Why You Should Stop Everything to Save Your Marriage
Welcome back to the grounded union podcast. We are talking today about why you should stop everything to save your marriage. And you might be thinking, well, that sounds intense. Yes, it does. And you know what?
Brandon:Just so I can paint this picture to you. What's at stake is is a lot. What's the sake is a lot. If your marriage ends, you probably have to give up half of all your possessions to your beloved that you're getting separated from. If you have children, you're going to get to figure out custody and time together and time apart.
Brandon:You're going to get back on the dating market and have to find somebody else to marry. And you're still gonna have to work through your stuff. So saving your marriage, not to try to like be crass, but this is a very worthwhile endeavor to focus on. So I think for us, we want to empower you in this episode to realize you're not crazy for thinking, Hey, I really want to make sure that I put my best foot forward. Congratulations.
Brandon:What happens is a lot of people that are beginning to end their marriage are doing it slowly, but surely. And we're saying like, look, if your marriage is on the brink, it's like, why not give it your all? Why not give everything? Why not stop everything else? Stop saying yes to everybody else and anything else and start saying yes to your marriage for the first time.
Brandon:You can be crazy. You can be radical. You can take every step that you want. You're not going to surprise us. You're not going to shock us.
Brandon:I think if you're willing to take a massive move toward the relationship you want to create, what better way to go down in history? Like we did not give up. We chose to dive all in. So I think the first thing before you stop everything to save your marriage, you probably need to identify if you're in a marriage crisis or not.
Caitlyn:Yeah. And the way you can identify if you're in a marriage crisis is really, I find a hyal symbol as, do you love your spouse? Do you feel close to your spouse? Do you feel like best friends? Do you feel connected?
Caitlyn:Do you feel like your relationship is alive and vibrant? For most of you listening to this, you're like, all you need to ask me is this my relationship in crisis? And my answer is yes, and I would scream it from the rooftop. Like most people know if they're in crisis. Sometimes people know they're in crisis, they don't know how to get out, so they just keep floating down the river of crisis for as long as they can.
Caitlyn:And people wanna ask us, the main thing they wanna ask is how did you heal? How did you heal? How did you heal? How do you have what you have? How do have what you have?
Caitlyn:And as I was reflecting on what episodes we needed to include in season two, I'm like, oh, woah. As I reflect back on those years, we made healing our number one priority in that season. We literally stopped anything and everything else. There was nothing else we talked about. Nothing else we focused on.
Caitlyn:Nothing else we did. You might be like, wow. Shoot. That's dramatic. Like, that's intense.
Brandon:Absolutely.
Caitlyn:Yeah. Because the pain we were in was so intense.
Brandon:So is going through divorce.
Caitlyn:Going through divorce is so intense. That would be so intense and chaotic for our children that we had at the time. Guess what? The children that we have now wouldn't even exist. Like, it literally, I've said this in other episodes, it's like, your marriage is the foundation from which everything else flows.
Caitlyn:It's like, this is your main property and the rest of everything that you own is surrounding. It's like, if you don't have this thing, this union, strong and built on a sturdy foundation, everything else is weak and crumbling. Nothing else can be built upon this. And so, yes, take a season and make it your priority. Also, so many people get sick and tidy tired of floating down the Crisis River.
Caitlyn:It's like, wow, we've been in crisis for a decade. It's like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna go with you probably have not stopped to make this the main priority. Like, doesn't it sound way more dramatic and intense to be floating down Crisis River for ten years, for two years, for five years, whatever it is? Wouldn't you rather halt everything in your life and make this the number one priority for months, for a month, maybe for a year, whatever it's gonna take. I don't know how big your devastation is.
Caitlyn:Whatever the time frame, it's not about the time frame, it's about the end goal, which is that you get to the other side and out of crisis, that you are experiencing a healed and whole union. It is so worth making that your utmost and highest priority. And if people wanna say, how did you heal? It's like, that's how we healed. Nobody actually told us that.
Caitlyn:It was just, I'm not doing another day like this anymore. I wanna get to the roots. I wanna get to the bottom. I wanna experience connection and nothing else matters until we have that. Of course, we still took care of our children because I know somebody's gonna be like, hey, you didn't take care of your children?
Caitlyn:It's like, yes. Our family our family unit, which was us two and our two kids at the time, were our highest priority because in case you weren't aware of it, your children are the closest direct impact to your marriage being together. So many people come to our workshop are like, I don't know their whole story. I just know if they're at our our workshop, they probably have some stuff in their union they're figuring out and they wanna focus on, well, my child's doing this, my child's doing that. What should I do with my teenage child?
