Caitlin (3:41)

And our spirit, the trust and safety established in our connection.

Brandon (3:44)

And so I think for a lot of people, they see their sexuality as this mystery they've been left to navigate. And for, for me, early on in our marriage, my sexuality was my outlet to cope with anxiety, stress, and wanting to not feel overwhelmed. And so how we define sexual wholeness now is the experience of being drawn and attracted solely to your spouse and for your actions to line up with that. So it's not just a theory. It's not something I'm not a pastor on a stage telling you this is how it ought to be. This is what we experienced, what I experienced and what we walked through. Because everything about your sexuality is creative energy. It's a creative source in your life. And so if you're not creating with your spouse, if you're pointing your sexuality outward, whether that's through pornography, flirting with a coworker, having a full blown physical affair, when the cycle isn't completed, when it isn't the loop only in your marriage, it blows up the whole thing. It destroys everything. And so for us, we aren't willing to settle for a lesser version of what we define as sexual wholeness. We believe that it is the full expression of your sexuality. The confines, or that's not even the right word, not the confines of your marriage. In the freedom of your marriage, you're not confined, you're liberated. This should be great news to you because for so many people are like, I just, I have all this sexual brokenness, or I have all this. We, we use our sexuality as a way to cope through life instead of harness it and focus it and direct it solely towards Our spouse, where we can fully express it, feel safe and not feel shame. When I say the word sex, there's an ounce of shame that. That most people feel. They just quiver a little bit. It's like, oh, you said sex. Like, that's a bad word. Like, that makes me feel uncomfortable. That makes me feel guilty because of what I looked at last night. And so it's been this mystery for so many people, especially if you grew up in the. In the Christian church or maybe you. If you've grown up in a more secular viewpoint, which I'm not telling you, you did one. Right. Or the other. I'm just saying you might think sex is. Has a lower value than somebody who said it was so valuable, and I have to protect it. So what is our sexuality and how can we create it in a way that actually brings life to our marriage? That's what we went on a journey on because we were going to not be together if we couldn't figure it out.

Caitlin (6:02)

Yeah. And to repeat what Brandon said, what we discovered, like I said, we came into marriage and it's like, okay, we just wait to have sex till we get married. We have sex with each other and no one else. And that's sexual wholeness. And we realized, oh, yeah, that's a piece of it for sure. Like, that is a part of sexual wholeness together. And then we realized there's an even more. More deep, intricate, beautiful version of that that we explored and then found because. Which I know a lot of you resonate with this concept that we've shared bits and pieces of in a lot. In the last couple episodes, a lot of women have reached out and said, yes, like, this is exactly what I'm. What I've always felt. And it's that we realize that our sexual expression, our sexual wholeness, like if we're climbing up like the top when we reach the pinnacle, is that we are fully satisfied by one another. And there is nobody else. There's nobody else. And so. Sure. Yes. That does automatically eliminate any emotional, physical affairs. Yep. Gone. Because we're fully satisfied. That does eliminate porn. Gone. We're fully satisfied. Well, that's where everyone stops the conversation, right? It's with those. Well, that's not where we stop the conversation. We keep going even deeper. Okay, are you feeling attracted, drawn, lured? We talked about some of those spiritual. That spiritual language that we use in the church in the last episode. Are you feeling tempted, drawn, lure? Do you feel wired as a man that you have to notice a woman's chest? A woman's waist, a woman's behind. Like, I'm using really respectful words. Those are not the words that we normally use as a culture. Are we feeling like, oh, when we go to the store, it's so hard not to see all the magazines, not to see all the lingerie things. When we get, you know, magazines in the mail, it's so hard not to look at those when, like, when I'm on my phone and, oh, on Instagram, oh, my gosh, look, this thing popped up. And it's so hard, you know, it's. It's all of these narratives of how we interact with the world and with the opposite sex that we begin to explore and dive deeper into. So, yes, we got rid of all those. Those top big topics when it comes to sexuality. And then we. When that was gone and out and not even a part of our story, it was like, wait, there's still more here we need to explore. There's still more that we want to look at specifically in our relationship. It was more for Brandon to look at. It was more for him to explore with his sexuality, which we always start with our childhood stories. Because if you feel any guilt or shame around this conversation, it most likely came up before you even got married. Around. If you have shame around your sexuality or your sexual story or any sexual narratives, you have to first explore where that started, when it started, and why it started, which is why we started with that episode before we even got to this episode.

Brandon (8:54)

So if you. If you heard Caitlin alluding to, okay, so if it's not porn or emotional affairs or physical affairs, you're talking about this layer deeper. What. What is that? And so as Caitlin was saying, we begin to explore because what had happened, and we talked about this in the previous episode, I had to find a way for my sexual brokenness to fit in a good boy box because. Meaning, it had to be appropriate enough so that I wouldn't feel guilty hiding it from Caitlin. But it still consumed me, and it still pushed. I still pushed Caitlin away because. Because of it. So for those of you who are trying to justify your behavior as not that bad one, that means you're in denial. So justification doesn't. Doesn't serve you. So what we're asking you is to say what parts of my sexual expression, my sexuality, are still causing pain to me and therefore causing pain to my wife? And this is both. We talk about it from the man causing pain to the wife, but this could be vice versa, or both of.

Caitlin (9:50)

You could be both. A lot of times it is and.

Brandon (9:52)

So we say to go through this, and we're going to give you some context on how to go through this together and what our cycles looked like of brokenness. Because it doesn't sound that bad. Your actions, your thoughts, the way you look at other people, until you say it to your spouse, if you said it out loud, and not just to anybody, but if you say it out loud to your spouse, if you said, yeah, I look at every girl's backside that I see in public for a few seconds in your mind, you're like, oh, that's, that's just normal. Just looking there up and down. It's a sign wire. But when you say it to your wife, I just looked at her ass. That doesn't, it doesn't work. She's like, I'm not okay with that. Oh, yeah. That's actually kind of weird that I'm doing that. Okay. Yeah, I'm looking at her chest too. Why is there something that's not good enough then? It's like it points to. Is it? Are you not good enough? Well, no, it's nothing to do with you. Are you sure? And so then what we're wanting to explore with you is that either you're always going to be attracted to other women or other men a little bit. And everybody says, even on the Instagram, on our comments on social media, people say attractions normal. Acting on it is not.

