¶ Intro / Opening
Welcome back to the Grounded Union Podcast. This is season four, episode four. We're talking about how sexual addiction creates insecure men and women, but I'm talking about men today because this was my story. This is our story. So we're going to dive into what that can look like on the journey of a soul for a man that is wanting to create change in his relationship is coming up some internal limiting beliefs and perspective shifts that you can make.
We're going talk about those today so that you aren't just having your wife drag you along because it's really common when, when caught in an addiction, you feel inadequate. You feel ashamed of the mess you've created. So then what happens is you get small. You try to shrink back. You try to not, it's damage control.
¶ Intro: Brandon introduces episode 4, framing how sexual addiction strips away a man's inner knowing, creates a hollow identity, and keeps him trapped in damage control.
Like we talked about in the counseling session, like, well, we're going to help you produce less damage, but what really needs to happen is when you see the magnitude of the mess you're in, you actually have to become a bigger man. A man that takes big boy ownership for his big boy mistakes, his big boy actions that led to severe pain in your spouse and maybe others. If you aren't willing to go look at what you did, you can never heal from it. The issue is the addiction made you a very weak man. The addiction used up all of your energy.
It brought about insecurity. It brought about a double life where you didn't choose to think deeply, where you didn't want to see yourself or see your spouse or see reality. That's the denial piece we talk about. So if you're in denial of what the addiction did to you, then how can you heal from it? But that's what, that's what most couples are facing right now is Caitlyn could feel, she could feel very deeply when she was discovering all the things I lied about.
I couldn't feel anything because I had shut down my inner knowing my care for myself, care for my emotions. So I was an insecure, hollow, man. They had no substance to me and that person can't do a lot to create healing and momentum to help the relationship.
¶ The Powerless Mentality and the Dog Analogy: Why shrinking back, getting small, and playing the victim after getting caught is the opposite of what real ownership looks like.
And this is actually what we talk about a lot in the first season of our podcast when we talk about step number seven. We go deep in this in our community as well and even at our event, which step number seven is the concept of moving from being powerless to moving to being powerful, which in a lot of other spaces you might hear, you know, the terms of not being a victim anymore. And so this is is really in alignment with that process of when you get caught or when you discover that you're ready to come clean, you oftentimes or men oftentimes in that space find themselves feeling really powerless. Because, again, like Brandon said, the addiction really created that for you. You became powerless to your addiction.
Right? And then in becoming powerless to your addiction, you numbed yourself out from all of your emotions. You escaped your reality. You dissociated through life. So here you are and you're like, oh, woah.
I just got caught or maybe I'm deciding. Hopefully, you're deciding on your own will to come clean about something, but I don't actually feel like I have the tools to feel powerful. Like, how do I feel powerful in my addiction? And so many people healing in our spaces, they maybe even go through the motions, maybe even try some of the tools. But if you try any tools with a powerless mentality, you can't become powerful while believing that you are powerless.
You can't transition to full victory in your union while believing that you are powerless. We give the analogy all the time of the dog with the tail in between the legs, you know. I don't own a dog because I have four kids. I can't clean up another person or animals freaking mess. So but if I own a dog and we have in different seasons and they chewed up one of my favorite shoes and they came in with a tail in between their leg.
I'm not like, oh, wow. Look at my dog willing to take responsibility. And I don't know what a dog that looks like they're gonna take responsibility looks like. But you get the analogy, like, when you see the dog kinda coming in hunkered, know, it's like mainly scared it's gonna get punished, right? Yeah.
The dog knows like, okay, my owner's gonna spank me, send me outside, yell at me, do something to me, whatever. And picture kids too. Picture kids that have done something wrong, that especially have grown up in a punitive home, where they know they're gonna be punished. They're either a, gonna try to hide, or b, when they get caught, they're gonna get really small. They're gonna hunker in.
They're gonna cry because they know they're gonna spanked, they know they're gonna get punished, they're gonna get sent away, sent to their room, whatever it is. So a man who's getting caught or even decides to come clean, when you take that like, okay, I'm just gonna get really small. If I start crying a little bit, mommy won't hit me so hard. Like, oh, okay. You know, and I I use that example.
I I don't condone any hitting. I'm just meaning like, that's kind of this mentality like, oh, am I gonna get spanked? Am I gonna get in trouble? Is she gonna put me in time out? Is she gonna take my cell phone from me? Am I grounded? You know, it's like, the more we get small and small, it's like, oh, woah. That doesn't look like somebody who wants to heal. That doesn't look like somebody who goes, oh my gosh, I made a giant freaking mess and I'm gonna clean it up. Right?
It's like, oh, if my kids were to go into the fridge and grab the orange juice and spill it all over the floor, my kids are gonna grab the towels and the spray and they're gonna clean up their mess. I might not even find out about it because they know, oops, made a mess. Now I'm going to clean it up. Most adults have no idea how to clean up their big messes. And obviously I'm talking broader than spilling orange juice.
Like you've been looking at pornography for ten years, come into that space ready and powerful to clean up your mess fully.
¶ 100% Responsibility, 100% Solution: How blaming others or your wife keeps you stuck and why owning everything changes the game.
I've seen men that get it because their approach is this really genuine heartfelt it's a it's an initial brokenness, but not because of like a I'm so ashamed, like I'm gonna try to just, yeah, I don't matter. My wife doesn't matter. Like, just gonna, I'm going to lose everything, whatever. It's this they're broken because they know how valuable the relationship is and they know that there is more for them. That's ultimately what led to them saying, wow, I was going this direction and that was destroying my life.
And they kind of counted the cost and they're like, I need to see all this now because I know life is more than what I've lived from. And I think that there's two reasons it creates insecurity. The sexual addiction piece is because one, if you believe that you are a 100% responsible for the actions you're taking in your day to day life. Then you would have to come to terms with on a nightly basis while you're in addiction, that you are willfully choosing to do things. Well, that was the affair.
