Porn and Sex Addiction

Hello and welcome back to the Naked Marriage Podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis and on this podcast we undress the truth about sex, intimacy and lifelong love. We have got an awesome topic for you all today where we are going to dive deep into the clinical side of addiction. But before we do, I just want to thank you all for leaving reviews and I want to share one with you today from Jacqueline F. And she entitles it Loving this Outlook. She says, I, my husband and I saw you for the date night held at CCV in Arizona on 2 28. Can I just say it was the best date night with him that I have had in months. We know people go through their ups and downs and our two years of marriage had plenty and almost ended in divorce. But after counseling and now being more active in church, seeing you both and listening to you speak truly opened our hearts and we are loving this podcast and your book. Thank you for being so amazing. Well, thank you Jacqueline for those very kind words. And thank you to all, all of you who have left reviews and who are sharing this podcast with your friends. That is the best way to get the word out this holiday season. There's no better place to get cozy holiday gifts for all your people than Aerie. From soft sweaters to everyday intimates and activewear, Aerie has the comfiest pieces made for the real you. And don't forget to treat yourself too while you're at it.

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Today on the podcast we have got, like Ashley said, a really, really exciting. This is part two of. Yeah, a very special guest. We're part two of a two part series on addiction. Last week, of course, our friends Eric and Kristen Kennedy talked about their personal story with addiction. Today we're going to talk more about the clinical side of addiction with a great guest and his name is Corey Anderson. He's a licensed marriage and family therapist with more than a decade of experience restoring relationships. And he's also a certified sex addiction therapist and a certified multiple addictions therapist. And he's going to talk to us today about some of those issues. Sex addiction, multiple addiction. He's also the owner and director of Integrity Counseling Group, which is a Christian therapy practice based in San Diego, California. And he's calling in today to do a call in interview and we're so thrilled to have him on the program. So let's dive in.

Before we jump into today's episode, we just want to acknowledge kind of the tough climate that we're in right now with COVID 19 and self quarantining and social distancing. It's a very strange time. It's a fearful time, an uncertain time. And we just want you to know that we are praying for you all, that we hope that this is time that we do all work on our marriages because we're having to switch up our schedules. For some of us, we have more time on our hands at home, maybe even with our spouse and our kids. And we just hope that as you listen to the Naked Marriage podcast and as you have more time together that you. You use this time and we use this time to work on our marriages and families.

Yeah. And speaking of that, in the coming weeks, you're going to hear us talk about a free resource that our whole team is working hard to create and get available to you as quickly as possible. That's a survival guide specifically for your marriage and your family during this difficult time with the coronavirus. But just know that we're praying with you and for you and that we're in this together. And we don't often pray on air, but I want to start out today with just by saying a prayer for us before we dive into the episode. So don't close your eyes if you're driving. Just receive this prayer. Father, we come to you just knowing that you're in control. And we thank you for that. We thank you that God that you've given us this time, even though it poses a whole lot of challenges. And we don't like the challenge part necessarily, but we know that there are opportunities in this season, opportunities to trust you like never before, opportunities to reconnect with family for those of us who have more time at home. And we pray your blessings and guidance for us. We pray your blessings on those who are working harder right now, our first responders, and those people who are on the front lines. We pray for those who are struggling financially, worrying how they're going to make ends meet. God, that you would just give them peace to know that you're going to provide and you're going to carry them through. And for all of us, Lord, help us lean on you like never before during these uncertain times, knowing God that you're in control and that you're bigger than any challenge we will ever face. And that our peace is found in you and not in the circumstances around us. We love you and we thank you and we pray your blessing on all who are listening. In Jesus name, Amen.

Amen.

Well, Corey, welcome to The Naked Marriage podcast. It is an honor to have you here.

Thanks for having me, Dave and Ashley, it's a pleasure to be here.

Well, we are so excited to talk to you about the clinical side of addiction. You know, our listeners know this is a part two in talking about addiction and marriage. And it's such a. It's a huge problem for so many. And you know, our last episode, we focused more on substance abuse and addiction. But this episode we're gonna broaden the scope. You know, we wanna talk about addiction in general. Kind of the signs that our listeners may have an addiction or their spouse may have an addiction and kind of what to be looking for. And I know that you have a special certification in sex addiction, so we definitely wanna dive into that as well. But kind of starting us out, you know, how do we. How would you define addiction? I think that's a good place to start.

