What to Do When You're Attracted to Somebody Other Than Your Spouse
Wanna welcome you guys back to season two of the Grounded Union podcast. For those of you who are here who listen to season one, thank you for listening to season one. If you haven't listened to season one, go start at the beginning with the episode that's titled Our Marriage Breakdown. We go in order, and we really share our story with you guys. We're in our new podcast studio.
Brandon:We just got it all set up, and we are batch recording this week to give you guys season two. These are some of the most asked about topics. Today, we're gonna be talking about what to do when you're attracted to someone other than your spouse. We just recently posted a video. Got 5,000,000 views, 6,000 comments.
Brandon:You guys obviously have a lot of thoughts on, is it okay for me to be attracted to somebody other than my spouse? Should I be feel ashamed about it? We're gonna dive into all of that. I'm also about to read some of your comments to give some context for what you shared on social media because it gives us a really good litmus test to understand what's going on in your world. In two weeks from when this podcast episode came out, if you're listening to it when it was released, we will be in San Diego for our grounded union two day marriage workshop.
Brandon:Over a 100 couples already signed to come. We do have a little bit more space. So click in the show notes if you would like to attend in person, or if you'd like to attend virtually, this is our only event that we're offering this year that you can also attend virtually. Let's dive in. Caitlyn, you think it's normal to be attracted to people other than your spouse?
Brandon:I didn't agree with you when we first got married, but I'd love to hear your initial thoughts. Is that normal?
Caitlyn:Yeah. I think this is a really triggering topic for a lot of people because it's a topic that little to nobody talks about. And Brandon and I grew up in the church, in the Christian church, and the conversation around attraction is one that the church tries to tiptoe around, tries to give a little bit of explanation to, but not too much. And so when we began in our marriage, ten years ago now, we just celebrated ten years together just last weekend, we renewed our vows. And so when we got married ten years ago, a whole decade ago, and we entered into, you know, into our marriage, and then of course, we're plugged into a church, into a small group.
Caitlyn:We were inundated with the same conversations and messages that a lot of you probably have heard, which is kind of that men will always be attracted to attractive, I have air quotes around that word, attractive women. And that's just how they were wired. That's how they were created. It's kinda like this this little handicap that we give to men like, oh, like bless their hearts, they're gonna try the best they can. But they're always gonna be attracted to other attractive women because that's how they were created, that's how they're wired.
Caitlyn:So we came in to marriage with that subtle belief system. And the more days and months that went by, we were very young when we got married, but the more days and months that went by, I realized, oh, that doesn't really feel right for me. That doesn't really sit well for me. And then I realized like, I'm not attracted to anybody else. I'm not walking around like rating other men like, oh, he's hot, he's attractive, he's good looking.
Caitlyn:I realized I didn't even have any of those. I didn't have any of those ratings like, oh, he's so handsome. Like, none of these thoughts were going through my subconscious or conscious mind. I wasn't finding myself walking into a room trying to figure out what where the good looking guy was in the room. I didn't notice specific types of men.
Caitlyn:I didn't notice specific body parts on men. I was becoming aware of, oh, I'm in this union, in this marriage, and I'm fully committed and in love with my husband, with Brandon. And therefore, I'm not actually out here on the hunt for anybody else anymore.
Brandon:She ain't on the hunt.
Caitlyn:And so when when these types of conversations begin to come up, it was like, oh, why is it different for you as a man? And so when we started to talk about that, it's like, oh, because I'm a man, know? Boys will be boys. That's just how we were. That's how we were wired.
Caitlyn:That's how we were created. It's biological. It's normal. It's all the things. And it's like, okay, I was 19 at the time, so I'm like, okay, like, I'm 19, I must have something I must not see You're naive.
Caitlyn:I'm naive. I don't understand how I remember hearing this all the time from men in the church. Women just don't understand how it is. We you don't understand understand us. Us.
Caitlyn:You You don't don't understand how hard it is for us. Yep. Because we live in a sexualized culture. All these different narratives, so I I started to kinda like, okay, I'll try that backpack on. The backpack of, I just don't get it because I'm a girl and I'm a woman.
Caitlyn:I don't understand how it works to be a man. And the more I tried that backpack on, I'm like, oh, this isn't making sense still. This doesn't make any sense.
Brandon:And you also were at a women's conference though where half the women were were asked if any women in the crowd struggled with porn addiction and it's half over half of the women stood up. So I wanna give a disclaimer right away that if your experience wasn't like Caitlyn's, where you're like, you know what? Even if if you're a woman, if you're a man, and you feel attracted to other people that are not your spouse, this episode is not to condemn you. It's not to give you shame. This is actually an insightful conversation to explore if you could have a different experience than the one you're having today and you're in a committed marriage, if there's an experience to experience more freedom, are you open to that?
Brandon:So that's what we were gonna bring you into. It's not necessarily, hey, we're here to point the finger and say, if you're walking around, checking people out, there's something wrong with you. We actually don't believe there's something wrong with you. We believe there's so much right. There's so much good that's inside of us that we just need to pull it out and be invited into that and be reignited to hope.
Brandon:So the disclaimer starting off, Caitlyn did enter our marriage with it. This pure innocent approach to our relationship. I had a lot of baggage and debris, so to speak, which we'll talk about more in this episode to work through, but just because Caitlyn came in clean and clear and I didn't, and maybe you did or didn't don't discredit what we're gonna, what we're gonna explore because it might actually lift a huge burden and you might feel handicapped in this area when you don't have to be. So what I wanna do is, in the show notes, we'll also link the Instagram video. It's like the three minute video, that you guys left 6,000 comments on, 5,000,000 views about to do when you attract someone other than your spouse.
Brandon:Is it normal? Is it not? We'll link that, but I want to read a few comments from that post right now so that you guys have some context. Some of you love the post. You're like, amen.
Brandon:We can be free. Some of you think that it's evil. Some of you think that it's ridiculous. Some of you think Caitlyn's lying. Some of you think I'm lying.
Brandon:One comment said blink twice if you need help. I don't know if he's talking to me or you, but hey, I just want to let you guys know in front of everybody. I don't need help. Caitlyn's not looking for help. We're actually very happily married, so we're safe.
Brandon:We're good. Another wife said, you for making me not feel crazy about how I feel about this topic. So we want to address that first and foremost. If you have thought about attraction, you don't feel comfortable at the idea of your spouse checking other people out. There's a lot of people with you, but we'll talk more about that.
Brandon:Maybe you don't have that same stance and we got this. We're going to talk about a lot on this episode. You can recognize that someone else is attractive without being attracted to them. I'm going read that one more time because it's actually confusing and I get what you guys are trying to say, but we'll, we'll dive into the verbiage shortly. You can recognize that someone else is attractive without being attracted to them.