Caitlyn:And it's like, you should get your marriage figured out. You should get your marriage on track. You should get your marriage right in whole because guess what? They're the ones that directly benefit from it or directly negatively impact from it. So if you wanna change the trajectory of your kids' lives, change your union, get connected.
Caitlyn:It not only changes their life, changes your life, it changes all the lives around you because you're now unified and operating in your mission and purpose on the earth.
Brandon:We live in a society where we don't like feeling like an outcast. We don't like feeling like the odd one out. And I think a lot of couples wait until it's too late or it's been too long to reach out for help to get help because it's embarrassing and it's unfamiliar. How many partners where there's one partner that's open to going to counseling. If the other one's not open, one wants to seek help.
Brandon:Other wants doesn't want to one wants to go to the intensive. The other one doesn't. It's, you know, it's a shame that we've placed getting help to be so taboo in our culture to where you're embarrassed to say we need help. And I would say because Caitlyn and I lived our lives so publicly and we lived our lives, trying to help serve the world, we actually were were open saying we need help. We had this posture of I'm not embarrassed to say I need help.
Brandon:So that, that was one of the saving graces for us is we just kept saying help, help. What resources can we turn to? What things are like, so that if you're trying to like, face and be like, I don't want to be the, the couple that that showed up to the counseling office. How embarrassing? I don't wanna be the ones that ordered the five books off Amazon to improve our relationship.
Brandon:It's like, who's gonna why are you embarrassed about that? What I would say is embarrassing is to show up one day and you're at the family reunion and you're like, yeah, me and Susie got divorced. Why? I didn't know you guys had problems. Oh, well, we didn't wanna bother anybody.
Brandon:And by the time we thought about taking a look at it, it was too late. Like, that's embarrassing. Facing your your stuff head on, that's courageous. You both this whole notion that we all entered into marriage perfect and then marriage made us not perfect. And now we are just being driven into being these pathetic people.
Brandon:No. You both entered into marriage with problems, and now they're coming to the surface. Take courage and say, yeah. We're gonna be the couple. We're gonna be I'm gonna be the man.
Brandon:You're gonna be the wife that's going to face our stuff. There's nothing embarrassing about saying you need help and you're in crisis. Are you listening to me? There's nothing embarrassing about doing that. That's one of the things that stops people from even acknowledging it and taking some of the actions we're gonna propose, stopping everything.
Brandon:So don't be embarrassed. Nope. It's good. It's normal. We've all been there.
Brandon:We've all we've all been there. Another reason people don't seek help or don't stop everything is they settle into this is the new norm. Living disconnected, feeling like roommates. That's too much of a hassle to just get divorced. Let's just be roommates.
Brandon:We don't have to tell. We can go to church, still smile and wave. We won't get separated until the kids are older. It's like you living like roommates is actually ruining everything around you. Your kids are then saying, oh, this is what marriage looks like.
Brandon:Exactly. Mom and dad don't love each other. They don't show affection. They don't celebrate each other. They don't sleep in the same bed.
Brandon:They don't go to bed at the same time. That's what they're gonna have. It'd be better for you to get divorced and go through a radical healing journey on your own than to pretend to be roommates for the rest of your life. So we're not proponents for just getting divorced because it's hard. We're saying, don't be roommates.
Brandon:That's not the don't create a new norm where disconnect is the new normal. Don't tolerate that. And so the last thing that I was just gonna throw out here about crisis is who are you hanging around? If you're in a group of friends where Sally and Susie are getting divorced and Bill and Jason are your drinking buddies and they're on their second and third wife and you're in your first marriage and you're like, oh, man, Is my friend group working through the difficulties in their relationship and being successful on the other end? Or are your friend is your friend circle full of marriages falling apart?
Brandon:Because odds are those people are gonna the moment things start getting a little hard in your relationship, they're gonna say, hey. Why don't you come to the club tonight with me? Why don't you what you forget her. You know? Who cares?
Brandon:Like, it's just a couple of beers or it's just an innocent little lap dance. Like, any of the guys that you're hanging around who are on their second and third marriages aren't gonna be giving you good advice. So look at your friend circle. Are they normalizing broken relationships? And is crisis normal around you?
Brandon:If so, it's fine. It's time to find some new friends.
Caitlyn:Yeah. We wrote out a couple notes as we reflected back to what does it look like on a practical note to actually make this the number one priority. And we found that what we believe is required to heal in this season is three things. Your time, so that might be your personal time that you wanna devote to healing. That's gonna be your time together.
Caitlyn:Everything that we teach and preach is time together to heal. This isn't a separate thing. This isn't a men's group and a women's group. This isn't And people always I I wanna clarify this in our long form content. People go, then why does Brandon only have a men's group?
