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- [00:00]
A
Welcome back to the Grounded Union Podcast. It's season four, episode six. We're talking about lust and attraction today. This is our most controversial topic. Whenever we post a video about it on social media, everybody goes wild because everybody has an opinion or a thought. And we're going to dive into our philosophy on this whole concept of being attracted to anybody. But more importantly, if you are in a marriage union, which I happen to be in, and many of you happen to be in, and you still are, either noticing that your husband is feeling attracted, objectifying, sexualized, and we'll break it all down in this episode to other people that are not you, or you are, as the wife, feeling drawn, lured, attracted to other men. So we get a lot of pushback on this. Primarily, there's two camps. There's the spiritual camp, which we came out of the Christian world. Not like we came out of it, we're part of it. But, like, where you see the world through a lens of temptation that we must overcome, that, yes, I am married, I'm committed, but there's always a big but. Lots of big buts. B U T. B U T, which turned into B U t's. True temptation turns a but into buts. And it's just like it feels so it. We're giggling because it's like, it's not maturity.
- [01:21]
B
There's no real logic in that argument.
- [01:22]
A
We're gonna get logical. We're actually going to make it very logical. I'm actually. I'm almost done with my first book, but I'm going to write a book on this because I just feel this desire to make this easy for us to navigate as a society that leads to what we want. I mean, what we truly want. So all of your lust, attraction, sexualization, objectification, whatever you want to call it, and you're like, well, it's different. Noticing is different. We'll talk about it all. Do you know what you want before you listen to this? Who do you want to feel desire to have sexual union with? Is it the stranger? Is it the supermodel? Is it the celebrity? Is it your wife's friend? Is it the thoughts of the person you had sex with before you met your spouse? Who is it that you long to have sexual union with, build a life with, have deep, deep intimacy with? I'm attracted to that person. And that's our core premise. If that person is everybody, you can be honest with that. And there's plenty of voices. It's not us, but there's plenty of voices out there for how you could go have multiple relationships, multiple sexual partners. Those of you in a committed monogamous union aren't pursuing that. So you're here saying, how can we make this union, husband and wife, make sense? Why am I committed here? But my awareness, my beliefs lead me to have micro moments of looking at her ass, looking at her breasts, searching for supermodels on here, looking at half naked bikini models here, watching movies with other people, having sex and that creating a rhizomy. Or maybe you're so, so numb. You just look at everybody like an object and there's. You tell yourself there is no meaning to this. Everybody's just a sex object. And I just look at them and it's, it's a passing thought, it's a passing glance here. It's not a big deal. I want more for the collective consciousness of society, of humanity to be more than. I'm looking for somebody else to hook up with. It's not my spouse. I think we can do better. And so that we're not. This isn't going to be a shame producing episode. This is an invitation to. If you've had this narrative shoved down your throat that you will always feel sexual towards people that are not your spouse. And that's usually brought under, well, I noticed that she was attractive. I noticed that she had nice assets. What does that mean? Because when you dig a little deeper, it gets weird. It gets really weird. And it means different things to different people. What it always ends up across the board is it leads to dissatisfaction in your marriage, leaky sexual energy, and you're honestly making other people uncomfortable. Most people don't want to be stared at. Most people don't want to be, don't want to be sex objects. And if they're looking for attention, it wasn't yours. So let's dive in. That's my little intro, a little intro to the intro for health class today.
- [04:08]
B
So good. I was thinking about this because we were going to take a podcast a different direction and I was on a walk the other day. We actually batch record all of these. Um, we have four kids, so we have incredible help and we just, we do one each day so we know we'll never leave you guys. Cuz if we say we're gonna release them each Friday and we don't actually batch record these, something will happen and we won't actually do it. So I was thinking about all the podcasts we'd already recorded thinking about this concept. There's a lot of comments that come in on our videos. There's a lot of videos that will pop up on our screens because of the videos that we produce, you know, whether they get sent to us or whether the algorithm thinks that I want to see the opposing views. And so I got into this really incredible little rabbit trail in my own mind on my walk where I was breaking down attraction. And we have actually a whole other episode in, I think, season two on this concept. If this is really intriguing to you, I'm sure we talk about many different things because there's a lot to cover in just, you know, one hour. So when I was thinking about attraction, I was thinking about how attraction is really actually connection. We're just kind of calling it attract. Right. And. And what do we mean by attraction? That's. There's probably a lot of ways to describe it. It's when you find someone else to be attractive physically. Right. And so we think it's almost this. This big topic we can't control. We're attracted to these people. We find certain aspects of them to be attractive and all of that, whether or not it's physical, you know, at first, first moment, first glance, first thought is actually rooted in connection. And I'll break down the thought here. So there are a lot of people that come into our, you know, that have been married for a long time. Of course, they were originally attracted to their spouse when they got married. And then they'll find out about the betrayal that's taken place. And so many people will come up to us in the intermission between our events, and they'll say, caitlyn, like, I'm not attracted to my husband anymore. Did you go through this with Brandon? And, like, do you ever get attracted again? Which. That's a whole other conversation. And what that thought process reveals is that originally there was physical attraction, right? Because there was connection in the marriage. Then there was betrayal and the severing of connection. It's not that the spouse all of a sudden overnight got, quote, ugly. You know, if we're making. If we make attraction solely about appearance, the spouse didn't change looks overnight, yet attraction was lost overnight because betrayal was. Was found, discovered, caught, whatever it is. So then the attraction is gone. Why? Because the connection is severed. Even think about it in another realm. How many people have heard stories, this was not our case, but I've heard stories of couples that, you know, have this adorable love story. And it starts something like, we met, and I was totally not attracted to him when I met him. Like, I didn't even think he was cute. Again, we're making it all appearance based for this attraction. And then it's like, oh, but I felt bad for him or whatever the story is. So I went on a date with him, right? And then I went on a couple dates. And then I realized, oh my gosh, I love him. He's incredible. I am attracted to him. And here we are, we're married, and we have this adorable love story. Okay, what is this narrative of society actually paint for us? Oh, the attraction, the physical attraction wasn't there. What built the attraction? The physical attraction, the connection, Right? So attraction is actually connection. And so you might say, okay, Caitlin, that's great. I love those stories. Those make a lot of sense. But please explain to me why my husband is attracted to the stranger that's walking by with short shorts and yoga pants, Attracted to the woman he sees online, attracted to the waitress with a large chest. Explain to me. Because there's no connection to that person. And you might think that at first thought, because no, that is technically a stranger, most likely. And for this specific example, and what you don't realize is that there's connection to a storyline here. So that woman that's.