That was the pornography. That was the lying about the finances. If you are a 100% conscious of that all the time, you wouldn't be able to live with yourself. And so we talk about this in the in the realm of denial is when you are in denial, you can blame other people. And when you are blaming other people, whether that was for the woman at your workplace that that came on to you, whether that was the the raunchy image that came up that you didn't mean to scroll on that led down a rabbit hole of three hours of porn.
If you can blame society, the woman in the cubicle next to you, and the woman on the line and your wife's messy emotions. If you can blame everybody else, then that percentage of how responsible you are for your addiction goes lower, lower, lower. You're like, well, I'm maybe like 4% responsible for my addiction. But what happens with that perspective is now how, how responsible are you for your entire life? I only have about 4% say.
If you told me that today I'm about 4% of how I can dictate 4% of the quality of my life today, I'm going to get hit by a car, that my life's just going to go horrible. And then I am just out of whim of this dangerous, horrific world. I'm insecure. I'm scared. I don't want to face my wife.
I don't want to face reality. And so this shift has to take place where you look at your life and say, wow, I'm a 100% responsible for my life. If you want to not be insecure anymore, you have to look at your life and say, I chose this. Step one of Alcoholics Anonymous is that my life became unmanageable to the addiction, to the thing, and you became powerless to it. And we always talk about you are not always powerless to your addiction, but you chose to hand over the keys of your power, of your authority, of your autonomy to the addiction.
¶ The Open Loop of Sexual Addiction: Why masturbating to a screen gives nothing back - and how real sexual intimacy with a spouse creates connection, security, and vitality that addiction never can.
If you every night scroll on your phone for three hours, guess what? Tonight, you're going to have the urge, desire, and willpower to do that again. If you start flirting with a coworker, guess what? When they smile at you and you walk in the door, because that's the energy you gave them, you're going to do it some more until you take back the authority. You take back the responsibility for where you're at.
And so here's, here's why you start to give away and blame others is because in sexual brokenness, let's use porn for an example. It creates a loop that you can't close. So when you send out your sexual energy and let's just say you're masturbating to two other people having sex or a naked image of a woman. When you are trying to arouse yourself and detach from your reality, which is you're a married man, and you picture this fantasy that's not real, you are aiming your sexuality out at that person, that image, that video. Guess what?
You receive nothing. Even though where you're trying like, mean, you know, I want the dopamine. I want to this, that and the other. Like, there's that angle, but you actually receive nothing in the exchange. When you have sex with your wife, you guys receive the mutual affirmation, the communication, the intimacy, the oxytocin from your body's connecting, the reality of having a sexual experience.
When you masturbate to an image on a screen, guess what? Nothing gets reciprocated. So you you blow your load. Think of a better way to say it. And no one's there. There's no physical touch. There's no embrace of the woman you're with, which it should be your wife. You're just alone. Probably feel a little gross. You kind of took advantage of, we'll say even took advantage of somebody else.
You kind of, you went behind closed doors of what somebody else looked like was doing in their sexuality and you got no strength from it. So you're weak because you're not responsible and you're blaming everybody else. You're weak and insecure because when you're trying to be sexual with anyone or anything that's not your partner, the loop doesn't get closed. You're just draining all of your energy, of your strength, all of the hormones our bodies use to create security, connection, and vitality don't exist. When Caitlyn and I have sex, I feel we feel connected.
We feel secure. We feel close. We see the full picture of our family cycle and our all this beauty. And it's like, if you go jerk off in a hotel room on your next work trip, do you feel connected to your purpose in life? Of course not.
So those are the two things we really got to address is who's responsible to you and understanding what the addiction did to you. And that's something we talked about a little bit last episode, but I knew that the actions themselves were not ideal. Like, oh, Caitlyn finds out, if mommy finds out, this is going hurt. I didn't realize that in taking the actions, was changing my character and my identity and my ability to show up in the pain. I didn't realize that.
Yeah. And I know we've said this before, but Brandon, which we'll dive in, Brandon will probably have a lot to say after I start this topic,
but Get up.
But Brandon, when we first started healing, you know, he knew he had some responsibility. Like, was like, I know I'm the one who, you know, has been looking at inappropriate things online. And there was a large part of him that was also like in how, you know, because this is a classic, like, marriage advice, you know, it takes two to I don't even Tango. I don't even know all the advice because I I flushed it down the toilet, but, you know, it's like, there's always two to the issue. Know, there's always two stories, two parts, like two sides, everything, you know?
And so that was his belief system. So of course it was like, I know that I looked at inappropriate things online, but it's because you said mean things to me. Right? It's like, it's because you told me you didn't like our marriage. Like, I I remember I used to feel so disconnected.
This is why, especially in our events, I'm like, we don't talk about anything surface level. This isn't about like how to communicate better and how to argue less. And it's like, all of that is so surface level. How do I know that? Because for the first five years, we actually went to a lot of counseling before we knew the Brandon, before before we knew, he knew, but before he was willing to decide to come clean that he had any sort of sexual brokenness, I had no idea about that.
Had a lot of intuitive thoughts about it. Every time I brought it up, I was of course shut down, told that I was crazy, insecure, overthinking things, whatever. But we went to counseling for many different things, mainly because we had conflict, we had communication issues, Brandon, I thought was overusing video games, but it was kind of like a taboo because it's like, well, it's not porn, it's just video games. So, you know, so we went to counseling for all these different things and nothing worked. Nothing worked because if you live a life of hiddenness and secrecy, you don't have intimacy.
You don't have into me, you see. We went to top caliber events, workshops, everything. We we we literally did everything we could because we thought we had a perfect, incredible, amazing marriage because Brandon was living in denial and because I had no idea what was actually going on. So this isn't about just getting a good new communication tool. This is about actually getting fully honest, fully transparent, being fully seen, having true intimacy.
That's how you actually create the marriage that you wanna create. Right? So Brandon for the first five years is of this mentality of, you know, I know I'm looking at appropriate things, but you're also just not really that nice. So that's actually why we have the disconnect in our marriage. Right?