Caitlyn:And it's because Brandon was a part of a men's group, not to be a part in his healing journey. He was a part of a men's group not to go take all of his secrets and baggage to and never bring that to me. He was a part of a men's group where he would say, okay, I just told my wife this and now I'm coming to you because I need I need the camaraderie of another man to back me up and to support me and to Revive. Essentially revive my energy to be able to go back to my wife and see her and validate her and know her. So Brandon's men's community app is not a place for men to gather to be like, yeah, I looked at porn.
Caitlyn:Oh, yeah, me too, man. Like, yeah, we'll never do it again. We'll call each other next time before we do it. Right? Yeah.
Caitlyn:And then nobody actually does that and we just keep doing that. No. It's a place for men to come and say, hey, this is what my wife and I are going through. Let's rally around each other. We're gonna always take it back to the wife, take it back to the the core of you two coming together in unity.
Caitlyn:It's a place for men to have camaraderie and also the support that they need to go back into their relationship and do things to heal together. And so all of this is at the foundation of doing it together. So it's time together and time to reflect. Yep. It's time, this is what you're doing to heal.
Caitlyn:The next thing, the second thing is energy. You need energy to be able to heal, and we're gonna talk about the practicals in each of these categories. You both are gonna need energy to show up. That's why you have to make this the number one priority, because if you're making 15 things a priority of your season, guess what? You don't have energy to focus on this to heal.
Caitlyn:And the last one is your focus. This has to be your focus. Somebody messaged me the other day and they were saying that they wanna come to our workshop, they're on the brink of separation and yet during the time of our workshop, they're hosting people. And I'm like, oh my gosh. Do not host people if you are on the brink of separation.
Caitlyn:Come on. We have got to make this our main focus. Our main priority, all of our time, our energy and focus needs to be devoted to healing. And if you're thinking, wow, you're crazy lady, divorce is crazy. Let's make this the focus so that you can have a vibrant, lively union on the other side.
Caitlyn:You can't host from a place of lack. You can't make your focus on all everything you make your focus on when your marriage is in crisis will only have a small amount of what you truly could have offered that focus or that area of your life if you would have made healing in your union a priority. Everything Brandon and I do now can have all of our focus and devotion and our healed embodied energy funneling towards it because first we prioritize If this is a drain, everything else is a drain. If this is crumbling, everything else is crumbling. If this is in lack, everything else is in lack.
Caitlyn:That's why you're gonna spend your time, energy, and focus on this one thing first.
Brandon:I tell the guys in my community to get selfish, and you might think, well, I'm supposed to be volunteering. This was doing all these things. I'm supposed be giving, giving, giving, giving. And I say get selfish because even when Caitlyn and I decided that we're going to start sharing our story, which was several, like three and a half years after we were stable. We did this have a good month together and say, we're going to start podcasting.
Brandon:Like we waited and waited and waited, made this on our focus, our healing, and then even how we've positioned the work we're doing in our marriage, our marriage coaching and the community app, it's not set up for what's best for others. And I'm not saying that to be like, I don't care about other people. We care tremendously. What we've always taken note of is what do we have capacity for? Do we have capacity to offer this program in this way or in this way?
Brandon:How will this impact our kids? How will this impact our relationship? We always move through with that lens of what's best for us, because what's best for you is actually going to, when your relationships thriving and healthy, everybody wins. Nobody's losing your relationships, thriving. Your kids are thriving.
Brandon:The people you want to make an impact and empower, they win too. Because if you burn out, if you get divorced, it doesn't matter. We will not be I'm actually I'm gonna say it the opposite way. We will be a couple that will be married for I was doing math. Sixty years until we die.
Brandon:Because we're not doing this to be able to say we have a marriage movement. I actually didn't even this kind of happened on accident.
Caitlyn:Organically.
Brandon:Organically. Before we were doing marriage work, we were actually talking about parenting. We care about people. We didn't start off to be marriage go throughs for our identity, which we're going to talk about breaking down identity reformation. This is for us and from us, and it fuels us.
Brandon:It doesn't detract from us. So we aren't here to say like, do all these things become like us. And it's this overwhelming weight. That's eventually going to make us crumble one day. It's like, we're doing this in way where we don't, we care, but we're never going to burn out.
Brandon:And so one of the practical actions that we recommend taking, and you've heard us say it again and again, and you probably are like, oh, they're not going to say it again, but we are remove distractions, AKA remove entertainment. When we're talking about time for Caitlyn and I, the time that we invested into our conversations, we always talk in the car, but we had young kids at the time when we were really working through our marriage trauma, 2019, 2020. When we got the kids down at 08:00, it was eight till midnight. Sometimes later, sometimes earlier, if you passed out, but that's four hours. And I tell you what, if you're using entertainment at night in between, and you're not taking the time to do your own reflective work to put the time and focus into all these areas that you're working on, you just don't have the time, but you don't need to, you don't need to quit your job.