- [08:01]
A
Listen up, everybody.
- [08:02]
B
That woman that's walking by with the quotes, large chest. I don't have any hands, so I can't do my air quotes. The woman that's walking by with this large chest or with these short shorts and the yoga pants or whatever it is that society has deemed as attractive, that this husband has deemed as attractive, there's a story there for why that person is attractive. This is one of my bigger arguments to the concept of attraction being something that's biological, essentially forced, handcuffed, that all of us must walk around with. But primarily men, because that's how men are wired, is that for any man in addiction, if we were to have 50 men in this room right now, we were to survey them on who they find attractive, every one of them would say something different because we might say, like, oh, you know, a hot blonde with large chest and a thin waist and, you know, whatever, a voluptuous waist, whatever it is. We might say that's it. But many people Brandon and I have heard from, many men say, I like thick girls. I like this, I like that, I like them tall and stocky, I like them overweight. Like, it's like everything's different for every man. So we, sure, we might have a society standard of attraction, but if we had a bunch of men in here, every man is completely attracted to something different because they're connected to a Storyline of their life. So there's a story there of movies they watched, of women they interacted with in their real life, in adolescence, into teenage years. There's storylines to things that they were exposed to by their parents, by school kids, by sports coaches, things they sought out to be exposed themselves to pornography. They watched music videos, they watched video games, they played. Whatever it is. There's a storyline that's connected. And the amazing thing about this is just like in the original story, stories I shared where, you know, the, the spouses are meeting, they originally aren't attracted to each other, they connect. Then there's attraction. The amazing part is, is when you decide you want to disconnect from a toxic storyline you've been carrying on, you all of a sudden disconnect from the attraction you have to that. So you were attracted to women in yoga pants. And then you realize why the story behind that. When did you first feel these sensations? When did you first feel these attractions? What's the storyline behind this narrative? Were you told that as a little boy? Did you watch things? Whatever it is. And then you rewire it through the four Rs which we talk about in many episodes, which we talk about in our community. There's a whole section on that, many coaching calls on that. When you rewire that part of your brain, essentially when you break that down, you're just cutting ties with that storyline. You're no longer attracted to that anymore.
- [10:40]
A
Yeah. Cause if we make attraction solely physical attributes like Caitlin said, then that's different for everybody based off their story. So then here's what got really uncomfortable for me as I was becoming aware of this was I thought it was all physical. Men are visual. These certain things are cleavage, this, that, the other. All these things are things I will pick up in my environment and fight to stop noticing.
- [11:08]
B
You have to, you have to pick up on it because you're a man.
- [11:10]
A
Because I'm a man and I do my best to avoid it or I seek it out, depending on if I'm angry at Caitlyn or not. You know, it's all those things. And I thought that was purely how the brain works, just how I'm wired. I also thought that that was also. And many of you will nod your heads. I thought that was temptation, the devil trying to use these evil women to get my attention. And I'm fighting this invisible spiritual battle which here, this is going to blow all your boxes. Now this will get some one star reviews. So if you'd like the podcast, leave
- [11:39]
B
a five star review this is gonna get some better.
- [11:41]
A
Yeah, this will really hurt people. When you think about the devil tempting you, it is only around sexual temptation.
- [11:49]
B
Always.
- [11:49]
A
There is nobody I've talked to. You know what, brother? I was feeling tempted to go rob that bank. I prayed and the Lord saved me. You know what? I was feeling tempted to eat a couple extra cookies. We actually view how we heal in the rest of our life as very progressive. And we, we build and we mature when it comes to sexuality. Devil's tempting me. I'm not. I'm not responsible for this. It's because she's a whore and she's rest that way. I can't control it. We condemn the wise for thinking that they should. I don't know why I'm still talking to my Southern. We blame everybody else because we don't know what to do with it. And here's what's really disgusting. I say disgusting because I was disgusted at the discovery. When I started doing some emotional exercises that helped me realize what feeling sensual or sexual felt like. I realized that the way I was looking at other women, the way I looked at them and thought about them was very sexual. What my sexuality in its authentic expression was, was completely opposite from that. But in micro ways, I was giving this momentary sexual connection or desire for connection with these other women. It is not only physical our attractions, it's emotional. And the reason that matters is what Caitlin described. It's not what she's wearing, it's what she represents.
- [13:01]
B
Exactly.
- [13:03]
A
And for. There's a couple routes we're going to go with this. We're going to go around the kind of the leaky sexual energy side. So this is sometimes for women, if they're seeking to have connection with another man, that will cater to their emotional needs. And we'll talk about how that's kind of a funny story that we've heard as well as the reason why we're tempted to look at other people a certain way. But what I want you to think about from this is more the male perspective that's often given is men are basically trained to see women as sex objects, especially in the Christian world, like honored for seeing them that way and just trying not to act on it too much. So don't go to the strip club, don't sleep with a prostitute, don't sleep with somebody else.
- [13:38]
B
But you probably will.