Sure, sure. You know, being a marriage and family therapist, we often look for any diagnosis, even something like depression. You know, to start with, how does this affect your life? How does this affect your daily functioning, your job, your relationship with a partner, a spouse, your kids, the whole deal. And so we see that happen a lot with sex addiction and other addictions as well. You know, we have very specific criteria too that we go through to diagnose and we can get into some of those throughout the podcast. But basically that's where I like to start. And so a lot of our clients call in. It might actually be like the spouse calling in and saying, hey, my husband is really having this problem and I don't know what to do.

Yes. So it's, I kind of hear you saying, like when it becomes, when it's at the point where it's infringing on your daily life and it's affecting your personality, it's affecting your family, that's kind of where to start. And so specifically, if someone is self assessing and they're kind of thinking like, I think I'm not quite at the addiction point. Cause things like having a drink, I mean, people can drink and not be addicts. And so I know there's certain things where you shouldn't be messing with it at all because it's toxic in and of itself. But when it comes to something like drinking where it's not, you know, having a little bit is not going to harm you, how do people know kind of that tipping point?

Yeah, I'd say two things about that. One, a real kind of straightforward answer is we have a website we refer to all the time. And it's associated with the organization that certified me as a sex addiction, you know, recovery specialist. And it's called recoveryzone.com awesome. And on there, there's a free assessment, and it's called the sast. I know I'm throwing out a lot of terms, but S A S T, it stands for Sexual Addiction Screening test. And it's anonymous. It's free. It just takes like 15 minutes. Maybe not even that. Maybe only like five. And you go through the questions, and in that test, it has all of our official psychological criteria kind of interwoven. And so as somebody takes it, they'll get very clear results at the end with a nice graph that has, like, a couple bell curves. One for, hey, here's the normed population quote, unquote. Normed says these people aren't identifying as struggling with anything. And then it'll show another bell curve for those who do struggle. And then it'll show the person who just took the test where they line up.

Oh, okay, cool. That's a great resource.

Yeah, yeah. And then it gets.

Put these sites for help as well.

Yeah. In the show notes, any websites you throw out, we'll list in the show notes for people that want to follow up and learn more. But we really are, like, interested in every aspect of what you do, but with the sex addiction in particular. So many people write us@nakedmarriagepodcast.com or on Instagram or Facebook, wherever it might be, with questions related to addiction related to sex, whether it's pornography or whether it is, you know, started with pornography maybe, but then it is kind of manifested into acting out in sexual addiction and other ways.

Sure.

So just with that being an area of expertise to you, maybe kind of the thousand foot view, unpack that a little bit. For the couple or the individual who is dealing with some kind of sex addiction or porn addiction. We talk about, you know, porn in particular, a lot of on the podcast, because it's part of my backstory. I mean, there was a time in my late teenage years, early adulthood, where I was really wrestling with pornography addiction. And I remember what that felt like, that just feeling trapped in it. So tell us what we need to know, kind of or some of the things we need to know about sex addiction, how to identify it, and then specifically how to break that cycle for the many, many people who are listening, who either they themselves or their spouse is caught up in some unhealthy behaviors related to sex or porn or both.

Yeah, sure. You know, and I did want to kind of Finish up with Ashley's question as well. You know, she was making some comparisons to like drinking and, you know, other drug use. I actually like to compare sex addiction a lot to issues with food.

Okay.

