Love You Hate the Porn

This episode was pre recorded as part of a live continuing education webinar on demand. CEUs are still available for this presentation through all CEUs. Register@allceus.com Counselortoolbox you I'd like to welcome everybody. Today's Presentation Love youe Hate the Porn and this presentation is based largely on the book Love youe Hate the Porn by Mark Chamberlain, PhD and have it on the Floor. So it is a book that you can check out if you if you choose to. It is a really easy read. He does have a lot of stories and anecdotes in the book and those sorts of things. Not really case studies. It's written much more for the average person, not clinicians. But it is a good book. It is a good read. The only critique I guess I would say I have of it is it is written from a very. Gender biased point of view. I guess you could say it's written specifically for husbands who get caught watching porn by their wives. So it is not culturally inclusive of all genders. In today's presentation we are going to explore the impact of pornography on relationships. Identify common reactions to finding out about pornography usage by your partner. Explore the needs that may fuel negative cycles. Explore interventions which he refers to in relationship as relationship rescue breaths. Talks about improving intimacy. Talks about dealing with security and vulnerab. Dealing with insecurity, vulnerability and grief in the recovery process. We'll also talk about helping your partner understand what porn does for you and addressing triggers for porn use, among other things. Now let's talk about porn in general for a second before we talk about problematic porn pornography usage. Pornography usage in and of itself is not necessarily a problem. They've done a lot of studies and we're not going into them here because it's was a little bit off topic for this presentation. But they have done studies where couples have watched porn together. They have done studies where one partner watches porn but the other partner is aware of it and is fine with it. And those don't seem to cause cause nearly the types of problems that pornography usage does if one part one partner is using and the other partner is unaware and or not good with it. So we really want to look at pornography in term just like we do with everything else. In terms of its clinical significance, is the usage causing clinically significant distress? Okay, so I'm going to pause this for just a second here. There we go. Prevalence and problems. Now there was a study done in Indiana University that he talks about in his book and 70.8% of men and 45.5% of women thought that they would watch porn in their future relationships. 22.3% of men and 26.3% of men thought pornography had no role in a romantic partnership. Okay, so this is interesting. When we're looking at this, what are we seeing? That's a very low number. So of the people surveyed, 77.7% of men, see, I can do math when I have to, and you know, 70 some percent of women, I don't want to do math again, were not necessarily opposed to having pornography in the relationship in some way, shape or form. And when we're talking about pornography, we're not just talking about video porn. We're not just talking about pornhub. We can be talking about narrative pornography, such as some of the more racy books and things. And they find that men tend to gravitate toward the picture oriented pornhub, Hustler magazine, those sorts of things. And women tend to gravitate more toward the narrative form of pornography. Just kind of an interesting little thing. In his book Guy Land in 2008, Michael Kimmel reported that young men often watch porn with their peers and for different reasons than older men. He writes that guys tend to like the, quote, extreme stuff, the double penetrations and humiliating scenes, and they watch it together with other guys and make fun of the women in the scenes. Let's think about what this is teaching people. Let's think about how this is setting up a dynamic in people's minds for what appropriate behavior is and for objectifying others. I mean, this whole thing is just kind of disturbing and sets different precedents. Older men tend to watch for the feeling of vitality. They are more likely to watch with their partners. And it's less about objectifying than other things. There are a lot of other studies that have been done out there that have looked at the correlation between intimate partner sexual violence and the use of pornography. Not going to get into that too much today, but the studies have been done. After viewing pornography, participants become less satisfied with their real life sexual partners, saw monogamy as less desirable and faithfulness to one's spouse as less important, and were more prone to overestimate the prevalence of less common sexual practices. Now, in this study, the participants viewed pornography for six weeks. They didn't say how many hours per day for six weeks, but they viewed it for six weeks. And these were the results that came came out. After viewing pornography, subjects became more cynical in their attitudes about love and more accepting of the idea that superior sexual satisfaction is Attainable without having affection for one's partner. This was a study, as you can see, that was done in 1988 by Zillman and Bryant. It's just one study that we're looking at, but it is one very poignant study and it does kind of give you a foreshadowing to what we're going to talk about regarding the way that pornography can. Doesn't always, but can affect people's level of connection, their level of intimacy and the types of interactions that may happen if pornography is involved in a relationship. The partner viewing the pornography, interestingly enough, had less faith in his wife's fidelity. And that's another thing we're going to talk about in this book. As I said, it's written from the perspective of the husband being caught using pornography. So it uses the term husband and wife throughout. I'm going to try to be a little bit more inclusive in today's