Stepping Down From Ministry to Save My Marriage
Welcome back to the Grounded Union Podcast. This is season five, episode seven. I messed it up a couple of times before I said that. We are going to be talking about our story of me stepping down from ministry to be able to save our marriage.
Brandon:I want to give a disclaimer. My intent and our intent with this marriage podcast is not to convert you to any specific faith belief. So we do talk about faith topics and I understand that that is a major, what's it? Sensitive area for everybody because everybody, whether you, you attend church, you're from a different world faith, you're really on high alert. Like, is this person going to try to persuade me to abandon my faith or to believe a certain way? And what we've always tried to do in this podcast is to share our story. So it would be dishonest for me and Caitlyn to not share the circumstances that we were in and the transformation and the shifts that took place in us and what we were doing at that time and what the focus of our life was. If I didn't share the details, you guys would lose big elements of, of the story and of the transformation that I believe is possible for everybody.
Brandon:And so this episode is about identity transformation. And what I mean by that is my identity was wrapped up in ministry. Yours could be wrapped up in your job as a school teacher, as a stay at home mom or a stay at stay at home dad as the bad boy, the good girl, whatever your identity is, it has to go under undergo a transformation to save your marriage.
Brandon:And so mine was, and many of you maybe will relate to this, or if you've been a volunteer or if you've been in ministry or if you've been in a line of work that has not allowed you to look honestly at your relationship or your situation or your family when you put your head down and just keep going. So you could be at a job where you're like, you know what? I know I'm working long hours. I'm jeopardizing my marriage. I'm ignoring my health, but I'm going to keep putting my head down and keep going.
Brandon:Could be that you're in ministry like I was. And I said, you know what? I'm in ministry. I know my marriage is bad, but I'm going to keep going. I'm going to keep doing things the way I've known to do them. And so take the heart behind this episode as our, our offering of what our story is and some of those insights that we made along the way of this identity transformation.
Brandon:What needed to happen in my life was the show had to stop. And for me, the show was being a pastor, being a missionary, working in nonprofits while having a marriage that was suffering. And I couldn't see myself clearly while still performing. And when I say performing with quotes, if you're watching it is for me to do the ministry positions I was in, I had to ignore things that were true.
Brandon:And that's how I created a double life is I had to ignore that I had a problem with a phone addiction, with looking at sexualized content, with the way I saw women around me, way I saw women at church, the, my sexual brokenness and how that sexual brokenness led into brokenness in my marriage. I had to ignore that, which was true in an attempts to salvage all of the years of building up and and and and ministry, ministry, ministry, missions work, being a pastor. And then I had to have these two different pursuits to keep going in ministry. I have to kind of ignore what's going on over here.
Brandon:So we're gonna give you the backstory of how it got to that place and offer the moments and the decisions, the real decisions we made along the way that that made healing possible.
Caitlyn:Yeah. Maybe you guys joined us in season one, and I believe it was the very, very first episode that we shared a little bit more about our story. And we met in Ecuador, funny enough. We had both grown up in Oregon in towns that were only two hours apart. We actually happened to grow up in the same exact church denomination.
Caitlyn:We both grew up in the Nazarene church or of that specific type of Christian belief. And we had never met at any camps, never met anywhere else. We just met in Ecuador. And we met, Brandon was there, he was planting a church and pastoring a church there. It had been a couple years, and I came on a forty day trip.
Caitlyn:It was very last minute. My pastor was not able to attend. He was like, I know you wanna be a missionary. I just graduated high school. I'm 18 years old.
Caitlyn:And I was like he was like, you can have my trip. You can have my spot. So went and met Brandon. I believe it was our first night after I had traveled like twenty hours and texted my mom that night on Facebook Messenger. I still have the messages.
Caitlyn:They're adorable. I'm like, I met my husband. Like, I'm just waiting for him to essentially think the same thing. And so we met and we had those forty days together. We pretty much instantly both knew we were gonna get married.
Caitlyn:I left, Brandon came home very shortly after, I think a couple months after. We got engaged, Then he returned, he went back to Ecuador back and forth a couple times, fully came home, and we got married a couple months after that. In the summer, it was exactly a year from the date we had met, we got married. Again, you guys know I was 19 at that point, Brandon's 21, we were children. I'm shocked now that I'm like a parent of a nine year old.
Caitlyn:I'm like, I can't imagine like thinking of my 19 year old is getting married. But we got married with this belief of okay, we love Jesus, we met on the mission field, we both actually one of the main reasons why we decided we wanted to get married and why we were attracted to each other because attraction isn't like we always say, only about appearances. We were attracted to each other because we both had the same vision that we actually wanted to be missionaries. That was like our lifelong calling is what we what we had both felt. And so that's really the premise of which we got married was met on the mission field, gonna continue on the mission field.
Caitlyn:We always thought we would literally live overseas somewhere in some like dirt hut with our kids, you know, serving in ministry in that regard.
Brandon:And that was really what Caitlyn left out a few details about me, when we met. I actually had a girlfriend when we met, I when I met
Caitlyn:I don't know if we've ever shared that story. That's a good one.
Brandon:I think maybe in the, maybe we haven't. I had a girlfriend in Ecuador and I was following all the rules in my ministry program I was a part of. So I was, I wasn't, it was serious, but it wasn't serious at the same time because we weren't allowed to really spend time together. I didn't tell Caitlyn when I met her that I had a girlfriend. I did tell her that I was going to marry another girl.
Brandon:There was just a lot of, lot of partial commitments on my end.
Caitlyn:There's a lot of red flags.
Brandon:Lot of red flags.
Caitlyn:Cause I was only 18.
Brandon:Yeah. Lot of red flags. And, one of the last nights on Caitlyn's forty day trip in Ecuador, we'd been doing all these little projects around the city and I was sitting with her and another girl at the table and I just think I'm hot stuff. I think I'm just so great. I've been flirting with Caitlyn.