And so even when he decide well, he got caught, but even when he decides after getting caught to, you know, reveal some more truths of what he had been hiding in those first five years of our marriage, it was still under the guise of, but you still have a lot to work on because you're mean.
You're That's
all justification. Yeah. It's all just a lot of blame, lot of minimizing of what he had done, you know, kinda like, oh, let's just shove some of this under the rug and let's just magnify what you've been doing. Right? And his counselor, the one that we ended up keeping, told him exactly what we tell you guys.
No. You are 100% the cause and you are 100% the solution. And that hit Brandon so deep. It was like, you know, one of those, like, sucker punches to the gut where you're like, oh, woah. That's such a different narrative than your wife had 50% part to play.
And I'm not saying here that women have no part to play in this. They have nothing they need to clean up. They have nothing they need to shape up. But for the most part, and most people are gonna absolutely agree with this, women are the ones who are saying, I'm willing to do the work. Women are the ones who are saying, let's listen to this podcast.
Women are the ones who are saying, let's listen to Brandon's Reel. Let's join the community. Let's go to the event. Women are the ones spearheading saying, I want this marriage to heal and I'm ready to do the work. Right? They're not saying, I'm absolutely perfect. I have nothing to clean up. You have all the issues. They're saying, no. Let's get our mess cleaned up.
And men typically are the ones going, well, you're mean, and so that's why I look at porn, and that's why I sleep with other women because you don't have enough sex with me. Right? And so when Brandon got hit with this reality of like, well, I made this mess, and I'm 100% responsible, and that's a gift. That's not a curse. That's a gift. Like, I have everything within me to clean this mess up. I saw immediate radical changes from how he was willing to respond to our situation.
¶ Letting Go of Approval-Seeking: Brandon unpacks how his addiction was rooted in seeking approval and avoiding conflict, and why he no longer needed Caitlyn's validation to take ownership of his healing.
It made my focus easier, which a lot of the addiction stems from approval seeking behavior. So I want I thought that my main goal in marriage was to make sure you didn't get upset was to make sure there wasn't any conflict, whether that's being avoidant attachment, whatever that you guys can use, whatever lens that makes sense for that. But like, I wanted Caitlyn's approval and as I did for the whole world around me. And what I found out quickly was in a, in a marriage relationship, you aren't always like, if there's significant, this is significant things under the surface. If they're being hidden, there's a disconnect, but I labeled the disconnect as her attitude towards me.
She doesn't approve of me as person. Therefore she hates me. I'm isolated. I'm rejected from her. So I'm going to go get that, that, that affirmation I need through a half naked woman on the screen smiling at me because she is not smiling at me. She's not approving of me. And so approval seeking behavior runs really deep because it's like, well, I'm doing everything else. So the world tells me I'm okay. I'm accepted. I'm loved.
But the issue is the world's not going to give you that message unless you have it in yourself. Your wife's not going to tell you you're, you're loved, you're accepted just as you are. If behind her back, you're stabbing her and you can't handle any intense emotion. And so what made why I say it made it easy when I had that revelation spoken to me was I didn't need the approval Caitlyn's approval to completely own my results, my growth. I actually didn't need her to say, you're going on the right track.
Good job, sweetie. Or if she could actually come to me and say, I don't trust you. Like, I'm disgusted by everything you've told me today. I'd be like, it changes nothing. It changes nothing from like how I'm going to proceed. Like, thank you. I'm gonna keep going. I'm responsible. I'm responsible for the mess I made. I'm responsible for the man I created, for the monster I created.
I'm gonna look that man in the mirror. I'm gonna look my wife that I wounded in the mirror or in in the face and say, wow. Okay. Because if you're a 100% responsible, then you are 100% the solution. Like, if I have to wait for Caitlyn to be ready to see me differently, when is that happening?
Mhmm. If you are the one that wounded your spouse, if you started seeing yourself differently, you're completely in control of that. If I just looked at my situation differently, I can start making massive progress, and I'm going to get a different version of her as well, because she's going be like, Woah, woah, woah. Like, why are you not why are you not so insecure in the way you're asking? Why are you telling me your recovery work so that I could tell you a good job?
And it's like, woah, she's like, she's kind of getting on board too. But again, you don't take your focus off of you onto her and see like, is she keeping me? Cause that's, that's the biggest thing is a lot of men are like, they're insecure. They're hurt. They were masking some sort of pain.
So now your biggest fear is actually coming true. Your wife's saying she might leave. What do I do to keep her? You take your focus off of her because apparently you actually don't care about her. You can't care about her because you're a victim to the world around you.
You're outsourcing your sexual energy, which degrades the entire foundation of your relationship. You actually need to look inward and say, what type of man am I? And you actually say, wow, nobody else is gonna, is gonna wave the flag and say, Hey, can somebody get this guy some help? Your wife's not gonna do it for you. You actually have to look yourself in the mirror and say, who did I become from this addiction?
Who did I become from this affair? And then you ask yourself, do you, do you want to become somebody different? Is anybody else going to do it for you? And the answer is no. And that, that becomes really good news because it narrows your, your focus to wow.
I can look at myself with courage because I was the one that actually wounded myself. There were people that did things against me, but they're not here. Like your abuser is probably not here if you were sexually abused. The kid that bullied you in high school, nobody else is gonna come and fix this for you. You get the opportunity to be powerful in your pain and say, I'm ready to see it now.
I ran from it. I ran to the addiction. I ran to the approval from other women, from other things. That got me here. I'm not gonna blame her, her, her, her. I'm gonna look myself and say, who do I wanna become? And then you know what? You get to celebrate your, you're, you, you get to know if you're changing. You don't wait until she notices. You keep going and she will just respond powerfully.
Which I say this all the time because it needs to be said all the time, and that's if you're trying to convince your if you've been the one who's caused the betrayal, that's wreaked the havoc, that's been living in addiction, and you're trying to convince your spouse of anything, Like, if you have to convince anybody of anything, then it's not the reality. I don't have to convince you that I'm wearing a green shirt, I have brown hair, and I have blue jeans on, because that's the reality. When you look at it, you see, unless you're color blind.
