hope and kind of a meter for understanding, understanding where you guys are in your relationship, how to understand if your spouse is truly ready to change.
- [01:35]
B
Is it worth it? Caitlin talks about this all the time. We talk about this is if you're already in pain, you get to decide when it's too much. And Martin Usik from Integral Relationship says, when the pain of staying is greater than the fear of leaving, that's when we ultimately have divorce. It's when your spouse is in. Their pain is so great, they actually can't. They can't bear the pain anymore. That's when the fear of leaving becomes a better option. So we'll talk about, you know, our thoughts on whether you should stay or in the. In the relationship. We want to propose that going on the healing process is the only path to saving your relationship. So we would suggest that you can't just stay where you are and help things get a little bit better. So, yes, you may actually face some of the things that they're between you, and it may feel more acute. But really, if. If your relationship's struggling, you're already in pain, so is it worth it? That question you're trying to answer for yourself, you know, if it's worth it for you, we want to empower you. If your spouse has lied to you. If you've been through betrayal, if you're working, this can go for both of you. We're going to give the context of when I had gotten caught lying to Caitlin again about how I was using the Internet and what my initial response was five years into our marriage. And what to look for in your spouse if they've been caught in a substantial way, Whether that was through an addiction, alcohol, gambling, an emotional affair, physical affair, whether you both have just been going through the motions. Do you both want to change? Are you both in this game? Are you ready to. To fully give yourself to this? What attitude can you put on if you're a spouse listening right now? If you're a wife, husband or wife listening, like, I want to change, please tell me what attitude I can have so that I change. Let's talk about it. When I got caught lying to Caitlin at the end of 2019, we'd already been through the cycle five times, multiple times, where I would get caught lying about how I was using the Internet, looking at naughty things, tell Caitlin I was sorry, and I wouldn't do it again. And I would give it an honest effort. I go confess to somebody. We'd try to new counselor, we'd try this new stuff. But I wasn't changing. So was I committed to change or not? Because I hadn't changed, I was still doing the same thing five years. In my analysis of my own responses and the responses that are most common amongst spouses getting caught in dishonesty, keep this specific to addiction is two different types of responses. We have passivity, and we have defensiveness. So I initially, whenever I got caught this time, I went deep into passivity and feeling like a victim and almost this feeling of apathy and indifference. It was kind of like I've done all the things like we talked about in the previous episode. I've read, I've prayed my bible, I've confessed, like, what else do you want from me? So Caitlin catching me lying, it was kind of like I was just so shell shocked that I was somehow still in this situation, But I didn't feel empowered to create change. So if you see your spouse and they're saying, you know what? I'm just a victim to this thing. Yeah, I got caught looking at porn again. But, like, we just live in a sexualized world. Like, I've told a few of the guys at church, like, I'll try to do better next time. That attitude will not create change. Passivity, being a victim, being powerless, that doesn't necessarily mean that your spouse cannot change. But with the current set of beliefs that they have adopted and what they're willing to place their focus on and what's coming out of their mouth is saying, I am incapable of creating change. So that is a very impotent, weak state to be in. You can rest assured that person can create change. But right now, with the information they're getting, the resources they have, their current currently saying change is not possible. That was a very frequent place that I went to the beginning of our breakdown when I got caught. The second response that I went into a little bit, but when I see all the time is defensiveness and anger and projection. So if you get caught lying, you get caught doing something that really hurt your spouse, if you are trying to defend yourself, if you're trying to project all of the pain yourself back onto your spouse and you're unwilling to look at yourself, that's not an attitude of change, that's not an attitude of transformation. Because you're actually saying, look, you've done bad things too, you deserved this. It's actually more of an empowered attitude, but it's one of, don't mess with me, don't keep putting this on me, I've had enough of it. So it's defending, normalizing, rationalizing and saying this isn't a big deal. Your perspectives about it need change more than my behaviors need change. These two places were areas I went back and forth in. And we're going to talk about this six month journey in September of 2019 leading into close to March of 2020, where I was pinging back and forth between being defensive, being passive, and we talk to you about it now, about how much ownership I took. But it was weak, it was pathetic. And a lot of times it didn't look like ownership at all. I didn't look like I was capable of creating change. And your spouse might not look like that right now either.