Brandon:So what is that differentiation? Let's talk about that momentarily. Someone else said, why is she lying? And then someone else right after that said, this is possible 100% fire emoji. So we've got two camps coming in here.
Brandon:We also got some thoughts on biology, which we'll talk about. Every guy is attracted to women that aren't his spouse point blank period. Conversation over. Whether he acts on it or not, IDK, I don't know. It's a fact.
Brandon:We all know this as far as how women feel, I d k, but I think they are too. Verdict is still out. And then this guy said, dang, this guy's whipped. Rest in peace, brother. Actually called me bud.
Brandon:Not your bud. And I don't need to rest in peace. I actually don't feel whipped. I feel real. I mean, we don't have to go down that route, but I feel very grateful.
Brandon:I feel I enjoy our sex life. So there's that. And then I thought there was a this was a phenomenal conscious thank you who who left this response. Thought this was a beautiful response. Attraction to another can also be an internal projection of the unintegrated aspects of ourselves that our soul is calling us to develop.
Brandon:I'll read that again. Attraction to another can also be an internal projection of the unintegrated aspects of ourselves that our soul is calling us to develop. Jung's concept of animus and anima acting out on the projection leads to all kinds of problems and drama, but integrating it leads to more fullness in one's own psyche and life. Thank you for leaving that valuable comment. We also have, from a Christian perspective.
Brandon:I'm a big follower of Jesus, and yet I think this ideal is living in fantasy land, which is what we talked about. It was what we were told. She said Christ came to heal us because of our imperfections. This doesn't excuse sin, and we shouldn't act on those attractions, but this seems more like a way of instilling shame or guilt in others, opening the door for Satan to tell them they aren't good enough. So to anyone who watches this and thinks, I could never be dot, dot, dot, whatever, don't give up, look up to Christ.
Brandon:And so if you come from a Christian background, I actually respond. I said, don't look up to Christ. Look inward. There is no shame to finding deeper healing, deeper redemption, deeper restoration. So if you are a Christ follower, this is not about achieving something that you cannot achieve.
Brandon:This is actually a free gift. If you're a Christian, this is what he died for. I've got a fun one for you. If men are visual, why is there a room why is there a room a mess and their cars? Why is it only visual towards lust?
Brandon:I mean, it's seven emojis. So I thought that one was funny. It's set like 10 of you said that? We're winding it down here with a real good one. We did say that we received a lot of backlash, but people did counselors, passage did not agree with us, and, we got our we got our comment quoting all wise biblical counsel that we talked with told us we were wrong, but you should still listen to us.
Brandon:And then he put two red siren emojis. I responded, oh, major red flag. If you want to follow mainstream advice, please stay far away from our messages. So this is what we're talking about today will not be the run of the mill normal advice you would get at your church, at your mom's house, at your counseling
Caitlyn:never heard this message before because I'd never heard this message before. And we went to a lot of churches, bible studies, small groups. We did that for the first five years of our marriage. We even sought out a lot of counselors, all of them actually Christian. And I find now sitting five years on the other side of this, I find it to be so fascinating, so interesting that in the church, this isn't the message that's spoken from the stage.
Caitlyn:Why not a message that actually promotes so much freedom, so much light, so much joy, so much connection? Why are we enabling in the church and walking with this message that's actually keeping men, keeping women, keeping unions, marriages in bondage? Because a lot of a lot of backlash will come when it's like, oh, your expectations are too high. You're essentially pushing out a message that wants people to be too perfect. As if it's this pressurized message like you either and that's that's how we were all taught to think in the church as Christians.
Caitlyn:It's either right or wrong, black or right, good or bad, you know, it's perfect or from the devil. And so it's like, oh, here's this message that they're sharing, which is a message of you don't actually have to be attracted to anybody else. And we're gonna dive deeper into all of that in a minute. And then once we put that message out of, oh, don't have to be attracted to anybody else, and look, here's how we created that in our union, then it's like, oh, you just want everybody to be perfect, and that's wrong, and that's bad of you, and that's too high of an expectation to put on everybody. It's like, oh, there's a lot of safety in kind of lashing out and saying that, because that means that there's nothing required of you.
Caitlyn:Yep. There's nothing required of you to look at the situation and go, oh, where can I heal? Where can I develop? Where can I see clearer? Where can I keep expanding?
Caitlyn:If we can just keep pointing our finger, we say this in the first episode, because this happens a lot with husbands and wives in marriages. If we can just keep pointing the finger and blaming everyone else for being wrong, everyone else for being bad, everyone else for this, this, this, and this, and we never take a look inside of ourselves to figure out, oh, why is this triggering me? Why is this activating me? Why is this bothering me? What's here for me?
Caitlyn:Then we're safe. We feel safe. It has the appearance of safety. It's not actually keeping you safe because you're not actually able to expand, to grow, to develop, to create a union that feels safe, connected, and intimate. Yeah.
Caitlyn:If you find yourself activated or triggered or frustrated by the message, pause. This is something we practice in our marriage and even with messages that we hear that we don't align with. It's like, oh, what is this teaching me? What is this telling me? And then let's get back to the foundation of it.
Caitlyn:The foundation of what we're sharing, and the fact that we believe that you do not have to be attracted to anybody else, and that's something that we walk in and have walked in for years. The foundation of that is what I already said, it's freedom. Mhmm. It is the expression of freedom. I'm not bound by anything.
Caitlyn:Right. I'm free to be. I'm free to be in my union. Yeah. In connection.
Caitlyn:It's actually full of light. It's a light load. It's not a heavy load. Yeah. If you look at the foundation of the other message, which is that you'll always be attracted to other people.
Caitlyn:You'll always notice and find other people attractive. Wow. I just instantly lost myself.
Brandon:It's a lot to manage.
Caitlyn:I'm cuffed to this to this table, to this narrative, to this belief system. I can't get free from it. I can never get free from this belief that I'm supposed to be attracted to other people. How is that possible? How is that a message that would ever lead to light, to love Yeah.
Caitlyn:To freedom? It's not. So when you're feeling triggered by a message, look at the roots. What's the root of the message? Is it rooted in love?
Caitlyn:Mhmm. Is it rooted in freedom? Or is it rooted in a belief system that will always keep you bound? This is exactly what I did for the first five years of marriage. I kept coming back to Brandon, to pastors, to counselors.
Caitlyn:I don't understand. This message isn't rooted in love. If this isn't I've actually had many women message me this, fine, like Brandon read a comment. Finally, someone that will share this message because it feels so binding. When you have an awareness of it, when you realize, oh, my spouse is actually attracted to all kinds of other people, all kinds of other women and not only just me, when you realize that, you're like, oh, I would rather not be married.