Brandon:I've got her attention. It's me, her and another girl. And another girl said, Brandon, I don't understand Christian guys. And I am like, please ask away. I would love to answer your question.
Caitlyn:Christian guys like you, she said too. Yeah.
Brandon:Did she say like me? I said, well, I'd love to explain. You know, I'd love to help you get some understanding. And she said, I don't understand why you have a girlfriend and you're flirting with Caitlyn. And I almost threw up.
Caitlyn:I had no idea she was going to say that either. Was like,
Brandon:and I continued to eat the two plates in front of me until dinner was over.
Caitlyn:And, did you even answer it? I don't even think you gave the answer to it.
Brandon:I sleuth my way through it. I didn't answer the question courageously been. I did break up with that girlfriend. I let Caitlyn know, Hey, by the way, sorry about dinner the other night. Our friend Emily had a good point that, yeah, I should be a little more committed if I'm going to be committed.
Brandon:And so I did break up with her, the other girl to pursue Caitlyn. Now the pursuit was very passive. It was, I was a textbook nice guy, which we're going to talk about in the next episode. So tune in next week. Thought this being a good Christian boy would get me everything I needed in life and not require me to do any of the, have any of the hard conversations or to actually, I'll say put my own skin in the game where it's like, my commitment means I could be rejected.
Brandon:I could be said no to. So I always had like one foot in, one foot out. And I thought that if I'm just good and nice and I pray enough and I read my Bible and I'm doing the right things that everything else will kind of itself out. And I don't actually have to be vulnerable. I don't actually have to be authentic where I share real emotion and share who I really am.
Brandon:It's just kind of give a little bit here to get the approval of others. And I, it was working. I got the Caitlyn's approval. Had could easily let the other girl go and, know, was to the point where I was like, okay, would love to go. We were dating long distance.
Brandon:I'm like, I'm going to go visit Caitlyn from Ecuador back to Oregon. And I was planning with her mom. And at this point I hadn't actually made it clear to Caitlyn that we were officially dating or deeply committed while giving her lots of attention and communication and her mom, her mom, I'll never forget this. She said, if this is a duck, it needs to quack like a duck. She's like, before you come visit for my daughter's heart, I want to know that you are committed to her.
Brandon:So I I've always made that joke. I'm like, let's make it quack like a duck. And so then it was always somebody, this is, this is the, the, the story is it always required somebody else to ask me to make a deeper commitment. And so as, you know, from Caitlyn saying, are you, and you have another girlfriend? Okay.
Brandon:So then I commit more mom's like her mom's like, Hey, are you committed to my daughter or is this like a friendship? Cause I want to protect her. Okay. Yeah. I'll commit a little further.
Brandon:And that actually was the story of the first few years of our marriage. It's like, oh yeah, I'm looking at stuff online. And Caitlyn was like, could you commit a little further?
Caitlyn:And
Brandon:it was because of the way my worldview. So continuing on, we, we did, we got married really quickly and at our core and in my core, it's like, I saw the vision and life and tenacity that Caitlyn had for life. And I saw that we were headed in the same direction and that was so affirming. And so confirmed, like like, yes, this is a person I want to build a family, but this is the person I want to live life to the fullest with. And with my limited understanding of what I was getting myself into, I did not understand what that would require of me in a sense of maturity and commitment internally, not this with my words, Hey, I'm committed to you.
Brandon:I was completely unaware of, oh, you mean like at a heart level, like the websites I go to the way I talk and look at other women, the removal of every other option. I think it's funny in today's age, they talk about it's even like a saying of like choosing your wife amongst many options is actually what makes your love powerful. Like you need to be tempted to look at other women or to act out and because you chose your wife. You're powerful. And I'm like, guys, I was like, I was still considering like all my options all the way leading up into marriage and after marriage of like, I, who else I could marry.
Brandon:Cause I never actually committed to the woman that I chose. I committed to adding a wife to the plate and saying, Hey, yeah, you can join, you can join the party. You can make my life better and easier. I'll keep being nice. I'll keep being the good Christian boy that that loves God is in ministry is doing the right things.
Brandon:And that will be enough. Right? Like I don't actually have to have anything faulty in my character. I don't have to take responsibility for things I've done. As long as I'm doing enough good things, it will outweigh all the bad things I do also that I don't actually have to tell you about.
Brandon:So a foundation I was dishonest. I thought all the accolades would get me the love and support I desperately wanted. And in ministry, it did. And my ministry circles, people respected me. They celebrated me.
Brandon:And then when, once we got married and Caitlyn wasn't celebrating and respecting me because she wanted her respect, which Again, we'll talk about next week too, was linked to the connection and the intimacy and the safety she felt in our relationship, which was absent because I was lying to her. I was numbing out of my phone and then I was making her feel crazy for wanting that nearness that she she thought was there, and then it was it was taken from her. And this was all part of my identity that I had created up to this point as the good missionary pastor Brandon.
Caitlyn:Mhmm. And you might even wonder like, why in the world would Caitlyn I mean, of you are probably pretty kind and you probably blame it on the age, which definitely had something to do with it. But probably like, why in the world would Caitlyn have wanted to have even slightly considered dating or let alone marrying somebody who was in a relationship flirting with her, then later told her he was in a relationship while also simultaneously telling me that he had a dream from God he was gonna marry this like other third random gal, right?
Brandon:Caitlyn's parents did tell her, are you sure you wanna marry this guy? So that He's a Shout out to Clats and my in laws. They did actually. They did say, are you sure?
Caitlyn:And there was actually many moments when we were already engaged where I was like, oh no, like this guy's a mess, right?
Brandon:A hot mess.