- [05:50]
A
Yeah, I think a lot of people have a post about this actually that really resonated deeply with people is people see what we've created now and the stories that we share now and they think, oh wow, so that must have happened overnight for them. They must have gone from this deep, broken, near divorced marriage to this deep, fully thriving, connected union. And it's like, oh no, that didn't happen overnight. And so I want to do a little bit of storytelling that dives up a little bit deeper into those months of September to March. So like Brandon said, the first five years leading up to this, we had already been going through the same cycle where I think a lot of people find themselves, where Brandon was actually saying, I want to change. Hey, I want to heal. Hey, I want to do the things. And then he was trying all of the tools and the tactics that we had been given at that time, all of the things we had learned from our pastors, from our counselors, everything. For five years, we gave all those things a genuine effort. That's why we talk so much about going and seeking advice from churches, counselors, mentors. Everything is because we did that for so many years. So Brandon genuinely wanted to change. That's what he said. I saw him trying. I saw him reading the books, listening to things, going to the groups, checking all the spiritual boxes, doing all the things that one would in our society, find resources to do, to heal. And yet we were still on the same loop, still cycling. And so then we get to this point in September of 2019, where I catch him yet again lying and hiding and like, oh, my gosh, I think I found myself. Where a lot of you that reach out to us find yourself is you've been telling me for years that you want to change, yet here we are again. So this must not be true. You must not really want to change. And I'm here to pose an idea that maybe your spouse. We're going to talk about two different types of spouse. Maybe your spouse has genuinely wanted to change and they've been trying to change with the tools they've been given, and those tools have not been a good match to get you to the other side where there's actually freedom, hope and connection and union. Oftentimes I say this a lot. People go to get marriage advice from people that aren't married, are divorced, are married, and do not have a thriving and connected union. They're essentially looking, hey, can you give me advice on how I can have a really intimate, thriving, connected, full of love, union from someone who doesn't even have that? How are they going to be able to take you where they have not yet gone themselves? And so we found ourselves getting all of this advice from people that didn't actually have what we were looking to create. And so we hit this roadblock in September where we're like, where I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm not, not doing this anymore. I talk about this a lot. This is my line in the sand moment. I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not re looping on any of this. So we come back to square one, and at this point, undone getting advice from people that don't have what I want. And the more I looked around, I was like, wow, I can't find anybody that's created what I want. And specifically, what that is is a marriage with intimacy into me. You see, a marriage where there is no more hiddenness and secrecy anymore. A marriage where we're fully satisfied and connected and attracted to one another. These are core staples of the foundation of what I wanted in our union. Absolutely no separation between the two of us. Union is literally unifying the two of us. We have become one. We are fully connected and alive. How can you have a union of two people fully connected and unified, if we have all this hiddenness and baggage? And I couldn't find a single person who was talking about this concept. All I could find was people telling me, no, keep a couple things secret. Keep a couple of things hidden, because that's going to be too painful. That's going to be too much, that's going to be too difficult. Those are things you can't get rid of. That was a common wave of thinking, oh, we can't get rid of those things. So you need to find a way to live within your marriage with those things still a part of you, with that attraction still there, with that temptation still there, with a little bit of that sin nature still there. And so as we hit this roadblock, which actually ended up being an unlock for us in September, I realized, we gotta get to the roots of this. We gotta get to the foundation. I started digging deep again. We didn't. I didn't know that five years