Caitlyn:I would rather I remember thinking that all the time, like, if this is how Christ designed marriage, if we're looking at Christian perspective, or if this is the top goal of marriage, is that we love each other but we're still attracted to everyone else, why am I married? That sounds devastating to wake up every day wondering how many other women you'll notice, How many other women you'll be attracted to, and so many other women feel that. If this is the reality, I don't want that reality. Okay, well I'm here to tell you there's a completely different reality that you can make your own by unlatching the handcuffs that society, that our belief systems, that maybe even families have been raised up in. Taking off the cuffs and realizing, oh, I don't have to be bound by this narrative anymore.
Brandon:Wow. To summarize what that activation could feel like in your nervous system, where you're like, this is this sounds like a lot. So like Caitlyn said, before you shut it down, I wanna I wanna give a a delineation between two words, expectation and invitation. So when we when somebody says you can no longer find others attractive, you could immediately say they're putting an expectation on me and I don't have the power to fulfill it. So it's like, I can't do that.
Brandon:So what they're saying, I'm gonna write it off because I've tried, it doesn't work. So that's this feeling of an expectation you cannot fulfill versus an invitation to something that sounds unfamiliar. It's unfamiliar, and it was so unfamiliar for me. I was 25 years old until I had a real experience with it, until I experienced walking around, engaging my world, no longer looking at women as potential sex objects for arousal, for momentary stimulus. I was no longer in this bound up world that I could not control.
Brandon:But the first five years of our marriage, I was still in that in all of my teenage years. As soon as I hit puberty, we're full of chaos, we're full of body parts, we're full of sexual fantasies, pornography, and and trying to figure out this world called attraction and arousal. It was messy. It was confusing. It was unfamiliar when Caitlyn said, what if that could go away altogether?
Brandon:I wanted to be on the side casting stones at Caitlyn, but I actually didn't enjoy the fruit of what I was having. So we have no expectation to put on you. We have no burden to cast onto you. We actually want to invite you into something that isn't familiar. And it's the concept that you could be free to fully be satisfied in your spouse, to not have to grit your teeth, to not bounce your eyes.
Brandon:Look at another woman, look at another man, size somebody else up, be stimulated, whatever word you want to put in. You can use all the words you want. You can have complete freedom. I want it to go back to my boy's comment. It's Trevor Pister.
Brandon:What a name. Just what a handle. I don't know if that's your actual name, but he he said here after I had said that he would stay away from our messages because they're they're not mainstream. And he let me know that my pastor's advice is not mainstream advice. He's the shepherd appointed by God to care for the flock in moderation.
Brandon:This is a great, this is great advice, but what you're teaching can be dangerous. I want to tell you guys right now, what we are teaching is very dangerous. It means you could end your lifetime subscription to issues. It means that this could actually result in your life looking a lot different and it's it may free you up to face all the pain that's been in your life all along. What if you actually could be a 100 times 10 times freer, two times freer than where you are right now?
Brandon:This is very dangerous because you'll become a different person. So yes, I agree with you. This is a dangerous message. He said it had trace amounts of Joyce Meyer. Never met the lady.
Caitlyn:Don't even know what
Brandon:that looks. Don't know too much about Joyce Meyer, but she is a pretty famous gal. I can be sinless slash perfect, and I am. We won't dive too much into this idea, but he said this concept of just turn off the lust button, it's that easy. It's heretical.
Brandon:He said, when even Jesus had to fight off temptation, we can certainly minimize those temptations and should, which is the good part of what you're saying, but be free from temptation altogether. Nah, not biblical. To be free from temptation altogether is not biblical. My boy Trevor saying, I want to read the comment right below that hugging therapy. Sofia said, why is this so controversial?
Brandon:It's what we want. It's what we want. So what is it? Are we supposed to always be tempted or is this always what we've always wanted? Are we presenting something to you that's unattainable or unfamiliar?
Brandon:You get to decide. And also, is not about our opinions or ideas. This is about what type of love do you want to have in your union? That's what this all comes back to. If you come from a Christian background between you and God and you and your spouse, which there really is no difference.
Brandon:He's all he's God's in that. He's in that God sandwich everywhere. There's no separation. What type of love do you want to experience? That will trump everything else that we say.
Brandon:Cause if you want your love to upgrade, if you want to feel more connected, more safe and experience more trust, how far do you want to go? That's up to you. This is an invitation to the unfamiliar. Caitlyn, is it different to notice somebody in versus being attracted to them? Noticing body parts, I'm attracted.
Brandon:I'm I've noticed that somebody is attractive, but I'm not it's different than being attracted to them. What's the difference? What's going on?
Caitlyn:That was the main comment that came up that I thought was really fascinating is there is this play on words that if we notice that someone's attractive, that's different than being attracted to somebody. And I get what people are communicating because they're saying, essentially, I walk into the room and I notice with my eyes that Brandon's attractive. And then if I'm being attractive, then that or I'm being attracted to him, then there's a different way, there's a different energy that I am communicating. And most likely, if I'm going to be attracted to somebody, then I'm going to act on it. And another common phrase or comment that came in, way of thinking was that, you know, thinking someone's attractive is different than acting on it.
Caitlyn:And if you sit with that for a second, that actually is completely inaccurate because action. To think, to have a thought, especially a thought that moves to the conscious mind that you even notice, that is an action. Our thoughts are actually what funnel and fuel our actions. Yeah. So to separate the two, to think that one goes without the other is inaccurate, and people wonder why is the divorce rate so high?
Caitlyn:Why do men and women have so much addiction? Why are men that are trying to get free from addiction still relapsing? I remember hearing all the time that pornography was just as addictive as high drugs like cocaine. And as I sit now, five years on the other side of our sexual freedom from sexual brokenness, I'm realizing I'm not so sure it's as addicting. I'm not so sure that it's addicting at all.
Caitlyn:I think that these mentalities keep us in bondage and keep us circling and circling and circling and never getting free because we can't get to the roots Mhmm. Because we have these belief systems that keep us stuck because we have this belief system that if I just think that she's attractive, if I just notice that she's attracted, but I'm not being attracted, I'm not acting on it, then I'm not doing anything wrong. And this episode is not about anyone doing anything wrong. Yeah. This episode is about an invitation to live freer and connected in your union.
Caitlyn:And so when you think, then you act. And when you think, you create your own belief systems. They are not separated. To think someone's attractive and to find a lot of people attractive will only lead you to having a disconnected or less than whole in connection union because there's a part of you that's always looking, thinking, with somebody else, even if you never have a physical affair. Even if you never have an emotional affair, which if I never done a study, but I would love to see a study, of how many people spend their lives attracted, just attracted, just thinking, just not even being attracted, just noticing all of this stuff that people wanna say, this is light hearted, this is okay, this is how we are.