presentation. But when one partner finds another partner viewing pornography, what are some of the effects? Spouses and partners complain that the pornography using partner had less sexual desire for them. We're gonna learn about that as we go through. That's not necessarily because of the partner. Sometimes it's because they're less satisfied with their real life partner. Sometimes it's because their neurotransmitters have been bombarded so much by the porn and the masturbation that they don't have any sexual desire left. They're tired. There are a lot of things that can play into it, but the partner may start feeling inadequate and reject and spouses of pornography using partners tend to feel that the way they're treated during sex make them feel more like a sex object. Another interesting study that I did find that's not in the book. There's an association between the consumption of pornography and engaging with multiple and or occasional partners, emulating risky sexual behaviors, assimilating distorted gender roles. Now think about some of the porn, you know, even from back in the 70s or whatever, where there are very stereotypical and you know, just kind of over the top extreme masculine gender roles. For example, this is what we're talking about here, where there are models that people may see and think, well, that's the way I'm supposed to be. Dysfunctional body perception, aggressiveness and anxious or depressive symptoms. Now those all can happen within a person viewing pornography. So the person viewing pornography may start having some of these problems. If they are experiencing dysfunctional body perception, then they may be because of watching porn. Then they may be less likely or less Wanting to engage with a real life partner because they're self conscious. If they are anxious because they feel inadequate for some reason, or don't feel like they'll be able to perform to the level of what they saw in the videos, then they may also withdraw from their partner. They may become more aggressive because they see that in pornography and think, well, maybe this is the way I'm supposed to be. They may become depressed or part of the depression could be that feeling of helplessness and hopelessness not measuring up, low self esteem that can come from again comparing yourself to this unrealistic scenario that you're watching. Or, and, or the depressive symptoms can also come from the alteration of the neurotransmitters as the result of repeated viewing of pornography and masturbation. The brain has this surge of dopamine, it has this surge of norepinephrine. And as we've talked about in other classes, our brain adjusts. If it's getting flooded, if it's getting over inundated with particular neurochemicals, it's going to dampen down its response. So then people may start to feel depressed. So what are the effects of pornography on the person? Robust dopamine response. You know, it's a pleasure thing. Another interesting thing is that they're void of oxytocin after masturbation. After sex, people tend to be more filled with oxytocin because that was a bonding experience. And oxytocin is our bonding chemical that's secreted when we are touching and you know, sex involves touching. But when there was no other partner, when it was a masturbation scenario, there is no oxytocin in the person's bloodstream. So that bonding feeling is not there. So they're getting the reward of a sexual act without bonding. And that kind of messes with our primordial brain, their sleep deprivation. Partly because people may stay up watching porn, partly because when the neurotransmitters start to get out of whack, then the normal circadian rhythms can get, get out of whack. So those are things to pay attention to. And yes, Valerie, the, the deficit of oxytocin is present or true in with any masturbation, not just masturbation after porn. So it is important that some sexual activities actually involve another person. It doesn't have to be all the time. You know, again, I'm not saying that masturbation is necessarily a bad thing. However, if that is the main source of sexual reinforcement, then the brain may get hijacked and think, well, I can have this pleasure and I don't need all the problems of connection. People who view a lot of porn and, you know, which usually equates to masturbating a lot, also may experience erectile dysfunction, delayed ejaculation, and inability to reach orgasm. Partly because the brain has dampened down those receptors because it's trying to conserve its energy, and partly because the person viewing the porn may not be as stimulated by real life partners because of their physical attractiveness or because of the acts. If they are watching something that's a little bit edgier in the porn, then regular old vanilla sex in the bedroom may not be enough to excite them, which can lead to problems. It may not have anything to do with the partner. It may be more the activity they've desensitized to vanilla sex. And the lack of a need for connection may also play into that because, you know, they don't have this, this need for connection. So porn starts becoming more rewarding. The body adjusts to the intensity of the neurochemical response by dampening its response, leading people to feel worse than before they started. So if they were feeling depressed or anxious before they started, you know, their body floods with all these feel good chemicals. And then the brain goes, okay, that was too much. We got to turn down the system a little bit more. So then when the effects wear off, they're feeling. The best analogy I can give is kind of like hungover. Think about when we eat sugar, and this is the easiest one to conceptualize. When we eat sugar, our blood sugar will say is at 100, okay? And then we eat sugar and it goes up to 250. And these are really bad numbers if you're diabetic. I'm just using them for examples. And then when that sugar gets out of our system, we'll say, you just ate pure sucrose. Your blood sugar will drop down, not to 100 again, but down to more like 80. So then what