Brandon: 00:28

Welcome back to the Grounded Union podcast. This is episode eight, I think. This is the end of season one. So we will take a short pause to prepare for season two and record some more content for you guys. If you've got anything out of these first eight episodes or if this is your first time, go back and start start at our marriage breakdown episode one and listen all the way through.

Brandon: 00:47

It will give you a the steps we took to heal and give you some really clear insights on how you can get started. We look forward to bringing season two. If you got any value out of the show, please leave us a review, share it with a friend, share it with your spouse, listen to it with your spouse as many of you have already told us that you're doing. Right now, we have a few spots. We have quite a few spots left for our Portland workshop happening in June.

Brandon: 01:07

I think we have 37 couples signed up so far. We can have up to a hundred couples at beautiful wedding venue that we'll be hosting the event at, and then we'll be in San Diego in August. And then we have our Maui intensive here in October. So if you'd like to meet us in person, do some deep work with us, we had the opportunity meeting a lot of you in Arizona, and that was a great Yeah. Great pleasure.

Brandon: 01:27

In this episode, we're gonna talk about whose fault it is, whether it's Caitlyn's fault or my fault, who to blame, who's responsible for the change in your marriage, how do you get your husband to change, how do get your wife to change, who's responsible to change, what does it look like to go from being a powerless person in your relationship to creating lasting sustained change? What does it look like to be that person that needs to make the change? In our situation, there are some major changes I needed I needed and wanted to make. And what does it feel like to be in the shoes of the spouse or the partner that is waiting for the change to happen? And once the change is already bought in and not seeing it, we're gonna share with you our experience and walking through that and some significant mindset shifts you can take, whether you're the husband or the wife, whether you're the stuck one or you're wanting to make change, this is gonna help you a ton in this episode.

Caitlyn: 02:09

Mhmm. Yeah. This was a very important conversation for us. And it's a conversation, a question that we get a lot. How did Brandon decide that he was gonna heal? Because people might find our short form content online and they automatically just assume that Brandon must have always wanted to heal.

Caitlyn: 02:27

He must have always wanted to grow. Maybe Brandon was always this version of himself that we now all see. And if you've watched or listened, or maybe watched and listened to all of the previous episodes, you know that the Brandon that's here talking now, the Brandon that I am now married to, is not the same Brandon that I first got married to. And so what did I do? How did I convince him to change?

Caitlyn: 02:48

A lot of people might assume that maybe I just prayed for him every single day. A lot of people might assume that I somehow had a magic potion that I forced him to drink, and somehow then he magically woke up and was like, yes. I have decided that I'm going to listen to you. And we share a little bits and pieces of this process in all of the previous episodes. But really, there was this pivotal moment where Brandon had heard a phrase from one of the counselors.

Caitlyn: 03:18

As you know, we we tried many different counseling routes and were kicked out or disagreed or at some point decided to part ways. And that doesn't mean that we don't like counselors because like I'm about to share, there was always golden nuggets that we took from every single situation, from every mentor, every counselor. There was a little golden nugget that we were able to take even if the whole of everything we didn't agree with or even if we were kicked out, there was always just a little piece. And from this specific counselor, Brandon had heard the phrase, if you were or are 100% or if you're causing issues in your marriage, you are 100% the problem. And with that, you are 100% solution.

Caitlyn: 04:00

And that among many other things was a light bulb moment for Brandon when he realized on his own, oh my gosh, I've caused this mess and I'm fully equipped to clean up this mess. And I kind of compare it to a couple different versions of a man showing up in a marriage. At first, Brandon was showing up as the man in our marriage that did not think that he had any issues, had no problems. He's in denial completely, to himself, he's trying to convince himself that he is a great husband, a great father, a great man. He's got all of his accolades, all my trophies, all my great things about myself, and he's just majorly in denial.

Caitlyn: 04:38

That's how Brandon was until 2019. Deep, deep, deep, deep, deep down, he knew he had things. You knew you had things that you needed to change and wanted to change. And yet all of your denial structures, which go back to those beginning episodes where we dive deep into this. All of your denial structures were keeping you safe from having to actually take a look at any of those things.

Caitlyn: 04:57

So then you found yourself in this place where you're kind of like, yeah, I'm a great husband. I'm a great man. So every time that I would come to you and present an opportunity for growth, healing, change, whatever it may be, it was like, Caitlyn. He wouldn't say these exact words, but in some way or another, he'd be like, oh, Caitlyn, sweetie, I'm amazing. I'm great.