Caitlyn:It's just thinking and noticing, not being attracted to anybody, not ever acting on it. I wanna see a study if those people are walking in a vibrant, connected, loving union where they wake up with their spouse so excited to see their face, so excited to connect, so excited to talk, so excited to spend time and be together. Yeah. I wanna see if those people who just think other people are attractive, they don't ever act on it. They don't ever do anything with that.
Caitlyn:It's so so chill. It's so okay. It's just so how it's meant to be. Wanna see those people any sort of screen addictions, food addictions. If they have any sort of sexual addictions like pornography or maybe soft pornography like swimsuit models, the way they look at magazines, the way they look at billboards when they walk into the store.
Caitlyn:I wanna see a study on those types of things because I can guarantee without a study. I can guarantee that people that want to adopt that that way of thinking, they most likely do not have a connected marriage. They most likely do not feel satisfied and won with their spouse, and they most likely have an addiction, and most likely that addiction is to something sexualized because it's a snowball effect. To think is then to act. You cannot have one without the other.
Caitlyn:If you walk around always finding people attractive, you will eventually act on it. Yeah. Because that's how you've told yourself you have to be.
Brandon:Yeah. Every decision we make in life is begins with contemplation, and it begins with we ponder things. We sit with things. We let things fester. They ferment.
Brandon:Then we do act on them. And to what degree is different to each person? So we're not saying that if you don't pay attention to this, that you're gonna go walk up to a stranger and ask to have sex with them. That could happen, and that's has happened for many marriages. They've gone on a business trip, met somebody at a bar, and had sex with them and ruined their marriage.
Brandon:But there was a lot of underlying issues at work. What we're simply suggesting is that instead of living with a level of tolerance for for just seeing other people as potential partners. And you say, well, it's not, I don't want to be partners with them. Okay. If you don't want to be with anybody else, what part of you still desiring that we will talk about playing that all the way through in a second.
Brandon:Actually, let's dive into that right now. Let's play it all the way through. So let's just say that this noticing of attractive people is harmless. It doesn't do anything negative to your relationship. We'll go with that.
Brandon:Do you actually, what does it mean to find somebody attractive? It means there's something of value there. I've used this concept of comment or perspective before that I'm attracted to things that I want. I want to have a deeper experience with the woman walking down the street that you don't know, but that has a athletic, healthy body. If you were to come closer to her, to have a deeper, deeper experience of her to get relationally closer to even have sexual experiences with her or him, is that what you want?
Brandon:And you might say, no. I don't want that. I'm happily married. Then why are you noticing that? Or why is that such a core part of your daily experience?
Brandon:Because when we sat down after I'd lied to Caleb about how I was using the Internet, we started working through my sexual history. Realized this wasn't just a small component and maybe I was just perverted. Maybe I was just weird or maybe I've had a similar experience because of this, of this conditioning where I actually. Used immense amounts of mental energy to try to refrain from looking at somebody's butt or breasts too many times. I tried to just see it once.
Brandon:I just know she's attractive. I don't want to look back. I'm not actually thinking about like taking her home, but I can't stop looking back or I have to use all this energy to be like, okay, I bounced my eyes once. I say the first looks from God, the second, second looks from the devil. I was stuck in this pinball machine of attraction that I could never leave of objectifying women of sexualizing women, even if it was to the smallest degree.
Brandon:I couldn't, was a game I couldn't get to turn off in that created separation in my relationship because every time we left the house, I was seeing other women. Every time I got on my phone, I would linger a little bit on an image that was sexually suggestive, or I would go to places intentionally to see sexually suggestive content. So either you want more of it or there's something unintegrated, as our brother said on online, that that is looking to heal further so that you don't have to use all this time and energy outsourcing your sexuality to people that are not your spouse and that you have no intentions of having sex with.
Caitlyn:Mhmm. Because what you notice is what you want. Like, Brandon's always talked about this. If you all of a sudden decided, I think this is like there's a name for it. But, like, say we decided we wanted a specific type of red car.
Caitlyn:It's like we want a red board truck or red Jeep. We might have, like, not been aware in our mind of any red Jeeps up until that point where let's pick up more rare car. And then we go outside and now it's like, oh, look at that red Jeep. All of you are gonna resonate with this because this has happened before. It's like, oh, look at that red Jeep.
Caitlyn:Look at that red Jeep. Or it's like, drive the same jive every single day and there's this restaurant off in the corner. You've never seen it, never heard of it, whatever. Until somebody tells you, I ate it such and such restaurant. It was so good.
Caitlyn:And now, it's like, oop. Now you see the name of it. Even though you had never seen the name of it, you've done that same drive every single day. Because what we notice is what we want. We're only, like Brandon said, attracted to what we want.
Caitlyn:So you're not going to it's not also, it's like, sometimes you just don't know what you can have. Like, didn't know that we could have this type of marriage, this type of relationship, this type of being within ourselves where we weren't actually attracted to other people. So it's like, what you notice is what you want, and also, maybe you feel like bound because you feel like you have to be that way because you didn't know that there was actually another way to be. Nobody's told you like, hey, did you know you actually don't have to be attracted? Like we've actually created that within our marriage.
Caitlyn:It's an invitation for anybody who wants it. You also don't have to want it. If you want to find yourself being attracted and noticing everyone else, you can have that. We're just letting you know we realize we didn't want that. Yeah.
Caitlyn:And there are so many people that find themselves resonating deeply with the message because they don't want that either. Yeah. And so this message is to communicate that if you don't wanna live that way, you don't have to anymore. You can actually live creating and experiencing what you do want. So if you find yourself attracted to other women, you can recreate an experience where you are being attracted to what you do want.
Caitlyn:What we wanted was to be fully satisfied within our union. And so that's what we became so attracted to. Yeah. And that's exactly what we began to create.
Brandon:The roots behind attraction, which we're gonna dive into right now, are three core areas that we've been able to identify in people in couples we've worked with and through our own experience. I'll give you all three of them. We'll dive into each one. The first one is past experiences. The second one is consumption.
Brandon:And the third is limiting beliefs, we've been diving into already. So let's talk about this first route of attraction with past experiences. If you were exposed to pornography, whether that was by somebody older than you, a friend, or you found a playboy, you if you're younger and you found an Internet website, or you found something on TV, a sex scene from a movie, these defining moments were your education around your sexuality. If your parents did not give you age appropriate developmental conversations about sexuality, the changes taking place in your body through puberty, the meaning of family union, sex, birth, if all of that was taboo and it wasn't talked about, or all it was talked about was be afraid, don't have sex until you're married or use a condom. Whatever experience you've got created a very deep message to you.