- [13:39]
A
But you, you might because you were trained to see women as sex objects and as dangerous and scary. Instead of realizing, wow, what do women represent? And I think when we see a woman as A sex object. The brain, your reticular activating system. The RAS reticular activating system, which we're going to talk about. That's what the four R's piece is. That's your awareness of your environment. Your brain is constantly scanning your environment to tell you what information is important. Taste, touch, smell, heat, temperature, smell. Something's on fire. Oh, that woman's crossing the street. You want to see this part of her? I'll tell you what you need to know about her. What we've trained our brains to do in our modern society, our digital digitized society, is to find out what's my quickest path to orgasm. If you scroll on social media, gone to porn and then masturbated, your brain's saying, well, you, you're looking to have sexual connection, right? So what the brain looks for is women that appear again, appear, because this is your story, appear sexually available. A woman wearing shorter clothing or tighter clothing is communicating to your brain, to the story you've presented. She is more sexually available than somebody who is not. But what was really crazy is once you kind of start seeing everybody as an object, it doesn't matter what they're wearing. When I started being radically honest with how I saw women around me at the gym, I was objectifying the woman in tight yoga pants that was athletic and muscular and worked out a lot. I was objectifying the 40 year old mom who was wearing baggy clothes. It wasn't because she was wearing tight clothes and asking for it. It was because I had wired myself to see women as objects. What was uncomfortable was realizing this is actually emotional. I have this emotional need for affirmation, approval, seeking for somebody to give me attention. And I'm looking for a microwave all around my reality because I'm so insecure, I'm so anxious. And I don't know how to create that in my relationship because I don't know what to do the second Caitlin's upset and I just run away and go look at a screen or go look at another woman. And I'm constantly scanning for a way to get relief from this tension I've created. Does that sound like freedom? That doesn't really sound like the devil's fault either. It sounds like something we've created. And so when we talk about lust, which is this sexual, strong sexual desire, often just mismanaged sexual desire, we talk about attraction. When you're, you know, they say that you're single and ready to mingle, you actually are scanning the horizon for who is a suitable partner. Their butt's not going to tell you if they're a suitable partner, who they are as a person.
- [16:09]
B
Exactly.
- [16:10]
A
When Caitlin came to South America, I was doing missions work and she came and she, she, she said she saw me. These are her words. And she felt attracted to me, but she also felt in her body and her mind, she said, that's going to be my husband. Now, I was wildly immature and I gave her a similar attention, but she became aware of the essence of who I was. And when you are seeking for a partner, you will become aware of the essence of that person, what they're about, who they are. And that's what makes somebody attractive to you. A stranger wearing tight clothes, or a stranger wearing baggy clothes, or a nude person on a screen, or watching two other people have sex. There's no real connection there. But that's what you are seeking. That's what we want to land on, is your sexuality is seeking a way to connect. Just in case you guys weren't aware, they're listening to the podcast. Your mom and dad came together in sexual union and conceived you. That's how you're here. We are here from connection. We're not here to ejaculate on whoever we want for the means of getting off, dealing with anxiety, coping through life. We are built for divine, deep union with our partner, with our spouse. And I don't think that that is sustainable by trying to outlet this really messy, chaotic, spastic sexual desire anywhere and everywhere else. It doesn't make sense.
- [17:31]
B
Yeah, and people, you know, they get really triggered and upset with the concept of, you know, of us, not. We're not being controlled by the devil or tempted by the devil, or even we could take it in a non spiritual realm. And you know, there could be this argument that women out there have a bunch of control. Remember I shared the story of the. At the gym that was going to start a men's gym because all of these women coming in with inappropriate clothes, right? So this whole mentality of, like, it's her fault, it's this person for what they're wearing. And you know, people get really upset when we say, well, that's not it. Like it's not the devil, it's not what the person's wearing, it's not even that. It's a sexual society. Because I'm going to take this two routes. But I just had another thought popping. If you want to say it's a sexual society, you want to say that you're, you're wired for attraction, you notice everyone's attraction. Guarantee you this. Like, riddle me and just try it out. I don't even know if that's a saying.
- [18:23]
A
Riddle me this.
- [18:24]
B
Riddle me this. Test it out, try it out. Email us. I guarantee you, I guarantee you, if you get off all social media, you freaking throw out your TVs that are all over your house. Like one fat one in your living room, probably got one in your bedroom, one in your kids rooms. You carry them around in your pocket, Couple iPads in the drawers. How many freaking skeins do you have in your house? Get rid of your screens. You've heard us say this a hundred times. Some of you are listening, some of you are waiting for me to say it again. Get rid of your screens. Get off social media. I guarantee you so much of your attraction you thought was biological, you thought was wired in you thought was permanent. You thought you were controlled by. You thought the devil was throwing at you. So much of it gone. Because guess what? What happens when you go online? That's connection. You're going online to connect, right? That's why people created social media to be social, for connection. That's why people are on there. Right? My whole point exactly. You're going on there to connect. You're telling your brain, your reticular activating system, this is really valuable information. And then you scroll and you search and you have your Explore page and you find all these things and you're like, oh, woe is me. It's her fault. It's what she's wearing. I live in a sexual world. How did this lead me to the porn site? How did this lead me to these sex chats? Oh, no, all this. And it's like, whoa. That's what Brandon realized. Like, this has nothing to do with the devil. I choose every day to wake up and get on my phone and scroll social media. I choose every single day to binge watch the Explore page when my wife goes to sleep. The devil didn't choose that for me. He didn't take my thumb and set it to doom. Scroll. I chose that.
- [20:04]
A
Which we just spoke on this, I think, two podcasts ago, our Explore pages, they don't have. There's no naked women.
- [20:10]
B
My Explore page is epic furniture.
- [20:14]
A
Mine's like entrepreneurs, which I don't spend time on my Explore page. But, like, when we looked at it, it's just like, it's entrepreneurs or like health or a little bit of travel or like, it's like the algorithms actually aren't trying. They're trying to give you more of what you want or what you're actually, they're getting more of what you've searched for.
- [20:28]
B
It's the same, the same thing as what your brain's doing.
- [20:30]
A
It's the world.
- [20:30]
B
Your explore page is giving you more of what you've told. It is important to you. And your brain is showing you, giving you more of what you told. It is important to you. Guess what? Your Explore page can actually look super appropriate, super clean. My Explore page is giving me more of what I've searched for, which is vintage furniture to make the walls behind us look cute when we do our
- [20:54]
A
podcast, which, but we want to also get talk about, which we, we, we don't start here because people will try to like, pretend this is their reality right off the bat. But the way we see the. The human body, again, is not as a potential sexual connection with a stranger. So somebody in a swimsuit, somebody in workout clothes is not a sexual moment. It's not a tempting moment. It's not a scary moment. And vice versa. Caitlyn seeing another dad and it's athletic in his swim trunks. It's not a like, oh my gosh, what do I do now? We also have talked about, I don't spend one to one time with other women. I don't, I don't do weird stuff like spend long, intimate times alone with women because that's just doesn't make sense.