Caitlyn: 05:15

Like, we don't need to take a look at these things. You need to go do this, or you need to stop blaming me. You need to stop pointing your finger. Your expectations are too high. You'd have some other way to kind of flip the script or change the narrative or point it back on me or make me feel like I'm rude for bringing up this conversation.

Caitlyn: 05:32

And so you kind of found yourself in that place. And then 2019, we hit our marriage breakdown. You look at all of the mess. Your denial structure starts to break down, you're starting to see clearly, and then you kinda become this woe is me, man. This, oh my gosh, I am so bad.

Caitlyn: 05:51

I have made all these bad decisions. Look at all these bad choices I've made. And some of you might be like, yeah, would love it if my husband could do that. And I'm here to tell you, no, you don't want your husband to do that because that is a powerless husband, which is what we're gonna dive into deeper in this episode. Brandon moved from, I have nothing to work on to, oh, woe is me.

Caitlyn: 06:12

I've messed up my whole life. What will I do? It's this somewhat whiny, extremely victim mentality, feeling like you are powerless to have any sort of power control or energy will to make your life what you want to create. And so you're moving through this and then getting to that point where you realize, oh, I'm 100% the reason why all of these actions happened. No one else is to blame anymore.

Caitlyn: 06:41

I'm not gonna point my finger at anybody else. I'm gonna come right back to me even if my wife has an ounce to play in any of this. Even if I had an ounce to play in any of it, you at that moment were like, yes, this is me.

Caitlyn: 06:54

I made this mess. I spilled all this trash all over the ground, and I am going to be 100% equipped, responsible, empowered. I'm 100% capable. I am powerful enough to completely clean up my mess.

Caitlyn: 07:13

And so you moved through these phases of I have nothing to heal. Oh my gosh. Woe is me. I'm a victim to my whole life. Look at me to, you know what?

Caitlyn: 07:22

I dumped out this trash everywhere. I dumped trash all over my wife. My whole life is just trashy mess everywhere, and I'm gonna be able to clean it up now. I'm gonna take the steps. Even if I don't know exactly what steps I'm gonna take, I know that I'm powerful and capable enough of finding a way to clean up my own messes.

Brandon: 07:40

Boom. So as I I got the night off tonight, I can just relax. Caitlyn's gonna just squeeze this one in. If you didn't if you didn't take notes during that, go ahead and pause and relisten to that. She's a brilliant woman.

Brandon: 07:53

Now I know all you men, maybe some of your wives are thinking, well, what did Caitlyn need to address on her end? And a lot of men ask me that. In fact, I I answered that in my Q and a today inside of my men's community. It men are concerned that I am pro man abuse to let their wife abuse them because I don't bring up what their wife needs to do. And so here's what I want to point out is I actually have not received a question for my wife did these actions that caused me pain, and she's not wanting to address it.

Brandon: 08:22

Now I'm not this isn't a wife husband thing. These are the couples that we get the opportunity to work with. The man I get to walk alongside. So that everybody's story is different. When the question comes up, what about her?

Brandon: 08:34

Again, we're sharing our story with you. I lied and hid. Caitlyn did not lie and hide. Did Caitlyn tell me she was frustrated in the perfect way every single time? No.

Brandon: 08:41

Was Caitlyn sarcastic? Did she have insecurities, or did she have this and that to work through? Yes. She worked through it in front of me. I wanted to work through my pain behind her back.

Brandon: 08:51

So when we talk about pain in a relationship, when they're a spouse, if your wife is willing to work through the pain in your face, then that's different than working around it behind your back. And so a lot of guys, when they ask, what about my wife? What they're really saying is, what do I do with her pain? You're not actually asking she won't take she we talk about her not taking accountability for her actions and attitudes and behavior, and most of the time, that's actually in response to her pain. And so that's two different conversations.

Brandon: 09:15

If your wife's pounding down a bottle of wine every night and she's hitting you and she's gossiping about you to all of her friends, those are not appropriate behaviors. Those are not things that are conducive to her health or your well-being in your marriage. She does need to address that. So we are actually pro both spouses taking action and responsibility. If you were the spouse, whether you're the husband or the wife, this isn't gender specific.

Brandon: 09:36

If you were the spouse that used secrecy and hiddenness, that cuts deep, and we're asking to address that. We go really in all the podcasts and all of the work we do, it's a lot about where you kept secrets getting that out because, basically, marriage is about what is seen. Until you can see something, you cannot work on it. And as Caitlyn talked about, the epiphany I had, it was this idea of responsibility. I was hoping somebody else was responsible for my transformation.