¶ You Never Have to Convince Someone of the Truth: Caitlyn powerfully states that if you have to convince your spouse of your change, it's not real; true transformation is embodied and seen, not sold.
Sometimes we don't agree on the color.
That's true.
That's something we're still working on.
Guys, this is green. Okay? And I have brown hair and I have brown eyes. I don't have to convince anybody of that. So if you're trying to convince your wife of anything, if you're trying to convince your spouse of anything, then it's not clear. Okay? Yeah. You never have to convince somebody of something that's clear. So if it's not clear, stop talking and start doing something that transforms you so that it becomes clear.
Interesting.
Brandon did not have to stop, like keep convincing me like, oh, did you want to give me a gold star? Because I'm doing my own body work. Oh, did you see I did that men's call over there? Don't you believe in me so much? Like, don't you see that I'm changing and transforming?
Like, oh my gosh, gag me. Absolutely not. Your spouse does not wanna hear that after coming off all of this massive news that they're they're uncovering about the truth of their reality. They don't wanna give you gold stars. They don't wanna give you a pat on the back.
Like, come on. And you don't want that.
Think about that for a second. Do you really want a pat on the back after you've slept with 13 other women and looked at porn for ten years and fill in the blank for whatever you've been doing? Do you want a pat on the black because you've had one good day of making a phone call and doing some embodiment and maybe you decided to initiate having a deep hard conversation like, do you really want a pat on the back? No. Like you just cheated on your wife for your whole marriage.
She's just waking up to the reality that she's been living a lie for so long. You don't need a gold star or pat on the back. To wake You need vision. You need to wake up every single day committed to your transformation, and she'll see it and she'll believe it when she sees it. She doesn't have to be convinced of anything.
She'll start seeing you become a completely different human, and you're doing this for you. So many men are in our space, and they are separated, if not on, like, they might be signing divorce papers soon, and they're still in the space because they wanna heal. They wanna take responsibility. Your spouse might leave you. Like there are people that have graphic graphic stories.
Like so many people I'm like holy moly. For those of you that are staying with your spouse, after that many years of addiction and lying and betrayal, like, I believe that it's redeemable. I do, and wow. Like, that is incredible that you would stay with somebody after all of that. And so I have no shame to cast on any woman who says, I'm tapping out, I'm done, I'm getting a divorce because you've slept with 20 people.
You know what I mean? So but there are men in the space still going, I still wanna heal because this isn't about my wife. This isn't about anybody else. This is about me taking responsibility for my life to become a completely transformed person. And guess what?
You know what I always tell people? If you don't heal, 100% guarantee your wife will leave you. 100% guarantee your spouse will leave you because why would they stay in a relationship that's that's not progressing towards connection intimacy. If you heal, I don't even care if you're divorced. I've heard so many stories about people get divorced and remarried.
If you decide to heal, even if your spouse is leaving you right now, you take back your life, you transform your life, not pretend, not a show, you can't fake it. Remember, you'll have to do a lot of convincing if you're faking it. You're not convincing, you're not faking, you 100% take responsibility back for your life. Your spouse is going to go and look and be like, wow, dang, that's the person I thought I was signing up to marry. That's the person I want to commit my life to again.
If I have an example, when we're talking about like trying to convince somebody, think about a salesperson who really needs the sale or is trying to convince you to buy something. Everybody feels put off by that person. When you're having a buying experience, whether you're buying a car or an appliance and the person is there because they actually care about the topic. They care about answering your questions. They actually just became knowledgeable and they heartfelt care about the person that's buying the thing.
You want to buy from people like that. Now, again, I'm not saying that you're going to do the work so you can sell your wife that you've had the transformation, but it's more of like when you own it and embody the transformation, you aren't going to have to try to sell it to your wife. Hey babe, I'm good now. And this is again, same thing with trust. Trust is not, I did the work now.
Trust me. We're good. Let's move on. Trust is rebuilt because you've embodied this new identity as a man that can take ownership for the mess. So before we dive into, I'm to share with you guys two identities that you need to embody that will help you do this.
¶ Is It Abuse If She Calls Me Names? Brandon addresses the concept of "reactive abuse," urging men to embrace their wife's raw, unfiltered pain as a gift, not something to suppress.
But the first thing I want to talk about was a lot of men are really shocked by the mean things their wife says to them post discovery. And I was shocked, but I was shocked throughout our whole marriage. That's what that was my justification is Caitlyn said something mean to me that didn't like in an argument that was because I've been withholding from her or forgotten anniversary or went to bed early because I didn't want to spend intimate time on our date night. Like all these things, all these things. And a lot of men we hear are just like, oh, she said I'm an asshole.
She said I'm this. She called me a name and it's like, and that's abuse, right? Well, there's a thing called reactive abuse. We could call it, can call a lot of things abuse. The moment your wife finds out you've been cheating on her and she has choice words to share with you, like, don't even know why this is this is a really big thing. Again, it's the approval seeking behavior. If she calls me an asshole, mean, she thinks I'm an asshole.
Well, then you can change the subject. It's not on me anymore. See, you did something wrong. You have a part to play in
this. And especially if you came from a religious background where swearing is just a no go and now she's swearing at you. And it's like, we need to, we need to clean up her mouth with soap before we can move on. Right? It's like, I don't know.
You rubbed another woman. And we've said this so many times, like, if your spouse, your wife who has been betrayed is, like, really just it's messy. She's saying really vulgar, intense things. Don't be surprised And look at her and say, Yeah, it's actually way worse than you're describing.
Right. Exactly.
And then you know what she does? She takes a deep breath. She says, Oh. See, he sees how big this is. Mhmm.
If you want to try to squash her down, keep her quiet, keep her from expressing the raw nature of what she's feeling, you can. You guys can get divorced, or you can actually let her express what she's feeling. And this, I mean, it might be a week of it, like you don't need to stay in this intense concoction of chaos. Just literally say, it's actually it's yeah. 100% everything you're saying is completely true.