Caitlin (11:00)

That's totally the narrative we've all been fed.

Brandon (11:02)

But acting is where you look and what you think about those are actions.

Caitlin (11:07)

Exactly.

Brandon (11:08)

It's like, I don't buy things on my phone. I just shop. I just go to the websites and look. I don't purchase them. But you're still using time and energy and it's consuming you and all it does is it's preventing you from experiencing true connection in your, in your marriage. So we aren't bringing these things up to be like the judge of all people. We're saying there is so much more freedom.

Caitlin (11:24)

Yeah.

Brandon (11:24)

And so if you, if you want to experience deeper healing in your sexuality within your marriage, it's. It's going that step deeper. It's how passive and lazy are you on social media? Are you on the Explore page? Are you following accounts that post provocative images so you can feel justified seeing them? Do you watch late night TV and flip through the channels hoping you'll kind of see a scene that you, you know, your wife wouldn't want you to really be watching, but you, oops, I found it. Or I'm on my phone Oops, she posted that. It's those things and those images. You're still acting out as though you had a hardcore pornography addiction or you're cheating on your spouse. It's still trying to fill the void in your soul through outsourcing your sexual energy to someone else, somewhere else. And for you as the individual, not even thinking about your spouse that you're betraying in that moment. You can't outlet your sexual energy to somebody else because the loop doesn't complete because it isn't brought back to you when it's within the confines of your marriage. It creates a life giving cycle where you give and receive, you give and receive and, and it produces life. It literally could produce a child. It produces intimacy, it produces connection and safety. But when you outsource it to somebody else outside of your, outside of your marriage, it doesn't come back to you. And it leaves your spouse feeling insecure, hopeless and empty. Because that wasn't how it was. That wasn't the design.

Caitlin (12:38)

And you, like Brandon was saying, you have really two routes. The one we're talking about is not one I've ever heard anybody talk about, honestly. And it's not one that anybody proposed to us. This concept of sexual wholeness being being fully satisfied by each other and not just meaning we don't look at porn and that we don't have affairs, but meaning even deeper than that. We are literally only satisfied by each other. That is the route we chose and it's the journey that we went on. And then if you wanna, like Brandon said, you can have the other route where you truly believe I am a man who is wired this way. And we were even just, we were sent a couple videos from this Instagram account where this guy is. I was like jaw to the floor in shock. I didn't even know this was like a trend or a thing. And he is bringing back, I don't even know how to say polygamy. He's bringing back biblical polygamy. So he is a proponent of having multiple wives. Why? His main message is because men are wired to be attracted to multiple women.

Brandon (13:43)

At all times and to want variety.

Caitlin (13:45)

And to want variety and to need to have multiple women. And you know what? Honestly, that is a massive narrative. Even if you're not a part of a church that believes in biblical polygamy. Just that narrative alone of men are wired. We went to a normal, like run of the mill Christian church, like just all the basic foundations of a Christian church. And nobody was promoting biblical polygamy yet at the same time I heard all of that same messaging. Men are wired this way. Men are always going to be attracted to other women. We already talked about these things in the previous episode. And so good to bring into this episode of sexuality because you really get to the point, which is the point that we got to, where you choose, which path do you want? Do I want the path where I believe this narrative of, yes, my husband, even as a wife, like, I've heard in my 10 years of being married now and then our. Our six years of having this story, I've heard so many women say, yeah, I know my husband's going to be attracted to other. To other women. It's just like they kind of just like, there's nothing I can do about it. I'm just a part of this marriage. I don't really like that that's the case. But, you know, that's just how it is. That's how God created men. That's how men are. That's how their brains are. You know, all the different words. It's like, as women, we give up, and then as men, we give in. Or I'm not a man. But, like, as a man in culture, you're choosing just to give into that narrative. So you have your choice. You have your path that you could go down where you believe that this is just the way men are, or you have this other path where you probably, if you're listening to this, are like, wait, I've heard that narrative that this is how I am. And at the same time, my marriage is pretty much collapsing and broken. My. My broken. My wife is bawling her eyes out every single other day. We're in conflict, fighting every single day. We cannot connect. There is no intimacy anymore. We don't know where we're going towards. So, yeah, I'm really interested in a completely different route, a completely different path that could actually lead to ultimate freedom. And I feel like we should start by sharing where we are now and then backtrack to how we got to where we are. So I think it'd be really powerful for you being the man to actually express what it looks like for you to be walking in our version of sexual wholeness.

Brandon (16:02)

Yeah, let's dive into that. And I want to give that in. I'm going to share where we're at now. And then I want to go back to where we were when our marriage was breaking down.

Caitlin (16:11)

Exactly.

Brandon (16:11)

To the phrase of, is it. Was it that bad? So remind me of that if I get off track. So where we're at now is somewhere that I did not believe was possible. I wanted to believe it was possible, and I was desperate enough to finally take steps towards experiencing it. Back in 2020, I was convinced that I would always have that. I was gonna say spontaneous, subconscious, automatic noticing of women's body parts. And that sounds really caveman to say it that way, but that was we. What we did was, as you guys have heard, we did a lot of stripping back the layers.

Caitlin (16:47)

Most people don't put language to what we're about to put language to. So as we describe it, it might be like, oh, I'm uncomfortable by how he's wording it. Yeah, nobody words it this way. Nobody talks about these things. Nobody talks about these detailed of thoughts and processes and paradigms and ways of viewing the opposite sex. So go with us here as we. As we put words to it.

Brandon (17:12)

So we'll give you the positives of where we're at today. Neither of us experience sexual or emotional attraction to anybody else of either gender.

Caitlin (17:23)

Well, Brandon, do you think that girls.

Brandon (17:25)

Are beautiful even answering that? Like, I can't even answer the question. I got. Like, that's the number one rebuttal or not. That's not even what people say. Aren't you. Don't you find women attractive? It's like, no, because there isn't another woman that's like, I'm on. I'm not on the hunt. And that's one of the biggest things that we. I came to realize is I told myself I needed to stay on the hunt up here for the rest of my life. Where's the cute girl in the room? And that. That ended when we explored my. The sexual history and all of the. The inner workings of what I was using my sexuality for. And so I experience complete tranquility in my mind when I'm tired or upset. I have not gone back to my phone to numb out on a social media account with naughty images. I haven't gone to a random webpage. I haven't relapsed in over six years.