Brandon: 10:02

And as we shared about, we went to a lot of counselors, a lot of pastors, a lot of mentors, and we got nuggets. But I was hoping that somebody outside of me was responsible for my transformation and the improvement of my relationship. And when that wasn't working, all I had left was to blame Caitlyn for being responsible for having a high standard, for being in pain, or I blamed whatever somebody posted on the Internet. It was their responsibility, and the world needed to become safer, needed to become better for me so that I could heal. When I woke up to the reality that my life wasn't changing and my relationship wasn't getting any better with that approach, and it was actually going straight into the ground, I thought I'd try out thinking maybe I could be responsible for my solution, for my healing.

Brandon: 10:41

Because if I am responsible, that means I have the power to change. When you are in a relationship that's going straight into the ground, you're willing to try new things. We got some feedback from our first workshop in Arizona that was telling other couples if they were curious about coming. Like, if you're willing to try new approaches, it's completely worth it. I was willing to try a new approach, and that approach was, I actually don't care if Caitlyn's right or wrong.

Brandon: 11:02

I don't care about what's going on in some in the world out there. I need to find out if I'm powerful enough to change. I need to know if this is for me. So I said, yes. I'll be 100% responsible.

Brandon: 11:11

That moment of realizing I can have my power back the moment I stop blaming everybody else. Say it again. You get your power back the moment you stop blaming everybody else. So when you're in this painful situation, don't look to your wife's pain as the problem. It's just a response, and this could be your husband's pain.

Brandon: 11:25

Whoever betrayed and went into secrecy, don't look to their pain response as the problem. Take responsibility for what the pain where the pain and how the pain was caused and get curious about how you can become the solution.

Caitlyn: 11:37

Mhmm. And a lot of men too that are thinking and I'm just making it about men. Maybe women are thinking this. Maybe it's vice versa. Again, we stick really specific to our story because this is our experience.

Caitlyn: 11:48

But if you're a man and you are often always trying to say, well, where's my wife's fault in this? Where's her part to play? You know, this is like classic marriage work. Though it takes two people to, you know, make the mess. And maybe to some degree, and maybe in some stories, you know, maybe in some marriages, and in a lot of marriages, the the women like, is just statistically shown.

Caitlyn: 12:12

The women is the woman is already pursuing healing. She's already seeking answers. Seeking clarity. Seeking information. Seeking out wisdom.

Caitlyn: 12:21

Seeking out solutions. Seeking connection. The woman oftentimes is creating a vision for the marriage. She is trying to get a clean and clear foundation, and she's bringing that to her spouse and met with rebuttals, met with blame, met with criticism, met with anger, silence, a shutting down. And so this is oftentimes a scenario and that was our experience in our marriage.

Caitlyn: 12:48

Was I perfect? Absolutely not. I had a willingness to accept my imperfections and grow and heal. That's actually still something I embody. That's something that Brandon now embodies.

Caitlyn: 12:59

That is the foundation of our marriage is that we both have a willingness and openness to receive each other, to receive what each person is feeling about certain ways that we're talking, interacting, different scenarios in each other's lives. Neither of us have our walls up now. We don't have our guards up. We both can receive each other and have a willingness and an adaptability to grow and heal and change. Brandon didn't have that at first because he was always blaming me or blaming others.

Caitlyn: 13:29

He was powerless to make his own changes. And I often find that men and Brandon the same and, you know, previous to 2019 that are wanting to point the fingers at their wives or say, well, doesn't she need to heal or let's focus on her or why do I wanna come to your event when you have day one only for the men? Like, how repulsive, how offensive that we would only focus on, my wife needs to heal. Oftentimes, that is your denial structure screaming because it is terrified to actually face what going on. Most men are not like, oh, let's take a look at what my wife needs to heal because they feel super comfortable also taking a look at what they need to heal.

Caitlyn: 14:08

No. If you find that as your automated response going on in your head, even if you're not saying it out loud, take a deep breath as you hear me. You might be kinda frustrated with me. That's alright. Very used to it.

Caitlyn: 14:19

Take a deep breath and realize if you hear that going on in your head, ask yourself why. Why do I wanna focus so much on other people right now? What can I look at at myself? You might be screaming, but my wife calls me an asshole every single day. Brandon used to get so upset.