You know, because it's such a part of who we are. Right. We are sexual human beings just as we need food and enjoy food, and so it becomes a trickier addiction to recognize and treat. Right. Because it's so integrated into who we are. So that kind of is usually my kind of premise for answering your question, Dave. Yeah. So how to identify one of the things we see a lot is maybe if it's porn, people are staying up late, they're losing sleep, or they're crossing boundaries. Like they're looking at it at work, or they're looking at it even sitting right next to their spouse on the couch at night, you know, and they're trying to hide it. They're not saying, oh, this is something that my spouse and I, you know, do together, but they're trying to hide it. There's a lot of shame around it. So we look for things like that as kind of a good starting place. And then as far as treatment, we start off just with individual, you know, assessments and meetings in the counseling room, we, we make recommendations for groups, whether it's like celebrate recovery like at your church or there's a great online one avenue work, I think, or works Christian group that does a lot of great work. But then we also do our own therapy groups too, where we have a therapist leader group and it's closed group, very confidential, and they can dig even deeper there. And then in the individual work, we often use workbooks and we have a lot of process to not only help the person who's struggling with the addiction, you know, gain tools and support to resist that urge or temptation in the moment, but to really dig deep. We are all specialists in trauma as well. We find that trauma, whether big T trauma, you know, like a life threatening moment or small T trauma, you know, some emotional abuse or some other kind of struggle in life contributes a lot. And is the root to a lot of this, the going back to the desire to numb or escape that comes with the sex addiction?

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it's a multi prong approach. And you know, I think a big thing we, you know, often hear when we're working with couples is the one spouse that does have the issue with it. They like whether it's pornography or masturbation or both together or like Dave said, I mean, sometimes they're literally going out and having sex with strangers. Like, that's, you know, they're just so. Just trying to get a fix when it comes to sex, because they're addicted. You know, when it comes to things like the porn and masturbation, you know, that we hear that all the time. And I remember specifically getting a question fairly recently from a husband who said, you know, he feels like his sex life with his wife is great, but then at night, she thinks he's sleeping and she's masturbating, like, multiple times. And when he's addressed it with her, she acts like he's crazy and she has, you know, she just will not admit it. You know, what. What would you say to a spouse who's like, I see my spouse struggling with something, but they will not admit it? I mean, that's a really hard place to be. What would you say?

Well, you know, you brought up an important thing that happens there. And it's more and more popular in our culture, this kind of word. And it's gaslighting. That's that moment when the, you know, this was. This case, was the wife was doing something sexual. And then the husband asked her, hey, were you doing that? And she said, no. Right? That's saying, no, you're crazy, essentially. And so if, for instance, the husband came into us, we, you know, the main goal is to help restore him to sanity. So to speak of saying, hey, you're. You're right. You can trust your intuition. There's something off there, and it's okay. You feel bad about it. You know, maybe there's some grief and some sadness there. But if the partner or not the partner, the person who's struggling isn't willing to come in. You know, we start with a place of how do you maybe set some boundaries? How do you communicate more of how this is affecting you, what that feels like when you see her there masturbating when you maybe just had sex earlier that night. Things like that.

Yeah, no, I think that's huge. I mean, just kind of making sure they know that you're a safe place. Like, listen, like, we can really talk about this. I'm not trying to shame you. Like, I remember when the husband wrote us, he was just really like, I just want her to talk to me about it. Cause I wanna help. Like, I don't know why it was very much like the scenario you're talking about. So I think that's, you know, to always. We talk about this all the time on the podcast, you know, being a safe place to talk about the hard things, definitely. And then being willing to take the steps necessary to stop unhealthy habits or get things out of your life, you know, like pornography that are hurting you and are ultimately kind of. Dave always says it's like a cancer, you know, in your relationship and you're kind of like cutting it out, but it hurts at first and it's awkward and you don't like it.

Another way we like to look at any addiction is as a competing attachment. Right. So you have the relationship attachment, you have your attachment with, God, with kids. But this is something that competes and pulls you away from all of those.

Right, sure.

That's a great sign.

Yeah.

Like if you're battling, is it like, well, am I, do I sit here and talk to my spouse and my kids or do I go, you know, feed the habit, whatever that thing is?

Yeah, right.

That's huge.

Well, and it affects intimacy. One of the other ways of describing sex addiction is as an intimacy disorder.

Oh, yeah, right. I've never heard it described that way, but that's huge. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a big focus of ours. And then the focus, you know, for the individual becomes learning how to have good, healthy intimacy. And for a lot of our clients, that starts with, for instance, guys getting into groups of other guys, you know, recovery based groups. And they're going to learn intimacy there first. You know, believe it or not, it's not being honest. Okay, go to your. Yeah, it's not just go to your wife and share your heart with her or be sexual with her. Like a lot of people think intimacy is right. You know, but it's the communication, the emotional place of intimacy that's often so kind of paved over and hardened.