Caitlin (18:15)

And.

Brandon (18:15)

And I. I have a smile on my face. Like, I'm not gritting my teeth. It's not something that's like, I'm not scared. Caitlin's not scared. I'm not afraid of relapsing.

Caitlin (18:24)

There isn't working out.

Brandon (18:25)

I'm not working. A lot of effort, you guys know, we put effort in, but it was only. It was. You're already putting effort into anything you're doing. And so there has been no relapse. In six years. I'm not attracted to other women. I don't look at women's body parts anymore because I do not feel a hunger or a automated need to look at them. So then it would be by choice. And because I've made the choice, you know what I think for a lot of men and women, but I'll speak to the men. If you felt like you had the choice, you would want to choose your wife in every moment. And so I want to tell you, you can get to the place where you get your choice back. One of the biggest components, so that's just where we're at right now, is there is no desire for other women for me. There's no numbing out behaviors on my, on, on social media. There's no fantasy world inside of me that's like, I wish I could be with this girl or that girl. There's no, like, space I go to when I'm hurting or dysregulated emotionally. We are safe, we are secure, and it feels really good. Like we feel really clean. When I think about sex, it's not like, oh, like the pornography I've seen, the images I've looked for, any of those things do not haunt me anymore. We don't feel haunted inside of our marriage union, of what our sexuality is. And that feels really like a clean slate. So let's talk about this toxic cycle that we experienced in the beginning of our marriage which was going to lead to divorce in 2019, 2020, which was when Caitlin, and this is the primary, this was the, when it increased in frequency. But this isn't the only time when I was acting out in my addiction, when we would get upset with each other, which in a new marriage, you're, when you're newly married, you're learning how to communicate. You're learning what, what it means to coexist together in the same space when we would not see eye to eye or we'd be upset with each other. I didn't know what to do with that frustrated feeling of Caitlyn's telling me you're mean, you're not, you're not kind, you're not, you're not here, you're not showing up for me or this. And I'd be like, oh, that, just that feeling of I'm really frustrated with you. And Caitlin would go to bed and I'd numb out looking at bikini models. And that's what I would. I didn't, I couldn't go to porn because then I would feel guilty about it. So I looked at half. I. I couldn't be a good Christian boy if I looked at porn. Porn, but I could look at half naked women and not feel guilty even saying. See, when you say things out loud, they just sound weird.

Caitlin (20:41)

Y.

Brandon (20:42)

Still weird. Hey, when I fight with my wife, is it really that different if you go to porn or half naked women, you're still trying to get the same result, which is you want to have another smiling face at you because your wife's angry at you, and that's what you're seeking is that affirmation from a pretty girl. That pretty girl can be your wife. So that was the beginning of our marriage. As I was going to these naughty websites, but not full porn because I didn't want to feel that bad. And about a few months in, Caitlin felt like she was supposed to ask me about how I use the Internet. And I. We've tried this in the earlier episodes, so I won't go into deep detail into this, but just the. The narrative or the cycle we were stuck in was she would catch me and say, you're going. You're going to these websites. Like, how could you do that? Like, we had agreed you would never do that. Oh, and then I would confess to someone else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would confess to another man or a pastor or a counselor. And I knew people wanted to help me. I just didn't. People just didn't have the tools which we talked about. I would confess, I would pray. I'd usually cry and apologize, and I'd pick, like, a new addiction book to read and tell Caitlin. Like, look, it's been two weeks. We're through this. This has nothing to do with you or our relationship. This is just like a guy struggle thing. Like, I'll cut it out. A few months would go by, and we never addressed how I looked at women outside the shame I had around my sexuality. We just addressed the behavior of. Are you looking at naughty things online?

Caitlin (22:05)

The behavior you are caught in is the one that we would address.

Brandon (22:08)

Which, if you've had. If you're listening to this and you've had an emotional affair or physical affair or a hardcore pornography addiction that you just told your wife about from episode one. Um, you might be thinking, well, how does this. I lost my train of thought for just second thinking through how how does this relate? How does this relate? And it's. When you're in that place, you have to go the route. So, in fact, what I was gonna say is you have to go deep, because if you just address you have the physical affair, and we focus on your affair partner and say, I never want you to see her again. Let's move to another city and let's. We'll be good. It's like, no, no, you need to go to the roots, because how did you get to that place of being intimate with somebody else? So what we're. What we're saying is go to. Regardless of what you are here working through, go to the roots. Go to the foundation of your. Your. All of your sexual history, big or small, and explore what's there. Because what I did was I said, let's cut the behavior. And then what I did is I cut Caitlin off from sharing her pain, from asking questions, and from feeling insecure because this has nothing to do with you. This is a guy thing. I'm going to work hard at it and kind of make her feel guilty for questioning, as though it still existed. And a few months would go by, and guess what? She would catch me again in the same behavior sl slightly different, so that I could feel justified and I could keep doing it. Well, four and a half years, five years into our marriage, after the behavior was repeating itself every few months, it wasn't going to work. Caitlyn's like, look, we would dump a ton of emotional energy into this. Lots of tears. And the last time was I was completely numb from going back to my same behaviors. And Caitlyn could see it, and she's like, I'm not staying with you if you're not going to take this a step deeper. And so that's what threw us into this journey, was not. Was not that we had. We weren't going to make it. Trying to pretend it wasn't that bad. Lying to your spouse, spending hours on the Internet, spending hours texting somebody, having a physical relationship with somebody, whatever the flavor of your addiction was, it will ruin your marriage. And it was so clear for us because Caitlin was so alive and alert to call it out.