Caitlyn: 14:35

Oh my gosh. Well, you called me an asshole. And I remember our counselor one time just completely burst his bubble because he was like thinking, you know, because we grew up in the church, Christian, so you do not cuss at your husband, you do not call each other names, right? And he would have all these different reasons for why it was absolutely not okay that I did that, which I'm not necessarily condoning that you call your husband a million awful names. But then we sat down in the counseling office and the counselor goes, well, are you being an asshole?

Caitlyn: 15:03

He's like, well, guess I am lying and hiding about looking at a bunch of nudity online, so that's not really the nicest thing a husband could do to a wife. So you might be at a place where you're like, I wanna focus on all the things that she's doing, all the things that she needs to heal. Or even as a woman, you might be like, I wanna focus on all the things that he needs to heal. And it's like, take a deep breath for a second. Woah.

Caitlyn: 15:26

What is it that you can become 100% responsible for? What is it in your life that you're scared to bring out into the open? What is it that you're afraid to look at? What's behind all those doors? Protected by your denial structure, protected by your shame, protected by all the stories that you've told yourself, protected by all the ways you thought you wanna enable your addiction or your patterns or your mentalities.

Caitlyn: 15:53

What if you chose to see everything clearly right now instead of like muddying it and making it blurry or fuzzy or hard to see? What if you chose to see everything clearly and chose to take your magnifying glass off of everybody else and put it on yourself? And what if healing was on the other side of that? And oftentimes, I think we we lose track because depending on what realm you're in, healing is actually so it's not a fad because it's incredible to heal, obviously, but it can become kind of trendy, like this

Brandon: 16:23

Self help trendy?

Caitlyn: 16:24

Yeah. This concept of just, like, constantly trying to heal. But we forget that the purpose of why we're focusing on ourselves is because when we when you took a look at yourself and what you needed to heal and actually began to move forward into that, you became the you that you were always meant to be, and how beautiful that is for yourself. How beautiful that is for your marriage, for your kids, and for the world. Like, the Brandon that's sitting here on this couch, giving back to all of these people and all these marriages, even our union, being able to be a union that other people look at and go, I want that.

Caitlyn: 17:02

I wanna create that intimacy and that connection. I want what they have where that their love looks so real and raw and authentic. But not faking it. It's because we actually took a look at our own selves. It's because we put our healing as a top priority so that we could create something beautiful with our lives.

Caitlyn: 17:25

Like, I talk about this in every single episode because every phase of the seven steps that we talk about, the purpose of this is so that you can be you, so that you can be you in your union, you can be you fully within self, so that you have purpose. Maybe for the first time in your whole life, you feel like, wow, I have a purpose. Our purpose clearly is to help others create an intimate union. That might be a similar purpose that you have in your life and in your marriage, you might have a completely different purpose. And as you heal, as you take your magnifying glass off of everybody else, everybody else's issues, how everybody else is irritating you and making your life so hard and making it difficult and blah blah blah blah blah, and you put it back on yourself, you're actually able to step into your purpose, your God given purpose and what you have to create in the world.

Caitlyn: 18:15

And this changes your entire life. It changes your entire union. It changes everything.

Brandon: 18:21

I wanna dive into two things. One is how to create an ecosystem and environment where you don't have to blame anybody else. So we'll talk about how to no longer be powerless to what's going on everywhere else. Before we dive into that, I wanna talk about how Caitlyn or if you're in a place where you are wanting to inspire change in your spouse and you you feel like you're dragging them along, what was really attractive to me in Caitlyn was how consistent and clear she was on what she wanted and how well she took care of herself and what she was not willing to settle for. That she didn't do the work for me.

Brandon: 18:54

It just exposed how futile and impotent my way of approaching our relationship and approaching life was. So if you're a spouse that's kinda like, I'm doing the work, I'm doing the work. I want you to consider in what ways you're still numbing out yourself or you're still avoiding taking care of who you are, taking care of your marriage by truly not trying to dissociate or detach from the pain because it's painful when you are desiring to see change in your spouse and you've waited years. If you choose to settle, parts of you will die as well. So we want you to take both of you to become powerful at the same time.

Brandon: 19:26

So if you're like, I'm ready to do the work. Don't wait for your spouse. And this is for both of you. So if you're both listening, you guys can both kinda look at each other and be like, okay. We're both doing this.

Brandon: 19:33

Because what Caitlyn did was she worked out. She ate whole foods. She clearly communicated what she wanted and what she desired, and she communicated the pain of not having it. That daily input of here's what I desire for us. Here's where we are today.

