Brandon: 00:27

Welcome to episode two of the Grounded Union podcast. We're gonna be diving into talking about where we left off in episode one, which was about our experience with different counselors and different things going on at that phase in our breakdown of our marriage. So we shared that in the last episodes. If you haven't listened to it, go listen to episode one, which gives the context for tonight's episode. Before you do that, if you are following along with any of the work we're doing and you wanna join us for one of our in person events, by the time this episode is aired, we most likely have posted our 2025 live in person events.

Brandon: 00:57

So click in the show notes to be informed about that or follow along at Brandon Talks Marriage for the daily updates. Let's dive into today's episode. So we talked about being in the counselor's office

Caitlyn: 01:07

Mhmm.

Brandon: 01:07

In 2019.

Caitlyn: 01:08

Mhmm.

Brandon: 01:09

And I shared that breakdown moment where I had to make a decision. Was I going to follow this inferior path that I had been offered from the counselor, which was don't go too deep. Don't get too uncomfortable. Don't share too much with your wife. And it felt like we kinda had to sugarcoat what healing would be if we were to follow that path.

Brandon: 01:29

He kicked us out of the office. He said our work's done here. And it was that decision point where I felt like I had to finally stand up for you. And throughout the beginning of our marriage and even into our our breakdown story, there were several other experiences we had with counselors that would affirm basically me getting to choose us and our healing or getting to choose a lesser version of what that could look like. And so we're gonna dive into a few of those stories.

Brandon: 01:54

One was actually in the the wake of me having lied to you. The church leader was trying to support us as best they could. And based off what I had shared, instead of it being about me taking more responsibility, the end of the story was he was pointing out that he thought Caitlyn was more codependent and that that was one of the primary issues in our relationship instead of me needing to address these root issues in my sexuality, in my lying, and in my denial. And so that's where we, again, had another experience that was like, oh my gosh. Like, I'm not sure if these people want us to go as far as we want to go.

Brandon: 02:30

Mhmm.

Caitlyn: 02:31

Yeah. We heard codependent come up a lot, and I think that a lot of women will relate to that title because I I think when a couple a married couple goes to pursue healing, outwardly, it almost looks like, well, the wife just expects too much. Right? And then oftentimes, there's a lot of men in leadership, a lot of men in counseling and pastoral mentorship roles, and it's kinda like, well, you know what? I think she's just expecting too much.

Caitlyn: 02:58

She needs you. She's codependent. And so another another experience that we had earlier on as well is we went to a counselor, a Christian counselor that was recommended to us. And as you can tell by these stories, we definitely tried a lot of different Yeah. Counseling, a lot of different, avenues of Christian mentorship.

Caitlyn: 03:20

And when we were in there, we're kind of breaking down our story and what is going on. And the whole hour that we paid for was pretty much summarized by him trying to let us know that some men struggle with lust, with pornography, with temptation for the rest of their life. They just always will struggle with it, he said. And thank goodness we both left, and even Brandon in his most broken state was like, I don't want that. Like,

Brandon: 03:52

We also we also left out the part where the majority of the appointment was also spent trying to convince you

Caitlyn: 03:58

Mhmm.

Brandon: 03:58

That you are attracted to other men

Caitlyn: 04:00

Exactly.

Brandon: 04:00

Which we came in because I had lied to Caitlyn about how Attracted. Content I had viewed online and and these fantasy thoughts I had about women. Yep. And he's like, well, Caitlyn, aren't you attracted to other men? That was there there was no, like, validation for her experience.

Brandon: 04:14

There was no, like, well, Brandon, do you understand how that could cause her pain? It was literally straight to, this is pretty normal. In fact, Caitlyn, the only way you guys are gonna feel connected through this is you admitting that you do the same things. And I knew deep down, I know Caitlyn's not doing this. I know she's not viewing other men and fantasizing about other men and and having this this this limp in her life, so to speak.

Brandon: 04:39

But everywhere we went, it was kind of enabling me as an anti and I'm not saying that, like, your story could be that you could be the wife in addiction. For our story and many other stories, especially from a Christian background, a lot of men have been empowered to be in addiction and and to be in leadership and for that to be okay. Mhmm. And for us, we just kept finding these these examples, these experiences that empowered me to stay the same.

Caitlyn: 05:02

Mhmm. Exactly.

Brandon: 05:03

To say you're doing a good job, a good enough job. Mhmm. And what that did is it actually led me really far into denial, if we're gonna be talking about further in this episode, is it it empowered me to say, I'm doing enough.

Caitlyn: 05:15

Mhmm.

Brandon: 05:16

My reality is I don't enjoy it, but I I don't wanna step into what healing could look like because, I mean, I'd have to face myself.

Caitlyn: 05:23

You always have these little voices in the back of your head almost saying, well, this man I'm supposed to look up to because he's, you know, went through all this education time to become a counselor saying, well, she's codependent. She's controlling. That came up a lot. Well, she must be really controlling if she wants you to do this much healing or tell her this much about your life or, you know, have this sort of plan, for growing in connection together. Well, that sounds really controlling.

Caitlyn: 05:54

And so you would have all these little voices, like you said, that you could pull from if you wanted to. If you wanted to have your denial and you wanted to keep that with you, you had a lot of valid reasons to do that because a lot of people in the church, specifically, and then also counselors were giving us all of these narratives Yes. To hold on to if we wanted to.