Caitlin (24:06)

Yeah, we were very. In the first couple years, we were very situation and problem focused. And then we realized we actually needed to get root system focused. And when I say root system, I mean, like Brandon's talking about. We're taking our eyes off of what the appearance of the immediate issue is, the big, big issue. And we're actually going to go deeper into an actual. Like, visualize a tree root system. Because here we have that tree at the top, which could be porn, it could be bikini models, it could be an affair, it could be whatever you want to call it, whatever it is that you can see, see right now that you're acting out on whatever it is. Maybe you're like listening to all this and you're like, I do all of these things that you're saying, which a lot of men do. And so here's that big situation that's going on that you confessed about or that you were caught in. And then look now and visualize. That's the tree. And then look and visualize all the roots going down deeper. Those are all the stories and the paradigms of your childhood, of your spirituality, and now looking into your sexuality. And so you have to look at all of the root system and all of the narratives. Because what Brandon's saying here, what we came to find after doing that cycle of acting out in hiddenness and secrets. Brandon acting out hiddenness and secrets, me catching him, him confessing, praying, trying to learn something new, and then reacting out in a slightly different variation of what he was already acting out in. And then re going through. It was like, oh my gosh, here's why relapse happens, is because we do not get to the root systems of what is actually going on. And when you do root system work, you actually never relapse again. Because Brandon is here. Why, why are we talking about this? Why do we know that this is true? Because we have been living this out for now five years. We've been living this out without any relapses for this many years. So we're saying this as a matter of fact, because we have done it. We have tasted and seen of the goodness and the fruit of what doing the root system works work looks like. And with that, we tried this. The. Let's just focus on the problem and try to get rid of that. And guess what? We were still relapsing. Because when you don't get to the roots, you keep spinning in the same exact circle. It might look a little bit different, it might present and show up a little different, but you keep spinning in that same exact circle.

Brandon (26:33)

A lot of people are familiar with Alcoholics Anonymous or the or 12 step programs with it, which I think have done a lot of good for a lot of people. So most people know somebody who has gone through AA or is involved with it. And there's all the offshoots of Sex Addicts Anonymous. Porn, porn. There's all these different 12 step groups. And I think what sometimes is missed in a. In the common approach to addiction is that you are always an addiction. And I think what we have always said, and we'll talk about this in another podcast is you chose the addiction. I chose the addiction willfully. But unless you get to that point, which is going to the roots like Caitlin's talking about, unless you go and say, how did I get here? Why did I choose this? Until you feel like it's yours, a choice you made even if you were a child and there was other components to your environment that made it feel like you didn't choose it. If it's completely outside of your control to heal, then you don't have to. You can stay broken, you can stay addicted. But if it's. It's one step to say I have an addiction. And I think to label yourself as an addict is a different. It's a different mindset. So what we did is I finally got to this place where I was like, oh, my gosh. It was a few months into us, in our, like, darkest moments in 2019, where Caitlin's like, we gotta figure this out. We gotta figure this out. And I'm like, it's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. Even though I knew it was bad, I just had to keep telling myself, it's not that bad. I was in denial that it was that bad. And then I was like, oh, my gosh, I can't make this go away. This is ingrained into who I am, but I don't have anybody else to. I realized I could not blame anybody else. It wasn't because the Internet sexualized. I was off the Internet at that point, and I was still struggling. Isn't because somebody was dressed in a super provocative way. I was still objectifying women who weren't dressed provocatively, wearing sweatpants. And it's like, so if it's nobody else's fault, it means I chose this way of viewing women to relieve my anxiety, to give me an escape, to allow me to dissociate. And I realized I didn't want it anymore, but it still existed in my wiring and in my being. And so what we did is we began to explore, okay, if it's still there, but you don't want it to be there, that's an addiction. But it was an addiction I created to survive my life. An addiction comes along when you're trying to meet a legitimate need, which mine was for connection in an unsustainable way that causes damage to you and others around you. And so what I thought was something I could not control was actually a set of behaviors and beliefs that I had adopted through my spiritual experiences, through my Earliest exposures to pornography through the way I viewed women and enabled myself to view them and feel a victim to a sexualized culture. All these things were things I chose to wire in to allow me to survive my reality, but they were actually causing me pain. They were incomplete. They weren't actually the. The wholest expression of what was available for us in our marriage. And they were. It was actually going to end our marriage if I was unwilling to question those beliefs.

Caitlin (29:24)

Yeah. So back to. I think relapse happens. It's because that person who continues to relapse is re. Going through that same cycle and never getting to the root systems. And what do I mean by getting to the root systems? I'm going to speak specific specifically to relapsing in sexual brokenness. Um, I. Although I do think that this could map over to a lot of other addictions and areas of life. So if you do not look at everything with curiosity, you will most likely relapse. If you do not take a step back from the big situation that you got caught in or that you hopefully maybe even decided to bring to the table, and you don't look at all of these other ways that you interact with other women or other men sexually, then you're going to miss the whole picture here. It's like zooming in on a camera to one little part, and then you don't see the whole picture of what's going on. So it's like, if we zoomed in on this, you know, this part of the couch, we might not know that this is a whole couch until we zoom out and go, oh, this is a couch. So it's like, look at your sexuality. And if you're just zoomed in on this one little part of like, oh, yeah, I'm looking at naughty things online. And you don't zoom out and look at everything like, oh, well, I'm actually objectifying. And when we say objectifying, we mean literally, you are making a woman. Again, just speaking to our story. Like, Brandon is making every woman an object. Like a pillow, like a blanket, like anything, like a statue that he can look at and then look away from and move on to the next moment. And again, this is just how we're wired as men. We are wired to notice. I'm. I'm speaking as if I'm a man. As a man, we are wired to notice a woman's chest, a woman's behind, and then some men will even look at the chest multiple times. And that's when in the church, we're like, oh, then you've sinned, right? So only look once. And there's this whole big picture you have to actually look at if you want to come out of the cycle of continually relapsing. If you don't go into the details of how you actually interact with women online, how you interact with women in person, how you interact with women in your mind, in your fantasies and your thought lives, in the things that you bring back up that you saw when you were a little boy, that you saw a couple days ago, that you saw presently. If you don't look at all of this and you just keep sweeping all these seemingly little scenarios under the rug, then guess what happens? They build and build and build and build and build until you have these big situations that you're looking at. So what we discovered is to become fully free from ever relapsing, you just have to look at the whole entire picture of your sexuality with curiosity and with a willingness to explore and ask questions, to seek to understand your own self, your own behaviors, your own narratives, your own thoughts, everything, to just look at it all on the table so that you can begin to see the whole picture.