Caitlyn:And one of the things which is the the premise of what we're gonna talk about in this episode, one of this thing, one of the main key concepts that actually almost almost blurred out, you know, his faults you could call it, which really now that I look back it's like there was the double the double life presenting itself to me really clearly and what can happen with this, I'll call it like a ministry facade or this false identity you can get in ministry. Not everybody is walking with a facade or a double life or with this mixed, you know, kind of identity issue. And a lot of people are and a lot of you listening to this know exactly what I'm talking about because you've either been in ministry and you're now recovering from your own double life, or you've been a part of ministries and witnessed this, or you've literally been a part of like, how many of us have been a part of a church where your pastor had an affair? Like, the church that I grew up in, my pastor stepped down because he had an affair. Like, this isn't this happens at big mega churches and this happens at small little teeny tiny churches all around the world.
Caitlyn:Right? So we're all very well well aware, like, nobody needs to get offended when we're talking about this interesting ministry complex that happens. Like Yeah. 90% of you that are listening to this could pull back that, yeah, your childhood church had somebody in ministry need to step down because of some sort of facade they were entertaining. Right?
Caitlyn:And when I met Brandon, he was a pastor at this church. There was many pastors at the church. It was a church plant startup. They partnered with the Ecuadorian culture there. There was Ecuadorian pastors and ministry leaders.
Caitlyn:It was an incredible model. And when I met him, I saw him speaking on a stage. For many of you, you've come to our events, you've seen Brandon speak on stage, it's very compelling. Now the Brandon that currently speaks on the stage is a lot more compelling because he's actually operating out of his true identity. But I saw Brandon speaking on a stage almost every single day that I was there.
Caitlyn:I saw him leading massive groups in English and in Spanish. I saw him leading Bible studies. I saw him leading groups of these short term teams that were coming in, facilitating, you know, 30 to 50 people coming from America to Ecuador to have, like, you know, their two week missions trip. I saw him leading in ministry, praying for the sick. Think of any radical thing you can think of.
Caitlyn:I saw him doing that every single day. So then when I'm kinda hit with these shadow sides or these red flags, I'm almost kinda like, oh, but look at these really glamorous because again, I grew up in the church and it's like, at these really glamorous things he does though, right? He prays. He was fasting. They were required to fast like once a week.
Caitlyn:They woke up at like five in the morning to pray every single day. I'm like, those are the staples that will hold our marriage together. Right? Those are these attractive things. And I'm not saying that those things actually aren't attractive or good and beautiful and wholesome at the core.
Caitlyn:But the sticky situation is that when you have that going on over there, even though all those things are good and beautiful, but yet you have all the shadowy stuff going on underneath. Mhmm. It actually it's two different worlds colliding as opposed to someone who's operating in prayer and in worship and in serving and loving the Lord without all that shadow stuff. Right? That's when it's actually good and wholesome.
Caitlyn:But what can get tricky for people, especially myself, if you're in a marriage, if you're in a relationship, which we're gonna talk into, like, is where a lot of gas lighting and manipulation comes in in marriages, because it's like, well look sweetie, I'm a good Christian boy, I go to church, I I have a counselor, I read my bible every single day, and I heard these things all the time as we entered into marriage, and I would try to address these things that are going on like, hey, it's not okay that you do this, this and this, like that's betraying our boundaries. Well, I am getting up and reading my bible. Well, I'll just go ahead and do a forty day fast and it's like, again, it kept doing the same thing it did to me when we were first meeting where it's like, okay, yeah, I guess I should just neglect looking at all these really concerning red flags. Like you have a girlfriend, like the fact that you are aimlessly watching all of these YouTube, Facebook, Instagram videos and telling me there's nothing inappropriate. I should just avoid all of that in addressing any of that.
Caitlyn:And yeah, you're right. I shouldn't ask any questions because you are such a good Christian boy. You do read your Bible. You do go to church. You are in ministry.
Caitlyn:You are promoted. You are asked to take on these leadership responsibilities. Like, pastors would literally come to us and be like, oh, yeah. There's anointing on you guys. Will you lead this small group?
Caitlyn:Will you lead this prayer service? I remember we even got invited. I'm just now remembering this. At a marriage conference. We were selected to do this like skit role play thing because to everyone on the outside, it looked like we had such a great marriage because the facade can get so thick and so convincing that the shadows and the red flags and the things underneath the rug, you almost kind of gloss over them like, wow, that doesn't really matter that much because look how good God's using them.
Caitlyn:Right? And that's exactly what we want to touch on is that facade eventually crumbles down the entire structure.
Brandon:It's called spiritual bypassing. When I take a legitimate concern, which I did, constantly, a legitimate concern of Caitlyn, like, Hey, I don't feel safe If I use your phone or I don't feel connected to you and be like, babe, I'm doing all the right things. Like Caitlyn just said, I'm doing these things like this is what God would have me do. Whenever you like pull the God card or pour the pull the Bible card and like use a Bible verse to like create power or you say, well, God told me this or our pastor said this or this that you pull out from a spiritual context to basically make your wife's feeling illegitimate.
Caitlyn:Or justify your negative actions.
Brandon:Exactly.
Caitlyn:Something negative is being presented, and you somehow try to make that a beneficial or positive thing, or oftentimes it's like, well, I'm justified because see, I can be tempted. I can have a sin nature. Christ was tempted out in the desert, so I'm allowed to be tempted to look at pornography every single night. Right? It's like, you take a negative action that's presented to you, and you try to pull the God, the Bible, the Jesus card, instead of going, oh, woah.
Caitlyn:Yeah. Thank you for presenting this to me. Let's heal.
Brandon:Yeah. It's it's basically like, it's permission to continue in the unhealthy behavior Mhmm. And also placing guilt and shame on those that would question you. Exactly. If you question me, you're questioning God.
Brandon:And for somebody in ministry, this is often subconscious. So this is not always how, like people aren't trying to do this to be malicious. Often it's literally just, this is the framework or the frame of thinking that I've been given as a means to hold my life together as a means to hold my, my psyche, my conscious, like how I see myself. This is how I have to operate. Otherwise the whole thing comes crashing down and which we'll get to.