Brandon: 06:18

So if you're taking notes, write this down. If you find yourself blaming others or blaming your wife because she wants this healing, she wants this thing for you, or you find yourself basically looking for a reason not to follow through on it because it's easier to have somebody want too much from you than to actually take responsibility for what you're doing. It's easier to say somebody else is wrong or the but even the female or male, whatever you're whoever you're objectifying is not your spouse. If you're in addiction, it's easier to say that that person was at fault and lured you in than just to take responsibility that you have this addiction, that you have this, brokenness inside of you that you want to investigate and find healing for. It's easier to say somebody else is wrong for wanting too much or for hurting you and that you're a victim than it is to take responsibility and to be powerful in that situation.

Caitlyn: 07:07

Exactly. So much easier to point fingers. And I think to kinda summarize the breakdown of our marriage, which we talked a lot about in episode one like we said, we tried for the first five years of our marriage, the traditional approach. I call it the traditional because it's the approach that you will hear the most often recommended when you hit a breakdown in your marriage. Okay.

Caitlyn: 07:31

Well, then you need to go to a counselor. You need to go to your pastor. You need to go to a mentor. You probably need support groups. You know, there's there's these traditional approaches you could even include in there, like, probably you're gonna give be given, like, a traditional list of books that you all need to read, and we tried that.

Caitlyn: 07:49

We tried reading the books. We tried fasting. Brandon fasted for forty days to become clean, pure, a better husband to be able to connect with me better. Like, we tried the praying every single day together. We tried praying for each other every single day.

Caitlyn: 08:05

We tried to read your Bible every single day. Go to all these counselors, all these examples that we've given. And ultimately, what we found, we were talking about this even in the car today, is that this traditional approach oftentimes can feel good at first because you're just given a lot of band aids to put over the situation. Oh, you guys are having a hard time communicating. Okay.

Caitlyn: 08:29

Well, let me give you this tool for how to argue better. And, sure, I'm almost positive the tool is great because we we got a lot of those tools, like, you know, the communication tools, how to argue better, how to fight fair, you know, all the things that we've all seen, when we go to look for marriage help. At the end of the day, though, that what we found in our experience is, yes, that initially maybe kind of helped. Maybe it helped us for a few arguments. But the deep issue here was that we didn't have trust within each other within our marriage.

Caitlyn: 09:01

We didn't have true connection and intimacy. We didn't even really enjoy being around each other because there was so much underneath the surface. So, yeah, we might have been able to put the Band Aid on of, okay. Yeah. We have this tool.

Caitlyn: 09:15

Like, I'm gonna listen to you, and you're gonna listen to me. But none of we don't value each other because there's so much of a a separation, a rift down under in the root system of our marriage that needs cleaned up. Because what we found in our experience is that when we went deep to the root systems, and we just cleared all of that out and cleaned up and replanted and rebirth something completely new for our marriage, there's not really that much to argue about anymore. There's not that much to be upset with. There's not that much tension.

Caitlyn: 09:50

We're not actually, like, feeling awkward living with each other. We're not unsure of how to talk to each other, what to do with each other when the kids go to bed. All of these, like, surface level things that you go oftentimes to get tools from counselors for, they just automatically get cleared up. Yeah. Because you got to the root level, and you experienced true intimacy.

Caitlyn: 10:13

And I say this all the time. Intimacy I didn't coin this. I actually don't know who did. But intimacy is into me you see. So true intimacy means you're seeing fully into me, and I love that because that has been so real for us.

Caitlyn: 10:30

And for me and for us, to be able to fully see into each other means that there's absolutely nothing hidden from each other. Yeah. There's nothing in the dark anymore. And this was not a single bit of advice that we got from anybody in our traditional path that we went. We actually were highly encouraged to not tell each other everything.

Brandon: 10:53

That's

Caitlyn: 10:54

There was this list of things like, okay. If it's under this list, you tell it to the girls, you tell it to the guys, you tell it to the pastors, the counselors, whatever.

Brandon: 11:02

Which really means

Caitlyn: 11:03

Don't tell

Brandon: 11:03

not gonna tell it to anybody.

Caitlyn: 11:05

Exactly. Because who's holding you accountable, but only yourself and your denial structure. Remember all those little voices that are like, wait. You don't have to tell your counselor that because it's not that big of a deal. So, you know, you get these lists of I tell the ladies, I'll tell the men, we keep that apart from each other.

Caitlyn: 11:20

And then you if you wanna prod a little bit of, like, wait. Why am I doing that? Normally, the answer you'll get is because it'll hurt too much. Yeah. So if Brandon tells me everything that's underneath, if we have true intimacy into me, you see, and into you, I see, well, that's gonna be way too painful.

Caitlyn: 11:37

Right? So then you just have to keep things from each other. So every time that's why I was ultimately kicked out from the counseling office because I'm like, no. Wait. I wanna have a relationship.

Caitlyn: 11:47

I wanna have a marriage that is literally founded on true intimacy where we see everything about each other. Yeah. No more secrets. No more hiddenness. Nothing.