Brandon:You don't need to like stop working. You don't need to like go live on a mountaintop with a guru somewhere. You just need to turn off your freaking phone and TV shows and entertainment, and you have plenty of hours in the day to work on your relationship. So I think that needs to be clear first and foremost, if you just turn off all the entertainment, boom, you got your time because you've already pushed priorities out of the way to be able to have these vices, these shows, this TV electronic time that the moment you need it back oh, sweet. I just found three hours.
Brandon:So that's what we recommend first is to remove distraction entertainment. It's an easy one because you already have put it there and it doesn't actually negatively impact your life to remove it.
Caitlyn:Yeah. And it's normally the number one robber of your time. Like Brandon's saying, it there's no negative impact of from moving turning your phone on airplane mode, sitting down, and going through whatever it is you need to go through to reconnect in your marriage. There's no negative impact to unplugging your TV for thirty days, for a month, for a couple of months. Goodness, if you're addicted to it, throw it outside, sell it, hand it to your neighbor.
Caitlyn:I don't care what you do with it. Put it somewhere else. Yeah. Put something else on your wall. Always say that, take it down and put something else on your wall.
Caitlyn:Why do I feel like I have permission to say that? Because for ten years, we haven't had a TV and we've had something else on our wall. Art, family photos, the things that we care about in life. Yep. So there's no negative impacts.
Caitlyn:It's an easy one. It's not easy. Simple. A simple step to be able to remove to gain back all of the time that you most likely need. Most people default to a powerless stance of how will I have time to do all the things that they're saying?
Caitlyn:How will I have time to listen to this podcast even to with my spouse? How will I have time to go through a chorus, to attend this thing, to do this, whatever it is? And it's like, oh, I can tell you the answer is really easy. Stop watching sports on Sundays. Stop watching sports in the evenings.
Caitlyn:Stop watching Netflix TV shows. Stop scrolling on Instagram for two hours. Stop scrolling on Instagram for thirty minutes. Whatever it is, if you don't know what your screen time is, pause this episode right now and go to the settings and type in screen time and you can see your screen time for today and your average and most people are gonna be like, I don't wanna see that. And so if you want your time back, go to your screen time, look at where you're spending all of your time, go look at how much TV shows and Netflix and whatever all the words are, I don't even know them anymore, where you're watching everything and guess what, you probably at minimum got back one hour.
Caitlyn:I'm gonna guess you're gonna get back three to four hours of your every single day life
Brandon:Huge.
Caitlyn:To focus on what truly actually matters most. There's your time. The next one is how do we create the energy, the capacity to heal? And we talk about this so often. We have to be embodied, which means in our body.
Caitlyn:We need to be grounded, present in ourselves to be able to have the energy to have the conversations to heal because Yeah. The healing conversations that you're going to have are going to require you to be able to show up fully. Mhmm. You can't run away anymore. Most likely, you've been running away and that's why you're right here where you are.
Caitlyn:You can't run away anymore. So you have to be able to show up in your body to be able to sit with your spouse, to be able to have these deep conversations, to be able to reflect backwards on your life. These are the conversations you're gonna have about your childhood, your sexuality, your spiritual beliefs, all of your beliefs and your paradigms and your narratives. You're gonna need to be able to show up and be embodied, to be grounded, to be able to have capacity to have these conversations to heal.
Brandon:What's interesting is a lot of our unhealthy behaviors are rooted in a mismanagement of energy. We're either trying to generate energy or offload unpleasant energy. And so when you take these two situations, if you're trying to generate it and you're doing it through a substance abuse, chemical abuse, through just scrolling on the screen, you can actually generate energy in a much more sustainable way by going on a walk, doing some breath work, doing some weight training, swimming. And if you're trying to let go of nervous energy overwhelm, doing those same activities will, will give you that. So when you need the energy to be able to look at your marriage crisis and begin to heal, it's okay.
Brandon:Start moving your body. That's like, have full permission to do that. And it's like, you're going to feel so good. And what's very interesting is we tolerate, we talk about this word tolerance a lot. We tolerate living subpar lives.
Brandon:We tolerate feeling sick, diseased, and exhausted. Things, those are emergency signals. That's what we're saying. If you don't enjoy your wife, you don't enjoy your husband. That's an emergency state.