Brandon: 19:46

Here's the what I'm getting from you and not getting from you, and this is what pain it's causing me. I couldn't ignore it. And so if you're a wife or a husband, you're like, my wife or my spouse isn't doing the work. You take care of yourself. You live to the standard that you have for your relationship, and you share that day in and day out because you have clarity for what you want.

Brandon: 20:05

And what that did is it made it clear to me. It's like, well, the way I'm trying to create this relationship or the lack of intention I'm putting into this isn't serving us. And it's very clearly causing pain. Like, maybe what she's saying could have some validity. So it allows clarity and it allows what isn't to make room for what is.

Caitlyn: 20:21

You're creating a vision for your marriage, which we'll talk about in season two. But to cover it kind of more broad stroke, as a wife, and I'm gonna speak from our experience and our story, I had a vision for exactly what I wanted. And we've touched on a little bit of what that vision looked like in all the previous episodes. But my vision was very detailed. I I was an actual, like, you know, like, almost like a movie scene playing out.

Caitlyn: 20:43

I could see what I wanted our marriage to look like years down the road. And like I've shared, every time I would go to share that specific vision with other leaders, that was slammed in my face. I was told, oh my gosh. That is not something that you can like, that's essentially unattainable what you're looking for. And I just kept going back no, I can see it playing out in my head.

Caitlyn: 21:03

Like, I can see it. I can feel it. Even as I'm saying that right now, like, I can feel it in my body. And I'm here to say, years down the road now, what we have created in our marriage is exactly what I saw. When we got married, I had this vision for our marriage.

Caitlyn: 21:17

Like, you were drawn to your spouse for a very specific reason, and you most likely, when you got married, knew what that reason was, and you had a vision. And somewhere along the way, the vision has slipped through the cracks. Mhmm. And one or both of you have become weary, tired, worn out, lost purpose, lost vision. Maybe one of you is carrying the vision and you're tired, and you're just starting to think your spouse is never going to maybe be able to step into that vision.

Caitlyn: 21:45

For me, I tuned out every voice that told me it was unattainable, including Brandon's. If he said it was unattainable, I'm like, well, this is the vision. I'm inviting you up into here. I have a post somewhere about this. It's not a you do this or I'm gonna divorce you.

Caitlyn: 22:00

It's no. It's not a demand. It's an invitation. And so it sounds maybe similar. It's actually a very different energy.

Caitlyn: 22:08

It's I'm inviting you to come into this vision, which is the vision that we agreed upon when we got married. Yeah. And if you don't wanna step into that, then are we even really married? Yeah. Do we really even have intimacy?

Caitlyn: 22:23

Into me, you see? Because if you like Brandon's saying, he's lying and hiding. If you wanna keep your lies and your hiddenness, we don't have intimacy. Yeah. So we don't have connection.

Caitlyn: 22:33

So we don't have union. So then are we even married? That's much different than you need to listen to me or we're gonna get divorced. I don't even think most women find themselves. I think most women find themselves in a place where they don't really know how to use their voice for themselves.

Brandon: 22:46

I wanna speak to that because so that's also a place of finding your power.

Caitlyn: 22:50

Mhmm. True. There you go.

Brandon: 22:51

A lot of women are staying and I'm just using this as a I'm using a gendered example, but it I see this a lot. We hear this a lot. We get these messages. Women are staying with the husband because they don't know how they would be able to provide for themselves. So you actually choose into a bad relationship that you settle for because you're afraid of what being without that man or that person in your life would mean for you.

Brandon: 23:13

So you're not actually staying for love. You're staying because of fear.

Caitlyn: 23:17

Yeah. And Or for the safety of provision as it seems.

Brandon: 23:22

The idea of provision. And so I actually wanna give you permission not to think about leaving your spouse just for the sake of leaving your spouse, but do not stay out of fear because that's not a powerful position to be in. You would stay with your spouse and work through things because of a vision for what you wanna create and you have the clarity behind that. But when you just wallow in, well, if I left him, then I would be alone, and I'd have to get a second job. That's not even the way you look at it.

Brandon: 23:47

Caitlyn had no fear of what her life was. She I mean, I'm sure she had fear. She was so certain on what her vision was. Yep. And there was so much power behind that.

Brandon: 23:55

She wasn't like, I'm gonna take the girls, our $2 we had the time, and I'm gonna start over in my life. I'm gonna rebuild my life without you. She wasn't taking it that far, but she was saying, I am not even thinking about the fear or the pain of what if I'm alone and having to raise these two kids separated from you. She was saying, the pain is so great that we're in right now. This is not the marriage we signed up for, and she held her power and her position and used her voice to say, this is not marriage.