Caitlyn: 11:56

I don't care if it's small, medium, or large. There's just nothing hidden anymore. Yeah. And he's like, peace out. Get out of here because that was his own denial structure staring him in his face.

Caitlyn: 12:07

Because if he wanted to accept my message that I wanted for our marriage, that would either mean he would have to go home and tell his wife a lot of things probably, or he'd have to look me in the face and say, you're wrong, so get out of here.

Brandon: 12:19

Yeah.

Caitlyn: 12:19

And that's what he chose to do, and that's his journey. And for us, that was a wake up call of, wait. Wait. Wait. We want true intimacy.

Caitlyn: 12:26

We wanna actually get everything out, fully see into each other, and fully know each other. Yeah. And that's the foundation that we want everything built upon.

Brandon: 12:34

And I can't remember if I share this in episode one, but if you guys remember, a guy came up to me at the pool. We were in we're here we were here in Hawaii. And he said he I told him I was we we do relationship coaching. And he said, what's the number one piece of marriage advice you would give somebody? I was like, sure.

Brandon: 12:55

No more secrets. He said, yeah. That ruined my first marriage. And so if you're listening to every how eloquently Caitlyn just put it and you're like, how do I retain that? No more secrets.

Brandon: 13:07

Because when you enable yourself to live in a in a we'll call it a nonexistence, an artificial existence where you cope through life, through addiction, through checking out dissociating, where you basically lower your capacity for loving your wife or for your wife to love you by being in addiction, by being in an altered reality where you're fantasizing about other people, where you're looking at other people as options to be intimate with.

Caitlyn: 13:36

Mhmm.

Brandon: 13:36

Why are we looking outside of our marriage? It's because fundamentally, we're too afraid to face the pain that we've caused in our relationship. We're too afraid to face the consequences, so to speak, of stepping outside of our commitment. But the reality is it's not gonna get better by just ignoring those things. We've said we will say this a lot on the podcast.

Brandon: 13:55

Whether or not you tell your spouse something does not mean that you used a magic eraser and made it disappear. It's already hurting you. And when we when people say it's gonna hurt too much, it actually will. And that's the whole point. That's actually pain's not a bad thing in this equation because pain actually is the reality meter of is this action healthy or not.

Brandon: 14:16

And you can convince yourself of a lot of things in your mind, but when you say it out loud, and this is a a process we'll we'll talk to you more about in just a minute. When I begin to share the things I had done, it felt insignificant. When I begin to share the thought patterns, it seemed harmless. Mhmm. Which I told myself, which is a form of denial, this isn't a big deal.

Brandon: 14:37

If you tell yourself this isn't a big deal, but you feel compelled to share it, then it probably is a big deal. Because when you say it out loud, you're like, hey, here's, the web pages I went to. Here's the social media profiles I was browsing. Here are some of the thoughts I had that were I kinda stuffed down, but I didn't think it was a big deal. When you tell your spouse that and they're like, this is wildly painful.

Brandon: 14:56

But you're like, Brandon, we live in such a sexual world and there's we're bombarded with advertisements of all this. Nobody's forcing you to view anything. Nobody's forcing you to to binge scroll on your phone for three hours at night. We all get to be selective with how we approach media. And it's not just cutting out media.

Brandon: 15:14

That is gonna be a part of the healing process for a season, but it's how you approach filling the void in your soul. And when you partner with your spouse to say, look, we're gonna get everything out. We're gonna face reality together. We believe is the only qualified person to fully go there with you because they're gonna they're gonna call you out on your stuff, but they're also gonna be ever present and the most genuine about knowing you and what healing would look like for you and what healing feels like for your relationship. So when there's something off, when there's something that's not right, you can ignore it.

Caitlyn: 15:50

Mhmm. And the two of you are the ones who care the most about the relationship. So, yes, there could be other friends, family, counselors, mentors, pastors that care. At the end of the day, though, it's the two of us that care the most

Brandon: 16:03

Exactly.

Caitlyn: 16:04

About how our relationship is going. And so what better this again, countering thought that we have that you'll not hear from other people is what better accountability to have than between the two of us. Yep. And the most, you know, sought after people will advise to have accountability outside of each other because it's too stressful to be accountable to each other. Well, the only reason it's too stressful is probably because there's secrets you're trying to keep

Brandon: 16:31

Yep.

Caitlyn: 16:31

From yourself and from your spouse because it's not stressful for the two of us to know everything about each other. It's actually the most free and joyous and beautiful

Brandon: 16:41

And safe.

Caitlyn: 16:42

And safe. Exactly.

Brandon: 16:43

Like You're not staying in the cycle. It's not like you're, like, sharing everything, and then you're gonna continue to stay broken and continue to, hey. I screwed up again and again and again. The whole idea is, wow. Let's look ugly in the face.

Brandon: 16:54

Talking about your wife. Let's look ugly in the behavior. Let's look it in the face and be like, this is really not serving either of us. Whatever it whether it's a screen addiction, a substance addiction, a porn addiction, if it's not serving you as a human or your relationship, it's gonna be screaming at you when you share it with each other.

Caitlyn: 17:14

Yep.

Brandon: 17:15

So you either have the opportunity to remove it or to basically empower that thing more and more. And so it actually creates this opportunity in your life, which led for us after these these experiences with these counselors Mhmm. Was to really examine what voices are we going to let in. And Caitlyn had the clarity to, encourage me in this because for me, what my tactic was was share a little bit with a lot of people. Because by doing that, I would share a little bit about the pain we were in.