from now I was gonna be walking in and experiencing what we're experiencing. I'm just. Whatever came to me, whatever landed within me, whatever was feeling aligned. It's like, okay, you know what? The only thing that makes sense to me right now is that we get everything completely out. That's the only thing that was the only thing I could see, that was the only thing that felt like it was going to potentially maybe get us to the other side. It was. The only thing that felt clear to me is, you know what? We've been trying the route of all the tools and keeping a little bit of secrets from each other. I want to try the route with no tools and just the. This simple change, which is that we keep nothing secret from each other anymore. Absolutely nothing hidden anymore. And so Brandon then goes, yes, I'm ready to do that. I'm ready to try this with you. I'm ready to change. And then, like we said, from September to March is about A six month period. He would say with his words, I'm ready to change. And then I would see it in his actions. He would be willing to put away his phone. Brandon got off of all of social media, anything you could think of. You're like, even this? Yes. If you're going to throw out something, even that. Brandon was nearly never on his phone. If he was on his son, he was going to a counseling appointment or he had a men's community that he was a part of where he did calls and joined in for support groups and check ins. And so other than that, his phone was put away. We didn't have tv, we didn't have movies. We removed all consumption. Brandon was willing and ready. You might say, well, what about sports on Sundays? Nope. There was literally nothing you might throw out something of, oh, well, I need to have this still. I can't get rid of all consumption. It's like you can do whatever you want. I'm just saying one of the markers for me that was like, oh, he means business is he was ready to get rid of all consumption in his life. And with that, where I want to go on the storytelling route is even though he had moments with his words and even his actions where he said, I want to change, there was still a phase of this six months. Our counselor at the time said it could take eight months to break down the denial structure. So your denial structure, we have an episode on denial. It's in season one. I recommend you listen to that. Your denial structure is an actual structure in, in the brain. It's a form of protection and safety that you have established, most likely starting from when you were very, very young. And these are, this is a construct in your mind that keeps these hidden parts of you from coming into your conscious mind. It's a way that you can live and adapt and try to keep going. It gives you the false sense of safety and comfort from not needing to face your past shadows or the things that you've tried to get rid of. And so the denial structure is an actual structure that when someone commits to Chang has to begin to break down.
- [12:24]
B
Yeah.
- [12:24]
A
And if you've ever seen a structure of a house, it takes time to break it down. Now, our counselor said at the time, eight months is psychologically how long they say or clinically what they say is the timeframe for how it takes to break down a denial structure. And he would always say, if there's an eagerness and a willingness, you can lower those months greatly or you can.
- [12:44]
B
Increase it to two years.
- [12:45]
A
Or if there's not a willingness, you can increase it to take as long as you would like so you can choose the pace at which you want to go. What I, I like to share and offer hope to women is that as your spouse, or maybe it's vice versa, again, for us, it was me that needed hope and understanding that the denial structure takes time. And so if you're a wife wondering, why does my husband keep saying he wants to change? And then he keeps reverting to old patterns, his denial structure is coming down. And if you're a husband listening to this and you want to take what I'm saying and give yourself an enablement of, oh, I can, yeah. See, babe, this is why I keep reverting back. It's that, like, you're not going to get anywhere. Take what I'm saying as an invitation to go deeper and faster and stronger into your healing and into your journey. Do not take what I'm saying to enable yourself to stretch this on. You can stretch this on. That's more pain for all of you. If you want to get to the other side, you can go deeper into all of this. What I want to give perspective to is Brandon had a willingness to change, and at the same time, there was still a process to breaking down the denial structure structure.