Brandon (32:38)

The things we're most ashamed of as a, as humanity, we often don't want to look at. When you're in debt, do you want to check how much you're in debt? When you didn't win the last, the last game or sport you were playing, do you want to replay that in your mind when you realize that you're sexually broken? We often don't want to stop and like look at it. Right, because it makes. We're ashamed of what's there.

Caitlin (32:59)

It's uncomfortable.

Brandon (33:00)

It's uncomfortable. And I want to just give you permission. That's what we want this podcast to be, is this opportunity for you to have permission to explore your story and your marriage healing with great hope. Because we're not telling you to dive into this because we think that only a few can get out.

Caitlin (33:14)

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Brandon (33:15)

This is your birthright to experience sexual intimacy within your marriage and feel clean and feel good about it. And so one of the processes we went through which we explore this inside of our Grounded Intimacy program, we'll put that in the show notes. We're going to be offering that right now. It's a self paced program. You can get through it in about 60 days. Uh, we're gonna be also offering it as a eight week intensive. So that'll be in the show notes and updated information for, for this, the whole, our whole process for walking Couples through how to experience the same healing. We have that inside of that program for us. What we did is we used this declaration or this affirmation for four Rs that I received from a pastor who was willing to partner with us, which was rare to find. And basically what these. What we did is we took each thought that would come or each component of what we found about my. My sexual brokenness, and we began just to dissect it and look at it if it was true or not. And. And basically, without breaking down all the four Rs, is to just recognize it. That's one of the other.

Caitlin (34:11)

I would add, too, that we did this together.

Brandon (34:13)

Yes.

Caitlin (34:13)

So this wasn't something that Brandon did on his own, and this wasn't something that he did with only another man or in a small group Bible study or only with his counselor. And this is why in episode one or two, I can't remember which one, we talk about how we talk through everything together. Everything is out, everything is coming clean. The foundation of how we believe healing takes place in a marriage is together, which makes complete sense because we are married together. So what he's about to explain is not something that you embark on with only your journal. This is something that you, as a husband and wife, embark on together. And if you're a woman listening and you're resonating with this, then don't just swipe this under the rug and say, well, they keep saying man. They keep saying husband. We're talking from our experience here and from our story. But if you're a woman and you're resonating with this and you have things you want to share too, then both of you are embarking on this, which.

Brandon (35:06)

For context, Caitlin did. You did share things, but yours were, hey, I had this weird sexualized dream. I don't know what this came from, but I just wanted to share that with you. Or, hey, this. I had this experience that made me feel uncomfortable. Like, Caitlin told me things she was experiencing. She just didn't hide things from me in ways that would be like, oh, that really upsets me. It was just like, she would still confide to me, like, hey, this is. This thing from my past was coming up. I wanted to share that. So Caitlin did it too.

Caitlin (35:32)

There was no shame in my sexual story of upbringing, which is why we say, explore your upbringing, your stories, your lives. Because there was shame in Brandon's sexual story and his upbringing because he was exposed to inappropriate magazines, exposed to pornography, exposed to. Exposed to sex scenes in movies. And that led to this whole trail where that he didn't want to look at, which then fast forward into our marriage. If you just keep not looking at it, you're going to keep repeating it.

Brandon (36:00)

Keep looking. You're going to keep looking at it.

Caitlin (36:01)

You're going to keep looking at it whether you want to, until you finally sit down to look at it. And for me, I didn't have exposure to things that caused sexual shame that I then had to keep repeating in a pattern of. So like I said in our first episode, when I came into marriage, it was already with the foundation of Mary. We tell each other thing, these things, we talk about these things. That's how we got to the point where I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm not continuing on in this marriage anymore as the only one who's vulnerable and honest and transparent about everything, including our sexuality. And so you're coming with me in this or you're choosing to be done because you're not actually participating in creating intimacy and connection. So with that foundation, we do everything together. We say everything out loud together. Somebody even asked me and they sent me a message. They said, on a practical note, how did you. What do you mean when you say you did everything together? And I mean, like, literally, we talked through everything together. And so if Brandon didn't have a job outside of the house, we have always created our own businesses as entrepreneurs.

Brandon (37:07)

And so we have urban in ministry.

Caitlin (37:08)

Or been in ministry, which is very entrepreneurial. And so we've had the gift of being together, we. All day, every day, which is sometimes a gift and a curse when you're. It can look like a curse when you're going through this amount of deep work, because when you're in denial, you're like, wow, I have nowhere to run or hide. And then at the same time, looking back now, we're like, wow, what a gift. If you weren't together every. For every moment of the day, like, we were in the process. Brandon's about to go through with the four R's. What I would tell somebody, which is not something we had to do because we were together. What I would tell you is to keep a journal where you write it all out. And then each night, whether you have kids or you don't have kids, you put your kids to bed, find time every single night, and you're going to talk through these things. And it's not a. It's not a report card. Did I get an A plus or an F? It's. This is your moment to Discover who you are and to discover what you can create in your marriage. And you have to go through this process to create a safe, connected, healed, whole, intimate marriage. And so write it all down so that you can come back together and actually talk through everything out loud.

Brandon (38:23)

And so I'll expl. I'll explain what things to write down, but for context, if you're thinking Brandon and Caitlin, this sounds really messy. Yes. And the only reason you would do this is if you're already in a mess.

Caitlin (38:32)

I was gonna say you're already.

Brandon (38:33)

You're already in a mess. You already don't have safety in your sexual connection. You already don't trust each other. You may be caught lying. So, yes, you are in a mess. This is messy. And for the partner, if you guys are both sharing things, then you're both kind of processing, like, oh, that's new information about you. I didn't know you had that experience. Or I didn't know you saw men that way or saw women that way. This will be a time. And Caitlin's talked about this elsewhere, where you may share something that really triggers your spouse and makes them upset with you. And that's gonna happen. The goal is to always come back to compassion and validation, to create what's new. And so, ideally, at the beginning of sharing your sexual truth is that your spouse would know. The very we say, I'm gonna use the term big even. This is where only people stop. They need to know the very significant things that impact their safety in the immediate now. So that means if you've been fantasizing about your. The co worker in the cubicle next to you for the last five years, and. And you guys kind of are flirting at lunch, and. But you want to start thinking about the. You want to start telling your wife things that you were exposed to years ago. This needs to be told first.