Brandon: 17:44

Like, yeah, I kinda lied to her about some stuff again, but I'm reading the books. I'm praying, brother. I'm fasting. I'm doing all the stuff, but she's really upset with me. Well, what did you do?

Brandon: 17:52

What was it? And I would always downplay because I could I could give a the the fifteen minute summary to somebody who knew we were knew I was in ministry, knew I was a good guy. But what that did is this empowered me to stay stuck.

Caitlyn: 18:04

Gave you more denial voices. More voices feeding your ego in a little bit of a way.

Brandon: 18:09

%.

Caitlyn: 18:10

Or a lot of way.

Brandon: 18:11

A lot of way. And so we we, through Caitlyn's initiative, said why don't we limit the amount of voices that we choose as as reliable voices to speak into you specifically, they're speaking into me, but speaking into us and where we are going in our healing. And so we nail down as far as, like, people that we knew in in more of a spiritual context, people that would pray with me, they were not gonna to minimize how far my healing could go. And we had a counselor that we finally found that was consistent, that held me to the standard of the program I was working through. But ultimately, we just found two or three people Yep.

Brandon: 18:50

That said

Caitlyn: 18:50

It was three people.

Brandon: 18:51

Yeah. Three. And then us. Mhmm. Three men that were going to say, Brandon, I hear you wanna heal.

Brandon: 18:59

I've not they didn't even, like, hadn't gone through the exact same process as me, but they believed in the healing I wanted to achieve. And they weren't gonna let me minimize that. And they also were gonna blame

Caitlyn: 19:09

Yeah.

Brandon: 19:10

My wife. If you are looking for minimizing the amount of voices and you wanna find your your go to team, if the moment you share something that's ugly and they say, well, what's your wife's part to play? If they can't sit with you in the mess of what you're creating, that means that they don't have the capacity or they haven't worked through their own story to the degree that they can actually assist you in your healing. So when you're looking for those people, first, limit voices.

Caitlyn: 19:33

Yeah.

Brandon: 19:34

If you've got 10 people you're talking with about your story, stop it. If you have nobody you're talking about with your story, you need to find a couple safe people. If you just wanna talk back to us in the phone right now as you're listening to the podcast, we'll be your safe people. But that is a crucial element because when you have so much noise and so much competing information, you're gonna choose the path of least resistance, and that's gonna be not going to the root, and, ultimately, it's gonna keep you in denial.

Caitlyn: 20:00

Mhmm. Yeah. So we tried that traditional route. We tried all those things, like we said, and it didn't work for us. And so we came to this point where we had to look at everything for what it was.

Caitlyn: 20:13

We had to look at it at face value. What is it? Where are we? What's going on? What have you been doing?

Caitlyn: 20:19

What, like, what has been the last five years of our marriage? It's like laying everything out on the table. And from that place, we created we didn't know we were creating it at the time because, actually, we were on the brink of divorce. Yeah. As we reflect now, years later, we realized we created our own process.

Caitlyn: 20:41

Mhmm. And that's the process that we're actually gonna share. Our whole first season of this podcast is going to be the seven steps that we've now looked back and realized, oh, we actually went and created a formula to some degree Yeah. That got us to where we are in our marriage. And it's a formula that we believe, a process that we believe that anyone who chooses to wholeheartedly embark on can create a truly intimate and free and safe Yeah.

Caitlyn: 21:09

And beautiful bond and connection, a grounded union in their relationship and their marriage. And so we're gonna begin to break down those steps in the next coming episodes in all of season one, and we're gonna start this part off with step one, which is denial.

Brandon: 21:25

So if you wanna go real quickly into what facing denial looks like, it is taking inventory. Until you face reality, that what is. The one thing that our my previous counselor that kicked us out of his office that he did share with me was the iceberg, which we already shared in in the previous episode. But you can see the tip of an iceberg, but there's all the stuff underneath it. Yeah.

Brandon: 21:48

So if your wife has caught you lying to her and you know there's some some addiction, you have even convinced yourself that there's way less than there really is. If you ask a guy who's been in addiction, how often did you smoke cigarettes, how often did you drink, or how did you look at porn? And they will always say once a month or it was it was pretty infrequent. Mhmm. But then when you when you get to the root of it, they told themselves it was once a month, but really it was 10 times a month.

Brandon: 22:17

Right. And so it's that it's that shield. Denial is that shield that keeps you from seeing with clarity. It it makes everything fuzzy. There's a lot of static around the the specifics to your behavior around areas that you think are outside of the commence you've made to yourself, to your faith, or to your spouse.

Brandon: 22:37

Mhmm. And so to actually start transforming your marriage, you have to take inventory for what Mhmm. Is. Mhmm. And so for any any guy that's, like, looking to start being honest with his wife about what he's done, and this is this goes vice versa for for the wife as well.

Brandon: 22:56

You have to go through it all. You have to share what is, which is that's the starting point. It's it's all the things that you don't wanna share with your spouse until you actually get those things out. They will you alive.