Brandon:Before our wedding, you know, we almost call off the wedding. We almost call it off a few times. Our counselor, I remember she, our premarital counseling, we were going through the, going through the ropes and we'd had some really rough times and there was one day where we were trying to move a couch and anytime Caitlyn and I have tried to move, move furniture. Now we're getting, we're getting good at it, but for the first user, like just leading up, moving furniture, we would like hit these breaking points because we, it was like, you're using energy and you're having to communicate and it just revealed how freaking fragile we were. And I just remember we were moving our foot, this futon that we ended up keeping because we got married.
Brandon:But like, I remember one day we were just like so many times, like, I don't think we can say together, like, isn't working.
Brandon:And our counselor, she said, she said to me, because Caitlyn was not feeling connected to me, all these things. It was just so much turmoil because she could kind of see, like at the core, she's like, Brandon's not ready. And she said, I don't know if you two are ready to get married. And I just remember like weeping in the, in the counselor's bathroom and just being like, gosh, like I always could go have a good cry and then be like, I can do this. We can do this.
Brandon:Let's keep pushing past. Like, let's, let's keep going. And we did, we did push past the adversity of, are you sure? And I'm like, babe, we're good. We're good.
Brandon:We're good. And we stepped right back, like from meeting in ministry that we fundraise to start the ministry we were a part of. And we started working with the nonprofit that we were with for two years, right after we got married. A week after our honeymoon, a week after our marriage, we moved and went to a church camp to speak with, with young adults. And we, we, we just jumped right into it.
Brandon:We were on the road multiple weekends of the month. We were speaking at churches and I remember there's so many, so many churches we'd show up to, to speak about missions work for young adults where Caitlyn would have been crying the morning of. I'd go preach a sermon. Caitlyn would get back in the car and say, don't even know why I came with you.
Caitlyn:I used to ask him before. I'm like, how do you even feel? Because there was a lot of times, a lot of times, because you've heard for the first five years, they kept catching him looking at inappropriate things online, and then he would say he would never do it again and blah blah blah blah blah. So not until 2019 did we actually stop that cycle. So there'd be so many times where I catch him having done something, and I'm like, how are you even gonna go preach tomorrow?
Caitlyn:Like, you're gonna go get on the stage in front of these, like, whatever, hundreds of people, and you're gonna go preach a sermon about God's love and, you know, grace and healing and whatever it is, and you're still over here looking at half naked women online and hiding and lying to me about it? Like, I'm just like, we were literally committed to the pretending show. Like Yeah. We're there and I look I'm as this cute 21 year old. I'm pregnant with our first baby.
Caitlyn:Everyone thought we were adorable and in love, and we were actually suffering and miserable. And then getting on a stage like, yeah. Hoorah, hoorah. We would pray for people afterwards. We always did these altar calls for healing.
Caitlyn:We saw hundreds and hundreds of people healed when we would pray for them, like crazy things. People would follow-up years later, like with testimonies of like, the tumor's still gone, know, the scoliosis is still healed, like, people had chronic migraines completely gone, whatever, all the stories. And yet at like, tons of people are benefiting, yet we're suffering. Like, our marriage is literally going to collapse and end from the pretending from the show. Like, the show must go on mentality almost drove our marriage to the grave.
Brandon:It wasn't just at church that we, like, were living, this way of, like, for the world. Like, we'd sit with homeless people. We'd take food to people. We'd pray for strangers. We were there.
Brandon:We were trying to spread the love. And I don't think there's anything wrong with, with spreading the love of the gospel. Again, if this is a different worldview than you come into, this isn't meant to pin you into our worldview. This is just the experience we were under. And the relationship got more the the pressure grew more and more because I kept having to confess things I'd been lying about and then create a little bit tighter of a box.
Brandon:It's like, okay, let's just say, okay, hardcore pornography, that can't come any further. And so I would create a tighter box where it's like, okay, well then I'll try to fit my unhealthy behavior in just like thinking about my ex girlfriends and looking at photos that are a little bit less suggestive. I would, I would, would keep altering my behavior so I could keep the addiction and still keep ministry.
Brandon:And I want you to think about this as far as like, why do pastors or people in ministry get to such a, a crazy double life until things implode? Like think about how many mega churches have blown up in the last few years because of their pastor doing some crazy stuff or starting the ministry for some crazy things.
Brandon:The reason I think it's what's crazy about ministry is you could be in a business. Let's just say you've got a lawn care company. You could have an affair with somebody as long as you didn't like cross any like business, like harassment things. You could have an affair, lose your marriage and still have your lawn care company. If you have an affair as a pastor, if you have a porn addiction as a pastor, even porn, porn, you lose everything.
Brandon:Say you went to seminary for four years, then you went and got your masters. You spent like ten years in school to have a PhD. Then you finally became the lead pastor of a church and oh shoot, you said you you started flirting with the secretary. Things got physical. Are you going to give up the last fifteen years of your life, your income, even though it's not much so that you can heal and be honest?
Brandon:It's like, no, it's like the ministry profession is very high stakes. And it doesn't just cost you the the income. It costs you your acceptance in a community. You might live in the the what's it called? The parsonage?
Brandon:The the church, the the housing provided by the church. You might lose your house. You might live in a small community that you went to serve, where you've gone to people's homes, you've been to people in the hospital. If they found out the things you were doing, you lose it all. And you might lose your marriage, too.
Brandon:So the last ten, fifteen years of your life might all be for nothing. That's a lot on the line. And when you're in addiction or an affair or an emotional affair, you don't even know why you tell yourself this. I told myself this. You don't know why you're doing what you're doing.