Caitlin (39:39)

Right.

Brandon (39:39)

So you do need to tell the significant things. Like, I've been watching porn on the computer downstairs when you go to bed. That needs to come out first. What we're exploring now is the ripple effect of all of the big action. Like, if you've had significant actions. Pornography, emotional affairs, physical affairs, compulsive masturbation that your spouse doesn't know about, all those things, those need to come out first. So this is the secondary actions you take to recover, to heal. So I'm not saying this is the.

Caitlin (40:03)

Second layer that has to be done if you don't want to ever relapse in the big things.

Brandon (40:06)

Bingo. So what do you write down? Well, in our process, we wrote down memories. So in this process where you're basically telling your subconscious mind how to rewire your brain, and you can make this as easy or as hard as you want to, I kicked and screamed to go through this until about four months into our process. And I was. I wasn't like a jerk, but I sure was. I was shrinking back and I would get passive and there'd be. I thought it was impossible. That's the only reason I didn't dive into. It was like, yeah, Caitlin, this is cute. Like, we're going to keep doing this until you get off my back. And then it was like, wait, this isn't going away because Caitlin thinks it's important.

Caitlin (40:40)

Like, which we're here now to tell you it is possible because Brandon thought it was impossible, because nobody told him it was possible. Every other man, no matter how high they were on the spiritual ladder, told him it was impossible. Don't even do this. And we're here to tell you what we are about to explain. Explained to you. And what we're experiencing is 100% true. It's not made up. It is so possible for you. It is so possible for your marriage. And that's exactly why we're sharing it. So know that as you hear that, you can already begin to soften and relax and receive because you know that it's possible for you to experience this.

Brandon (41:18)

And we did not go through this so that we could put it into a course or a podcast. I honestly could care less about that time thinking about giving this information away to other people. I just wanted to wake up the next day and not. And. And have my wife next to me and to finally understand what freedom felt like. So this process that I resisted so intensely, this idea of exploring all of my history, sharing it with Kaitlin, exploring my present day experience, sharing it with Kaitlyn, and rewiring it, I thought was not necessary. Seemed like too much once I did it, which I'll. I'll break it down a little further. It was 30 days of this process, will describe.

Caitlin (41:57)

It was exactly a month.

Brandon (41:58)

Exactly a month to where all that remained was names of certain women or basically like a few random memories that would come back very infrequently after that. But basically there was no more sexual chatter or distortion in my being after going through this 30 day process. No more lure, no more temptation automated like glances, noticing.

Caitlin (42:20)

No more, yeah, no more looking at the waist, the chest, anything. You didn't even notice if there was sexualized content on magazines as you were walking by aisles. You saw people's eyes, you saw people's faces. Your whole mind and being was completely relaxed. You were able to be fully in your body, fully grounded and fully present with me, fully connected. And what you thought was impossible happened in exactly a month. You had no idea what happened in a month?

Brandon (42:49)

No, I didn't know what I was signing up for. That's why I was afraid to do it. And there's several element, more elements than what we'll describe in this podcast, which we. We talk about in our Grounded Intimacy program. Because you have to. You want to. You want to stack the deck so that it's practical to do this as well. So on a practical note, I did write down because we, even though we were together, there's times we would be around our children. So I actually kept a notepad on my phone of, if a. If a memory came back and it's to be like, because you're going into this, you're going to have a lot more sexualized thoughts, does it mean that the devil's tempting you?

Caitlin (43:16)

Right.

Brandon (43:17)

It doesn't mean you're actually doing anything wrong by opening yourself up to becoming aware of how your sexuality is functioning. So you might, by saying yes to this, this process, you will probably have. I went from having a few conscious sexualized thoughts a day to hundreds of thoughts. And it was kind of like, that's a lot, Brandon. You must have been really messed up. Maybe I was. I don't know. It's just. It was. I opened up all of my brain to be seen so that we could start rewiring it. I started becoming aware of memories when I had looked at women a certain way in certain settings. I started remembering scenes from movies that I hadn't seen from when I was a child. But the emotion and the memory that was linked to a specific sex scene from a movie would link to scenarios where Caitlyn and I would go to be intimate. And I'd be like, oh, I. This is reminding me of that sex scene. So I felt shame from this movie I'd seen as a child or in high school. And so I would write down these memories. Okay, this sex scene for, I don't know, like, I would just be, like, doing the dishes. And a memory would come back of a sex scene from a movie. It's like, not sure what that's about, but I just, I recognize it. So the first R is to recognize, to receive, to release, and to replace. So you recognize the thought as it exists. You don't try to Ignore it. You soften.

Caitlin (44:27)

It's a thought. Or we did this. We did this with thoughts. And we also did this with, say, you went to the store and you noticed someone's chest. So you're recognizing a thought or an action.

Brandon (44:38)

Perfect. Yep.

Caitlin (44:39)

So either. And it's also, you're recognizing a thought or action that was either from the past or present.