Yeah, that's huge.

Yeah, no, that really, really is. And it's part of the holistic approach to wholeness and healing to help somebody experiencing true healing and true intimacy. Again, because like you said, with sex based addiction in particular, you know, it's so complicated because, you know, being able to, to make love to your spouse. It's not like an alcohol addiction where you can say, well, I can just live without alcohol and be fine in marriage. To stop having sex altogether would be really unhealthy and damaging to the relationship. And so what are some of the steps to help, let's say a guy who's been addicted to porn and has kind of some toxic mindsets related to sex and sex is just kind of that fix instead of an intimate act of connecting emotionally, physically, spiritually with his wife when he's in that process of recovery. How would you coach him and help him to get to a place where he can make love to his wife with kind of a clear mind, where he's fully present in the moment and not just in essence using her body as kind of an acting out of his fantasies. And also, how do you coach a wife who is trying to, to trust her husband again and not knowing what's happening in his mind to know that she's more than just essentially like a lifeless sex doll for him in that moment, acting out whatever fantasy he might have. But like, how do you. There's just a lot there.

Yeah, no great questions. I mean, that was my first response was do we have about six months worth of therapy time right now to work on it?

Yeah, fix it in two minutes. So.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's not going to happen overnight. That piece, like you said, of being present is so important. And you mentioned earlier as well, Dave, that you want to be able to have sex with your spouse. And that's such an important part of marriage. What we do know brain wise, is that there's plenty of research and studies out there that our brains often to detox for the reward kind of neural pathways and then also for the neurochemicals and the dopamine and all the feel good stuff that's been so hijacked and so amplified over the course of addiction, Our Brains often need three months, 90 days of repair.

That's huge.

To let things kind of resettle and get restructured. And so for a lot of couples, we recommend a 90 day period of abstinence even in marriage, from masturbation, from sex with each other, from the whole deal. Because like. Yeah, exactly. Because it gets so, so, you know, like you're saying distorted and confused and, and so there has to be kind of getting back to this baseline and it becomes a really interesting principle for both people in the marriage. Yeah, right. The, the person struggling, the guy in this case might, you know, have lots of cravings and withdrawal symptoms and kind of rail against it and irritability and push on his wife and all of that. But we need him to go through that and we need him to sit with those emotions. Right. It's like a little kid dealing with boredom or not getting their way, you know.

Right, yeah.

And then for the wife in this case, we need her to wrestle with some questions like, oh, am I jumping in to try and be there for him sexually to alleviate this pain and therefore kind of contributing some to it or trying to help him feel better, you know, and maybe her own securities of maybe now he doesn't feel like he does want me. He's not pursuing me. He's not this and that. So it's a very delicate process. But that's often where we start. And like you described, where we want to end up is a place where he's able to be very present and engaged, and it's a healthy connection to his spouse. And there's, you know, eye contact and communication. Like, I hear you guys say so much on your podcast, back and forth with, hey, does this feel good? Do you like that? And it's a mutual experience, right?

Yeah, I love that, you know, kind of that detox period, that recalibration. I recently was trying to help a wife who. I remember she described it this way. And I thought, this is such an honest description of someone whose spouse has a pornography addiction. She said that, like, when her husband has not had porn that day, that he hugs her in a sincere way, but when she always knows when he's been with porn because she said there's this intensity and like this. I mean, it's just kind of like, for her, it's really yucky. You know, it's like this desperation to have sex with her right then, to live out that fantasy, and she's like, what do I do with that? You know? And I think this is one of those cases where it's feeding the addiction. If she's just, you know, having sex. Anytime he has that intensity because he just watched porn, it's just feeding the very thing that is hurting them. And so it's good that I love how you described kind of having that detox period, which I know is not easy, and I want people listening.

It's not.

It is not easy. Like, all of therapy is not easy. And it usually looks worse before it gets better. Even though it is getting better. It's just that healing period. So I always tell people whenever they're going through any kind of addiction, I mean, not just sexual. I know we're kind of focusing in on that today, but, like, you know, don't stop going and don't stop doing those things that you're doing to work towards healing just because it's hard. It's supposed to be hard.