- [21:41]
B
You're not looking for connection.
- [21:42]
A
I'm not looking for connection with another woman. I also have dignity and respect for how we engage our world. We spend copious amounts of time every day with friends and nobody's like, well, Brandon, like, is so scared. It's like, there's no, there's no confusion there.
- [21:54]
B
Yeah.
- [21:55]
A
So we're not afraid of it, of what our sexuality is. We also don't see all these moments we live through as this super hypersexual world we live in. Because guess what? After we get done recording the podcast, Caitlyn and I aren't binge watching the next Netflix show that is about this, like, horror sex film that plugs into our mind. Wow, this is a kinky, weird world.
- [22:15]
B
Yep.
- [22:15]
A
Do you know what my world's about? Keeping my kids alive, Feeding them, helping them sleep. Like, it's very tactile. It's like, it's what we can taste, touch, see. And it's. It's sensual. Think about that. It's sensual. What you want is to feel the sensual pleasure of life. You're not getting that from porn or even flirting from with A colleague or even a full blown affair. You're not getting the sensual desire your body longs for. That's not what you. That's not sustainable. It's riddled with guilt and shame. We're all about pleasure. We center our life around connection to each other, to the land and nature around us to travel to. We literally like, as a ritual. We watch the sunrise together. We watch the sunset as a family. Well, sometimes they'd be like, oh, we need to get the kids to bed. Let's drive down to the beach, we'll watch the sunset. Or let's go to this vantage point. Let's watch like, we literally, like every night, it's like, whoa, oh my gosh, look at the sunset. Now what's funny is a lot of you say, you know, like, looking at a beautiful woman is like looking at a sunset. If I walked around said, wow, look at her, she's. Oh, my gosh, look at those lines. Oh, look at this. You guys would think, wow, Brandon's disgusting, right?
- [23:25]
B
He's crazy.
- [23:26]
A
We don't need to make up a bunch of weird reasons for why we are still sexualizing somebody else who is not our wife.
- [23:31]
B
Right.
- [23:32]
A
Or our husband. We don't need to make up reasons. We actually just get to see wow. The way I've been navigating my world is pretty broken. I'm personally not benefiting from it. That's what I saw. I was like, caitlin, are having all these conversations you guys have heard us talk about, about, like, my sexual reality. The way I was seeing women, the way I was objectifying women. I was like, huh, if she wasn't in the picture, this is weird. Like, if I can look at a woman, go home, masturbate to the thought of her, watch porn, meet somebody. I didn't even go to a bar, but say I went to a bar because I got in divorce and I could go have sex with somebody. I go have sex with multiple women. Am I satisfied? Is that the sensual, erotic, deep, longing connection I'm wanting? I've heard from you guys, it's not. You've tried it. Yep. It's. It's not what you want. Honestly, if you chose to enter into a union, that's not what you chose.
- [24:18]
B
Right?
- [24:19]
A
You didn't choose to be a bachelor in a hookup culture. And people that are in the hookup culture, they aren't happy.
- [24:25]
B
Yeah. So stop acting like it.
- [24:26]
A
And not to sound like too pessimistic, but our society stops when we stop procreating. Sustainable families with healthy children with stable parents, they are connected to their children. As a society, we're not doing well. So a stable home is everything. So if you're trying to create a stable home, it starts with actually reconnecting to the core elements of life, which are very sensual and that sensuality. I think we all fear that this sexual demon inside of us is going to lead us outside of the marriage. But your sexuality, fine tuned it will always lead you back to your spouse. It's not even like a scary thing of like, oh, but you do have to face your story, you do have to face the lies. If you've been lying to your wife about your porn addiction, about your, your social media addiction, you're like, well, I don't look at hardcore porn, but I watch softcore. I see like half naked women. Like, is that part of it? Yes. I don't like look at women for a long time, but like for a few seconds we'll talk about this too. Like it's this common thing, church sayings of like, count to three. One, two, three. If you look at her longer than three seconds, then you're lusting. Who came up with that? A male Christian leader they've been running with. Say it again. Male Christian leader came up with that. One, two, three. That's a long freaking time.
- [25:36]
B
Weird.
- [25:37]
A
It's weird. I tell you what, all you listeners, I ain't gonna look at your wife for three seconds. I'll look her at the, in her face and say, hi, nice to meet you. I'm not gonna look at her breasts and go, one, two, three. Okay, turn around. Okay, I have analyzed her. What a robot. That's freedom. And then it's after the three seconds, what if we just. What if we trained our brain to follow us and us not follow the broken patterns we gave it? What if the first three seconds you see somebody, you see another human being that you know nothing about, you don't have a preconceived judgment or story about them and you interact with them from a clean place. Not seeing if you could have an orgasm from the thought of them later. Exactly. Or something. There a lot of things there.
- [26:17]
B
Yeah. Back to what I was originally communicating because it was just, just a hundred different amazing routes we could go and we'll try.
- [26:23]
A
We're passionate because there's so much freedom. And I'm. That's why Caitlin helped me see all this. But like, living in bondage is not fun. Living free.
- [26:31]
B
Living in bondage and actually calling it freedom, that's torture.
- [26:35]
A
That's real bad.
- [26:35]
B
That's torture. And that is what is happening.
- [26:38]
A
You get next level. I'll tell you what, you get next level. Psycho for me, when I went that route.