Brandon (44:44)

Yeah, it encompasses all that. So you recognize it. Basically. You. You. We're not in denial that that is true. Right now, I'm having a memory of a movie I watched years ago. It's true. That's what's going through your mind. And that's okay. We're not here to judge it. We're not. This isn't a judgment process exactly. This is a curiosity. You're saying, mind, please help me understand my sexuality. I'm ready to reorient it. I'm ready to organize it in a way that serves me instead of me being controlled by it. So you recognize the thought that it exists. Then you receive. I like the two words, grace and power in your body. So you're literally saying body. You can relax, you can take a deep breath. You receive peace, grace and power. And within your body to then release. So you got. Sorry. Recognize. You receive grace and power, and then you're going to release the thought. You say, okay, I had this memory. I'm going to let it go. It doesn't have a strain on me. It doesn't have power over me. I'm gonna release it. I'm gonna release what that meant to me and let it flow through me and out of me. And then you get to this chance to replace it. So you have recognize, receive, release, and then you're gonna replace it. Okay, right now you're doing the dishes and you just had a sex scene come through your mind. What do you wanna think about right now? So instead of thinking, okay, I had this sexualized thought, I want to replace it with, wow, look at how beautiful the trees look right now. I'm going to replace this sexualized thought with a grounding moment to the present moment. When this happened. The most for us, which was very painful and uncomfortable at first, was when we were doing some emotional exercises our counselor had given us. And I would go to express a desire of love and connection to Caitlin, and another woman's chest would flash, flash through my mind or a sex scene. And I literally couldn't access this vulnerable part of me without seeing sexualized images. Because I had equated, vulnerability meant erotic images. And those two, I had to separate. That actually wasn't what that meant. Vulnerability in my marriage meant closeness, safety and connection. And I tried to experience those emotions through what I looked at online or how I viewed women that weren't my wife. And so we paused. We would pause and I'd say, hey, I'm having this thought. And as a. As a wife, you're probably like, that's so uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable. We were already, again, if you're going through addiction, if you're going through sexual brokenness, you're already in a state of discomfort.

Caitlin (47:00)

We're already in deep, deep, devastating pain.

Brandon (47:03)

You have to take the steps deeper, otherwise you're gonna stay there. And so I would share that. I would recognize I'm having this thought. I receive power in my body, peace. And making eye contact with Caitlin many times as we're having this experience and say, I release that. I replace that thought or the image with this moment. There's no other woman here. I'm not feeling aroused by anything else. Her place with the safety and the connection that we're creating. And some of those nights were so profound because there wasn't anything special happening in our life. We weren't at a marriage retreat. We weren't. We were broke. We didn't even know if it would work. We had two young daughters, one that was hardly sleeping. We had no money. We were just hopeless as far as, like, our life wasn't like, going well. It's like, let's try this exercise we found from the Internet. It was like, I want to know you. I want to know what it feels like to only know you and to feel safe, to open myself up to you and to experience freedom in my sexuality. And we started walking through the thoughts that would have been memories of present day experiences. Like Caitlin said, how I saw women outside and then how I had memories hit me from things I had seen before. And we began to reorganize. Where those thoughts existed inside of me, where they were attached to, what they were associated with was a huge thing. Like, I'm anxious. I associate all these. And then I have all these thoughts come now. When I'm anxious, I feel my feet on the earth. I feel the air in my lungs. I feel the closeness and the warmth of my wife's hand in my hand. You are re shifting and you're retraining your mind how to see your reality.

Caitlin (48:31)

You're literally rewiring everything.

Brandon (48:33)

And it's like learning to walk.

Caitlin (48:35)

And nowadays, like psychologists, people that study the brain. I don't even know all the technical neuro.

Brandon (48:41)

Neuroplastic.

Caitlin (48:41)

Yeah. That they. They've realized that the brain is completely moldable. And we knew this at the time, and even maybe those of you listening know this as well. And we're here to say that we actually had an experience with that, and we're here to say that it is 100% accurate. Because Brandon's brain, in a matter of a month, we completely were able to unwire what we were told was wired into every man and was wired into stay.

Brandon (49:11)

Yeah.

Caitlin (49:12)

And that's that he would always feel tempted, lured, attracted to another woman. And that is that if he felt attracted but didn't act on it. Just like all the Instagram comments say that he is a good holy man. And even if we're taking religion out of it, he's still a good husband. He's a good man. And what we realized is that if we wanted to, we could take the brain like clay, and like Brandon says, we could remold and shape and put together a whole different experience, one that we wanted to create, one that we wanted to have together, which is that there are no bombarding. Bombarding meaning thoughts coming in that are sexual. There's no thoughts coming in about women. Current. There's no memories coming in about women, scenes, images, anything from the past and on the day to day moments. When we go outside, when we interact with the world. There's no temptation or lure to. To notice anybody, consume anybody, or see anybody. And this may sound really simple. Oh, you're telling me, Brandon, that what I've been told my whole life, I have to deal with. You're telling me if I just take everything and I just go through those four Rs that I could end up like you and have a marriage like yours where there's no relapse, there's freedom, there's intimacy, there's sexual wholeness like what we're talking about and this connection in my marriage again. And the answer is yes, absolutely yes. Because it might sound. Actually, for most of you, it probably doesn't sound simple. It might sound too good to be true. And that's probably denial. That's actually probably your denial structure saying that's too good to be true. Don't even try that. Don't even start that. Well, you know what? Because you know deep down that sounds terrifying.

Brandon (51:01)

Yeah.

Caitlin (51:01)

Because when you go to say, I'm willing and open to this process, your subconscious mind, like we talked about with the denial structures, it will start to bring out everything from all of those hidden doors. Yeah. Everything that you've been hiding that you haven't wanted to look at yourself, it will come out and it will come to the surface. And if you allow it to, it can come fully out of you and through you, through that process as a 4 hours of releasing it and replacing it. And two big components I touched on. One is that you do it with your spouse. You actually sit down with your spouse and you go through this. Your denial structure will say, oh, that one was so small. I'm not. I'm going to do the four hours myself, but I'm not going to talk through my wife. Talk through that one with my wife. Don't do that. Do not ruin the process. Do what we're saying to do. Actually sit down with your spouse and go through all of them together. And you need. The second part is you have to say it out loud. Because the reason why we're saying to even do it with your spouse is because Brandon alluded to it earlier. When you say it out loud, you put words to it and you see it for what it is. Because in your head, in your denial structure and in your shame and your insecurities and all your stories and your patterns, your narratives, everything, you can take something like, oh, I noticed her. Her breasts, and you can mold that, and you could roll that over. And Brandon used to say stuff like, well, I was sitting down and she stood up in front of me, so it's not my fault that I saw her. But Brandon doesn't ever say stuff like that anymore. He doesn't ever think those thoughts anymore. He doesn't ever find himself into situations like that anymore. That is not a part of his story because he now has completely rewired everything to where another female. There is no pull. There's no need. He's not hunting. He's fully satisfied here. When you are full, you do not go back for more food. Yeah, when you're at a buffet and you are full and you're. I like the word satisfied. When you are satisfied, you don't want any more food. You actually feel sick if you have more food. And that's exactly what we've created in our life, in our marriage, is that we are fully satisfied here. And so there is no lure or pull anywhere else. And so you have to say it out loud. You have to go through the four Rs, actually saying them out loud. Like what Brandon, he just modeled a great example here of saying it out loud. That. That was a great example. Put that into every other area that you want to Talk about and use that and sit down with your spouse and say it all out loud so that you can actually begin to see it. Because when you say it all out loud, you're going to be able to notice where it came from. Oh, I'm realizing that right now. I was looking at that girl's waist because I'm feeling really anxious in the store because I. I'm just giving you an example because I. I've always felt anxious in stores because my mom used to always feel anxious in stores and we used to have to leave. This is a completely made up story. I'm just giving you an example of how it can train through. We used to always have to leave the store early because my mom would feel really anxious. And so see how it's like when you actually verbalize everything out loud. When we begin to verbalize everything out loud, we began to see so much about Brandon's life. Brandon began to discover so much about himself. And if you don't, this is a gift. It is a gift to finally see yourself. And if you don't say it out loud and you don't talk through with your spouse, you're missing an opportunity to fully go through this entire process. And to be honest, I don't know if it actually works if you don't do it fully. I only know that it works if you do it the way that we have experienced it. Because in the way that we did it, we were able to get it all out, see everything, and track over where this started, where it came from, where, why it still exists, so that we could recreate a whole new experience together.