It is. And I would. I would say in that as well, to be really careful with. And I think sometimes I think that there's such value in the detox period you're describing, but I think for some spouses who were hurt, it's not a detox period as much As a punishment. It's like they're wanting to just punish the spouse by saying, you know, you want me, but you can't have me. And I think that it's so important, I would say, for that spouse who's been wounded, who's trying to help the spouse who's recovering, to say, you know, what we need to have for the health of both of us, Maybe a set period of detox that we can both agree upon and maybe have the help of a therapist to help walk us through this.

Exactly.

But at the same time, I don't want to ever look at this as a punishment toward you. It has to be only motivated by healing for both of us. And the moment that we're doing anything in marriage to hurt the other one intentionally or to make the other one hurt because maybe their actions have hurt us, then we're no longer moving toward healing. But we're actually. We're moving in the wrong direction. And so I would just want to.

Clarify that you got to be careful, because I do, you know, in working, especially with a lot of wives whose husbands have had this. I mean, they're disgusted by it. They're disgusted by. And it's hard to move past that. Cause you don't wanna have sex when you're disgusted with your husband. I mean, like, that desire is not there. Cause you feel unloved and you feel dirty. And sex seems kind of like it's just not what it should be at that time, because you're hurt, you know? And so I do agree with what Dave is saying. It's temporary. I mean, you look at this like this is temporary. This is to get all of our minds and our hearts in the right place and to see sex for the gift that it is and not this dirty thing and not this shameful thing, for sure.

Well, you both are talking about that key distinction between, like, you're saying, punishment, kind of quote, unquote consequences, and, you know, like your last podcast, parenting, the other one.

Right, right.

You're talking about that versus boundaries. Healthy boundaries.

Exactly.

Healthy boundaries are. Hey, what I really need is I need some space. I need some space to heal. And this is, you know, and it has nothing to do with. Well, you acted out, you know, two weeks ago. And so you're still in the doghouse more. This is what I need to feel safe.

Right, Exactly.

Yeah, we frame it that way. That's so huge. So I guess, kind of keeping with the practical, how can someone support their spouse as they recover from an addiction while also protecting their Own heart.

And this is any addiction, you know, addiction in general.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. It's so hard for the spouse.

Right.

There's actually a newer book that came out that's pretty interesting. It's by one of the leaders in our field in the sexual addiction community named Rob Weiss, and he recently got his PhD. So, Dr. Rob Weiss, and he wrote it. It's called Pro Dependence. And so the idea is saying, hey, it's less this kind of negative, codependent model that's saying somehow the partner's a part of the problem and more saying that the partner's been involved all along out of really good intentions.

Right, right.

The partner's been there because they love their husband, they love their wife, and they want to help them. And at times, maybe that hasn't been the help that their partners needed, but they're still really trying and wanting to help. So what else? The other is, you know, trying to push for some of these healthy things, whether it's, you know, going to therapy individually or seeing if the partner's willing as a couple to go in. We get that a lot of times, too, where it's both of them coming in, and we're just talking about options, you know, okay, here's what your wife sees or here's what your husband sees and what they're having concerns with, and we just help facilitate that conversation. Right. That becomes a really good starting place.

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That'S awesome. You know, in the case where the spouse with the addiction isn't to a place yet where they see it, but their spouse sees it, would you encourage that individual spouse, like, who sees it but isn't experiencing the addiction, to go to a counselor? Like, would that be beneficial?

I would definitely. There's one caveat, and thankfully we have this at our practice because we have seven of us therapists involved. Is the one person that the spouse Goes to typically can't be then the therapist for the person struggling with the addiction.

Sure, sure.

Because oftentimes, especially with, like, sex addiction, they're going to be a lot less likely to want to go to that therapist because it's like, well, what did you tell him? What did you tell that therapist? They're on your side and they're there to, like, say, I'm the bad guy and, you know.

Right.

And so there has to be those good alliances. So if that can be the case, then that's the ideal setup. But sometimes therapists are able to help navigate that if they're in a solo practice, you know.