Brandon:It's the same with your energy levels. If you're wanting to save your relationship and you're in chronic pain, you're chronically exhausted. You don't move your body. You don't enjoy what it feels like to be in your body. Well, guess what?
Brandon:There's no space for you and your spouse to enjoy each other's physical state. If you're not even in your body. So exercise embodiment. A lot of you have shared that that have been working through betrayal and addiction usually has a chronic illness. And that is very multifaceted, very complex emotions, stored trauma, the foods we put in our body, our connection to sunlight deeply impacts our ability to have a healthy immune system, fight off disease and feel our best.
Brandon:So if you've had a major rupture in your relationship and you've fighting a chronic illness for years, facing that together could be the key and a turning point for your illness to go into remission, for your cancer to go into remission, for you to be able to begin to let old cells die off and new cells build. Getting into your body, getting back into nature generates the energy for you to say, okay, I'm ready to clear out. If you picture big piece of land and a dude shows up with a tiny little shovel and you're like, all he's going to clear the land or you show up with a giant. Just machine. That's ready to clear the whole land.
Brandon:Which one are you going to choose? You're not going be the little dude with a shovel. That's what, that's what we look like trying to heal with no energy. It's just like, we're just chipping away at it and nothing's happening. When you start engaging your body, instead of just trying to do this through your mind, you unlock the energy to just plow through everything and uproot it.
Brandon:And then our focus, our focus, our focus, our focus. We only have so much we can focus on at once. And when you don't know what areas you're even healing from, it's very difficult to heal. And so what we call this is nothing extra. The volunteering stops.
Brandon:You stop going to all the things that you're doing for everybody else. All the unnecessary things that don't keep the lights on, that don't keep the bills paid. Everything else can take a backseat. You're getting ready to volunteer to be the sports coach. You're getting ready to to be the part of the dog walker society.
Brandon:You're getting ready to be a part of the tennis club. You're getting ready to lead up this thing, thing, all these initiatives, all these yeses you've said are going to become nos for a season. If you want to stop everything to save your marriage, if you want to just kind of keep going on as normal, it's not going to work. So I want to give you permission. If you've been filling your time and your focus to serving the community, which sounds so noble, but getting divorced, you're going to serve the community very well.
Brandon:Begin to remove anything extra. And that will allow you to clarify your focus. Cause you're trying to solve problems about some project you signed up for that you didn't need to be involved in at night, instead of being able to focus on where the root of all your pain is in your relationship, you're just prolonging your trauma.
Caitlyn:What we spend our time on is what we care most about. And so that's why I encourage everybody when we are in our workshops and when we're teaching is, why are we spending so much time on our screens? Like, I just keep hitting the nail on this. Like, why are we spending so much time watching TV and scrolling, looking at everyone else's life? That's not what matters to us most.
Caitlyn:That's not what we care about most. If I were to ask a room full of a 100 people, what do you care about most? Not a single person. I can guarantee I put all my money on it. Not a single person would say, I care most about my phone.
Caitlyn:I care most about scrolling Instagram. I care most about staying up to speed on my Netflix shows. Absolutely no one is gonna say that. They're probably gonna say, my spouse, my family. They might have hobbies listed there.
Caitlyn:If you're a Christian, you might say, God, like my relationship with the Lord. Whatever it is, there's gonna be something else that's your number one priority. And my question to you is, why is your focus, your time, and your energy spent on so many things that do not fit in the categories that are most important to you. You can figure out what you care about most by looking at what you spend all of your time at. And if you're alarmed looking at what all all the things you spend your time on, realizing those do not fit into the categories of what matter to you most, you need to switch your focus.
Caitlyn:You need to switch your time. You need to switch your energy to get back over here into these categories that are most important to you. That's where you come alive. That's where you heal. That's where you experience purpose in your life.
Caitlyn:Talking about sickness, talking about depression, talking about anxiety. I said this on our anxiety episode. Do we ever wonder if we potentially feel sick, anxious, and depressed? Because we spend so much time putting energy and focus towards the things that we do not love, the things that do not give life, the things that offer us nothing, the things that make us void and empty. Do we ever wonder if those are the very things making us sick?
Caitlyn:Healing is profoundly simple. Yep. Once you realize it. It's profoundly simple. Most of the time, healing is a subtle shift in our belief system, a subtle shift in the way we think that then changes.
Caitlyn:I always say, what we think is what we create. So when we make these subtle shifts, we then create something different. What you spend your time on is what you are prioritizing, what you're communicating with your actions that you love most. Make a subtle shift, might be more than subtle, make a shift in what you're spending your time, energy, and focus on to align with the things that matter to you most.