Mhmm. We don't expect those that have survived from a car crash to come out exactly perfectly Composed. The Composed, calm, at peace. They have PTSD. They have real trauma because they've lived through a really traumatic event. Your spouse who's hearing and finding out about really intense information in their marriage is living through a very traumatic event. If they're composed in that piece, something is going wrong.
Then there might be a little they might have checked out
They might have been numb. They're there and they're weeping and they're I always like when people throw out the argument of like, well, is it really okay that my wife calls me names and does? I'm like, give me some examples. Here's the examples you guys have is, you know, your wife might say, I wish I never married you. Oh my gosh, you guys, is that really that offensive? Is that really that offensive?
Caitlyn said that to me missteps.
Like you were masturbating looking at other people having sex, you were having sex with other people, you were fantasizing about having sex with other people, you're attracted to everyone walking around out there. Is it really that unimaginable that for a minute or maybe for a lot of minutes, she's thinking, wow, why did I marry you? That's actually a reasonable thing to be thinking when you hear this news.
We also talked a lot about this that Caitlyn never withheld what she actually felt towards me. You're like, wish you could just kind of keep some of it to yourself. And it's like, do you? Do you want to wake up one day and realize that your spouse had been bitter towards you for five years and then just had packed their bags and left? And we've heard stories like that.
Count it a gift that what your spouse, your wife is going through, she's willing to give you that raw unfiltered lens into her That means you don't have to guess.
Yep. And she's not numbing out. That's what that means. Yeah. Some of the other examples are, know, like I said, I wish I never married you. Some of them are, you're an asshole. We could probably fill in other words like, you're a dick, you're this, you're that, whatever. Like fill in that. And let's just break down what those words mean, you know, here in The US culture. It just means you're somebody who did something mean or you are a mean person or you did something bad, ugly, whatever.
That's when we use that word. Right? That's when we use that word in any sort of genre or area. So it's like, is that true? I remember our counselor, the one who ended up kicking us out.
But Brandon went to him because he's like, well, this is a Christian counselor. We're Christians. So I'll tell him, you know, Caitlyn told me that I am such an asshole because I had been thinking about all these things and looking about all these things and he just looks straight in the face. Well, were you being an asshole when you did those things? Brandon goes.
So another sucker punch to the guy. He's like, oh, yeah. Guess you're right. Dropped the story, stopped blaming me, and went back to taking responsibility. Right?
It's like when you slept with somebody, looked at other people sleeping together, you know, fantasized about things, like, were you being a nice person? No, you weren't. So again, isn't it pretty reasonable that your spouse is essentially saying, hey, you're really mean? Again, when you've been in a car crash, you don't use really composed, kind, nice, calm words. You match the severity of the situation.
To stay alive.
Because you're not gonna say, wow, you're so mean. You slept with her. You've been sleeping with her our whole marriage. You're so mean. Like, does that even seem real? Like, I'm gonna say, you're such an asshole. How could you sleep with her? If you guys were watching us in a movie, would think, wow, they're really bad actors. If I'm just like, you're so mean. How dare you have slept with 20 people? Man, you're such a mean guy.
Kinda like if you got in the car accident.
Be like, wow, they must have just graduated from acting school. But if I'm screaming going, you're so mean, like, you're like, wow, yeah, that feels like it fits the situation. So it's like, again, I'm not here saying that wives, like, we don't condone any sort of abuse of hitting each other, throwing things at each other, absolutely not. Call 911, get help right away. Like, that doesn't go down.
Yeah. But when people have lived their lives of secrecy and addiction, are revealing that to their spouse, and they get upset that their spouse says, I wish I never married you. I wanna divorce you. You're such an asshole. It's like, you guys, really? Come on. That's you trying to hunker down, tail between your legs, trying to point the finger, minimize what you've done and blame it on your wife. You're trying to change the subject. Yeah. Go, yes.
Of course you don't feel like being married to me. Of course you feel like I've done horrible things to you. I have done horrible things to you. And I'm here to show you with my actions that I'm gonna clean up my mess and I'm starting right now. Here's the things I'm gonna do.
Do you see the difference there? Yeah. Between a that's rude that you called me that. So now I'm not gonna talk to you and that's why I'm not honest with you. And so now I'm gonna go watch video games and you need to go get help. So See the difference? Yep. Only one of those routes is healing.
So I'm gonna paint the picture then Cause this is probably where a couple might find themselves. Let's imagine that you got caught lying and you just found the podcast. Your wife's cussing at you. She's upset. You feel ashamed.
You feel like a victim to the world around you. You feel like you're minimally responsible for your situation. Your identity is very much wrapped up and I'm ashamed of who I am. I'm going give you two identities that we talk about a lot in our, in our Grounded Union app. And that is you must accept the responsibility and the identity of, am the wounder of my wife.
¶ Two Identities Every Betraying Spouse Must Carry: The framework of being both the wounder of your wife and the greatest advocate for her healing
And all that comes with that. So that's a very sobering acceptance. That's a, that, that could be a process for you, but that's it. That's part one is I am the man that wounded my wife and you can accept that. It's going to be a place of acceptance.
Had to get to that place where I was like, you know what? It's not because she wants too much. It's not because I'm immature or that she's, she doesn't understand the male anatomy and why I am the way I am. I realized I was the man that wounded my wife. And the second identity that is also true is I am the greatest advocate for her healing.
I am the, I am the most qualified person on the planet to help my wife heal. You guys have heard us talk about counselors. Got a couple of good tips here and there. Got a couple of things that weren't helpful. Helped Caitlyn heal the most? It's me. Who's going to help your wife heal? Is it going to be a mentor? The other woman down the street that she goes and talks with? Is it going be a pastor?
Who's going to help your wife heal the most? She's going to wake up to your ugly mug tomorrow. You ain't ugly. You're a handsome man. But she's going to wake up looking at you. You are the most qualified person on the planet. Wake up call. You didn't know that. But you're the most qualified person on the planet to help her heal and help your marriage thrive. So you are both the wounder of your wife and the greatest advocate for her healing.