Brandon:If you were abused as a child, that brought in another level of confusion about your sexual experience. And so for us to think that our past experiences have no impact to our present day attractions is a disservice. Because if you've tried to ignore what you needed and did not get with maybe that was your father leading you into healthy developmental conversations about your sexuality and how to and and what to look forward to in building a family and a legacy. And all you were left to is kinda like, help. I'm horny.
Brandon:I don't know what to do. And then you were left with an open web browser to figure it out. So how many children are growing up on maybe if you're, if you're of an older generation, you, you maybe grew up on, on Playboy magazines and you're like, this was my, this is an attractive woman is a naked woman with a lot of makeup on in a certain position with a great lighting on a, on a, on a magazine. And it began to root into you. This is what men want.
Brandon:Or if you're a woman and you had whatever path you went down and and sexual experiences you had that you haven't reconciled. When we ignore all the the porn we've seen, the sex scenes from movies that have these deeply emotional storylines, the strong man conquers the world for the beautiful woman and they have sex. There's a lot of things we miss because if, if we're still in that place where we don't, we haven't been able to make sense of what took place when we were children through our developmental years prior to our meeting, our spouse, then we're going to continue repeating them. We talk about that all the time, what you don't, you aren't willing or able to identify and how it impacted you. You're just going to repeat it.
Brandon:So your root of attraction, and this is most people don't like looking at their past sexual experiences because it's full of shame, but if you and your spouse want to heal at the root level, which we talk about in our grounded intimacy program for couples healing from addiction and betrayal, which is in the show notes, when you're walking through that, you need to both go on that journey. It's like, what past sexual experiences have we had that inhibit us from experiencing all our sexuality has to offer? Because if you flinch, when you think about your sexuality, that means there's part of you that feels still feels dirty. And that fuels your subconscious attractions to people online and people around you in the world.
Caitlyn:That's why because if you ever stop and think about it, it's like everyone would be everyone is attracted if we play this narrative out. Everyone is attracted to all different kinds of people. It it makes you a judge of people. It's like, okay. Because people wanna argue like, okay, yeah, well, I'm just seeing the beauty that there is out there in the world.
Caitlyn:Like, some people in the comments were getting a little wild with it. It's like, I'm just noticing God's beauty in women. I always like to say that Brandon is like, are you noticing God's beauty or her booty? Because there's a completely different energy into actually experiencing life in this free and light and rooted in love way. And that doesn't look like noticing a woman's body parts.
Caitlyn:Yeah. And so when you play the narrative of I'm allowed to notice attractive people, you're also playing this narrative of I get to be a judge of who's attractive. And that's not rooted in love because are you only attracted to a very specific type of woman? And so then, would that mean that all of the other people are now in a category of unattractiveness? Or if we wanna play out the narrative of, oh, I'm just noticing beauty.
Caitlyn:I'm just noticing God's beauty in the woman, and this and that and the other. It's like, okay, and so is that for every woman out there? So do you notice every single woman that you walk by? And are you noticing her face? Are you noticing her eyes?
Caitlyn:See, you start to get really practical with it, which nobody wants to practical with it because it reveals a lot. We just wanna be like, oh, I just noticed her beauty. I'm not I'm not doing anything where I'm finding anybody attractive. I'm not acting on it. I'm just admiring creation.
Caitlyn:It's like, well, what part of creation? The eyes? Mhmm. The face? Are you connecting and looking into that person's eyes and having a conversation that's rooted in love?
Caitlyn:Or are you becoming a judge of who's beautiful and who's ugly? Are you becoming a judge of who's attractive and who's unattractive? And have you ever wondered why why would some people find these categories of people attractive and these categories of people unattractive? Because we might all think like, oh, yeah, the really physically fit girl with really large breasts. And it's like, maybe that would be, you know, the the typical attraction meter, but there's actually a lot of people that find, you know, people that are couple hundred pounds to be really attractive.
Caitlyn:And the point of what we're creating here is that your past experiences, your past sexual experiences are what are going to create what you to the current day find attractive. So that could be your spouse, and that most likely is going to be a lot of other people until you wanna take a look at those past sexual experiences that shaped the way that you think, shaped what you believe, shaped how you view the entire world and how you wanna interact with the world. That's why this whole narrative doesn't actually make sense. Because it's not about it's not that we actually live in a world where there's one type of attractive people and then there's unattractive people. No.
Caitlyn:Because everybody's view of attraction is completely different.
Brandon:Yep.
Caitlyn:And if we try to trace back, okay, how did this person decide who, what types of people they're gonna find attractive? I guarantee we are gonna find something from their past sexual experiences that leads to why they find that specific type or these multiple specific types of people to be physically attractive. And that's why they still notice them because there's parts of them that want to be looked at. There's actually parts of you that want to be noticed. And so now you're noticing everywhere else because yourself is like, wait, let's go back to those experiences that we had when we were little, maybe when we were not little, that we need to look at, that we need to see like, oh, woah, that's all been hiding under there.
Caitlyn:Yeah. And I've been masking all of that with just this blanket statement of this is just always how I'll be. This is just how I was created. Yeah. This is just how I was wired.
Caitlyn:This is just how men are. I don't need to take a look at any of that because none of that matters. Yeah. I just need to put on my hat and be like, yep. This is just how it's always gonna have to be for me.
Brandon:Well, Caitlyn, there's something you have forgotten so far that many people say, we are biologically wired, both of us this way, for the procreation of other people. And I'm only gonna give that credibility to anybody who says that if you have produced at least 10 children. So if that's your viewpoint that this is our biological conditioning Mhmm. That we cannot control, I'm only happy to have that conversation if you are repopulating the world and you have a healthy relation. This is my second one.
Brandon:If you have a healthy relationship with those 10 children, you could have multiple women that you've had children with, but if you have healthy relationships with all 10 and you are trying to procreate and bring back, repopulate the world, then we can have that conversation.
Caitlyn:Again, when you play it all the way through, that belief system actually doesn't make any sense. You people wanna say, oh, it's biologically normal. And what I like to say is it's actually not biologically normal. It's not how you were created. It's how you created yourself to think.
Caitlyn:It's what you wired in. It's what you told yourself was true. And so it it didn't start from the moment you were born, and you can even test this with if you go and find, thinking of my own sons even, if you find sons that grew up in homes, I've met many of them where they're most likely homeschooled, weren't given phones from young ages, don't have TVs on their walls, aren't addicted to screens and video games. If you look at the way that those boys or young men interact with the world, it is completely different because what we wire in is what we then believe and how we then act. So it's not from birth that our boys are like walking around finding everyone attractive, just trying to look at boobs and trying to look at waist and just trying to think about having sex with women but not actually acting on it and oh my gosh, this is a frightening world.