Brandon:So if we are making this shift, that means you have a bunch of more time on your hands, energy, and focus. Where do we place it? It's on each other. It's on the work you're doing. One of the biggest things so those are practicals.
Brandon:We're saying no or not right now to a lot of these other things, entertainment, other people, and we're taking care of our body. So we're getting the energy in the tank. But then this is a big component that most ignore, and that is identity reformation, recreation. I stepped out of ministry when our marriage hit rock bottom. I chose not to keep the show going.
Brandon:Even the church we're at was was supportive of us and was actually wanting me to keep my position, but I was like, you know what? We are at rock bottom. Yep. The show has to stop. Yep.
Brandon:And I hadn't had an affair or or had the you know, a lot of churches cover up pastors' behavior. It wasn't one of those situations. I'm not trying to say anything negative about the church, but it was like, we wanna support you guys too. And it was like, wait a second. On our own choice, we said, I got to step down out of the ministry.
Brandon:I have to end this because I cannot sustain this. And the reason a lot of pastors have affairs, the reason a lot of business owners do crazy things, go to go to jail for sleeping with the HR manager, get the Coldplay concert thing. Know? It's like all these things happen because we ignore the warning signs. We actually aren't willing to let go of the prestige of our leadership position.
Brandon:That's why it's so common in ministry is pastors have spent their whole life going to seminary, working up the ranks to finally become a lead pastor. And it's like, I'm going to get, I have to give up all that to heal. It's like, you're going to lose everything. You're going to lose everything anyways. So I would say this process of identity reformation is a really tender one, but anything you let go of anything you lose in this situation, in this phase is going to be restored back to a degree that's more real and 10 times better than you could have ever imagined.
Brandon:So I did. I stepped out of ministry. We've had people that have come to our workshops that are vice presidents of companies, but have feelings towards coworkers and assistants, all these situations. They're like, you know what? I Like, think I need to step down from my position.
Brandon:So we're not telling you just to do something radical, do something radical. But if your emotions are so intertwined with your leadership position, with your job, with the environment that you're frequenting, another one would be if you go to the gym and you have this whole little community at your gym, but you're objectifying every woman at the gym. You just stop going to the gym. You stop doing these comfort, these habits, these things that you're so familiar with that sustain your identity and you let your identity unravel and crumble to the ground. You're like, well, that sounds pretty intense.
Brandon:It is. Had spent all of my adult life at that point. It had been seven years of my adult life in ministry. And for the first time I didn't, I stepped out of it, even though that was all I'd ever known. All the comfort, all of the support, all of the accolades were in ministry.
Brandon:I didn't know where I was going to rebuild my life. I didn't know how I'd rebuild my life. I just knew I have to step out of this or I'm going to tank my marriage. I'm going to end my marriage. And in the unraveling, I was like, oh, wow.
Brandon:This is actually a huge gift. I don't have to be anything to anybody. I can actually look myself in the mirror and be completely honest. My unraveling, the reason a lot of for the ministry example, if you don't step out of all these leadership and prestige where everybody thinks you're perfect, you won't actually allow yourself to break. You won't actually allow yourself to be broken.
Brandon:How many pastors are burned out, but then get up on stage and say, hallelujah? It's like, you need to break. And then when you step out, you're like, well, I guess nobody's watching. I guess I'll cry then. I guess I'll let my wife know the ways I've been dishonest.
Brandon:I guess I'll just be a mess. I guess I'll actually be honest with myself because I don't have to keep the show going. That was one of the greatest gifts we gave ourselves was permission to unravel Exactly. The identity and the narratives that shaped me so deeply because I was like, nope. I even it was always the the automatic response like, well, no, I gotta keep going.
Brandon:Well, no, I gotta keep going. I I could stop to heal, but then I might lose something. Then I might let some people down. It's like, let everybody else down. Let your income fluctuate for a time and take a step back.
Brandon:Allow your identity to unravel.
Caitlyn:Yeah. It's an identity recreation because the identity that you've most likely been attached to is a false identity of yourself. Yeah. So if you have been like Brandon's given so many examples, if you have been so attached to this identity of, I'm the small group leader, I'm the prayer leader, I'm the ministry leader, I'm the maybe you're a pastor, maybe you're, you know, the vice president, maybe you're a president, maybe you're a CEO, maybe you have this high position of authority, and it's enabling you and blinding you from seeing what really is your identity. What?
Caitlyn:You look at Brandon now. He's not the pastor or, you know, small group leader or this or that or the other, yet look what organically flowed to him from sharing his authentic story. He got grounded and embodied, shared a couple videos online. Some of you maybe have been around from the beginning and maybe some of you have joined way later. Brandon's page going from now it's at like over 600,000, it went and skyrocketed through the roof because he was in his body sharing his authentic story and people flocked to it because it was like, you can you might even not know why you found it or why you saw it.