Caitlyn: 23:09

Mhmm. And I see denial. I see things in imagery a lot. And for me, I remember, back when we were going through this process, we were told clinically that a denial structure takes eight months to break down and that if someone is more eager, you can break it down in six months. In our experience, when Brandon was ready and actually committed to the process, it took thirty days for complete transformation of the mind.

Caitlyn: 23:41

And so whether you wanna do it in eight months, six months, or thirty days, you can break down your denial structure. And I see it as an actual structure, surrounding these parts of you that you wanna keep hidden. So picture a house with many, many rooms, and in these rooms, you have these different components of your life. Maybe it's different areas of your past. A lot of people actually, in our experience, in hearing and working and relieving with couples, is a lot of people actually hide things that were done to them or that they did even before they met or married their spouse.

Caitlyn: 24:22

Yeah. Because shame plays a huge role in denial. Oftentimes, we have these denial structures around things that we feel a lot of shame about.

Brandon: 24:34

Yeah.

Caitlyn: 24:34

And the first person that we want to hide things from is our own selves. So what we found in the journey is you were lying to yourself so that you could believe it so that when you went to tell me a different narrative, it wasn't really a lie to you at that point. Because I think a lot of people go, like as wives, we're like, how have you lied to me for ten years? You know? It's like Yeah.

Caitlyn: 25:02

For us, we're, like, trying to grasp, like, how did you lie about all this and cover all this up? And it's like, to them, they lied first to themselves, believed a different story to be true, and then went on with that story. So it never felt like ten years of lying to them. Yeah. It felt like, oh, well, that wasn't that big of a deal, so I did that.

Caitlyn: 25:25

And this is why I did that. And so, well, you know, it's this whole story that gets created to to cover up the shame and the denial structure. So we have our denial structure. Hidden behind each of these doors and each of these rooms are things that we don't wanna explore. And like I said, a lot of times, there's a whole big area dedicate dedicated to things that happened to us or that we chose to do before we even met our wife that we are, like, have different denial structure reasons for why we don't tell her.

Caitlyn: 25:57

Well, I didn't know her or well we weren't married or I don't really think that matters because we don't think that that impacts our current today. That's why we keep a lot of things in denial, things hidden, things covered in shame is because we don't realize that those things have a huge impact on our every single day decisions, the way we feel in our body, the way we connect with our spouses, the way we connect with our community, the way we show up in the world. Yeah. All of these things that are kept hidden behind these doors and covered up impact every single moment of your life. People don't realize it until they get it out, and they're like, oh my gosh.

Caitlyn: 26:36

Like, I feel so light. I feel so free. I feel so good. Yeah. I remember, like, after Brandon experienced his transformation, he was like, I literally had no idea I could live my life feeling this good and this free.

Caitlyn: 26:49

Because when we were in the thick of it, he's like, I wanna believe that what you're saying is possible, but I I it literally sounds impossible Yeah. To be that free, to not have any of these ties. And so we have these rooms and these structures that are different categories. Like, here's your sexuality. Here's things you did or that were done to you before.

Caitlyn: 27:10

Here's these addictions. Here's these thoughts. Yeah. All these different categories, and we close them up behind these doors, and then we have, like, these little labels on them. Okay.

Caitlyn: 27:21

Well, I'm not gonna share these things because it's not that big of a deal because it happened before I met my spouse because everyone does this. Right? That was a classic one for Brandon. Well, every guy does this. Every guy struggles with this, so it's not a big deal.

Caitlyn: 27:36

Right? Well, I'm gonna hide this one behind the door of, well, I told my counselor. I talked through this with my mentor, so that's why I don't need to tell my wife. Like, the list goes on and on and on. But you really can come face to face with your denial.

Caitlyn: 27:51

Like we're saying, when you hear things in your head, when you have situations, and you have these little all these little excuses is kind of like a simple way of putting it.

Brandon: 28:01

Yeah.

Caitlyn: 28:01

All these little voices and narratives and stories, once you actually start to bring those from your subconscious to your conscious mind, and then you actually bring that from your conscious mind out to your spouse Yeah. You're literally getting it all out of you. It has somewhere to go, and you free yourself up of this and then begin to break down your denial structure. Yep. It's a literal structure in your body, in your mind, in your soul that's protecting you.

Caitlyn: 28:32

Yep. And so a big process you could talk about it is, like, the concept of the thank you and goodbye to denial.

Brandon: 28:40

Well, I think so let's talk about what that experientially feels like. One, how do you know if you're in denial? Well, if there's any form of severe broken trust or distance in your marriage, there's a form of denial. If you're if you're choosing to live as roommates with your with your wife, if if you're choosing to ignore some of these pain points or you know that you're keeping things from her, just follow follow the directions here. What you need to experience when it comes to coming out of denial is in that taking inventory process, the thank you and goodbye is basically thinking what things you become aware of, recognizing why you did them.

Brandon: 29:17

Because until you recognize why you, had an addiction of any type or or lied to your wife, until you know why you did that, you will repeat it months or years down the road. So you need to thank it because you need to recognize how it served you and what benefit you had from we'll just use looking at sexualized content online. Well, thank you for helping me not feel lonely. Thank you for affirming my ego, for comforting me, for making me feel, powerful or whatever whatever the thing was you were trying to feel. Thank you for giving me a way to let my anger that I felt justified in.