Caitlyn:It's like no, they were exposed Yeah. At a young age to something sexual. Music videos, movies
Brandon:A narrative. An idea. An ideology.
Caitlyn:Public school, culture, everything. This ideology of I'm sexual and I shouldn't be sexual and I have all these urges and I shouldn't have these because these make me bad and I shouldn't act on them, but they're overtaking me. And it's just this consuming tumultuous narrative Yeah. That gets wired in from our experiences.
Brandon:I'm so sexual, I'm free. Mhmm. I'm so sexual, I'm free because our sexuality is relational. And so, yes, I actually do agree that biologically, from a primitive, underdeveloped state, tens of, you know, however many thousand years ago we wanted to point back science, history, spirituality to where, mankind has, has come from. Yes.
Brandon:In, in tribal groups, mating was very different than it is today. For a modern era where there's been social development and institution and expansion for there to be a healthy culture, we cannot just give the blanket statement that we can mate like apes. We are developing. We are growing. We are growing in love.
Brandon:We are growing in maturity. And so yes, if you want to go backwards, you could go back that way, but you have to, you have to go there in every way. So if you want to go primitive where we just mate to mate. Sure. But don't, don't expect anything, any other results of a developed consciously aware society.
Brandon:So that doesn't quite work. If you want to change the world, like Caitlyn was talking about, we should teach emotional intelligence to our middle school boys and girls. So if you want to, if we wanted to end human trafficking and abuse end alcoholism, end poverty, it would be teaching emotional intelligence to our children so that they know how to be a part of the feedback loop of their life, where they are actually able to know what they're feeling and know how to regulate their emotions and know how to lead fulfilling lives instead of being given a screen, numbing out, finding deeper and darker things to look at. That's what we're working toward and working from right now. So the first thing is your past experiences.
Brandon:If you wanna kind of get to the root of your your attractions, you have to you have to at least pay attention to that. Have to begin to take inventory of what you've been through, because it, it definitely informs what's taking place currently. The second thing is consumption. We've, we've talked about this alluded to this already. When we started working through my addiction, I got off all social media.
Brandon:I got off all visual media on a on a backlit screen. So nothing virtual, nothing tech written electronic elect technology, electric electronics. We did that because it would be so normal to consume on a screen, and you desensitize yourself. When you're desensitized, it all feels normal and it all feels like you cannot control it. So if you spend multiple hours a day scrolling on a social media app that is not designed to give you an emotionally healthy life, it's just the apps are designed to give you more of what you've clicked on, more of what you've consumed.
Brandon:So if there's half naked women, it's because you clicked on one one time and you told the app, I want more of this. That's how those apps work in case you weren't familiar. They're also designed to keep you on the app as long as possible. It's the same with TV shows. It's meant to be emotionally gripping and keep you there.
Brandon:So if you are consuming sexualized content, you will sexualize women and men in your environment, blank. So a lot of the church will go for the Christian perspective again. Doesn't like this idea of being completely free from attraction and a fantasy world because a lot of Christians, non Christians, you don't have to be a Christian. You listen to this podcast, but you might be consume sexualized media and they don't want to feel bad about it. And Caitlyn and I have taken a very strong stance.
Brandon:We don't, we don't watch movies. We don't watch TV shows, not because I mean, I no judgment against people that do. We just have, I don't really have time to, I've got four kids and we have so much stuff we're doing together and just being with each other, but I want to live a life I don't need entertained from. So I'm not saying that there's never an opportunity that you could watch a movie altogether with people that it's the default for our modern society. And we don't take into account the repercussions of watching things online that that desensitize us to our standards, to our morals.
Brandon:Exactly. And then we walk around thinking, well, yeah, I just I keep looking at women's boobs. Well, every show you're watching, the scene where she comes in in a bra and it's this emotional thing, you're like, you're gonna look at her boobs because if you were in the movie, you're gonna sexualize that experience. So, like, if if if that was you and your wife, you would take all of her in it. So you're doing that with people on the screen in this fantasy world.
Brandon:If you're on social media, you're just looking at half naked women. Well, you're gonna look at women a certain way because that's what you've been consuming. I shouldn't make it abundantly clear. If you're, if you're viewing pornography, having sex with themselves, each other, that's going to impact what you're attracted to. If you haven't been able to experience this freedom we're talking about, what are you consuming?
Brandon:And again, this isn't a life of restriction. This is a life of freedom. If you wanna be free, you don't have to have a lifetime. Again, a lifetime subscription to all these streaming services, all the social media. You get to choose what you consume.
Caitlyn:Which you play it all the way through. It's like, oh, people might think, oh, like, I think the default is when you start sharing this stuff, it's like, oh, they live a life that has so much restraints. It's like, oh, no. It's the opposite. It's the opposite.
Caitlyn:We live a life that has so much joy, freedom, love, and connection that every single day when I wake up, I'm not like, oh, yeah. I should watch a two hour movie or a couple episodes of a TV show when I have four beautiful children to go look at, play with, be with. When I live in a place where I can go be outside, put my feet in the grass, put my eyes in the sun, touch the water, touch the sand. We used to go walk in the snow. We would take umbrellas and go walk in the rain, be in Earth.
Caitlyn:Yeah. Where I have a husband that I can wake up and look at and smile at and talk to and connect with and kiss. Play it all the way through.
Brandon:That's attracting that's I'm attracted to the
Caitlyn:That's a life that's attractive. That's not a life that's restraining. The life that's restraining is one where it's so dull, it's so numb, it's so desensitized that you have to wake up and put a screen in your face to get through the day. If you were to play that all the way out, nobody actually wants that. And so instead of taking a look at that and going, oh, I don't want that.
Caitlyn:We just say, oh, that's normal. Everything we wanna call normal is just what we don't wanna take a look at. So we don't have to face it, address it
Brandon:Yeah.
Caitlyn:And heal from it.
Brandon:Yeah. Past experiences, consumption, those are two main categories that impact our our attraction. The third root of what we've already talked about a lot
Caitlyn:Mhmm.
Brandon:Since the whole episode is limiting beliefs. So what I wanna give you guys in this episode is if you thought this is impossible and you've been told it's impossible, you may feel upset because you're like, why did all these well meaning people tell me I couldn't be free? And that may produce anger in you wrath. I want to give you, permission to feel all those things. Also don't go on a rampage trying to go prove everybody else wrong.
Brandon:So if your pastors told you you couldn't be free, your next your next conversation isn't to go tell your pastor to go screw himself. Like, that's not that's not the next move. This is for you to be free. Start with you. Focus on you.