- [13:49]
B
So it's that willingness to present yourself to an unfamiliar new way of being that's the key component. I did not even know what I was saying yes to. It's kind of like volunteering for something. You didn't really know what you were signing up for, but knowing that you believe in the mission wholeheartedly. So if you're looking to communicate to your spouse that you're willing to change and heal. When we talk about change, we're not just talking about changing from one thing to another to heal and transform and enjoy marriage. I would say for a long season, that looks like removing social media entertainment and distractions of any kind. Because look at this. If you have four hours of your day committed to social media, distractions, entertainment, you actually, if you just take out that four hours and then you put in recovery work, working on yourself and your relationship, you don't actually have to get more time or more energy to change your relationship. So that's just one. It's just practical. If you want to change and heal, free up your calendar and free it up with things that you don't need. There's lots of stuff on your calendar right now that you do not need. And so I would be looking for, for Those signs. And if you want to give that communication to your spouse, your willingness to be in unfamiliar and uncomfortable settings. And that's not just going to counseling. You can, anybody can show up for a 50 minute session and say hi to the counselor and say, okay, yeah, yeah, I'll go do the homework. And maybe you do like a couple reading assignments and a couple of responses to your spouse. What really shows that you are ready to change is when your phone stays put away, the TV stays turned off, you sit in the discomfort. When your wife's still looking at you across the living room crying at 8 o' clock at night because she's hurting and you don't walk in the other room to turn on the tv, you look her in the eyes and say, let's talk about what we talked about in counseling earlier today. That's a willingness to change. It doesn't even mean you have the right answers. It just means you're willing to engage in the space that you're in right now and not try to escape it. You might revert back to passivity. You might feel like a victim, you might feel indifferent at times. This is why I encourage all the men in my men's community app to have an embodiment routine. Because if you can engage your nervous system, that primes you, that warms you up for change, Change for emotional transformation. If you aren't engaging your body at all, start doing that. That communicates to your wife like, whoa, he's doing some breath work. He's doing some rhythmic pounding on his body. He's like doing stuff I've never seen him do. He's willing to try new things. He's willing to be uncomfortable.
- [16:01]
A
Exactly.
- [16:02]
B
And one of the key things. We'll talk about trying new things in a second. One of the key things we chose in our darkest night of the soul, we talked about the. On the betrayal episode two episodes ago, Caitlyn was weeping every night, shaking, convulsing, gasping for air. With how much pain we were in, we only had a 24 hour perspective. Like, are going to make it through today? Are we going to get to tomorrow? Is everything okay? Like, we couldn't even tell which way was up, what time it was, what day it was. It was sheer chaos. When you're in that state or you've been in that state for a long time, the idea of going to a marriage intensive, which we do host those is seems like, okay, if I can go spend a weekend somewhere, maybe I can get out of this state. And I was always happy to go to a conference, happy to go to a counseling session, happy to go to something that could give me the quickest fix. And so for our situation, if you've been the guy that's been willing to go to the conferences, been willing to go to the things, read a book, but you're not willing to do the daily work. My willingness to change actually came from we opted to not go to an intensive. I signed up for some counseling programs. I had to show up every day that I was accountable to talk to other men, to do homework, to make micro changes every day. And that was my willingness to the unfamiliar to the uncomfortable. So if you want to communicate to your spouse that you're ready to change for you, that might be going to a marriage intensive, that might be coming to one of our workshops and, and the continuation to the daily work, are you willing to remove entertainment, to remove the things that you distracted yourself with and submit yourself to the environment of the daily work that changes your relationship, that communicates a massive message to your spouse that you're in it. You're not planning to give up on the process early and you're not just looking to do it in a weekend.