You're the most qualified person on the planet to help her heal. So if you feel ashamed, put on those two identities. I am the man that wounded my wife and I am the man that will help her heal. Those can both be true at the same time. If only one is true, I'm the man that wounded my wife and I have no purpose.
And I'm going to just suffer for the rest of my life. I'm gonna have to just hear about it forever. No. You're the man that will help her heal. If you're choosing, like, if she's choosing the relationship, you gotta choose the relationship. Lean in. Be the man that helps her heal. Be the man that does the work. Be the man that's proud of who he's becoming. You have to take a sense of pride in both. I when somebody says, so why is your wife hurt? You don't look around like, why is she so upset?
Right.
Oh, I wounded my wife. It was me. It wasn't anybody else. And then why is she healing? Why is she why are things looking better for you guys? I helped her heal. Let those both be true, and you don't be arrogant about it, but it's like, what better mission statement than I wounded my wife and I won't be the one that helps her heal. That's a man that cleans up his mess. That's a man that takes responsibility. Your shame will start to disintegrate because you're like, both things are true.
And I don't have to ignore reality. I get to look at I get to look at it daily and be proud of the progress that I'm making, and I'm willing to step into that place and be a healer in my relationship.
¶ Three Reasons People Stay Powerless: Caitlyn lays out the three root causes of staying stuck: not believing you can heal, not wanting to heal, and still hiding more than you've disclosed.
Yeah. And I wrote down three things, actually, for why I think people either enter in or choose into a more powerless state. And the first reason is because you don't believe that you can heal. And we see that a lot, so it's like, we've on this a lot even in this episode. You feel powerless because you're like, oh, woah. Woe is me. I I I can't heal. I don't know how to heal. I don't have the tools. I don't have this.
I don't have that. Right? The second reason might be because you don't want to. You're like, wow. That looks like a long journey ahead, and I don't wanna heal, so I'm gonna choose in powerlessness.
Right? The third reason, which comes up a lot, and you hear me say this for pretty much everything, is that you actually know that you have more that you're hiding. So you're gonna still be powerless, you're still gonna be small, the dog with the tail between the legs, because at your core, you know you just got caught for something, or maybe you just disclosed something, but you know there's a lot more. You might actually not even know fully what it is.
It's felt. I remember not knowing, I remember not Caleb be asking me like, there more? And I'd be like, no. Right. But I deep down knew there was, but I couldn't access it because my own body was protecting me from me. You might feel it be like, I can't put words to it, yeah, I know there's more.
Eventually Brandon actually, this is a side note, eventually he actually, the more embodied he got, he started saying, if I would ask a question like, well, was there more times that you did this or was there more scenarios like this? And he would he used to in the beginning, he would say, no. Like, absolute I remember he used to tell me, have notes in my journals, where he used to be like, absolutely not. That was the one and only time I never did it again. Or he would even say like, I never did any of these certain things at these certain places and blah blah blah blah.
It was just like clear. No. No. No. I never did it. Right? And then, you know, ten days later, it's like you ask a couple questions in a certain right way and you're like, oh, well, I thought you said you never did that. Right? So then fast forward, he becomes more embodied, actually takes 100% responsibility, becomes powerful. And he he might recognize if I ask a question a certain way, he might recognize like, I can't see it right now, yet I know there's more here.
Yeah. And I'm not gonna stop till I uncover it. I'm not gonna stop till I find it. And did he uncover it? Absolutely. He wasn't passive. He actually meant what he said. Again, he didn't have to convince me. I started seeing it. Right?
So if you find that you feel very small and you feel very powerless or even if you're the betrayed spouse and you see your spouse continue to be small and powerless, those are the three things you can assess. Like, okay, do they believe they can heal? Cause we can change that. Do they actually wanna heal? Cause that can be changed.
And then third, do they actually have more that they know that they're hiding? Yeah. Because again, if you're hiding more, you can't be a powerful person. You'll always hear me say these these verses. It's like, you can't be a powerful person that lives in hiddenness and secrecy. You can appear to be powerful. That's why pastors crumble left and right. They appeared to be powerful, but they had a big, giant public fall. Yeah. Because they were actually hiding and living a life of secrecy.
Yeah. The truth always comes out. Yeah. And so it's time to choose to bring the truth out, right? The truth will always be revealed.
But you can't be a powerful person that lives a life of hiddenness and secrecy. So if still have things that need to come to the light and you're not bringing them to the light, you aren't gonna be able to step into that full place of power. You're not gonna be able to embody that. You're not gonna be able to clean up your mess. You haven't even revealed the full mess.
How do you clean up a mess you're hiding? Like, if I don't open the dang closets, I can't clean them. So you have to open up all your closets to clean out your mess, to take full responsibility and to be fully powerful. So if you find yourself getting small, how do you switch that? Okay.
Have a vision for your belief in how you're going to heal, right? Start really looking at yourself in the mirror. Mirror work is one of the pieces of embodiment of I can heal, right? If you don't feel like you can heal, you can. Yeah.
You have permission. You can heal. Your wife, your spouse is probably sitting there saying, you can heal, right? Look at yourself in the mirror and go, woah, I can heal, right? And then the third one would be realizing, woah, if I'm gonna be powerful, I need to actually get out everything that's hidden, need to get out all my mess, bring it to the table, so that I can actually clean it up.
That's so good. I think that what this also how you were able to do that, all that beautiful beautiful framework Caitlyn just laid out. She I got to be the beneficiary of all this clarity Caitlyn had when I was broken is I should just be like, you know, like, don't we make this really simple? Why don't you just do this, this, and this, and we'll see what happens? And I'm like, Caitlyn make things so simple that I'd be like, it made it really easy to see if I was wanting to do it or not.