Caitlyn: 29:50

Mhmm. Hits of dopamine.

Brandon: 29:52

Yep. Thank you for the for giving me a boost a mood boost. Whatever it was, you think it because you need to understand why you did it. You're not just like a a robot, an evil robot that does bad things. It's you had a desire.

Brandon: 30:05

And what I say a lot in my men's community is addiction is trying to meet a legitimate need in an unsustainable way that causes pain to you and other people. And so all this is doing is reorienting desire back to your wife and back to caring for yourself. So you actually in taking inventory for the things that are harming you, this should be the best time of your life. Now it's not pretty to have these conversations with your wife, but it's not pretty already. If you're listening to this podcast or you're trying to work through your marriage trauma, it's it's not pretty already.

Brandon: 30:35

And And so let it get ugly let it get uglier for a few a few weeks, a few months to be able to get to the other side. And so the experience you wanna have in taking inventory, which is basically, what have I done and your spouse knowing about it. So what have you done and your spouse knowing about it? You'll know you're on the right path when it feels like you're uncovering so much information that you feel overwhelmed by seeing the magnitude of it. And I had that experience where it was like, wow.

Brandon: 31:03

This is a lot. Yep.

Caitlyn: 31:04

And when

Brandon: 31:04

you're you thought. Bigger than I thought. Because Bigger than I I'll minimize everything. Bigger than I thought. I saw the tip of the iceberg.

Brandon: 31:11

Yep. This iceberg is much bigger underneath the water. That experience is just the don't stop there. But once you start saying, wow. This is a really big deal.

Brandon: 31:23

You can choose to contract and hide and run away again, or you can trust the process and say, you know what? I'm willing to see the ugly because I wanna get to the other side. And what happens is when you defend the behavior, is you're basically saying this behavior, this unhealthy behavior is more valuable than my marriage and my wife. And a lot of men, a lot of women are willing to literally end their relationship over that belief that I'm actually not that worthy of love. I would rather die alone or die with these secrets than face them.

Brandon: 31:57

But I wanna encourage you on this podcast right now as you're listening that taking the path of true ownership, of true inventory, of true reality, it's a beautiful thing. Mhmm. It's a beautiful thing. If your wife chooses to leave you because she knows the full truth, at least she knows the full truth and you chose to draw a line in the sand and say, I'm not gonna die as a liar.

Caitlyn: 32:18

Mhmm. Exactly.

Brandon: 32:18

And so you're giving yourself the opportunity to actually build upon something. So you can't just do more marriage tools. You can't go to more seminars. We actually didn't do a marriage intensive when we were at rock bottom because I knew, we knew that we need to do the daily work.

Caitlyn: 32:35

Mhmm. The deep work. And so to bring it full circle with the the thank you and goodbyes with with the denial structure you had said. So we're thanking denial for the ways that it served us. And then the second part of that is we're saying goodbye.

Caitlyn: 32:52

Goodbye to you because you did give me what I needed at that time.

Brandon: 32:57

Yeah.

Caitlyn: 32:58

And now I have new awareness of what I truly need. Yeah. So now I'm saying goodbye to you because I don't need you anymore to help me in these ways. And this was a really, really powerful tool for you because there's, like we said, a lot of shame wrapped around all of these different denial structures around all these different rooms. And so we have to have a lot of compassion and grace for ourselves as we begin to open these doors of all of these things that we've hidden behind these denial structures.

Caitlyn: 33:29

And a way to have grace and compassion for ourselves in this journey and for a spouse as they begin to open all these doors is by seeing it for what it brought us instead of being like, oh, I'm so bad. I'm so dirty. I'm so wrong thinking all these things, all those types of thoughts. We began to look at it and go, oh, I felt this. And so I went to go do this so that I would feel powerful.

Caitlyn: 33:55

Yeah. And now I'm gonna actually choose to feel powerful by taking responsibility and ownership for my life. Yep. And so thank you for how you served me, and now I don't need you. And so now goodbye.

Caitlyn: 34:07

And so we clear out that room, and we close the door, and now we're free. We said thank you. We say goodbye. Yeah. Because a lot of this comes down to also seeing the stories behind everything.

Caitlyn: 34:20

Seeing the stories of why did you do what you do? Why did you think those things? Why did you choose that path? You begin to look at everything, and as you analyze and look at the stories, you'll begin to see patterns. There was patterns to almost everything that you did in our marriage.

Caitlyn: 34:38

It was like, oh, when you felt anxious, you normally would do one of these three things. Oh, when you felt depressed or when you felt sad, when you felt overwhelmed, whatever it was, whatever these negative emotions, you had your kind of outlets. You had your addictions. You had your things that you would do. And so you began to see the patterns.

Caitlyn: 34:59

You begin to see the narratives, and freedom is on the other side of unlocking all of that. Yep. Most people like, a lot of what we're saying might be like, well, that sounds, like, too simple. You just mean I need to, like, look at everything that I've done and tell my wife, and then we're gonna be happy and in love? Most people won't ever choose to actually do that.

Caitlyn: 35:20

Yeah. Most people would prefer because of their denial structures and because of their shame, to live in some degree of hiddenness. To have some level of secrets. And because they don't realize that it has such a deep impact and such a deep wounding on their closest relationships, their marriage. And it really is to some degree, that simple and that massive.