- [17:36]
A
This comes down to do your actions is as simple as do your actions actually align with your words. So if you say, yeah, I want to change, I'm willing to change. Okay, are you willing to now do something about that? Are you you willing? It's not just about a one day thing, a two day thing. It's not just one book, it's not just one counseling session. It's are you willing to daily show up to do something that aligns with the fact that you're saying, yeah, I'm ready to heal, I'm ready to connect, I'm ready to rebuild our foundation. The biggest thing that I would tell people to look for now that I'm on the other side. And the biggest thing that marked my understanding and my trust and my safety for knowing that Brandon was willing to change was that he was willing eventually, starting in September, to finally come clean up about everything, to finally dump the bags that he'd been holding. All these secrets that people say even you can we all have. There's in or not we all have. In a lot of marriages, there are a lot of big secrets we keep. Those are porn addictions, those are, you know, maybe other sorts of addictions. Those are affairs, those are emotional affairs. Whatever it is, we have all these big secrets we've been keeping. And then we also begin to found a topic that Nobody was talking about was, well, what about all the little secrets? Secrets? What about all the times that Brandon scrolled past something suggestive and looked at it for a minute? What about the times when he went outside and noticed, you know, the waist of an attractive woman? These are the things that he was told, obviously, that he, quote, could do, or these are just quotes. Normal or biological or whatever word you want to throw in there. But so when I say come clean and share everything, I don't just mean about the porn addiction in the fair, like, dear God, yes, please get the. Those freaking lies out and in the open and on the table. And sadly, for a lot of marriages, those are things that need to come out. Those are things that are going to come out. As you begin to go to our workshops, listen to our podcast, and go through our courses, you're going to hear big things. What I also mean with that is, what about all these little things? Because those are just as important as getting out the big things. And so my understanding in safety and trust was established when I saw Brandon ready and willing to face the pain and the discomfort, the unfamiliarity of revealing all of these little things that he had been keeping from me for years. And, you know, maybe to his advantage, he had been told he could do that. He wasn't doing anything he hadn't been told he could do. He'd been told by every pastor, every leader, every counselor, every significant male leader you could think of that he was quotes, allowed to keep these things from me. And we were breaking down that narrative and trying something new, trying on this idea that what if we actually shared those things with each other? And if you're a female listening and you're like, oh, shoot, like, I need to share these things, too, please do. This applies to everybody and anybody. So when I saw Brandon begin to get uncomfortable and come to me and say, yeah, you know what? I noticed that magazine when I walked by. I don't want to notice that anymore. Let's go through the four hours together. Let's rewire things. You know what? When I was at the coffee shop, I felt emotionally connected to that woman because she was smiling at me and laughing at my jokes, and I don't want to feel that anymore. Yeah, we're going to rewire this. We're going to get this out. We're going to clear this out. When I begin to hear about these things every single day, it was undeniable that my husband was willing and ready to change, because your spouse will not come clean and reveal and make themselves Bare. If they are not ready to face it head on and keep going and keep healing and keep changing and keep moving towards freedom and intimacy and connection and the union. And so if your spouse, when you say, hey, I want to get everything out, I want to be transparent together, I want to be vulnerable together, I want intimacy into me, you see nothing in between us. And your spouse says, I'm unwilling to do that, or your spouse says, no, I'm not going to do that, or your spouse says, I'm not ready for that, then they're showing you and telling you that they're not ready for that level of healing and connection in your union. If your spouse is saying, I'm ready, I'm all in. Yeah, that is a huge marker of willingness to change. And where I want to put an asterisk with that, your spouse might one day sign up for that and the next day be absolutely terrified. There has to be an understanding that to face and tear down the denial structures that have been there for years, maybe decades, there is going to need to be an ebb and flow of, I'm ready for this and I'm terrified of this. And if you're someone listening to this and you're the one that knows that you need to get things out, you need to come clean, you need to lay yourself bare. By the way, this is on a social media post for the world. This is a lay yourself bare to the only person that you are intertwined and interconnected to. This is just between the two of us. I do not, not recommend doing this with absolutely anybody else except for your spouse. And if you were to go to any other counselor right now, they would recommend that you do this with your support group and not your spouse. And that's backwards for me because we are intertwined. We are unified. We are together. This is our union. I'm not together in union with my woman's community. Why do they need to know these things? The only person that needs to know these things is my spouse. So if you are ready and you're willing and you're wanting to make these changes and you're coming clean and sharing this. These things.
- [22:44]
B
Yeah.