Caitlyn:Most of you do. You message all the time like, finally someone sees me. Finally someone's speaking my language. Finally someone gets it. It's because he was able to step outside of the identity that was put on him.
Caitlyn:All the labels that were put on him that that did fluff up. We could call it an ego boost if we want to. It's just a false sense of identity that I'm a leader. I am strong, I am this, I am that. It's like most everybody listening to this podcast and that follows Brandon online would say, oh my gosh, of course you're a leader.
Caitlyn:Of course you are that. Yet Brandon stepped so we're not saying you're stepping, you're not having an identity recreation to recreate into something lesser than. No. You're gonna have an identity recreation to literally rebirth into your true authentic self, which is gonna be way greater than what you were trying to muster all your strength to stay into. It's like we always have all these spiritual examples because I'm always confused why the church literally left and right has people like doing just some of the most horrific things, sleep with young adults and sleeping with their secretaries and cheating on their spouses.
Caitlyn:It's just like, why are so many church leaders acting out in this way? Why are so many prominent business leaders acting out in this way? And it's because they've gotta have this big old ego of I'm gonna save the world. I gotta keep going. I'm strong.
Caitlyn:I'm a leader. Everybody's relying on me. And it's like, I just, I'm not gonna take a look at all of my shadows because I've gotta get on the stage today and I've gotta preach a good message and I've gotta lead my team and I've gotta do this and it's like, woah, what if you slow down? Whatever it is that you're clenching your identity to, whatever these names and labels and places of authority you've given yourself, it could even be that you're just a small group leader, not just. It could be that you're a small group leader.
Caitlyn:It could be that you host a small group of families for your home church. It could be that you are the on a lead a lead team member of a team of five people at your work. Whatever it is, it's like unclench from all of these labels that you've given yourself from this identity that you've built yourself around. Unclench from it, not to go into, woe is me, I'm so evil, I'm not a pastor anymore, I'm such a sick and twisted human. No.
Caitlyn:It's not an unclenching and an unraveling for that purpose, it's an unraveling to see clearly. It's so that you can actually see who you really are. You might pick up some more of those things that you let go of for a season. Like we all like the greatest example, it's like Brandon was leading a movement. He let go of that so that he could see clearly.
Caitlyn:And then in seeing clearly, he stepped into his authentic grounded embodied self and without mustering or trying or working hard or running ads, having his whole big campaign, all of a sudden, his following, his realm of influence created a massive movement that's authentic to him. We'll never burn out like Brandon noted to in the beginning. We'll never burn out doing this because this will always remain our union. Our family will always remain our top priority. You'll never read, mark my words, you'll never read in the newspaper that Brandon slept with our secretary, that Brandon had an affair.
Caitlyn:You'll never even find a story about how Brandon was objectifying or noticing any other woman. You'll never read or hear a single thing about myself in that regard because we have gone about this in such a sustainable, holistic, clear, and clean way that it will thrive and last forever. And that is the point of pausing everything, is you have to rebuild your entire foundation with what matters most. How many pastors that have cheated and had an affair and lost their entire massive min I can think of so many in my head that massive ministries, massive of thousands and thousands and thousands of movements. How many of them would have rathered for a season, stepped down, taken themselves off of this identity platform and made this their priority so they could come back and have an entire thing rebirthed that's aligned and beautiful and wholesome and on a foundation of purity and goodness and love.
Brandon:If you ignore the emergency signals and you say, you know what? I'm fine. My wife made me listen to this podcast. I'm not really we're not in that bad of a spot. You can ignore it.
Brandon:You can keep going, but it will crumble at some point. And so what we're suggesting is you stop everything to save your relationship. Like why not? Why not get weird? Why not get radical about it?
Brandon:Because what you create on the other side will be far more worth it. If you've made focusing on growing a business at the expense of your family, your priority, it's like, well, I'll focus on that once we retire. Like when we have more time, it's like, watch out. Like if you want to guarantee that you die a wealthy man, you need to have a good relationship. This is the most important asset in your life.
Brandon:It's not a career. It's not prestige with somebody who doesn't even know you. It's you dying connected to your spouse, leaving a legacy with your family. These are the things that actually matter. So until those are working, everything else can wait.
Brandon:Yeah. Everything else can wait. And once you become a connected grounded husband and a connected father, then everything else you build is actually the cherry on top. It's actually a blessing. It's actually a benefit, but until that's thriving, you can't enjoy anything else.