Brandon: 24:20

The only outcome would be that we are not together if we're not choosing into a different type of relationship. So I wanna empower everybody, husband and wife, to not just stay together out of the fear of what it'd be like to be alone, but to choose into the vision, to choose into being powerful, even if that means using your voice to say, I will not tolerate. I will not stay in a relationship that is disconnected and full of lies like this.

Caitlyn: 24:42

A lot of people are, like, especially in the Christian church, it's like, and probably other religions as well, it's like, we have this fear of being separated or getting a divorce. So we stay married, but we're actually still separated and divorced, but still on paper married. You know what I mean? It's like, we don't actually talk or get along or love each other anymore. You are swallowing an addiction and cheating on me, but I'm staying with you because I need the support and I have this fairy tale in my head that like I need your money and how will I live without my like I'm on my own and maybe just one day magically without any of us putting in the work, we'll wake up and love each other again.

Caitlyn: 25:21

And so it's like, yes, sure, you're married on paper, but you're not actually married. And so that's where I got to the point where it's like, we're not gonna live together as two people that are actually divorced and separated, but pretending like we're still married. So you're gonna come up here to this beautiful vision that I have, and we're gonna rise up to that together, or we're not gonna be married. We're not gonna find ourselves in this middle ground. And so many marriages find themselves in this toxic middle ground where they're married on paper, but not really actually married anymore.

Caitlyn: 25:52

And nobody feels good in that. That does not feel good. So many people message and are like, I don't know what to do because my husband is cheating on me and he looks at porn and he doesn't wanna get any help and he doesn't wanna heal and he doesn't wanna do this. And it's like, do you wanna be in a marriage like that? Do you wanna be in a marriage where your husband is cheating on you, and is not gonna heal?

Caitlyn: 26:12

I don't wanna be in a marriage like that. I sure hope you're speaking up for yourself. I sure hope you're saying, absolutely not. I will not be cheated on. I'm not okay with that.

Caitlyn: 26:23

You're not gonna do that to me. That's not a value. That's not our standard. Here's our standard. We don't cheat on each other.

Caitlyn: 26:30

We're fully satisfied by each other. We're fully in love. And so that would mean your husband's not gonna be like that overnight. That would mean you're both signing up for the journey of rising up to that together. Maybe you both have secrets.

Caitlyn: 26:42

Maybe you both have addictions. That's why you need to go back to episode one and start from the beginning. Get everything out. Stop living in this middle ground where you don't even you don't even have connection or intimacy. You call each other married, but you're not really.

Caitlyn: 26:55

You're both choosing into being powerful. You're both choosing into taking a look at what needs healed. So see how this is a similar message to both have a part to play. But what I find is when you say both have a part to play, it's really like this. Both have a part to play.

Caitlyn: 27:10

You need to take your part. It's not actually like, woah. Let's both choose into our power. Let's both heal. See how we're both healing in this equation, but the other one is very much so

Brandon: 27:21

It's a ping pong

Caitlyn: 27:22

much so, well, we both have a part to play, and I think you have more of a part to play. It's like, no. That's still being a victim. That's still being powerless. That's still blaming.

Caitlyn: 27:32

I'm gonna be taking back all of my power. You're gonna take all of your power, and we're gonna rise up together hand in hand in our union. We are already one. We became one. That's why you can't have people trying to live with all these secrets in their marriage, like secrets from themselves, secrets from each other.

Caitlyn: 27:49

It's like you can't actually be connected and one with somebody that you have worlds of secrets that you're hiding behind. Like, you gotta take back your power. You've gotta heal, and you've gotta rise up together. And if your spouse is not willing to do that, I'm not pro divorce. Absolutely not.

Caitlyn: 28:07

I would not pour all of my heart and soul into all of this content to restore marriages if I was pro divorce. I'm also not pro women or men staying in marriages where they're being abused, mistreated, or told, I'm not changing. That's just not gonna work. That's just not gonna work. That's what I would tell Brandon.

Caitlyn: 28:26

You know what? My advice, I would say, that's not gonna work for me. So you're gonna need to stop looking at swimsuit models online, or this marriage doesn't work for us. And when Brandon was presented with that information, he's like, oh, she means business. Yep.

Caitlyn: 28:40

I'm gonna get my stuff figured out.

Brandon: 28:42

So hot. So empowering. It's not pro divorce, but it's pro power. It's pro not pretending anymore.