Brandon (55:06)

Yeah. One of the things that will happen is you hit a tipping point and you're sharing where you'll realize this is a lot. And I hit that tipping point several times. But it hit the point where I'm like, I'm no longer doing this for Caitlin. And even though you might start this process thinking, I'll do this for me, I want to be free, but you'll hit a point. You're ultimately doing it initially for your spouse because you want them to know that you're safe. But you'll hit this point where you'll be like, wow, saying all these things aloud or having all these memories come back, because they will come back with sharpness and clarity. And you'll be like, I didn't think I had much sexual exposure. I didn't think this was this big of a part of my life. And you realize it is all consuming. And when you finally see it for what it is. You're like, I don't want that anymore. And that's when you take the process a step further. Is it's not just for sharing it for your spouse to hear you say it and go through the motions. You won't get there. But that's a good start. When you see it and say, wow, this is huge. This was consuming my life. Even though I thought a little glance here, a little glance there, a little scroll here, a little scroll there, it was consuming 90% of your energy and your mental capacity. You have nothing left for your spouse, and you have nothing left for you.

Caitlin (56:08)

To keep that all hidden. You don't realize how much, Brandon, when you got fully free and got it all out, you were like, oh, I can breathe again. It's like weights begin to fall off because you don't realize it until you actually get it all out. That to be keeping all of that in hiddenness and secrecy from yourself and from your spouse and from everybody else.

Brandon (56:28)

Yeah.

Caitlin (56:28)

Has been weighing you down. It has been slowly or maybe even quickly debilitating you.

Brandon (56:36)

Yeah. We have covered a lot of ground tonight. What I want to leave you guys with is explore your sexual history and your present sexual experience with curiosity and honesty. Recognize it, receive power in your body, release it and replace it. If you're willing to walk through that and share your process with your spouse. And this can be twofold. Your spouse, if they're working through things like that too, if you're willing to do that, you can experience a completely different sexual experience. If you're willing to stop the consumption as well, which we'll have another podcast, meaning you can't consume this. You can't continue to watch mindlessly on social media or movies and not be intentional of what you bring in passively and be. Because that's a form of rewiring. You're just being passive and letting it rewire you. We've left you with a lot of.

Caitlin (57:19)

Mm. Yeah. I wanted to say too, something that will probably come up if you're getting to the point, whereas we're wrapping up here, is, well, Caitlin as a wife. How am I supposed to just sit there as my husband shares all these things with me all day long? How am I supposed to sit here? Like Brandon says, there's a hundred things my husband's sharing with me. How do you go through that? And I'm here to say it's actually one of the most painful seasons you will experience. It was the most painful season I've ever been through, and I Had nobody. I've said this already, and I'm gonna say it a bunch of times. I had no other woman that could sit me down and say, caitlin, it's painful, yet it's so beautiful on the other side, and it's so worth it. And I already cried saying this in a different podcast because I'm here as a woman saying, it's not gonna feel fun to hear your husband say any of these things to you. It's not gonna feel light. We make it sound light right now because we're years on the other side of it. But it was really hard. And I'm here to say it's so worth it. It's so worth it. If you're a husband listening to this, it's so worth you taking this as an opportunity to get it all out. Because what's on the other side is so much freedom and connection. And if you found yourself at this podcast, it's because you don't want what the world's offering as this other path where we just kind of dabble in other relationships and we, we have to have sex with a lot of other people to feel satisfied. Oh, no. We're here to tell you, if you want that, have that. But if you want connection in your union, it is so possible. Will it be painful? Yes. For both of you. And is their joy and beauty and so much connection on the other side? Yes. If you fully choose into this, you can experience marital bliss that you've probably never experienced before. And so take care of yourself. If you are a woman, take care of yourself. Go for walks, journal out your pain. Do not turn to any coping mechanisms yourself. Write everything that you feel to paper. Eat nourishing meals. Take care of yourself. Get sleep. Sleep eight hours. Go outside and lay in the sun. I spent almost every day laying out on a blanket with my girls, being in the sun, putting my bare feet in the grass. And we went for two walks a day in that season because we were moving. I needed to move through these things. So I'm here to tell you the pain is worth it because the other side is so incredible. And in the pain as you are in it in the day to day, you can take care of yourself to make it to the other side.

Brandon (60:13)

I want to thank you guys for joining us on this podcast. If you got something out of it, consider leaving a review so we can reach more couples and maybe share this with maybe another couple, you know, could. Could benefit from this. We will see you guys in the next episode. We'll continue to share our story and the process we use to heal. Thanks for joining us and we hope you too will take the journey of experiencing sexual wholeness. We'll see you in the next episode.

Caitlin (60:54)

Sa.