Brandon:And so one other primary component we wanted to share with before sharing this kind of practically what that looked like for us was the faith narratives. So we've talked about giving examples of like pastors and leadership. If you hold strongly to a narrative of, you know, I'm a sinner saved by grace, or this is always going be what I'm struggling with. If you don't actually re identify your belief system, you will believe things for the rest of your life that will keep you bound and broken. So we want to give you permission as we've shared in many podcasts to recreate your beliefs in a system that actually promotes healing.
Brandon:So you can hold as tightly as you want to your church doctrine, the exact way you perceive the gospel. But if your marriage is going to hell, it's if going downhill, if it's crumbling, it's time to assess which beliefs are actually feeling that. And are you willing to let go of your tight grip of this exact specific way you currently believe so that you can welcome in new, more empowering beliefs? Are you gonna take this to the grave with you? What does it look like on a practical note for us is we were in ministry full time.
Brandon:Like I said, I had just taken the position as a children's rec at our church. Our marriage was imploding, like about a few weeks before I took out my position. And I was like, you know what? We're gonna step We actually then moved in with family. We were in marriage crisis.
Brandon:There was, 2020 was happening to the world and we just stopped everything. We had barely any income coming in. Just slowed down. We were with family. We were in crisis and we just settled into that pace.
Brandon:As like, not cause we were being lazy or passive, but because we're like, you know what? We got to face this during that time. And in the rebuilding phase, we even went tens of thousands of dollars into debt credit card debt. Cause we, our finances were in chaos and it was like, how am I ever going to get out of this hole? How am I ever going to rebuild?
Brandon:How am ever going to get back where I started sitting here in the future? I'm like, oh my gosh, everything was so worth it. Letting the crumbling happen. I wish I would have let it happen sooner and with more delight in saying, I gladly let go of this burden I've been carrying. I gladly let go of this identity that I've been trying to muster up so that I feel like enough.
Brandon:Until it's real and authentic. It's going to crumble anyways. So after we begin to slow down, rebuild our foundation, which is what we're telling you to do and encouraging you to do, everything else could grow and flourish. We had two more children. Our finances stabilized.
Brandon:We've been able to step into this work that is meaningful to us in supporting other couples. We are alive. Our bodies are thriving. Our emotions are thriving, and our relationship is thriving. So if you are willing to be a couple that says we will stop everything, you can save your marriage, but you don't even give yourself a chance if you ignore it.
Caitlyn:Yeah. So to summarize what we wanna leave you with is it is so worth it. It is so worth making this the priority of all of your time, all of your energy, and all of your focus. Even if things fall apart for a season, even if things crumble, even if you feel like you lost yourself because you're pausing, taking on all of these identities that might not even be of you. Whatever it is that you're feeling, it's real and you're gonna be in the moment and be in the season and make it all about your union.
Caitlyn:Make it all about rebuilding it. We're here to say, like I always say, like we always say, if you just need to know it's worth it, it's so worth it. Yeah. The other side of it is full of so much joy and light and purpose and connection, fulfillment and wholeness and vibrancy. Think of any good word and that is what you experience on the other side of this.
Caitlyn:Some days I'm in shock because I'm waking up, I'm like, wow, this is so good. It's so good to be so in love, to feel so connected to my children, to watch them growing and blossoming and becoming their full selves. Yeah. To be working and doing this for my job, like, my job is to bring hope to other people's unions, how beautiful. For my work, I get to do a podcast and get to do workshops.
Caitlyn:How fulfilling because I focused on this because I made this the priority. Now, years later, I'm reaping the beauty and the benefits of laying down a foundation. I used to weep every single night because I didn't know if it would be worth it. I didn't know what it would look like. And I used to cry and cry and cry.
Caitlyn:And I didn't have anybody that could look me in the face and say, yes, it is. Keep going. And we wanna be here to say every single time, every single episode, keep going. Lay down a new foundation because the other side is so good that when you wake up, you'll be in shock like, wow, this is life. This is the purpose of life.
Caitlyn:This is the gift of life. The gift of union, the gift of family, the gift of legacy in what we're creating, is that we get to wake up in the abundance and gratitude and thankfulness of what the work we did to relay our foundation produced for us.
Brandon:If you're a couple that's ready to face some of the pain maybe from addiction or broken trust, we do have our grounded intimacy program that is in the show notes. And if you're a man that wants to learn how to rewire his nervous system and get back into his emotions, we also have my grounded men's community app called the grounded nation. There are links in the show notes if you would like additional support from us and our resources. I wanna thank you so much for joining us on this podcast, and, we really appreciate you being here and spending this this time with us. It's an honor for us to get to share our story and empower you to continue to heal your relationship.