Caitlyn: 35:43

It's, like, both simple and both, like, the most terrifying and not simple thing you'll ever do in your life come completely clean and completely free. And we bring up sexuality and sexual wholeness and sexual brokenness as a lot of examples because that related to our story. A lot of people lie about money. A lot of people lie about drugs, alcohol, food that they even eat. Like, we heard that come up even.

Caitlyn: 36:11

There could literally be lies around anything. Like, Brandon used to lie about video games too. I think that one comes up a lot in marriages. Video game use, like, what people are doing, like, how they say they're at work, but they're actually somewhere else. Like so input anything that's in your story as far as what you're lying about, what you've kept hidden, things you haven't revealed.

Caitlyn: 36:33

We're just giving examples from our story. But the biggest thing, the most simplest truth of how we got to where we are is we got everything out in the open. Yeah. We broke down every bit of the denial structure. We broke down every lie, every limiting belief, every excuse.

Caitlyn: 36:52

You talk about this a lot, but denial is pretty much minimizing what you did. Yep. So you're gonna minimize and make small everything that you've done. So when you hear, you know, the it's not that big of a deal, everyone else does it, that's minimizing. Yeah.

Caitlyn: 37:06

You're making it smaller. You're making it not a big deal. That's the narrative. That's the story that you've told yourself so that you can believe now that you're not lying or hiding anything. That's what you do.

Caitlyn: 37:18

So that's that that whole cycle. So to come out of it, you're rewinding and going, wow. This is actually a really big deal. I ate this food when we were said we were gonna be on this sort of a diet. You know?

Caitlyn: 37:33

It's like, sure. And people might be like, well, that's not really that big of a deal. But it is because you're you're keeping it.

Brandon: 37:39

Lying.

Caitlyn: 37:39

It's a level of disconnect. Yeah. And you mentioned this in the beginning, you know, that a lot of what we heard was, well, don't tell her because it's gonna hurt her. Well, what we always like to say is it's already hurting.

Brandon: 37:51

Yeah.

Caitlyn: 37:51

Whether or not you think it is, it already is hurting you. Yep. That's why you think you just need a conflict tool on how to fight better. Yep. No.

Caitlyn: 37:59

You don't need a conflict tool on how to fight better. This those little areas of secrecy and hiddenness are causing the disconnect that show up on the surface level up here. So like we said, if you wanna come clean down here on the things that you don't think are impacting up here, well, voila, all of that is gonna get transformed and healed, and you're gonna have true intimacy with each other.

Brandon: 38:24

Yeah. One of the biggest reasons why somebody who's in denial or an addiction or in mistrusts, broken trust, why you would be fearful or your subconscious would would tell you not to do this is what if my circumstances change? What I mean by that is by being truthful with your wife, what if you have to lose your job because of it? Let's just say you tell your wife that you had been, developed an emotional affair with a coworker, and you're at a stable job. You've got three kids.

Brandon: 38:57

You've got your house and your mortgage. You've got your, your space in the community to uphold. And if you tell your wife, you know you're gonna have to get a different job. That might mean moving in with your parents for a few months. That might mean taking a few steps back, and most of us see that as a form of death, and it is.

Brandon: 39:19

And so for a lot of men, I think there's a fear, a subconscious fear of, okay, even if I was to be honest and to take inventory and to work through the denial, I don't want my life to crumble. I've worked so hard to get to where I am now. And let me tell you this from experience. In 2019, our life fell apart, but in the best way possible. I stepped out of ministry for the first time in my adult life after seven years.

Brandon: 39:45

I had been a missionary. We'd worked with non profits. I had just gotten on staff with a a growing church that we were stoked on, and we walked away from all of it because I had to. Right. Because when I said, hey, look, I actually objectify all these women.

Brandon: 39:57

This is how I feel. This is how my thoughts are. I'm so anxious. I actually can't even operate. It was like, oh, it's time to step out of ministry.

Brandon: 40:04

But it was only when I was willing to face reality and stop playing the games that I had that realization. So you may lose jobs. You may move houses. You may have a slower income. Yeah.

Brandon: 40:18

But it's only for a season until you can actually heal and step into your true nature and who you really are and create the biggest most important asset of your life which is your marriage. And so for those of you thinking about wanting to take inventory, wanting to be honest with your wife, be like, what if things get worse? They might

Caitlyn: 40:36

They will.

Brandon: 40:36

And they probably will, and it will only be for the better. So I would say step into the unraveling of your life. Because ultimately, nobody's gonna look at you and say, what an idiot you were for trying to be to for healing.

Caitlyn: 40:48

Mhmm.

Brandon: 40:48

But do you know what? You know who the people we were you know the stories you hear in the in the media? Are the people that got caught cheating on their wife, that had a DUI, that got arrested. It's not the people that said, you know what? I'm ready to come clean and I'm ready to work on myself and get healed.

Brandon: 41:05

Those people aren't the people that you're that you despise or that you that you're disgusted by. It's the people that pretend pretend and get to the top, and then you see, wow. They were faking it this whole time. So why not let your life crumble for a few few months to get you and your wife figured out by taking inventory and no longer living in denial and then rebuild your life. That's what we did.