Brandon:Allow yourself to have an experience with this. We actually did not choose to find sexual freedom so we could start a freaking podcast. We didn't care if we ever did anything for the world. We like, we love you guys. Like, Hey, thanks for being here with us.
Brandon:We didn't go on this journey so we could have something to teach. We didn't go on this journey to to prove anybody wrong. We went on this journey because we wanted to experience love and our marriage wasn't gonna make it because the cookie cutter answer of do your best, try not to look at hardcore porn. You probably shouldn't masturbate. If you do, don't tell your wife about it.
Brandon:We were not gonna stay married because I kept going back and forth, lying and hiding. It wasn't producing emotional connection and sexual vibrancy for us. What led us down this journey of finding a holistic experience of our attraction and our sexuality was for us. So in your pursuit of clearing out your limiting beliefs, don't try to prove others wrong. Try to find what the good and the beautiful is within your union and what you're pursuing, because that will be the only motivation that will carry this through.
Brandon:We live this. We walked this for over three years. Now it's been five plus years before we even started talking about it. We didn't do this so we could share this with you. We didn't do this to prove any way wrong.
Brandon:We, our agenda is love. Our agenda is freedom. And it's from the overflow of, of what we've experienced that we want to share with you. So take that same root. If you have a root of bitterness, you're like, oh, I'm this pissed off.
Brandon:Well, you're not gonna go very far. So find some good fuel to put in your rocket and go go sift through the limiting beliefs so you might you you have you are experiencing around this this this area.
Caitlyn:Another belief or conversation that came up a lot years ago when we were first married is we're gonna talk, for the second half of this episode on, okay, that's great. You really teed up well what the importance of not being attracted to other people. How did you do that? How did you actually get rid of that belief system and create something different? And so we're gonna dive into that in a minute.
Caitlyn:And as we begin right before twenty nineteen, twenty nineteen was the diving into what we call our marriage breakdown, and we talk about that in season one. As we were building up into this, and as I kept presenting this idea of like, oh, what if we could be fully attracted, fully satisfied by one another? What if we could free ourselves from all sexual brokenness and actually have a foundation in our union that's rooted in love. There was this whole big narrative of, okay, well you're always gonna be attracted to other people. This is why we like talking about this because it's a very charged conversation.
Caitlyn:Always gonna be attracted to other people. So you can you can get rid of like, here's, you know, always being attracted to other people and here's all the rest of sexual brokenness. So you can get rid of all of this underneath here, but you'll never be able to get rid of like being attracted to other people. And I used to always think, like, okay, so if that's how Brandon's wired, if that's how I'm wired, if that's how we're all wired, then why don't we tell each other? Why don't we say, why don't we get in the car?
Caitlyn:Why don't we get in the car? And why doesn't Brandon say, hey, babe, just so you know, I was attracted to those five girls, you know, the ones that were wearing like the revealing, quotes revealing tops, and like, you know, their breasts were spilling out, and their hair was like this certain color, and their figure was this certain shape. I just wanna let you know, like, I wasn't being attracted to that person. I just wanna let you know I was noticing that she was attractive. I wanna let you know like I'm not gonna be masturbating.
Caitlyn:I'm not gonna be thinking about that when we have sex. I'm not gonna be doing any of this. I'm not gonna act on it at all. It's just stopping right there babe. Just so you know, I just noticed for a split second that she was attractive.
Caitlyn:It's like, oh, why can't Brandon tell me that? Because if we were to go to any counselor, which we did, we were to go to any pastor, any church meeting, any little male rally with all the Christian boys, not a single soul would ever tell you, trust me, I tried it, a single soul would ever tell you to ever even contemplate telling your spouse those things. Why?
Brandon:Why?
Caitlyn:Why? If it's so benign, if it's so okay, if it's how we're wired and we're all accepting it, if we're all accepting that we were created this way and it's so normal, then why does nobody wanna talk about it? Why does nobody wanna share those things? Why does nobody wanna bring that up with their spouse? Why does nobody wanna talk about this exact conversation?
Caitlyn:Why do we wanna keep putting it under the rug if it's totally okay?
Brandon:Because it's painful. It's painful because if you're not having that same experience, you know what it feels like to be solely attracted to desiring and thinking of your spouse at all times. And so that is the pain is because if one spouse is not on the same level, then they're saying, you know what? I'm solely given I've reserved my love, my attention, my attraction, my energy solely for you. And so the reason it's painful is both parties aren't on the same page.
Brandon:That's not everybody's experience. That's not what and we're gonna use what our experience was. That wasn't Caitlyn's experience. She was driving all of her energy towards me. She wanted to have a vibrant sexual connection, emotional connection, spend quality time together, sharing life together, and she wanted to be free and freely to express that she wasn't even in the ounce of her desiring that with anybody else.
Brandon:And here I was, you can call it that I was, I had an avoidant attachment, whatever it was. Parts of me were out here still being like, oh, here, there she is. Oh, there's that girl is. And I was diminishing my ability to love. And so that's why we don't talk about it because it still hurts.
Brandon:It's painful when you actually play it all way through when you actually get honest, because we know that it's not harmless. We know that it's rooted in something so much more. That's why we protect it. That's why when someone, when people, when you bring it up to people that are leaders, they get, they snap. They have to give their description of, well, no, that's as far as we go, because then they would have to face the discomfort in them.
Brandon:So that's why we don't talk about it openly is because most people are are not willing to go to that next level.
Caitlyn:Mhmm. It's like, if you want to believe the narrative that you'll always notice that other people are attractive, go ahead. And why don't you tell your spouse about it single day? Because actually, if you wouldn't notice that everyone's attractive and tell your spouse about it, guarantee you'll feel actually more connected than noticing everyone's attractive and keeping it from your spouse. And with that though, you won't do that.
Caitlyn:Yeah. You won't tell your spouse. Because guess what? You don't actually feel good about that. You don't actually want that.
Caitlyn:And when you go to say it out loud, that's how we'll talk about that as we explain how we begin to heal. As you go to say everything out loud, we're breaking down a lot of topics right now and saying things out loud because when you go to play it all the way through and say it out loud, you realize, oh, yeah, that doesn't make sense. Yeah, that isn't rooted in love. Oh, yeah, that's not actually what I want my marriage to look like. Oh, I wouldn't actually feel I used to say this all the time to Brandon, like, would you feel comfortable if I came home and was like, hey, by the way, I noticed his penis in his pants.
Caitlyn:Hey, by the way, I noticed he was really muscular and I thought that was attractive. Brandon's like, no. That wouldn't make me feel good. Even if I said, hey babe, I'm not being attracted to that person. I'm not gonna act on it.