- [22:44]
A
And you also feel within yourself this tension. Brandon could speak to this in a minute. You feel this tension of like, this is terrifying. Will this even work? Wait, I was told I could think this way. I was told I could do this. You can take time. I like to say this in our workshop. It's like, remind yourself, like, okay, that way of being, that way of thinking that kept me Safe. And I'm realizing right now that's not keeping me safe anymore. It's actually the destruction of my marriage. And I'm ready to get to the other side. And I'm trusting and believing that in being, in experiencing intimacy into me, you see that I will come into deep connection and love and union in my marriage. And so I am telling my body, my brain, my mind, my soul, I am safe to do this. And you might need to do that. If you're the one that's coming clean, you might need to do that multiple times a day. When you have that thought, that moment, that memory, when you have a present interaction that happens and you're like, is this what they mean? Is this something I'm supposed to share? Should I tell my spouse? Like, what is it? And there's this battle, this tension within yourself. Take a minute. You know what? I'm safe. That used to make me feel safe, to hide that, to keep that separate, to keep that hidden. And that's not serving me anymore. And now I realize I'm safe to be seen in a space where I'm meant to be seen and held and loved.
- [23:58]
B
When you enter into that space and it's clear this is the something you really want to hone in on. And a lot of it's a valid question that men ask in the men's community is when or how long do I have to sit with my wife's pain? How long does this process take? And it's not a bad question question, but the answer does not matter. And a clear attitude of a man that's ready to change is one that does not actually need to know the timeline. I don't need to know how long my wife and I will need to have these conversations. I don't know. It's difficult thing about denial, which is what you're facing, like you don't talk about those denial structures is it keeps you from seeing your own reality. So you've been blinded to the reality of your own actions. So if you can't see it, you know that walking down this path that's unfamiliar, of being honest and transparent with yourself, you know that you can. You can't see what's coming. You know that there's memories down there that you are uncomfortable with. That's why you're trembling. But you don't know what exactly is going to come out. And so that's the tricky piece with denial is you're not even sure what you're going to find, and you're not exactly sure how long it's going to take. For me, it took a couple months of kicking and screaming and staying in the discomfort, continuing to show up to therapy, show up to the men's group, continuing. And we changed therapists. We found a new counselor. I found different resources. It's not just one program. It was my willingness to say, okay, I gleaned a couple things here, let's keep going. When you take the attitude of we went to the one counselor everybody said they loved, we didn't get what we were looking for, I'm going to stop. So it's not one marriage intensive. It's not a four package counseling session. It's not one program you bought from this one person you think could save your relationship. It's the ongoing willingness to say, I'm glad what we got here. We're both wanting to go further. So when you remove the timeline from how much longer do I need to be transparent? How much longer do I need to be open? How much longer do we need to talk about the pain? Instead you shift your focus. This is what creates change. This is what you identify in your spouse is I don't care how long it takes, I don't care how uncomfortable I will get. When you begin to see that shared focus to we know what we want, we know we want to experience and we're in, we're not necessarily in no rush to get there. We want to get there, but we're actually there and we're going to clean up anything that is outside of that experience. And that was one of the things that empowered us so much, was Caitlyn had this clear vision of I want intimacy with you. I want to feel safe and I want to be the only woman in your world and I will make you the only man in my world. I want, want to clean up. I want to talk through any emotions, thoughts, memories, present day ways of perceiving other people, the opposite sex. They would keep us from experiencing that union, that intimacy. She said, this is how deep I'm willing to give this to you. Are you willing to give that to me? And I said yes. And then I got the gift and opportunity to look at all the ways I wasn't actually lining up with that, with my actions. Well, I guess saying yes to that wouldn't it look like scrolling on social media for two hours, looking on the Explore page, seeing half naked women, then looking at women at the gym and looking at their body parts and looking back again thinking about ex girlfriends when I was mad at Caitlyn, fantasizing about what had been like if I would have married somebody else. Those things aren't love, Those things aren't union. So we bring them up not to shame ourselves, but to say, hey, here's the standard, here's the vision we created for our marriage. Anything that doesn't align to that, that's what I want to go after. So creating change in health and healing in your marriage is not about doing something for a time. It's actually reorienting your entire identity towards this new definition of love that you both are choosing into together. So it's not about me versus you, Caitlyn being mad at all these things I did to her. I'm just saying, you know, what is what it hit. When it finally hit February, March of 2016, I was not pregnant. 2020. What finally happened was I begin to catch up to the vision. I've been saying yes to it, and my nervous system had calmed down enough. That's why I'm so big on embodiment, because if you don't have your nervous system online, you just shut down and you can't even think, you can't even feel. I got to this point where I was like, wait, I care about Caitlyn, but, like, if she's not in the picture, I don't like any of this stuff either. This isn't, this isn't going to set me up for any relationship, regardless of Caitlyn. I'm not just trying to get back in the good box. Like, this new needs to change. I finally caught it. So when you see those light bulb moments where your spouse is motivated not by your pain, but by an internal clarity, their moment of clarity, those are the defining moments. Those are the experiences you want to have. So if you're the person trying to create change, validate your spouse's pain. We talk about all the time, but make the primary focus. I want to have moments of clarity where I see how these actions and these behaviors have negatively impacted me and my marriage, so that I can remove them, not just so that I can confess them to my spouse, but that I can see how they impacted me, how my childhood impacted me, how my sexual experiences impact impacted me. Seek moments of clarity within yourself. And when your spouse sees, oh, I don't have to turn up my pain, I don't have to get loud for him to take action. That shows that they're willing to change. That shows that they're willing to take consistent action.