- [26:42]
B
Exactly. So people get triggered and upset when we say essentially, it's nobody else's fault. Not the devil's, not hers. It's not even the creators of porn. You know, so many people want to throw store and stones, like, these evil people out here in the world. And like, sure. Like, if I could have a conversation with them and ask them to shut it down. And they said, yes, like, incredible. I love that. And also, you guys know what? It gets shut down when everyone stops looking at it. Like, it. It's nothing to do with them. Why did they create it? Because people are looking at it. Because people are watching it. You guys. Nobody has control of you except for your own self. So people will get upset about this. And I'm like, no, no, no. This isn't upsetting. This isn't triggering. This is exciting.
- [27:22]
A
Yeah.
- [27:23]
B
When you realize this is a gift.
- [27:26]
A
Yeah.
- [27:26]
B
What we're sharing with you, we're not here to say, like many of your counselors, many of your church leaders have probably told you that essentially you're free, but actually you're in bondage for the rest of your life. Like, that's terrible news. I don't have terrible news. I have good news.
- [27:42]
A
Yeah.
- [27:42]
B
You are fully responsible. We've already done an episode on this, many episodes on this. You'll hear us say this all the time. That's a gift. You get to rewire every story. If you're like, I don't even know where to start, like, this is sounding good. Like, this is the grounded intimacy course inside of our couples app. This is looking at your entire life as a story and choosing what you want to rewire. This is a gift. This is so beautiful. It's not a burden to. It's a burden to look at everyone else and go, it's your fault. Because that means you're stuck for the rest of your life. You can't get out. You cannot get free. No matter how hard you try. When you realize, oh, whoa, I can create the life I want. I can create the mind I want. Your mind is completely moldable. You can create the mind that you want. Then you realize, oh, my gosh, nothing is stopping me but me. I always like to say this. Healing is really simple. It's really, really simple. It's sometimes irritatingly simple. So many times in our life, even outside of our marriage, we'll develop and grow in A new area. And it's like, oh my gosh, I've been dragging my feet for three years, you know, three months, whatever it is. For some of you it's 30 years. And I didn't realize healing was that simple. A simple change in my life, a simple change in how I view things. A simple change in my mind, right? Healing is so simple. The only thing that makes healing complicated is ourselves. The second you want to stop complicating your own healing journey is the second you get to heal, you get to decide. And that's the gift. You don't have to come to our event. You don't even have to join our community. You don't have to go to counseling every single day. You don't need to read some sort of special book. Can you do all these things? Yes, you can. And guess what the gift is that you have everything you need inside of you to heal. Everything you need all around you to heal. And everything that you need to heal will come, come right to you.
- [29:31]
A
We recently saw a video that was tagged in one of our most recent posts about this topic. It was a male Christian leader telling women to not condemn their husbands because it's their God given gift to glance at other women, to not gaze at other women.
- [29:43]
B
Which again, we're not against Christians when we use the term male Christian leaders. It's not because we don't like Christians.
- [29:50]
A
Because I was a male Christian leader.
- [29:51]
B
We grew up in the Christian church, we still love Jesus. And when we went to do our healing, you guys, we, we have a couple spiritual episodes. This is the only things that give us a one star review because this topic is deep for people. Highly, highly triggering. People like Bond, which I get, I get that it's triggering because we were there. We were there in those boxes of religion and these concepts are really not talked about there. So it's not that we're against male Christian leaders. It's not that we're against Christians. It's not that we're against the church. We actually really deeply care. That's actually why we're talking, because we care about male Christian leaders and everyone that they're leading and the messages of true freedom actually reaching these people.
- [30:33]
A
We also suffer. I personally suffered and then brought that suffering to Caitlin because of these beliefs. Again, that's why it's not the people like the three second rule. That's not one man's creation. That's an entire culture created within a society. So the video said it was a God given right. Don't condemn Your husband for glancing at other women, but for gazing is if you look too long and make. We've read that in the Bible somewhere. Again, I can't find it in my Bible.
- [31:00]
B
It's not my Bible.
- [31:01]
A
It actually. And then I've seen you guys comment that you.
- [31:03]
B
You.
- [31:04]
A
You real Bible readers. Like, you know, Jesus said if you. If you lust after another woman, you've committed adultery at her in your heart.
- [31:10]
B
Yep.
- [31:11]
A
Wow.
- [31:12]
B
Again, taking it back to the heart. Taking it back to connection.
- [31:15]
A
Shoot. And I always hated that verse because I actually. I remember one time I looked at porn, like, probably eighth grade, maybe freshman year. And I remember, like, one time considering, like, what would it be like if I took my eyes out and I was blind and I could never lust again because I'm lusting and I'm having. I'm committing adultery with these women. My. I. With looking at him this way, I'm like, I just need a hug from Jesus. The Bible's full of mystery. We try not to. This isn't necessarily a faith podcast as far as just exploring the Bible. I have another work I'm starting very soon with Brandon Talks Jesus. But we basically come to these conclusions that are very broken. And if we want to say something that is very clear. God doesn't like children being mistreated. And I'll also say God doesn't like evil things being called good. And we try not to go the evil good route a lot. But if I were to tell you that me thinking about having sex with other women is a good thing as long as I don't act on it, and that's good, and that's God's best for you, Whew, that's heavy. Because that's actually creating bondage and torment for everybody that heard those words. And so I think there is a lot of responsibility for people that want to share openly. And we don't debate these people publicly unless they comment on our pages. And then I'm happy to talk back and forth, but we long for a day when this awareness of how I look at the world around me, how I think about the world around me, my thoughts and my memories and the way I look is not controlled by anybody else. And we are not powerless to our previous sexual experiences, and we get to reclaim that power and say, how do I want to see the world around me? How raw and real do I want to be with my wife about that process or my husband? And the reason it's so important is in that exploration, it was really painful because I realized, wow, My yes to Caitlin was really weak. And people say it's a. It's. You only get to choose your wife in the. Having many other options. It's like, no, I was choosing the other options every day. I hadn't committed myself to fully being with her, and only she saw it at first like that. And I was like, whoa. When I realized I had wired in this way of seeing the world around me that nobody else is saying, you got to look at her that way, I was like, no. Like, I chose this. And when I began unchoosing it, it was really deeply ingrained. And that's why we use the four R's. That's why we teach that in our program and our events is like, I wanted to unlearn that way of seeing women. And when I began to see it was possible, it just took some time and some compassion on myself. I didn't necessarily need compassion. There was compassion from Caitlin at times, but I just need to look at myself and say, wow. I had believed a lie, that this was healthy, natural and normal. It actually was eating me alive. And it caused me to push away from Caitlin. It caused me to live a numb life where I wanted to isolate and detach from reality, because I thought, if I feel my sexual desire, I'm going to end up wanting to have sex with the other women. Instead of saying, wow, healed sexual desire will always lead me back to my wife. Why not harness that as a tool for connection and no longer be afraid of it and rewire all the debris that I had built in over the years.