Caitlyn: 41:28

Yeah. This is the number one thing that really transformed us, and it's, like we've said, really what you won't hear elsewhere. And it's that you share everything. You get everything out. This is the step one, the number one step.

Caitlyn: 41:44

Because to go on to the next six steps that we took, you have to have everything out in the open. You have to have come fully clean. You have to, for your own self, be able to look at everything and see those narratives and see those patterns, and you have to be able to offer that to your spouse. Will she cry? Will she be in pain?

Caitlyn: 42:06

Will she be shocked? Will there be trauma and, you know, this kind of ripple effect in the beginning? Yes.

Brandon: 42:14

Yeah.

Caitlyn: 42:14

And at the same time, your marriage was gonna crumble at some point later down the road. Why is there such a high divorce rate? Because it's not really working out for people to have all of these little things that they're stuffing down to the side and minimizing and putting behind their denial structures. It's not working. That's why people are leaving each other left and right.

Caitlyn: 42:35

So why don't we try something different? Yeah. And that's what we did. We're like, we're done. We don't we don't want any of that.

Caitlyn: 42:41

We looked at all these other examples, and it's like, that doesn't really look that great. Why don't we try something different where we actually tell each other everything where we actually know each other, where we have true intimacy. And we're here to tell you, this is what we didn't have. We didn't have anybody that sat us down and said, Hey, Get everything out. It's worth it.

Caitlyn: 43:00

It's worth the tears. It's worth the discomfort. It's worth the pain. Because what you have on the other side is a beautiful connection

Brandon: 43:09

Yeah.

Caitlyn: 43:09

And then a marriage where you love each other. How many people are married and don't love each other? How many people are married and are roommates? How many people are married and just can't wait till the kids are out of the house so they can get divorced?

Brandon: 43:22

Yeah.

Caitlyn: 43:22

How many people are married with young kids barely hanging on just for the kids

Brandon: 43:27

Yeah.

Caitlyn: 43:27

But wish they could get divorced. Yeah. And then how many people actually just did it? Just got divorced because it was way too painful to the pain was way more it was way greater than the pain of just divorcing and letting the kids kinda figure out what to do from there.

Brandon: 43:43

Yeah.

Caitlyn: 43:43

So many people are experiencing that. The pain of getting out all of your junk and getting out all of your hiddenness coming out of the shadows, coming out of the darkness Yeah. Is going to produce true beauty on the other side. An actual marriage like ours where we love each other. We love spending time together.

Caitlyn: 44:02

We can't wait till the kids are asleep and we have our time to snuggle on the couch and talk and connect. We can't wait to interact all day. We can't even wait to have conflict and work through it Yeah. Because we have done all of the clearing out. We've done all the cleaning.

Caitlyn: 44:17

So these little things that rise up, it's like, there's no big deal

Brandon: 44:20

because I

Caitlyn: 44:20

trust you, and you trust me, and I love you, and you love me. Yes. So that's why you get it out. Nobody sat us down and told us, if you get it all out, here's what you have on the other side. Yeah.

Caitlyn: 44:32

And that's where our story is so potent, is so beautiful is because we can say truly, we really did it. We really got everything out, and it hurt so bad. And we cried many nights, and we stayed up for hours until two, three in the morning looking into all these thoughts, all these narratives. And I can say I even have note notes from 2019. Like, will this be worth it?

Caitlyn: 44:58

Will it even, like, matter? Or will this end in a divorce a year from now? Will I put in all this energy and work, and will it not even turn into what I have now? I couldn't see this on the other side. I didn't know because nobody told me.

Caitlyn: 45:13

Nobody said do this and you'll get this. Everyone said don't do that. That's terrible. Don't do that. It's gonna hurt you.

Caitlyn: 45:19

And it did hurt me. It hurt really bad, and it hurt you really bad. And now on the other side, this is what we have. Yeah. And so we are inviting you to go on this same journey

Brandon: 45:30

Yep.

Caitlyn: 45:31

To face yourself Yeah. To face what really is, Mhmm. To break down your denial structures, both of you. Break down your denial structures. Journal out everything.

Caitlyn: 45:42

Literally sit down on a couch, on a bench, on a blanket outside, and get everything out. This is not a one time process. This is going to be a purge, which we'll talk about in the the upcoming episodes. This is gonna be a purge that lasts probably for days, weeks, maybe even a month, maybe months. I don't know.

Caitlyn: 46:00

For us, it lasted for thirty days. A purge of getting everything out. And then you have a clean slate to build a whole brand new beautiful marriage on.

Brandon: 46:10

If you're like, this sounds heavy. It is. It's worth it. Caitlyn already alluded to. It's worth the process.

Brandon: 46:19

The following six episodes are gonna be our contribution, our, aim to serve you in accelerating that process and giving you clarity to take those those actions quicker and the elements that you can put in your environment, in your marriage, in your home to make it possible to do that deep work, to to face the pain, to face the lies, and to actually rebuild trust. So in the following episodes, we'll give you some really practical things you can do as well as ways you can accelerate, that healing process. So we wanna thank you so much for joining us for the second episode where we talked about denial, and we will see you in the following episode. If if this at all served you, please, leave us a five star review so you can reach more couples and share this episode with a friend, and, we will see you in the next episode. Thanks for joining us.