- [28:26]
A
Yeah, it was when Brandon's desire for healing and change matched and aligned with my Desire and healing for change. I was like, oh, we're going to get there. Yeah, we're going to make it to the other side. Because I'm not driving this shit by myself. I've got my teammate. Sure, he may not be fully on the other side yet. He might still have things he's getting out. I can see him in him, though, the exact desire that I have for this. I can see the spark in his eye that's like, yes, we're going to go after this until we have true connection and intimacy and love in our union. And I'm not going to stop until we have it. Like Brandon said, there's no timeline. The timeline is until you have it. That might be different. That was a couple months for us. That might be longer for you. It might be shorter for you. We didn't have anybody guiding us. We're here guiding you, saying, you can do it, it's worth it. You'll make it to the other side. And if you believe us and dive in and go through it, you might get to the other side at a quicker timeline. But it's not about going fast or slow. It's just about going to the other side and whatever time that takes, that's the time it's going to take. Because I guarantee when you get to the other side, you're not going to regret any of the time you spent. You are going to feel madly in love for the first time. When you get your union right, everything in the rest of your life starts to fall into place. And when we talk about this, I think a lot of women or a lot of people that have been betrayed, they've betrayed spouse, the first thing comes up is, okay, well, if the big biggest sign is that he, you know, is he desires change and he's ready to change, and now he's sharing everything openly. How in the world am I supposed to handle all that pain? And if you have not already listened, I want to make sure that it's clear right here in this episode. We have already done an entire episode, one of the first two episodes of this season two podcast going into how to heal from the pain of betrayal. And so if you're in this and you're like, wow, this is deep, this is painful, we covered this topic in depth and how you can go through the pain of this season and get to the other side in a healed, whole and connected way. And I want to make sure that everybody listening at this point also has listened to that episode so that they're ready for the journey because to think that you're going to go on this journey and experience no pain is not accurate. Because if you see pain as a sign to start fleeing and turning around, then you're not going to make it to the other side. Pain is just a part of getting out what's been hidden. Because remember, you're already in pain. That's why you're listening to this. That's why you're looking for resources. That's why you're wondering if your spouse will ever change. It's because you're already in pain, in the pain. So press into the pain, press through the pain to the other side. And we share a lot of ways in which we got to the other side and how we and how I was able to navigate the pain of being betrayed. And so I just want to make sure that that is shared here in this part. I think where we want to dive into in this next segment is we've shared a lot about the spouse that truly is saying with their words, I'm ready, and maybe is even now starting to align with their action actions. And sadly, I do believe that there is a lot of spouses that maybe say that they want to change and then never do anything to show that. Or maybe they might even look you in the face and say, I'm unwilling to change. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to try that. I'm not going to go with you. I'm fine, I'm good. We're good. Everything's good. You might be married to someone who is saying they want to change and not actually in lining their actions to that or looking at you and saying, no, I do not want to change. And so I think the question comes up where it's like, well, what do I do now? And I think the important aspect of talking about this one thing I always like to say is that we're not pro divorce, we're pro union. That's the whole purpose of our mission and message and hope that we want to bring. And if you find yourself in a relationship where there is hiddenness and there is lies and there's betrayal and there's addiction, and you're looking in the face of your spouse and they're saying, I'm unwilling. I'm not going to address that. I'm not going to heal that. I'm not going to look at that. Then you're not in a marriage. You might be