- [34:16]
B
And you might think, like, oh, wow, Brandon's such a great husband. Like, he was really on board for this process and this journey of. Of, you know, agreeing that he didn't have to be attracted to everybody and objectify everybody, and he was going to rewire his brain. And you guys, it wasn't like that at first. Brandon was like, all of your husbands, where he looked at me and went, you batshit crazy. Like, you think that I can not be attracted to anybody else. Like, he's had all the same arguments because, again, we grew up in the. In the Christian church. So it's like, no, I'm wired this way with his argument. No, this is how I have to live, right? This is freedom. At least. You know, I'm gonna count to three. I'm gonna look away. I'm not gonna think about it too much. I'm not gonna masturbate. I'm not gonna look at porn later, whatever. Like, I'm gonna be at the Highest tier of man, you know, Christian male sexuality. He had all the same arguments. Then I would lay out my argument, right? And he'd be like, shoot. Like when you put it that way, when you talk about a lot of things that we're talking about in this podcast, like this actually doesn't make sense yet. Then he would battle arguing.
- [35:17]
A
I was arguing for something I didn't want. And when Caitlin Caitlyn's clarity on how she brought it to the table, she's like, like this is how I look at other men. What you're saying is it sounds like this. And I was like, I'll take what you're having, but that's not my reality, right? And, but I wasn't, I didn't want to admit that I was very cowardice about it.
- [35:35]
B
And you're like, nobody else says that this can be a reality, remember? And again, we're really young, really naive in a lot of ways, really innocent in a lot of ways. So you know, I, I didn't know at the time. You know, I speak so confidently now, like, you know, about our stories of getting kicked out, about our stories of, of getting shut down. I didn't know at the time when I presented this message it was going to get so much hate again. I'm not presenting it to the world. I'm not starting a podcast right then and there. I'm just trying to heal my marriage. You know, I'm trying to gather together so that we can make it to the other side actually connected. So I'm just going innocent, like an innocent young, young little girl, freshly married. Like, okay, let me go to these high up leaders, these wise people, you know, that are, that are supposed to be in my life to counsel and provide direction and leaders. I'm getting the doors slammed in my face, right? And it's like I had no idea that this was a touchy subject. Yet every time I kept coming around to it, I'm like, this is the only thing that makes logical sense. Like if we're literally just making it logical, it makes no sense that we would come into union yet still be attracted to everybody else in the world. And the more I began to look at the messages mainly passed on from the church. Although we've had many friends who had never grown up in the church that hear the same messaging and you know,
- [36:48]
A
we've other worlds place as well.
- [36:50]
B
True, we've touched on a lot of them. You know, this is men's God given abilities. Glance but don't gaze. Count to three and look Away.
- [36:59]
A
Bounce them eyes.
- [37:00]
B
Bounce your eyes. This is all wired in, you know, These are the narratives that are kind of pushed down. And one of my biggest arguments to this day, and even my. My argument then, and I've said this in another podcast, and everyone was like, Whoa, minute marker, 23. Like, kind of mind blow. And I love it. I would comment this on every Christian male video that's out there. And also, I don't care too. But my biggest argument is, okay, great. You say that this is amazing. You say that this is the holiest way a man can live, right? This is good for a man. He's wired this way. This is God given ability to notice her beauty, right? He's gonna gaze for three seconds, then he's gonna look away, right? I'm gonna paint out this whole picture. He's not gonna think about it later. He's not gonna masturbate. He's not gonna look at pornography. Nothing. He just gazed, okay? Just for three seconds. That's how he was wired. He's a sexual, visual man, Right? Amazing. And that makes me a good, holy Christian man. Okay? Or let's just. Let's just take out religion. That just makes me a good man, a good husband, a clean man. Okay? Incredible. Thank you for that argument. Now, since you're so good, you're so pure, you're so holy.
- [38:12]
A
Watch out.
- [38:13]
B
I want you to stop. Every time I want you to look at your wife, you're having dinner together like this. I'm gonna act it out with a little bit of sass class. You're having dinner. Sorry, baby. There's a beautiful woman over here like a sunset. Look at her butt. I'm just gonna gaze for three seconds, baby. One, two, three. Okay, what were you talking about, sweetie? Oh, we're talking about the kids at school. I love you so much. Oh, so sorry, sweetie. Our waitress has large breasts. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna gaze or. Sorry. Glance. I'm gonna glance. I'm not gonna gaze for too long. You guys. The word salad. Here, here. One, two, three. Okay, where were we? Back in the conversation, sweetie. Oh, okay, sweetie. I'm actually having this sexual.
- [38:55]
A
Don't condemn me. I am a visual man.
- [38:57]
B
You are a visual man, sweetie. Exactly.
- [38:59]
A
Okay, this is making me uncomfortable. Exactly why God created me this way. Those are strong arguments.