Brandon:So that's why you have to make the storyline of like, I guess I'm being tempted. This is every man's battle. My wife's expectations are too high. It's just looking. Didn't actually have an affair. It is, you have to shut off the truth. You have to minimize reality because if you look at reality, you might lose stuff.
Brandon:And that's, the counselor that ended up kicking us off are out of his office. If you haven't listened to the episode, it's up season one episode two. He told me when I first came in, going forward into 2019, I had just gotten the position as as the children's pastor at a booming church.
Brandon:We had, like, gone through this very intense, like, interview process where we gave up a lot of things to, like, choose this position. It was, like, this very monumental thing for us. And it was a month into that, and Caitlyn, we were at rock bottom. She had found out I was lying to her again. And he told me, he's like, Brandon, you're gonna lose things.
Caitlyn:Mhmm.
Brandon:And I'm like, I've never lost anything. Never lost anything. Again, my identity, I just kept fortifying. I am pastor Brandon. I don't lose stuff.
Brandon:It's Caitlyn that needs to change. It's the women and what they posted needs to change. It's somebody else that needs to change. It's not my responsibility to change. I'm doing all the good things.
Brandon:Right. I'm praying, I'm fasting, I'm reading my bible, and then I'm in ministry. What else is required of me? And if you think about all those things, none of them again are bad things. None of those things are tending to my relationship, tending to my marriage.
Brandon:Those things don't automatically produce an intimate relationship. You being an authentic version of yourself with no secrets, caring for your wife and maturing in emotional capacity to exist in intimacy. You can pray and read your Bible and get none of that. You can minister to other people. You can say on a stage where nobody challenges you, pushes back or sees the real you piece of cake.
Brandon:When he said you're going to lose stuff. He's like, look, you can't keep the double life. And I'm like, shoot, well, I haven't lost anything yet. So I just kept pushing, pushing, pushing. And then we hit this precipice where I was like, Caitlyn was in so much pain.
Brandon:We could barely like crawl out of our bed. She was crying so much and so much, there was so much turmoil where I'd been lying again. And I'm like, well, shoot, like I was more numb than I'd ever been in my life. And part of me was like, I can't outrun this one.
Brandon:In 2019, when she found the cycles of lies again, it wasn't going to be possible to outrun my decisions by trying to convince her otherwise, by trying to pray a little harder.
Brandon:I'd already done a forty day liquid fast, lost 30 pounds, prayed, fasted. I was still losing my marriage. I had done everything I knew to do in ministry. And you guys might think, well, your beliefs must have been off. Maybe so.
Brandon:Maybe I should have joined your church, your denomination. And I just kept going and going and going. I had maxed out everything I knew to do and it still wasn't enough. And I didn't believe God was against me.
Brandon:What ended up happening was I had to lose the identity. I had built my entire way of living upon. So I let the church know, Hey, I can't make it this Sunday. We're in too much pain. Hey, I can't make it next Sunday. Can't even come to the office this week.
Brandon:And together with the staff, made the decision I needed to step down and COVID was getting ready to kick off soon. We had some family emergencies going on. We went to Oregon to be with family. I had no ministry title. I had lost my job.
Brandon:We had a small amount of ministry support and I had no identity as Brandon, the missionary as Brandon, the pastor, everything was gone. Caitlyn's family was in crisis. We were in crisis. And for the first time in my adult life, this was about, I was 25 years old. I'd spent the last seven years of my adult life in ministry.
Brandon:I get goosebumps, right? I have it right now. Waking up with my life in an utter mess. And yet this was one of the first times where I began to feel peace and that the possibility for change was there. Because when I looked in the mirror, I didn't have to be any, anything to anybody.
Brandon:That was all that Caitlyn was asking all along was like, can you let me see the real you? Can I connect with the real you? And I was like, it was that shift where I was like, I see what she was. I see what she was about. I see why this was more than just, Hey, I'm not looking for you just not to like, go sleep with somebody else.
Brandon:Like I want, I want you. I want to know that you have eyes for me. I want to know that you're not lying to me, that you're not dissociating, that I know you. And I was, like, to get to know myself without all the pretext, without all the ministry titles and the accolades of what I thought everybody else thought of me because all that had I was gone. I couldn't envision my future on the stage anymore.
Brandon:It was, like, gone. Mhmm. And the relief I felt because I could finally change at my core without having to convince somebody else I had changed. Mhmm. I didn't have to hey, guys.
Brandon:I had I I didn't have to go up, on the Sunday and be like, hey. I had this great transformation. Let me teach you about it. It was just, am I going to change for me and to save my relationship? And so that was the climax was like, stepped out of it.
Brandon:Great, gratefully, like full of gratitude that it, it wasn't a newspaper headline and it was enough pain to, to almost take us out and that was the context where my identity began to shift.
Caitlyn:Yeah, because like Brandon had said, when the stakes are so high, meaning like when you're in ministry and you've got a double life, you've got an addiction, you've got a problem, you're starting to flirt with somebody, you're starting to sleep with someone, whatever the story is. Or, let's just call it what it really is, you objectify everybody who's out there, you're attracted to every other woman, you bounce your eyes nonstop and you've labeled it whatever you wanna label it and you've given it a lot of spiritual justification, plus maybe you're doing all the porn, all the other things too. The stakes are so high because when you go to tell somebody about that, you're gonna lose everything.
Brandon:Yeah.
Caitlyn:So the motivation to keep the facade going is also really high. With the high stakes comes the high motivation to keep living the double life. To keep going, which what does that even look like? It's like, okay, like Brandon said, I'll just keep putting these negative actions into a good boy box. Well, at least I'm not fully penetrating her.
Caitlyn:Well, at least I'm not fully looking at nude porn. At least I'm not doing this. At least I'm not doing that. Or at least even though I'm doing that, I'm still praying. I even heard a story.