Sure.

Here's kind of a different question, but from real life experience, I have a good friend of ours, good friend of mine, who for years was wrapped up heavily, heavily in pornography addiction and sexual addiction. And when he finally got to a place of detox, you know, kind of going through the kind of the celibate period. The detox period. Yeah, He. He. He told me that he really. And he never. He had a hard time of reconnecting with his wife. Like, in his mind, I think it's so overtake. Sex had so overtaken his mind that the only way that he could in his mind get through it was to kind of just completely shut off sort of the sexual aspect of himself. And he talked about how it was causing harm in the marriage now, because now he come through a place of healing. But now, like, sexual intimacy really wasn't a part of their marriage. And when it was like, he entered into it with just a lot of fear and apprehension, which, you know, so.

For sure.

Yeah. So like, somebody that was as deep in as he was, and he was deep, you know, deep into it. And so maybe it was just a process if it took longer to kind of come to a place of healing. And he wasn't quite there yet. But I remember having that conversation with him on the phone and wondering, like, well, you know, how do you help somebody navigate that where they want a healthy sexual relationship with their wife? But sex had been sabotaged for so long in his thinking that he wasn't sure he was capable of it anymore, which I think is just a lie that he'd chosen to believe. But he was afraid to go down the road because he was afraid that really giving himself fully to sex would be a gateway.

He would open the door.

Yeah. Open the door to all those dark places where he'd escape.

Right. Well, you know, I mean, first I'd validate that fear. Right. Like, wow, that that's actually kind of a smart fear. Look at the destruction that sex has caused in your life. Look at the destruction that. I'd probably put it more like, look at the destruction that this addiction has caused in your life. It's really destroyed you. It's done a lot of damage to you, to relationship with God, to your spouse, to your family. Like, so that fear makes some sense now. It. But it's no longer needed.

Right.

You have really healthy tools and support, and so it's kind of outgrown its usefulness.

Right.

You know, so that's kind of one angle I would take. But the other is there's another book by Dr. Patrick Carnes. His book is called Sexual Anorexia. And it's kind of exactly what you guys are talking about with this, where there can be that kind of same amount of energy being put toward being sexual. It's put toward going the other way, trying to be. Not in touch and engage with sexual, you know, sexual part of yourself. And so it's equally damaging at times, or maybe not equally, but it's very damaging to the relationship, especially like we're talking about from that intimacy standpoint.

Yes.

And so much of the healing recovery processes is about integration.

Right.

So it's not about saying, oh, I never struggled with this sexual peace in my life, but it's about. I have lots of struggles around that, and here's how I keep an eye on them, here's how I set my own boundaries to protect myself and my family, and here's how I'm being engaged in the current sexual health and physical health. All of that.

Yeah.

Right. And so the other thing I think I heard was that shame is a huge component in these times, and it can be such a lie and such another disconnecting factor. And that's not of God. Right. The shame piece really can wreck us. And so we do a lot of specific work with clients around shame. And it might be kind of looking for core affirmation stuff. It might even be using emdr, which is like a trauma therapy that digs into past negative beliefs and moments when that belief got kind of locked in and really helping to bring healing to those moments.

I love that. Yeah. Cause shame is. I mean, it's a lie from the enemy. It's not, you know, like you said, it's not of God. And it just. It keeps us from having the intimacy that we want, but also that God wants us to have with our spouse. So, yeah, I love that. I love that there's multiple things that a person can do when they feel like they're kind of stuck. I have one other question I wanna talk about real quick. And that's, like, when someone, no matter what their addiction is, like, they finally beat the addiction, they're in recovery, they're sober, they're clean, but they kind of have this addictive personality. So maybe they're not doing drugs, they're not drinking, they're not having sex with strangers or looking at pornography or masturbating or whatever the thing is, or gambling, shopping addiction. They're not doing that thing that had them all caught up. That was the stronghold in their life. But then maybe they become addicted to something that is good, like exercise, but it's to the extreme. Or maybe they just wanna constantly be redoing. We just talked to the couple last week. He went through this phase where he would get a high from redoing a part of their home. And then he'd be like, okay, when's the next project? And they ended up, like, going way over their budget to the point where the wife was like, listen, you have not been an alcoholic or a drug addict for years, but I think you're kind of like, putting your addiction is kind of our home now. And it's leading us, right? Like, how do you approach that as a therapist?