- [39:04]
B
Those are strong arguments. If you're so comfortable with that being your sexual expression, if you are a man and you're like, this is it. This is the holy of holy. The highest rung we can achieve in our sexuality, our purity, our cleanliness of mind and heart and connection in our union. Why don't you tell your wife? Why don't you tell your wife? Every single time you look at another woman and find her attractive, stop her right there and say, I find that woman attractive. If it doesn't hurt your marriage, why don't you do it? That's the answer, you guys, because it does hurt your marriage. It will sever your connection. Your wife will leave you after three days of you doing that. I'm not even talking about freaking pornography, you guys. Guys, I'm not talking about affairs. I'm getting riled up because this message needs to literally be shattered. I just boils my blood. Like, I'm not talking about sleeping with strippers. I'm not talking about women's full breasts. I'm not talking about pornography. I'm not talking about anything. I'm not talking about anything graphic or serious. By the way, how do you get to graphic and serious? You think that this is acceptable and you condone it in your life and you call it freedom. And then you wonder why you're sleeping with the secretary. You wonder why you're sleeping with the neighbor. You wonder why you can't stop masturbating, looking at pornography. You wonder why you hate your wife and your kids hate you. You wonder why church Christian male leaders are collapsing. Sleeping with. I was gonna say, yeah. Sleeping with adolescents, sleeping with everybody doing outrageously disgusting things because they condoned and called this freedom, yet their wife would leave them after three days of having to hear through that. And if your wife is going to leave you after three days of hearing that, that. That's not freedom, that's not holy. And that's not the best that you have for union. It actually makes absolutely no logical sense. And if you want to argue it, I want you to tell your wife every single time. And then I want you to come back to me after one week and tell me how it's going.
- [40:58]
A
See you next week. Oh. So we started talking about it from these conversations. Mind you guys, I was having this conversation with Caleb, though, by the way.
- [41:09]
B
I gave him that same rant, and
- [41:11]
A
he's like, oh, and I'm alive, guys. I'm alive to tell the story. And I've told Caitlyn many times a lot recently. Like, we're like six years after this season. Like, when this was. We were walking through this.
- [41:24]
B
We're six years after. And do you find other women attractive?
- [41:27]
A
No. And I feel. But I've been telling Caitlyn recently, like this, the immense gratitude I have that she didn't let me settle because I felt like so much lesser of a man using my sexuality to feel justified looking at women that way. It takes a lot of energy to, like, navigate a world that's coming out to get you that you have to, like, look at for a little bit, but not too long. Instead of living in a world where you are completely free and you're not seeing potential sex partners everywhere you go. Like, that feels great. And so I've told Caitlyn, I'm like, thank you for not having low standards. That would have been a bummer. That would have been a bummer because, I mean, she'd have been doing it too. I don't want Caitlin looking at men the way I was looking at women.
- [42:04]
B
Right?
- [42:04]
A
And she was giving. That was what she gave me as a gift. I didn't even have to worry, like, I didn't have thoughts like, oh, is she looking at other men? She attracted other men. I'd like ask. Just. I think we've, we've had conversations. Like, no, I'm like, all right, well, that makes me feel great. Right. I'm not giving you that.
- [42:19]
B
Right.
- [42:20]
A
And you're like, well, that's because Brandon's a man. Well, Caitlin, why don't you share the story of the, the well known leader. Like, this is a female. I think she's a psychologist. I don't know who she is, but she came up.
- [42:31]
B
This is another real.
- [42:32]
A
So let's. This is not just a man thing. Like men. So women. We've had friends. Sorry if you listen to this podcast, but I don't think she is. We were like our house one time and she, she told me to move because she was looking at my butt in the mirror. It was a very.
- [42:44]
B
At least she was honest.
- [42:45]
A
She was honest.
- [42:45]
B
She, she took up my. She got my theory of just, if you're gonna live that way, at least say it out loud.
- [42:50]
A
She talked about other men she found, like, sexually attractive. And this was not. It was like very. Like a. From a broken. Like, I look at men this way and I know. And I see in the comments, you know, like, as a woman, I look too. But. So this isn't a male, female thing. That's why we're trying to debunk. It's not just men are visual.
- [43:06]
B
No, no, it's not. And so this reel came up and it was essentially on the concept of attraction, which it's actually going to further emphasize my theory of connection. Connection and attraction are really synonymous. And, you know, long story short, she was a mom, wife, had multiple kids, went to the family, you know, pediatrician. She walked in, felt attracted to the. To the doctor. He's like kind of like, you know, pampering, doting on her maybe is kind of how she made it sound. Giving her attention, like complimenting her, telling her, like, so amazing that you had so many kids. You know, he really liked different aspects about her parenting style. There's a couple different things that she was like, wow, I'm taking this to heart. This feels so good. And she even said in the video, you know, her husband was pretty absent at the time, worked a lot, they didn't see each other, they didn't have a lot of connection. Okay. So she was applauding herself because she said she made the right move. She said, it's like, okay to be attracted in a marriage. This is then what you do. She said, I never went back to that. She said, I never told my husband because it wasn't a big deal because I never went back to that doctor, that pediatrician ever again. Kind of like, okay, guys, here's the freedom. You're always attracted, but.
- [44:15]
A
But she felt like deep feelings towards.