married on paper. You might have a relationship that somebody signed off when you got married one day but you are divorced in energy because your spouse has severed the union, has severed the connection with their actions. And they're actually saying, I'm not willing to stitch it back together. Some of you might be in a relationship where your spouse has severed your union, and they're saying, I'm here to mend that back together, and we're going to get to the other side. And if you're in a relationship where they've severed the union and they're continuing to sever it day in and day out with their addiction, with their lying, with their hiding, with their deceit, with their denial, whatever it may be, and they're saying, I'm unwilling to change, then our. The question I like to ask is, is this really a matter of if you're going to stay in the relationship or not? Is this really a matter of divorce or marriage? Really, what this comes down to is they've already chosen divorce. They've already chosen to sever the union. You are now in a marriage by paper, but not by energy, by love, not by connection, not by intimacy. And so now you're posed. I found myself in the same place. This is my line in the sand. This is my standard for our marriage. When I said to Brandon, hey, this is the line. You're coming on this other side with me or we're not going together, I meant it. I meant, I'm going to experience true intimacy and connection with you, or I'm not going on another day longer playing this game where we're married on paper and not truly married. I don't want a life like that. And so if your spouse is looking at you saying, I'm good, we're good, you have your moment to draw the line, line in the sand and say, that doesn't work for me anymore. That's not going to work for me. I'm not staying in this marriage for the kids. I'm not staying in this marriage for the money. I'm not staying in this marriage just because as a Christian, I'm supposed to stay in this marriage unless there's been some awful form of infidelity. No. You can look your spouse in the face and say, this is our standard. We're moving towards intimacy and connection every single day. This isn't actual union change.
- [34:17]
B
I just want to take a moment to just sit with the. The difficult reality of being in a situation where you want to create change. Say the spouse is saying, you know, I'm aware that I do want to create change, and you're the spouse on the other end saying, I hope my spouse wants to change. And I know what it feels like to feel very numb and wanting to change and not knowing how. What I want to leave you with, and I'm speaking to the man and woman that wants to create change, is you will let go of how, how will I get to the other side? And so instead of saying, how, how, how, get extra clear on who you want to be on the other side, what it is you want to create that will be your North Star is, what are we creating? What have we created? The how will come to you. It might be this podcast, it might be a book, it might be a video you saw on social media. Your journey will be filled with the resources and the tools you need. What you need to get clear on is what do you want to create with your wife? What do you want to create with your husband? That will be your guiding principle that will inform everything else that you're doing. So if you don't know how to get there, you don't need to know how. You need to know what you want to create. Does your spouse really want to change? Are they willing to get uncomfortable and stay uncomfortable, go into unfamiliar territory, try new things, not put a timeline on it, Be open to change, be open to removing entertainment. Those are the things that we identified that made the biggest difference for me and communicated to Caitlin. Yes, I'm ready to change and heal and mind you, Caitlyn was doing the same things. They say it takes two, and we agree. And if you've been through betrayal and you've been the spouse that's caused that type of pain and broken trust, you get the benefit and the opportunity to repair even more damage. But yes, it takes two people choosing into change in healing and the journey is worth it. And we want to empower you through this episode. Take the initiative, take the action to continue to try new things and get uncomfortable for the vision of your union that you want to create. If you need additional support on your journey, go ahead and click on the show notes and see how we can support you. Thanks so much for joining us and we'll see you next week.
- [36:11]
A
Sam.