And I wish I wish Caitlyn would and I don't wish. If things are too complicated, we have a I didn't understand what she was saying freedom was. I knew so clearly what Caitlyn wanted, I was like
Tell the
truth. I couldn't play dumb. Like, there was no I couldn't I couldn't pretend, and that's great. If you have a wife that's willing to lay it out there clear, like Caitlyn, give her a high five and a hug and say, I'm, I'm ready to play. Like I'm ready to play.
I'm ready to play the game. I'm ready to step into the court. When it comes to this insecurity that prevents embodying the change, a lot of it is also what's been thrown around in accountability circles, men's groups, church circles, is this idea that we need to suppress desire. So, you've got this wild walking erection issue where you're like over sexual and you're sexualizing the world around you and you have all these sexual fantasies and you have all this perversion. Sexual world.
Yeah. We live in a sexual world. The easiest way to to get that figured out would just be to cut off your penis. And, like, like, they they want the the message given to you is if you can just har not harness it. That's the word. If you grit your teeth and stop misusing your penis, you'll be free. And everybody's like, so the only way so I need to feel less. Because right now, I don't have control of my my sexual desire. I'm just misusing it. So I need to shut down.
See a lot of men in the recovery space that are very ashamed and they try to have less desire. And the issue is you can't you can't unless you're going to numb out in another way. And these sometimes people are like, you know, I was sexualizing everybody, so I'm staying at home. I'm looking down. Looking down or staying at home is not sexual freedom.
That's called sexual insecurity. Freedom is when, and this is what it looks like, is you're actually harnessing your desire. Holistic, pure sexual desire will always lead you into your relationship, will always lead you into reality. You don't need to fear being fully sexual and fully alive. That's why we talk about how we view our biology, how we view attraction, because if you say, Well, if I'm fully in my sexuality, won't that mean I want to rear end the woman across the street?
It's like, what? If you being fully in your sexuality and your testosterone leads to you screwing a bunch of women, and that's your design, then you must fight against your design. That's why we say, what's the design, guys? It's not that we live half numb, half in our spiritual life, and then we try to grit our teeth and not think about having sex with the porn star or the stranger or the friend. It's like, what if that's not the solution is that we either shut down desire or pretend it's not there.
We harness our holistic sexual desire, which will always lead you to your spouse. That has to be the belief shift because if it doesn't, good luck. If the the devil can control you and you just have to cut off your penis and that's the only way you can be free. What? So no, you must turn up desire.
A man that can look at his mess must be a courageous man that embodies his physical, emotional, and spiritual body. So if you want to make changes in your relationship and your personal life, it's not by shutting down being woe is me. My life sucks. Like Caitlyn said, the dog between the tail. It's I have no I I just can't be sexual.
It's like, no. You're so sexual that it will lead you to your spouse. Become a sexual connoisseur. And that doesn't mean your wife's going to open up and have sex with you this week. It might be a couple months journey for you guys.
If there's really a big mess. When your spouse is ready and when you've done the work to heal and rebuild trust, you're going to take your authentic sexual desire to your wife. You're going to clear out all the debris using the four hours that we've talked about from all your sexual past so that you can actually enjoy having sex. Sex is relational. So if you're not wanting to be relational sexually with other women, then you're good.
I mean, you don't need to turn down the desire to have sex because all of that will lead to intimacy in your marriage, not anywhere else. You can't shut down to get free. You cannot shut down desire to become free. You harness it, you turn it up, and you honor it, and it will always benefit your relationship.
¶ For the Single and Separated: How to channel sexual energy when there's no spouse
I think the number one question that comes when we start talking about this is, well, what about me? I'm either not married, I'm dating, I'm engaged, or for a lot of you, I'm separated right now. So while that sounds really nice, Brandon, I wanna have sex with my wife as much as I can, wanna have sex with my girlfriend all the time. I don't even have a girlfriend, so that's why I think about having sex all the time. And we're making this about, you know, and I even wanna say there there's people in our spaces actually, which I think is incredible.
If you're listening and you are engaged, people are like, should we join your community for engaged or for dating? It's like, absolutely. If you can enter into a marriage without having any hiding, without having any secrets, like clearing and rewiring your brain, like, moly, I wish I had that. Right? And that's why we're offering this.
And maybe someday we'll create something that's even more so for that demographic of people. But there there actually is a handful of people in our space that are single, either whether that was because they're separated or they've never been married, whatever the case is, they are single. And they're like, can I actually rewire my brain and not be attracted to women outside? And it's like, absolutely. And they're like, well, then where do I harness and send the energy?
It's like, you guys, this isn't about only having sex with people. This is about feeling alive. K? When you entered into your powerless state because you gave the keys of your life and your power to your addiction, you shut down your life. That's why we interviewed everybody on season three.
It's like, you guys can't actually even see them. But when you're talking with them, when you're engaging with them, I remember even asking a handful of them, like, do you feel alive? Do you feel vibrant, whole, happy, excited, content, at peace? Use any of these beautiful words and the answer is always no. Ask yourself that right now.
If you've been living in addiction, can you use any of those words to describe how you feel? No. Sex isn't your only solution. Sex in your marriage, some of you haven't had sex for like a god awful amount of years, like shocking, jaw to the floor amount of years. Right?
Just picking up and having sex in bed tomorrow doesn't actually solve your issue. You need to take responsibility for your life, which does look like taking responsibility for your sexual energy, harnessing that in your marriage, in your relationship, and it also looks like taking back your responsibility in your life and your sexual energy and going outside. Going for a walk. Go do a cold plunge. Go jump in a cold river.
Yeah.
Go do it like go hike somewhere really hard. Go lift heavy weights. Go push yourself.
Yeah. Yeah.
Get off your freaking butt on the couch. Turn off your video games. Turn off your screens. Rip them off the if you're single, throw away your freaking TVs. Turn your phone on airplane mode for most of your life.
If you are separated right now, if I'm saying, if you're not with somebody and you're like, well, I just wanna have sex. Yeah. Everyone wants to have sex. If they're sitting around playing video games, staring at inappropriate movies, scrolling on social media, saying half naked people, like, yeah, we'd all wanna have sex. Of course we wanna have sex, you're just looking at sexual things.