That's also a great question. It's such a tricky place because a lot of times we see people kind of go, okay, good, you know, I got to that place where I'm sober, I'm not acting on that addictive anymore. I'm good to go. And maybe they'll stop therapy or they'll stop going to group or something like that. But it's so important to stick with it because what you're describing is kind of phase two, or we call it like second order change. It's the deeper change that permeates your life. And it's not just saying, oh, I stopped that behavior. This is the change that your spouse is a lot more aware of. And it's usually, especially with sex addiction, that they could, like, take to the bank. The trust bank. Right? Because they can't see. Did you not view porn? Well, how do they see that? There's no way to see the negative. So what they see is that you're behaving differently, that you're integrated more in these healthy areas in your life, that you're not going to these overly compulsive or addictive places. And even if there's somewhat healthy things like exercise or things like that, they're seeing that you're learning to do it with moderation. So that's definitely something that we work on as well, because it is such. Like you're saying it's easy to switch and kind of do the switch to another addiction. And usually it's about keeping, like you said, keeping that high or keeping that energy up or something. And so there's some more meditation and prayer and calming and, you know, anxiety reduction stuff or something along those lines.

And helping people come out of that addictive cycle where life's just highs and lows, highs and lows. To be able to walk that steady path and to find joy and peace in it too.

So much of life is lived in the mundane.

Exactly.

And to find peace there. We really only have one more question, but it's one we've kind of touched on already, but I'd love to kind of tackle it specifically. And we had someone write in and basically say, how do you deal with an addiction that your spouse doesn't think is wrong? They don't have any conviction.

They don't think it's a problem.

They don't see it as a problem. And we get these kind of questions a lot. Like, my husband or my wife, they're doing this or that, whether it's porn or sex related or maybe something completely different. And I see it as this huge issue that going unchecked could be the very thing that ends our marriage. But they don't seem to care. And the fact that they don't see it is wounding to the one spouse who does so deeply care about it. But yet, at the same time, you can't force someone into recovery who doesn't believe they have a problem. So what do you suggest in those early steps?

Yeah, so I like the example that my poetry partner, expert therapist, Trina Nash, who works for me, she. She does this analogy of like a hula hoop. Right? So picture a hula hoop around yourself. You're holding it around your waist. You can control what's inside that. You know, you don't get to control what's in your partner's hula hoop.

Right.

And so, yeah, it's unbelievably frustrating. Right. We've all dealt with that in a lot of different, maybe smaller ways in marriages and relationships. But if you focus on what's in yours now, like we referenced earlier, you're setting boundaries. You're communicating with I statements. I'm feeling hurt or afraid or abandoned or lonely when you do that. Right. And you're doing your best to communicate at that deep Level. And then you're setting boundaries. Is really the only other place saying, hey, because of that behavior, I want you to sleep in the other room. I don't feel safe with you. I don't feel connected to you. Those are things, though, that you can control. Or to put it even more in your control, you're saying, I'm sleeping in the other room. Right. That's something you can completely control. Or in big cases, we see where there will be a separation, even in the house, where somebody will leave the house because it's so bad. And sometimes it takes those moments for the partner struggling, whoever's struggling, to really kind of be shaken out of it, like, whoa, this is that bad that my spouse is saying she or he's ready to leave me or to separate until I do something different. So sometimes it goes to those extremes, kind of the quick overview of that process. But we always encourage, again, that person to come in and, you know, get their own resources, work with their own therapist if they need to. Especially with the sexual addiction piece. The trauma of it, the betrayal trauma is so great.

Oh, yeah.

There's so much pain and hurt, you know, for the partner that. That needs to be healed when. Whether or not the spouse does anything.