Caitlyn:I'll share two stories. I even heard a story recently where, know, there was a pastor that was on an interview and the he had had an affair and the the interview guy was saying like, how did you, you know, looking back, how did you cope and kinda like what I was even saying about us, how'd you cope and get on the stage every single Sunday and lead these massive movements, this mega church, knowing that you were having an affair, right? And his response was rather alarming to me. His response, and this is him now healed and on the other side is what he's claiming, was that although he knew what he was doing was wrong, he was actually okay with it at his core. And of course, I'm paraphrasing what his interview was, his whole podcast.
Caitlyn:He was okay with it at his core because at least God was still getting the glory from his messages.
Brandon:And God uses broken people.
Caitlyn:And God and then the whole thing of God uses broken people. Right? So it's like, woah. What a massive undermining of what's actually taking place here. And that's the double life.
Caitlyn:That's the double standard. That's when we take these negative things and we try to put a bow on top of it. Like, I know I was sleeping with another woman in a committed relationship to my wife, and I'm a pastor that leads hundreds hundreds of thousands of people, and my name is proclaimed everywhere. And instead of looking and going, woah, this mess I've made is huge, and this isn't good, and I'm gonna clean it up, and then that story is gonna be a story of redemption and healing. We go, oh, let's just put a bow on that.
Caitlyn:Like, know I was literally effing around with someone else and then pretending like I wasn't doing that and getting on a stage and leading a whole mask, a whole show. And at least God's just really happy with that. And it's like, what? Where do we get so twisted up with this message, you guys? That's what's confusing the masses.
Caitlyn:Honestly, like if you wanna talk about we're older than the Gen Z generation, but you know, they say like, you know, the there's mass mass amounts of Gen Zs leaving the church. And for some of you, maybe your kids are in the Gen Z range. Maybe some of you are raising young kids now like us, and it's like there's this fear of, oh, these young kids leaving the church. You wanna know why younger generations leave the church? Because we, even this millennial generation that we're a part of, we see this charade and go, woah, woah, woah.
Caitlyn:Why would I want to go listen to somebody who's sleeping around with somebody else and then telling me like, hey, look, when you love Jesus, life is really good and wholesome and pure and free. Look at me. I feel so good wholesome pure and free that I'm actually effing around with someone else and not telling you guys about it. But isn't God so good? It's like, that's why people are leaving the church because that's not good.
Caitlyn:Right? And of course, yes, the stakes are so high because you have to recreate, but that's what the beautiful story is. It's like, we didn't Brandon didn't step down from ministry.
Caitlyn:We didn't step down from ministry so that we could one day start this podcast. So that we could one day start, you know, people are like, oh, I love your guys' stuff.
Caitlyn:It's such a beautiful ministry. And we actually purposely do not call what we do a ministry because we're not here to save you. I don't care any burden. I don't carry any burden on my shoulders to save you or your marriage. And you might be like, wow, that is so rude.
Caitlyn:And some of you are like, oh, thank God you don't feel that right. That's probably why you actually feel connected to us is because I'm not over here trying to save you nonstop. Why? Because to save you, I'd sabotage my own marriage. I'd sabotage my children's life, and I would have to sacrifice everything.
Caitlyn:Why do you Just don't get me something Why on all the side do so many children that grow up in pastor's homes, and like, where do we get the prodigal child scenario from? Because when you're so focused on saving everyone else, your family who you're literally here to cultivate love and grow gets thrown to the side. And there's probably a ton of you listening to this who grew up as a pastor's child who feel very validated by that because you weren't seen, loved, pursued, and connected with because the ministry was the top priority. And yet, guess what? My focus isn't on saving you, but guess what?
Caitlyn:People are getting radical transformation and I don't have to carry the burden to save them. All I get to do is live my life in my creativity sharing my story. Right? It's almost exactly the same you guys. It's just a different heart posture I'm taking where I'm not trying to just I'm not out here on the streets with this megaphone striving, striving, striving to save you and tearing down my whole marriage and tearing down my children's life to make you my priority.
Caitlyn:No, my marriage is my priority. My children are my priority. From the overflow of all of this, my creativity to use my voice and share my story. And that's why people connect because it's like, oh, woah. There's something real and authentic about this story.
Caitlyn:There's something real and authentic about their process. I'm not using people always say it as a negative, like, what are your accolades? What sort of degrees do you guys have? It's like, nothing. No accolades.
Caitlyn:No degrees. And I literally don't care at all about that. I didn't go to ministry school. I don't have my CSAT, whatever, CPSA, whatever the the certifications are that you go for a really long time to become a sex addiction counselor. I'm not a sex addiction counselor.
Caitlyn:I'm not a counselor. I'm nothing. I'm a 30 year old woman who's been married for eleven years about to give birth to her fifth child. It's just telling my story.
Brandon:Yeah.
Caitlyn:And it's absolutely beautiful. The response that has come from sharing our story. The response that's come from being radically honest, that's what we were striving to create Yeah. When we were in ministry. We wanted to create something like this.
Caitlyn:And what happens is when you strive and you strive and you strive and you pretend, you pretend, you pretend, you collapse. And everything you thought you'd built, that was all for God's glory and for his name comes crashing down and all the lives around you come crashing down with it. When you focus on what matters most, on being real and authentic, on healing Yeah. On stepping into your true identity, everything around you is built up. My children's lives aren't collapsing so that I can do this podcast.
Caitlyn:My marriage isn't collapsing so we can host our events. Everything in our life is getting built up and celebrated, and it's getting more and more beautiful because we're operating in our authenticity, and there's no striving, and there's no trying, and there's no burning out. There's no collapsing. You're not gonna read in the paper ten years from now that Brandon's been having a secret affair because we demoed our our foundation. We built a true foundation on our true identities.
Caitlyn:Yeah. No more facades. No more pretending. And that's when it gets really sustainable and really good.
Brandon:I want my wife to say more. I like that. That was good. You guys should rewind that and listen again.