Caitlyn:I'm never gonna think about it again. I'm never gonna see that person again. But I did notice for a split second that that person is attractive. Do you feel comfortable? He's like, no.
Caitlyn:I wouldn't feel comfortable with that. If we flip the roles and we were to ask ourselves, do I feel comfortable if my spouse were to have these sort of thoughts, have these sort of glances, have these sort of interactions, these feelings, these noticings, these levels of attraction, the answer's probably no. And if your answer's yes, and it's a really quick yes, is it because you're scared? Is it because you're scared to actually believe that it's possible for you to heal? And most likely if you're scared, I'm gonna guess, you have your hands clenched around a past experience that you don't wanna look at.
Caitlyn:Something from the past that you wanna keep tucked and safe and hidden away. And you know that if you bring this conversation up and you begin to look at who you're attracted to, why you're attracted to the person, how often this is coming up for you, you know it's gonna trace all the way back to something in the past that you're hiding, that you wanna keep secret, that you wanna keep tucked away. Something you don't think is still impacting you. Something that was so long ago that you're like, oh nope, that doesn't impact my current day. And we're here to say that your past experiences, the current things that you consume, and all of these belief systems are exactly what are shaping what you find yourself attracted to.
Brandon:The internet wants to know, Caitlyn, somebody commented that you're lying, and I wanna make sure there's a specific person they said that you would be attracted to if you walked into the room. So for the record book, I need to know if Brad Pitt walked in the room, you're telling me you would not be attracted
Caitlyn:to him. To be honest, I have no idea what Brad Pitt looks like because I removed consumption from my life ten years ago. That's my answer. Because our past experiences, our consumption, and our limiting beliefs are what completely fuel and funnel all of our energy into what we're attracted to. For the last ten years, I have removed watching movies, watching TV, following and consuming hours, and endless amounts of social media, of YouTube, of even podcasts.
Caitlyn:We're here doing a podcast, we don't even listen to podcasts.
Brandon:Barely listen to them.
Caitlyn:We feel a power, an invitation, a love to get this message into the world, and we are actually using the apps to create in the world. We actually have a whole episode on this. The energy of creating and putting out creation into the world as opposed to consuming. So would I be attracted to Brad Pitt? Absolutely not.
Caitlyn:Because I haven't been watching movies with Brad Pitt. I haven't been watching movies with any quotes, hot male actors. I haven't been reading any books with any hot, quotes, hot male men. None of that has been a part of my life or my experience. And so what was our vision?
Caitlyn:What did we create? What did we build? What is our current day experience? And so the vision that I carried, which we'll talk a lot about this in the next episode, the vision we can carry as as the wife, as the one, is a vision where we are fully satisfied, where we are attracted to nobody else and only attracted to each other. That was the vision that I had and the vision that I created.
Caitlyn:Then we began to take that other people to get tools, and absolutely nobody had any tools for that. We were kicked out like we shared in the first season. We were told that was impossible. We were told don't try it. And yet, I still felt this message anchoring deep.
Caitlyn:No. There is something more. There's something freer. There's something lighter. And there's something rooted in love.
Caitlyn:And so we began to dive deep into this process. It's a process that now as we reflect back, we can see the steps that we took. It's not something that we We were essentially going into uncharted territories. I see it as this just big untamed forest Mhmm. That had absolutely no path.
Caitlyn:We had no idea, no direction of where to go. And we began to just take steps every day, cutting things down and clearing a path. Now as we look back, we can see, oh, there's the path. There's the steps we took. And a lot of these steps are the steps that we share.
Caitlyn:In our first season, we have two episodes on healing from sexual brokenness. We also as well have a course called grounded intimacy will be linked in the show notes where we go through our exact process. Every step that we took in detail and how we took those steps. And how you heal, how you begin to create a union where you're fully satisfied and fully attracted by each other is by looking at those three things we talked about, by looking at your past experiences. And it's just not it's not just you looking at them.
Caitlyn:It's you looking at them together. Yeah. What were your past sexual experiences? Beginning to share those out loud with each other. There's probably a lot of things you haven't shared out loud.
Caitlyn:There was a lot of things for Brandon he hadn't he hadn't even tried to realize himself that He needed to bring. Then we had lots of moments of, oh, that's why. That's why you do this. That's why you seek out this. Then we began to look at our consumption.
Caitlyn:What things was Brandon consuming? What things was he looking at, listening to, trying to scroll and find on his phone? What were his interactions like with things online? Okay. We're gonna completely take a season where there's absolutely no consumption, so we can see clearly Yep.
Caitlyn:And rewire the brain. And then we begin to look at these limiting beliefs. Which of these beliefs, when we played them all the way through, were rooted in love? Which of them even actually made any sense? And so then we began to cut ties with all of these limiting beliefs that were like keeping us bound.
Caitlyn:And we began to embark one day at a time to rewiring our brains, rewiring and recreating a whole new experience for ourselves. Yep. One where we are deeply connected. We fully see and know each other. Intimacy is into me, you see.
Caitlyn:We now have full intimacy because we know that we are fully and madly in love with each other and absolutely nobody else. There's so much trust and safety established when you're not worried about your spouse being attracted to anyone else, noticing anyone else, having feelings for anyone else. None of it. We can be fully united and fully in love.
Brandon:Was it easy? No. This cost us a lot except out of ministry. We let go of a lot of very deeply held norms and beliefs, and we got very uncomfortable. And as we'll share in the next episode, we'll be talking about the pain of betrayal, rebuilding trust.
Brandon:This was an incredibly painful season of our life in 2019 and 2020. When we were in the trenches, trying to figure out what freedom looked like. We were not willing to settle, but no, it was not easy. So for those of you listening like me, you guys make it sound so easy and so light. This is heavy.
Brandon:So I always speak with intention with strength, because we want you to know in your pain right now that we are here to support you. We are here to empower you. And like I tell so many people at our, at our conferences and workshops and courses, we cannot rescue your marriage, but we can remind you of how powerful and how much love is truly available to you right now. And so we wanna empower you with that in the next episode. If this is your first episode, thank you so much for joining us.
Brandon:Here are this was our thoughts on what to do when you're attracted to somebody other than your spouse. We believe you can fully rewire that fully be free to love and express your sexuality in your marriage union without being burdened to notice, objectify, sexualize anybody else, else in person online, you can have fun doing it. If you're willing to face the past, embrace a different lifestyle in the present, you can experience full freedom. If it's for this episode, go ahead and subscribe. If you're listening on YouTube, follow along on Spotify or Apple, wherever you listen to this podcast, if you could do us a favor and leave us a review that helps us reach more couples, we will see you in the next episode.