You know, that's so true. I love what you said about the I statements. Cause I do think it's so easy to make accusations and they might be completely founded. Like, I mean, like, they're true. You know, you did this, you did that. But when it can come from the place of how that addiction and that behavior makes you feel, it is. It's more personal and it hopefully will keep. You know, we always talk about having soft hearts towards each other. And when somebody's in the middle of an addiction, you don't know where their heart is. I mean. Cause they're kind of ruled by this addiction. And so when you can make those I statements and make it personal for you, and how the addiction that your spouse is doing, how it makes you feel and how it affects you, that kind of keeps that line of communication more open and hopefully will kind of nudge them in the right direction. Because I just find that even outside of addiction, just fighting, when people make accusations and spouses are just pointing fingers for sure, it just shuts things down, you know, so, yeah, we wanna point.

Fingers back and fight back.

Exactly.

But if somebody's sharing their deeper emotions, hopefully you can tap into some empathy there.

Exactly.

Wow. Okay. This is causing pain.

And just real practically, you know, when. When the addiction is gotten to a place Whatever the addiction might be, where one spouse feels truly just unsafe in the environment, at what point do you suggest that, like, you know, nothing, nothing has worked, you know, like, you know, they don't want to just give, keep giving ultimatums. Like, at what point do you suggest that they might need to just get away from the house for a while for their own safety? Not. And again, not as like a dramatic thing or a punishment, but just like, I don't feel safe in this environment. At what point do you.

We, you know, we've learned over the years in this field to be really sensitive to the partners, you know, and so I'd say at the first inkling, you know, it's okay, it's not going to destroy your marriage. It's not going to be irreparable. Okay to say, I'm having a hard time, I'm not feeling safe, I need some space. If you spend the night somewhere else, it's not going to end your marriage, you know. And so obviously though, at that point you're wanting to, yeah, go meet with pastors, go meet with therapists. Like, you don't try and do. Pretty much all that we've been talking about isn't like diy, you know, let's, let's start an abstinence contract with each other for 90 days. Like, don't try it on your own at home.

Yeah, we need help. I mean, you know, it's, we all need help. And we, you know, we always talk about therapy on here because we just believe in it so much. And we've been in Christian therapy multiple times throughout our marriage, individually and together, because, you know, I do think so many times people wait until things are even worse and it's, you know, it's like if you can go at the earliest signs, that's so good because then you can get more help. I mean, it's never, I always tell people, just don't ever tell yourself it's too late. Go, you know, go. Whenever you even have that little kind of thought in your mind, you know, get help. Because it does, it takes a multi pronged approach for most things. And like, I love that you've talked a lot about support groups. Cause I do think one of the biggest lies from the enemy is that, you know, you can't talk to anybody about this. You can't even tell your spouse. You know, shame on you. This is your, your big, deep, dark secret. And your punishment is keeping it your whole life and just having to push it way down deep. And you know, as a therapist, I know. You see, like, that never ends well. Like, it never ends well, and it just causes more harm to the person and the relationship. And so I just am so grateful that you've talked about so many good things. And we want you, you know, kind of at the end of this to tell us how. Tell listeners how they can get in touch with you and your practice that you're a part of.

Yeah. So, again, guys, thanks for having me. And my practice is called Integrity Counseling Group, and that's our website as well, integritycounselinggroup.com and you can find us on there, contact us through there. We do blogs that cover all of these topics we just discussed. We're actually getting a lot of hits on emotional affairs at work.

Oh, yeah.

Seems to be a big one lately that people are searching for and wondering about. So we'd love to hear from you, even if it's just for some questions related to things we've talked about today. It doesn't have to be about starting therapy or maybe you're in a different state and we can't even do therapy with you. That's fine. We'll help you find some resources in your area. We'd love to. We're in this for the healing.

That's amazing. So if you're listening and you can relate to anything we talked about or even, like Corey said, if you just have any questions about therapy, maybe you want to read that blog about emotional affairs at work. You know, please, please reach out, just like we've talked about this whole time, that don't be afraid to ask for help. We all need help at some time or another in our marriage, and it's healthy to get help.

Yeah. So thank you again, Corey, for the great, great work you and your team are doing and for this important conversation today. I really think it's gonna make an impact to all those who've been listening. And thank you to those who have been listening, to all of you who subscribe and review and share the Naked Marriage podcast. We're in this together. And as you share, you're helping others discover these important resources. So thank you and we will see you next time.

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