It's like the whole narrative of when we realize like, oh, I'm not a victim, I'm not powerless, I don't live in this sexual culture. Like Brandon used to believe that all the time, like, well there's girls in yoga pants everywhere, can't go to the gym. Oh my gosh, Side so many side notes for me. I saw this real. It was it's, like, cool. And I'm also, woah. This is hints at our culture. Right? It's this guy who's starting an all men's gym, which, of course, like, cool. Cool.
Like, I I love this concept. Right? And it's just hinting at the the the frameworks that we get stuck in. Right? He's starting this all men's gym because he realized he's a Christian man. He realized every time he go to the gym, it was so unfair is the language. It's so unfair at how other women dress. Right? Brandon could go to any gym, anywhere. We go to places where women are wearing thong bikinis.
Neither of us care. Yeah. It doesn't matter. It's not like we care. It's not like the old counselor where we're like, we don't care. We just laugh
at it. Let's see. Look at the thong. You know?
It's it has no charge. It has no curiosity. There's no power there. There's no potential there. There's nothing there because the brain has been rewired.
The reticular activating system has been rewired. It doesn't matter. It's like, we can create an all men's gym, but that's kinda like saying when we go outside, we must avoid women at all costs because women in yoga pants are evil and women with large chests are evil and women dressed in a certain way. And I'm also not condoning that women just dress however they want. That's women being insecure in ways too.
But when you become powerful in your life, nothing else anybody does or wears matters because you're powerful. You're responsible. To make an all men's gym is giving away your power. That man, those men, they don't have to show up to rewire their brain to heal, to realize, oh, I can enter anywhere at any time, and none of that impacts me. Okay?
That was my total side thought. But to wrap up, if you are single, if you're separated, whatever it is that's going on, if you're like, well, where do I harness this sexual energy that you're talking about? Go outside. Stop living in a screen world. Stop living in a world where you're avoiding women at all costs.
Stop living in this world where you feel powerless to to what's out there that's really scary. Go outside. Mhmm. Get moving. Get doing something that feels like if you like red mugs, go for a bike ride. If you like art, if you like reading, if you like writing a book, like
You might actually find your partner there.
You might find your partner doing the freaking things you love, not hibernating in your cave, just binging on screens. Yeah. You're gonna wanna have sex. You're gonna wanna masturbate. You're gonna wanna look at porn. If you're outside going for a hike and doing a cold plunge, you get the dopamine hit you get from having sex.
¶ Nudity is Not Sexual; Sex Is: Brandon clarifies that a naked body is not inherently sexual; it's the relational act of sex that creates connection, and a rewired brain doesn't sexualize everything.
Also, the main thing with sex, as Caitlyn's describing it, is most people have used sex, masturbation, orgasm as an escape from reality. When you heal your sexuality, sex is the means for connection to reality. You wouldn't even look like, oh, I'm alone in a room. I should master be right now. Or I should look at other people having sex.
It's like, sex is what binds you to somebody else. It'd be like, not like, okay, if I want to have sex, it means I need to go to a coffee shop and meet somebody I can have sex with. Right. It's a little longer term than that. It's actually that, wow, I'm wired for connection.
If you've used sex as a way to escape reality, it's actually just a lesser potency of what it can be when Caitlyn have sex. It's incredible. It drags us to this present moment. And I'd like to apologize. There's a window washer that's on the other side of this window.
They can hear us talking about this. So he's getting some of this too. And that's why we want you guys to make that shift. Basically what, what Caitlyn was saying, I wanted to give you this little glimpse too. A naked body is not sexual. We don't go naked with our friends to a barbecue. Like, trust me, we're not, we're not like bizarre like that.
That's next level.
That's next level. With that said, nudity is not sexual. Do you know what is? Having sex. That's where we get to.
And you get to that because if you've been stuck in this digital world where you've create, you've fine tuned your algorithm, which I don't aimlessly scroll on social media, but when I open my phone to like make a post or something, my algorithm, the recommended videos. I it's been years since I've had a sexualized video show up on my phone because guess what? I haven't looked any up. The algorithm, I think even more so now than ever before social media is not, it's not actually giving you naughty things. It's actually just giving you what you've already gone to.
Now that if you let that sink in, like this whole, the world's a sexual place, Kaelin said, like, I started going through them like, wait a second. I created the world around me. I made women to be hypersexual and arousing in this way I saw them as sex objects. That went away. The appearance of a woman's because if a woman's wearing jeans, yoga pants, or is completely naked, there's not that much of a difference.
If if you're looking at her chest, the outline of her breasts through her sweatshirt, tank top, swimsuit, or bare chest online, very minimal difference. We can see the appearance of each other's bodies if we want to. The question is, do you want to? Cause that will make you feel insecure. That will leave you seeking the approval from others that you don't actually want approval from.
That'll leave you doing some really weird stuff. So what we're, what we're saying from the bottom of our hearts in this episode, become a secure man. It's proud of how you utilize your sexual energy and you won't ever have to shut it down. You actually just get to enjoy it and harness it. That's it.
That's the whole story. And so if you're like, man, this really spoke to me. This really spoke to us. We dive even deeper on these topics in our two day workshop happening in San Diego. It's August fourteenth and fifteenth.
You can join us in person. At the time of this recording, there's a few VIP tickets left. There's some more general admission. You can also get a virtual ticket if you live else in the world or aren't able to make it to San Diego. If you're a couple that needs immediate support, rebuilding trust, working through addiction, you want access to our grounded intimacy program, weekly coaching, a forum where we answer questions, all in a private app off social media.
You can apply for a spot using the link in the show notes for our couples app. And, if this episode has impacted you or the show has helped you, would you forward it to somebody else and please leave a review wherever you're listening, whether it's Apple, Spotify, YouTube. If you've been listening to this, you didn't know we had the video show. It's on Spotify and YouTube. I think Apple's adding video soon.
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