Caitlyn: 28:49

Yes. Exactly.

Brandon: 28:50

If you want to create that environment inside of you and in your home, in your relationship, so we've talked about not blaming your partner. Now let's talk about not blaming your circumstances around you or those around you. So there is no good time to do this. There is no good time for your marriage to heal. There is no good time to stop and take a look at all these things.

Brandon: 29:07

No convenient time. There's no convenient time. It's not when you're retired. It's not when the kids it's not once the kids get out of the house that you divorce or face your stuff. It's not next month.

Brandon: 29:14

It's not once you come to some marriage retreat. It's not even once you come to one of our workshops or our intensives. It's today.

Caitlyn: 29:19

It's right now.

Brandon: 29:20

And when when do you when does life stop for forever? It doesn't. We went through our deepest healing process with two kids and one that barely slept with no money and no real plan in our what to do with our life. Yep. So if you have a full time job, if you both are working full time, if you're working two jobs, there is time Yep.

Brandon: 29:36

And there is energy and there is capacity for your power and your your healing to start right now.

Caitlyn: 29:41

Exactly.

Brandon: 29:42

What we experienced was and we've talked about this in the, if your relationship feels flat and disconnected episode. If you are consuming large amounts of media, you do not have time or capacity to do this. So we wanna tell you is you are not powerless to your phone, to the news outlets, to what's happening in the economy. You are responsible for what's happening in your home. You're not responsible for what's happening in China, for what's happening with the current presidency, for what's happening with the tax changes and this and that.

Brandon: 30:12

That is not your court to focus on. And often, we're so focused, and we give our attention to everything else going on in the world so that we don't have to focus on what's going on in our home, what's going on in our own body, relationship. So if you wanna be powerful, if you wanna be able to have capacity to change, hyper focus. Hyper focus on the two of you, on your relationship. And a lot of people say, you know, I tell my kids, like, it's mom and dad first, and we don't focus on our kids.

Brandon: 30:36

You can focus on your marriage and not neglect your kids in this season too. So this isn't just your kid. Your kids are not a hassle. They're not a nuisance. You can heal alongside the daily responsibilities you have.

Brandon: 30:47

If you remove your consumption time on on media, you just unlocked three to four hours. Congratulations. You just found your time to heal. You found your time to work on yourself. So if you've been just saying, I don't have enough money or time or capacity, get off of this consumptive mindset.

Brandon: 31:03

And you're like, well, you guys sound so so boring, and this is so hard. You guys don't watch any movies. You don't watch any TV shows. How do you decompress? Our kids don't know the word bored.

Brandon: 31:12

They love life. We are full of life. Do you know what we do? We go outside. We did it when we were in Idaho.

Brandon: 31:17

We do it in Hawaii. We engage the world around us. We also talk to other human beings. We eat our food. We clean up our home.

Brandon: 31:25

We put things where they go. Life actually has a lot of movement and activity. You don't need Purpose. It has a lot of purpose. You don't actually need to be distracted in trying to get through another day.

Brandon: 31:35

You get your power back when you realize you can slow down and savor this moment. And so you can create the ecosystem and the environment for your marriage to heal right now. You don't need to there's no better time. It's it could happen during the great depression. It could happen during stock market crash, real estate crash.

Brandon: 31:49

It does not matter because you can choose what you focus on and what you focus on grows. So you can focus on all the things not going right in the world, or you can focus on what you have responsibility for. And that is healing your relationship. That is looking at where the pain is and where the problems are and saying, we're gonna face this, and we're not gonna there's no better time than right now.

Caitlyn: 32:08

Mhmm. And realizing that you are powerful gives you the opportunity to create the life that you want. And so you began to realize, oh my gosh, I can create exactly what I want within my own self, within my union, and within my whole life. And when you feel powerless, you feel like you were a victim to all of your circumstances. And this outlets into really every area of life, people that feel poor, like they don't have any money, like they're always going paycheck to paycheck.

Caitlyn: 32:37

You can create the life that want. People that feel like their marriage is on the rocks and it's always been it's been decades of disconnection. You can create the marriage that you want. People that feel like their children are growing up and they're disrespectful, they're not turning out how they want it, you can create the life you want. I say this in every episode, but healing oftentimes is actually much more simpler than we realize because it comes down to subtle switches in what we actually believe.

Caitlyn: 33:07

So when you switch to believing that you are powerful to create the life you want Yep. And to bring about the healing that you need, everything begins to change for you. Because you might be like, oh, woah. Like, I need a million hours of examples, and I need all this. It's like, nope.