Brandon:If you're like, well, need rescued. That is the workings of your belief system. And a lot of religious circles and churches operate from keeping people dependent on a, we'll call it a handicap. A lot of the church is sick and poor and unfulfilled and people that are sick and poor and unfulfilled. They need somebody to lead them to hold them and they keep coming back. And the reason we would gather as a community or a church ought not to be because we're sick and poor and tired.
Brandon:What if it was because we actually, like Caitlyn said, from the overflow, we have bread to give. We have life to give to one another. We have families that are thriving. We have bodies that are healthy. We have businesses that are thriving.
Brandon:We are the light of the world. Right. If that's not happening, then all the religious activity that is making us us look more like hell.
Caitlyn:Right.
Brandon:We need to reconsider how we how we approach this thing, how we see ourselves. And this you know what? If you guys go go read all the podcast reviews, the main negative reviews, which I know you guys are still listening probably, is us saying you can be free. Right. When we'd said, I think it's episode four.
Brandon:When we said that you could be free from sin and that temptation doesn't have to rule your life, that was one of the most offensive things that any of you have ever heard.
Caitlyn:Because it means you actually have to hear.
Brandon:Look in the mirror. My heart breaks because it's like, guys, I could we could do a little Bible podcast where I could tell you guys why you're struggling. Like, if you're not responsible, then you're not. Mhmm.
Brandon:Like, wife's pain is illegitimate. You don't have responsibility to walk in freedom, then just be bound. If sin and temptation are your thing, they have a grip on your life, then let it take over. Go ahead and walk out your addiction. Go ahead and walk out your affair.
Brandon:If you're here to heal, it's time to upgrade your beliefs and your identity beyond a message of separation and condemnation from a pastor who's sleeping with somebody that isn't his wife, who's addicted to pornography. We're not anti Christianity, anti church. We're so pro authenticity and love and intimacy in your union that you must be willing to look at the real fruit taking place at home because that's the litmus test of if this thing is working. If your belief systems and your actions are in alignment, because if they're not, it's time to look in the mirror and not look to anybody else to say, who's gonna rescue me? Right.
Brandon:Because you've drank the Kool Aid, and it's not working. Mhmm. There's nobody else to blame. If you got God to blame, the devil to blame, your pastor to blame, this isn't a blame game. Mhmm.
Brandon:This is about maturity. This is about what's real. And when you when you when you peel back all the layers and it stops getting it's it stops being complicated. It starts getting really simple. You're like, oh my gosh.
Brandon:I just I started lying to my wife. I started going to this path. I started doing these things. When you get honest, there's no more spiritual bypassing. There's no more excuses.
Brandon:There's literally just a story that gets to be seen and then some new decisions that get to be made. How do I want to live if everything in my life is true? How would I live if I was free? If I had the power to choose how I want to live, what choices would I make? And that's it.
Brandon:We we end the story there. And so for those of you that are looking to be rescued, if we were your rescuers, that would create a dependence on us. Mhmm. In all of our programs, I'll give you guys a secret for those of you guys that aren't in the programs or haven't read my book, sevensteps to save your marriage. We point you back to how powerful you are every single time.
Brandon:Your story, your vision, what you want to create, because it's not what I want to create for your relationship. Like, you know, say we don't go to bed like, oh, there's so many couples that we want to save. When you guys share your stories, it breaks me, but it's not because I feel like responsible for you. It's like, I feel responsible to be the cleanest, clearest version of who I am in my relationship and to you. And if I'm doing that, that's it.
Brandon:I know that the cleanest, clearest version of you can save your marriage. I know that you can turn things around.
Brandon:And so I think again, hold off on your offense. I know we all love the the bumper stickers and what gets shared a lot around the church circles is it's, well, brother, you don't understand priorities. It's God.
Brandon:It's your wife. It's your kids. Then it's your work, and then it's your hobbies. And we have this priority list, which we don't fully know what that means. I want you to picture it instead of I have all these different compartments of my life because guess what?
Brandon:You can do your God stuff. I was doing my God stuff real well. My wife was in another compartment because I hadn't quite figured out the God stuff yet, but he was my top priority. Well, was doing a real terrible job at helping me love my wife. And so instead of seeing it's like this top down, all these things mixed around, it's like, What if everything.
Brandon:Was all one picture? What if everything was happening as a symphony and everything was in balance and everything was in harmony with one another and you taking one action doesn't disrupt and destroy relationship at home. You committing to one train of thought doesn't mean that your kids suffer. Doesn't mean that your wife suffers. Doesn't mean that you're prone to addiction.
Brandon:So, you can't create this ordered list of how you're going to live your life if it leads to death. So, instead of compartmentalizing your life and like, this is ministry me, this is married, this is husband me, this is father me, this is friend me. Be you. Who are you at your core? Everywhere in all equations, how do you see your your spiritual beliefs with God?
Brandon:If he's outside of certain parts of your life, it's just gonna be miserable. And I know that this is, like, kind of, like, deep topics around spirituality, and we're not trying to, like we're talking about faith topics without trying to give you a specific doctrine to believe, we're and just sharing our story and what we've what, what has liberated people to believe. You can keep your same. You can keep going to the church you go to and step in with a liberated belief. If you don't go to church, we're not telling you to go find a church.
Brandon:We're just saying, take your identity and ask yourself, where am I split in like six different places? Where's the incongruency? Where are the things I say I do as I say, not as I do. And if everything was true, how would I live? How would I, and if I, if I had to live in reality, what would change?
Brandon:Because that's when life starts to get really good. You're not trying to trick anybody.
Caitlyn:Yeah. When you drop the identities that aren't actually yours to begin with, initially, it feels like you're losing everything, but you actually are gaining everything. And it might take some time, of course, to heal. And when you are fully you, in your identity, without all the masks, without all the charades, without all the show, without all the pretending, that's when it's really, really good. Right?