- [44:17]
B
The exact same pathway to freedom is you just don't go back, you don't look again, you don't act on it, you gaze, you don't glance, Whatever all these little made up theories and sayings are. But ultimately, if you listen to that story, it really doesn't take like a. Just like a scientist to figure it out. It's like, oh, you just already said you're disconnected in your marriage because you barely see your husband. He's not really there for you or for the kids. So there's probably not much intimacy there. Intimacy. You see, there's probably not the love and connection and the union you're desiring from your marriage. So then you go to this other man, already disconnected, and he's offering you what appears to be connection. He's just being a nice doctor. He's just doing his job. He just wants you to be a client that comes back. Probably not giving you anything that crazy. But you're already coming from a place of disconnection, seeking connection, and that's coming through as attraction that actually can be rewired all to begin with. Like freedom. Freedom is not okay. I'll experience a lot of that in my life and just never act on it. Eventually run, run, run, or run, run, run. Like, that's not freedom. Eventually you will act on it. And also, if you're not, let's just say you never act on it. It. Why is that freedom? Why not address the disconnection in your marriage? Because that's the thing. Someone even commented the other day on, you know, a video arguing with Brandon, like, well, so you're saying that your wife, meaning me, never, never loves it when a man compliments her or never feels attracted when a man is listening to her talk, and I'm just like, oh, my gosh, that's where we're at, you guys, in society. Like, that is where. Like that. That was so telling to me. Whoa. You guys know. And it's not because I'm gritting my teeth. It's not because I run away from men. It's not because I'm just like, oh, look down. Run away. Like, oh, I can't talk to any other men. Like, what the heck? You know, it's because the connection here between us, the connection of our union is so strong, so full of vitality and help and love that there is no need or desire anywhere else. Else. And it's not like, oh, there's no need or desire, so you just whatever. It's. That's the reticular activating system. When this is full, my brain is not telling me I need to go somewhere else. Have you ever been to a buffet? Like, I grew up going to Izzy's. I don't think that's a chain everywhere, but it's just this all you can eat buffet. It was my favorite place. I wanted to do all of my birthday party there, birthday parties there. Have you ever been to a buffet when you are freaking full? You don't go back and eat more. You feel sick. When you are full and satisfied in your union, you are not looking elsewhere for anything because your needs are met. And then that creates the whole argument. Well, can your needs be met by one person? Yes. If you're not lying and hiding from them. Absolutely. If you've got a baggage of lies, which most of you do, no, your needs can't be met. There's no intimacy. There's no into me. You see, there's no connection. Connection is severed when you bring secrets into your marriage. When connection is severed, when you bring secrets in, you have to seek connection elsewhere. Hence why all of you think that you should have the right to be attracted. Get rid of your secrets, get rid of your freaking screens, have deep, hard conversations, cut the storylines you don't want to keep anymore, and you'll find that your life is a lot freer. Than you think, Brandon. When he rewired his brain, when he freed himself from this felt compulsory. A compulsive sexual reality is what I like to call it so good. When he freed himself from that reality, which looked like him, him telling me every single time this did happen. That's why I have that argument, tell your spouse every time. It's not fun, you guys. I went through it. I heard every single time he looked at another woman's waist, another woman's breast. Every single time he had a memory of a sexual past encounter. Every single time he had a porn scene pop into his head. Every single time we were going to have sex and other images came in, he decided to get radically and brutally honest.
- [48:06]
A
Yeah.
- [48:06]
B
He would tell me every single time it wasn't a dog with the tail in between the legs. It wasn't a woe is me me. It wasn't powerless. He was powerful. He was curious. He was ready to heal. He told me these things. Then he rewired through the four Rs. Then we made it to the other side. And he sat there in complete awe. Like, I had no idea this was possible. My entire life, he used to say all the time. My entire life, I was told this was impossible. I thought I had to live that way forever. And I thought it was good. I thought it was free. And we're sitting on the other side together in awe. I don't even want to use the word disbelief, belief, because we actually believed for it. That's why we created it. You can create anything you believe in. Yeah, we believed in it and we created it. And we're sitting on the other side of it. You know, this would have been six years ago going, whoa, this is what freedom is. This is what connection and wholeness and intimacy is in our union. Not what the picture it was that we even painted that was turmoil and suffering, yet labeled as freedom. This is what's good. Because now we feel connected and free. We can go outside. And Brandon's not worried about if I'm going to feel good because a man's complimenting me. Like, what? Also, men don't walk around complimenting me because I'm not putting myself in a place where I'm needy and needing men to compliment me so that I can feel good. Because I don't feel good here. Yeah, I'm satisfied here. I'm not out there searching, hunting, needing any of that. I'm not out there looking around at everyone's penis. Absolutely not. I didn't wire that into my brain. I'M wired for connection here in my union.
- [49:40]
A
Yeah. What we want to give you guys is hope that if you're working through betrayal, that you're working through these really big things, which are the affair, the porn addiction. What leads to lasting freedom is going to the root of how that all started and where the brokenness began. Because if your marriage survives the betrayal, you probably want, want to make sure that you're going to enjoy the marriage you create on the other side. We will not give you a roadmap that says suffer through betrayal and then live like roommates. We wanted to know if we could fully know each other. I was scared as hell to do it, but I was willing to participate in the experiment and that's why we started exploring. Like, I started sharing. I'm like, so these are the thoughts. This might overwhelm me. She's like, I'm not overwhelmed. I'm already overwhelmed. Like this. We got to just know. And I was like, okay. And as I started saying all these things out loud, I was like, like, you're right. This doesn't feel right. I see why you're so upset about this. I see that. I see why this is a big deal.
- [50:36]
B
Right.
- [50:36]
A
I see why this is going to kill us because I'm choosing to bring my allegiance to sexualizing other women over protecting you and honoring myself. And it was like, I'll take what you're having. And I was willing to experiment long enough where that became my reality. And it, there's like a few month window where I was dabbling in it, being honest, being honest, but still hiding things, still confused. And then when I just went all in, it was like a 30 day window where I was like, oh, wow, everything changed. And this, mind you, I'm not on entertainment.
- [51:04]
B
Yep.
- [51:05]
A
I'm not dissociating. I'm walking through my childhood. I'm walking through everything I've ever seen sex movies, not watching sex movies. I'm. I'm fully working the four hours through the system. And I was like, I have my life back. Yep. I have my choice back. Telling men and women they don't have a choice at how they look at other women or men is cruel. You have a choice if you don't feel like you have a choice. There's brokenness there.
- [51:27]
B
Yep.
- [51:27]
A
And if you don't have a choice, you can get your choice back by being radically honest with yourself and radically honest with your spouse. If you're a couple, that's like, okay, we, we want to get radically honest. You can. There's a few ways we can support you. We cannot save you. We're not your saviors. But we will support you and empower you to do the work. We have our two day couples workshop coming up in August 14th and 15th in San Diego. You can join us in person or virtually. If you can't make it to San Diego, you can see the show notes for that link. And if you do want to dive right into our couples program, we have weekly coaching inside of the program, a community forum where I answer question with Caitlyn. You can see the link for that on how to apply. Those are our two main ways that we can support you on your healing journey. I'm also almost done with my book which may be out by the time of this episode. It's seven Steps Book. Com. Cannot wait to share that book with you. It's all about how to heal and how to do the work to heal. So thank you guys so much for being here. If you got something out of today's episode, please leave a review and we would be honored to read it and we'll see you in the next episode next week.