Caitlyn: 33:21

All you need to remind yourself is you are powerful enough to create the life you want, and to create the healing that you want. And even we said this in the in the sexuality podcast, because a lot of people find themselves coming to our content when there has been betrayal, when there is lies, when there is hiddenness, when there is sexual brokenness. And this victim powerless narrative runs rampant in all of these addictive behaviors because it's we talked about this already, but it's it's her fault because she posted it. It's her fault because I live in a sexualized culture. It's the movie's fault because that sex scene was so graphic and I didn't know it was gonna be sexual.

Caitlyn: 34:00

It's her fault because she was wearing that at the gym. It's her fault because her top is too revealing. You know, this person's fault because they brought that friend into mass. It's see how we can get so trapped into this narrative where it's everybody else's fault except for ours, and fault isn't even a good word. It's it's everyone else's fault, yet it's actually our choice.

Caitlyn: 34:24

It's our choice, what we wanna look at, how we wanna engage things, what thoughts we want to allow into our minds. You can take back all of that. You can take back your mind. Yeah. Take back your soul.

Caitlyn: 34:36

Take back your life, and literally create everything that you want. That's how we were able to create our vision. Yep. Was not by just laying on the couch watching TV, hoping our vision would just pass by and we could just grab it real quick. No.

Caitlyn: 34:52

We literally took hold of our life and created the vision we had for our marriage by becoming fully empowered and responsible for everything. And you might be like, that sounds so burdensome. It sounds so stressful. I have to be responsible for everything? Oh my gosh.

Caitlyn: 35:10

It is the greatest gift to put that into every aspect of your life. Like, I put that into birth, into birthing all of my four children. I'm responsible. I get to create the exact births that I want. And guess what?

Caitlyn: 35:24

I've had four magical, incredible births with absolutely zero complications. I've had so many kids now. We can't say I'm just getting lucky. I didn't get lucky four times. No.

Caitlyn: 35:36

I was responsible for taking care of myself. I was responsible for the thoughts I was thinking. I was responsible for the actions I took, for the scenarios I put myself in, for the birth team, for the support, for all of it. I created the four magical births that I had. I created my four beautiful post partums.

Caitlyn: 35:57

I'm creating the experiences and the life that I wanna live because I'm choosing to step into the gift of what it means to be fully responsible, to be fully in my power, to be fully empowered. It's not a burden. It doesn't feel burdensome. It's actually really light, because you find that life gets really, really good. When you're a victim to your life, it looks hard to step into your power because that's all of your victim narratives telling you how difficult that is.

Caitlyn: 36:30

When you step into your power, life gets lighter, life gets smoother, life gets simpler, and life is full of much more purpose.

Brandon: 36:39

Beautiful. One of the final concepts I wanted we wanted to give you tonight is one of the reasons it's so hard to accept responsibility is a lot of children were you were punished as as a child. So if you're punished as a child, that meant that when you were at fault or you were responsible for wrongdoing, you were given abandonment. So you're cast away into a room by yourself, or you were hit and spanked as a way of disciplining and teaching you. So now when you come into your marriage relationship, your marriage union, accepting responsibility means that you could be putting yourself into the place of punishment and abandonment.

Brandon: 37:12

What if she leaves me? What if this creates separation? And actually, the opposite is true. In your marriage, when you take responsibility for wrongdoing or causing harm to your beloved, it creates repair. So what you weren't able to give in be given in childhood, maybe you were given punishment instead.

Brandon: 37:29

As an adult, you can reparent yourself and say, you know what? I am going to take responsibility for my actions instead of hide from them like a kid would. Who did it? It's their fault. They did it.

Brandon: 37:39

I don't wanna get punished. I don't wanna get in trouble. This isn't about avoiding fault. It's about taking responsibility. It's about who's going to be the solution in your marriage.

Brandon: 37:46

You don't actually want to run and hide because it does it will guarantee isolation. It will guarantee abandonment. When you come towards your spouse when there is pain and you take responsibility, you create the opportunity for connection. If this was your first episode, we wanna invite you to listen to all the previous episodes of season one. As we get ready for season two, we wanna thank you so much for joining us on this on this journey on the grounded Union podcast.

Brandon: 38:09

If you got something from today's episode, go ahead and leave leave us a review. And if you'd like to work with us, or join one of our programs, go ahead and click the show notes below, and we'll get you some more information. Thanks so much for joining us.