Caitlyn:That's when you're able to be so clear in your what you're here to create in the world, that it actually has a deep lasting impact. And it first deeply impacts those closest to you, your spouse, your kids, your family, and the legacy that you're here to bring. When you keep going with these false identities, that's when you lose everything. You play these mind games where it's like, okay, I can just keep going a little bit longer because my name is getting bigger, my stage is getting bigger, my fame is getting bigger, my business is growing, whatever it is. And it's like, no, that's all crumbling.
Caitlyn:Let it crumble. Let it fall apart. Let it stop. Because when you come home to yourself, that's when everything gets really good. It doesn't even matter.
Caitlyn:We didn't do any of this so that we could have so we could have what we have now. We did this because at our core, what we realized we actually wanted was love and connection here within our union. And for all of you listening to this, that's what you want. You're here listening to our podcast because you're like, yeah, I want love and connection in my union. And when you create that, everything else in your life gets so good.
Caitlyn:We never even talk about money, but we were so poor. Because when this isn't going well, really nothing in your life is gonna be going that well. Because this is so central. Like, when you try to become one with somebody and you're suffering, everything is suffering. When you get this connected, not pretending, when you're really connected and in love and creating intimacy, everything flourishes.
Caitlyn:Your children's lives, your finances, your legacy, your creation, your hobbies, all of that list that's like one, two, three, four, like Brandon's saying, it's like, you don't need a list anymore. Everything's flourishing. Everything is operating on all cylinders and and blossoming and growing because you prioritized this. Right? You made this essential, which if we're talking about ministry and we're talking about God, which we are, isn't that what people wanna see?
Caitlyn:Like, don't you think people are sick and tired of hearing about religions, whichever one it is? Aren't we sick and tired of hearing about a religion and then looking and going, oh, well the people all involved in this
Brandon:Woah.
Caitlyn:Are sleeping around, raping children, stealing money, doing all this really scary, sketchy, dark stuff.
Brandon:Yeah.
Caitlyn:Why would I wanna be a part of that religion? So it's like, if we wanna, because you might say like, oh, well, we can't make this the priority because God's a priority. And it's like, you guys, stop with that. They're intertwined, right? When this is the priority, God's also the priority.
Caitlyn:And guess who actually, if we're talking about giving God the glory, right? Do you think when people look at a thriving vibrant marriage, they go, woah, tell me about this. Tell me about this God. Tell me about this relationship that you have. Tell me about how you live your life.
Caitlyn:Like people walk by us all the time. We really actually can't leave the house without people stopping and going. Like our kid, my oldest, my nine year old, this is a couple nights ago. We were shopping in this little town. It's literally little town and we were pretty much in our pajamas and a slightly elevated version of our pajamas loungewear And multiple people back to back had stopped us to tell us how beautiful our family was.
Caitlyn:Right? And my oldest, my nine year old goes, mom, this is so funny. We're in our pajamas. And I was like, always makes me cry when I think about this. I said, it has nothing to do with what we're wearing.
Caitlyn:It's the glow in our eyes. It's the vitality we see on your kids' faces. It's so beautiful to them that they go, they walk behind. It's like, woah, you guys are so beautiful. Because that is the reflection of true love that transforms.
Caitlyn:That's the reflection of literally what Jesus came and paid for is love, vitality, vibrancy. If you're going to a church and everyone's face is sad and not vibrant or it's vibrant on the stage and not when you leave like, woah, where's Jesus? Because he's not vibrant only when he's in the spotlight. Okay? So it's like, get your life to the place where it's vibrant at all times and in all ways.
Caitlyn:I'm not saying you're not gonna be tired or sad or whatever. You guys get what I'm saying. But like where the core is healed and whole and vibrant. That's when people literally stop and go, tell me what you do because it looks so amazing to be witnessing.
Brandon:The desire of our hearts is that in light of everything we believe, I want my life to make sense. If what I believe does not line up with the life I live, then you don't believe it. If you believe in a good God that's given you all the love and power you need and you're still lying and cheating on your wife, it's time to wake up to reality and come clean. If you want to see the face of God, be honest with your wife. If you want to experience union with God, let go of all the secrets, all the hiddenness, create that intimacy in your relationship and you'll be like, woah, all things are interconnected.
Brandon:One thing moving over here moves everything over here. There's nothing I can hide from in this life. Reality is. And when you try to pretend that that's not the case, you do really weird things that damage you and everybody else around you. Make the decision to clean up your identity so that when you wake up in the morning, you're clean. You're clear. Your marriage is thriving. Your kids are thriving. You are thriving.
Brandon:And the decisions you choose to make when you're on the toilet, when you leave the house and every interaction you have can be completely redeemed and restored when you're willing to look at your story and not pretend that any part of it doesn't exist.
Brandon:That is a wholesome life. And that was our story of stepping out of ministry so that we could save our marriage and so that we could begin to heal at the core. And we believe that's possible for every single person.
Brandon:Oh, I want to thank you guys so much for joining us this week. If you haven't already, you can check out sevenstepsbook.com.
Brandon:This is the book I wrote, 7 Steps to Save Your Marriage. It is open for pre order right now. If you pre order a copy, you can get the audio book that I read as well as the companion digital workbook for the book. If you go to sevenstepsbook.com, and if you'd like more information about our couples program, you can tap the show notes below.
Brandon:And I just wanted to thank you guys so much. Right before we recorded this episode, we were checking and I saw that our podcast Grounded Union Podcast was top 10 relationship podcasts in The United States.
Brandon:So I just want to thank you guys so much for leaving reviews, sharing with those that need it, listening to the entire episode. That means the world to us. And, we're honored to get to share our story with you. And we love it when we get to hear yours.
Brandon:So if you've been positively impacted by the show, if you could leave a review, we love reading those and celebrating those, alongside with you. We'll see you next week.