do you want to do? You want to eat sugar again because you're going, I need that boost. So then you eat again and you go from 80 to 200 and then down to 60 and then 60 to 150. So you're having these spikes, but each time you end lower and each time you go up, you don't get quite as far. And that's the body's reaction. You're seeing a similar thing in neurotransmitters when the body is constantly being flooded. The shame of pornography use often builds walls between Partners, brick by brick. If one partner, even if it hasn't been discussed, if one partner is like, yeah, I don't think my spouse or lover or roommate or whatever the status is, I don't think my partner would be cool with this. Then every time they use, there's a sense of hiding and secrecy and potentially shame that might go along with it. So that person starts creating walls, and now they're feeling more ashamed of themselves, which pushes. Puts a barrier between them and their significant other. When shame's like this big elephant in the room which distances them so often they push at least emotionally, away from that other person. Porn is always available, though. So when one of the challenging things with pornography is that when people feel that need for whatever, and we'll talk about the whatevers in a minute, porn is always there, which can cause even more problems. Because ideally, when in relationships, when you're having a bad day, when you need something, you turn to your significant other and go, you know, I need support or I need whatever. Since porn is always available and significant others may not be. They may be at work or, you know, in the shower or whatever. They may not be as readily and immediately available porn is. And that can be a way that people turn and that can start being their go to instead of going to their significant other. The more people seek pornography, the more isolated they feel. Well, you're having the pleasure without the connection, and again, your brain doesn't really know how to deal with that because those two things are supposed to be linked. Porn teaches viewers to objectify their partners. They see them as basically human Gumby dolls, if you want to think about it that way. Or props in a scene. And yes, people who engage in BDSM and other things engage in scenes, and sometimes there is some objectification, but that is between two consenting partners who, you know, they planned out the scene together. When pornography becomes a problem, and when things become a problem is when one partner is planning a scene or objectifying and the other partner is like, wait a minute, I thought this was, you know, a loving, passionate moment. Porn sets unrealistic standards and expectations for looks. Most of your porn stars have had lots of plastic surgery. There's special angles. There's takes and retakes. You don't see people, you know, accidentally landing on each other's hair or, you know, knocking the candle over or whatever. In porn scenes, you know, everything just seems to work just so. And in reality, that's not how it is. So there are those unrealistic expectations. And then when you get into real life, you're like, oh, you know, that's not what I had imagined it to be. And real life experiences can be a letdown. Partners who have caused pain in their relationships because of porn usage may feel they've lost privileged status and withdraw out of shame. And, and to spare the non porn using partner the pain, they may withdraw because they feel ashamed of themselves and they're like, you know what, this is my thing, I don't want to put it on you, or I can't admit it to you, so I'm going to withdraw even further. Common reactions when the non porn using partner finds out a sense of helplessness. It's like, whoa, wait a minute, you know, how did this happen? I feel my life is totally out of control. I thought things were going fine and now I find out that, you know, there's this big elephant in the room. They may have an inability to look at their partner without being reminded of the infidelity. And it is infidelity in certain ways because the non porn using partner may feel abandoned and betrayed because the porn using partner was engaging in these sexual fantasies that involved someone else. And as, you know, half of a couple or you know, part of a triad or whatever, you want to be involved in your partner's sexual fantasies. You don't want somebody else in there. Does it happen sometimes? Yeah. But in reality, you know, one of the things that they are often most traumatized by is the idea that their partner was thinking about somebody else. The person could have nightmares about, you know, their porn using partner leaving them for a porn star or whatever. They may worry their partner is thinking about the porn. When they're having sex together, there may be suspicion about what the person is doing. Every time they get on their, on their mobile device and start doing something, it's like, what are you doing? Or their laptop or what have you. They may be hyper vigilant to their partner. And what I mean by this is they're more attuned. They go out into the store and they see their partner look at somebody else. Oh, that sets off the alarm bells again. Or they're at home and they don't sense a connection, or they don't sense their partner looking at them in a longing sort of way and they become very hyper vigilant and sensitive to minute non verbals. The non porn using partner can also have depressive and anxiety related symptoms. There was a betrayal, there's some grief that needs to be handled. There are potentially anxieties about being good enough anxieties about the relationship ending. There's lots of anxieties we can list. The non porn using partner may withdraw from other people. It's like, okay, who do I tell about this? I feel ashamed because maybe I drove my partner to do this. They may become more critical towards the porn using partner. They may be increasingly angry towards the porn using partner. One of the quotes in the book that I thought was relatively poignant. This woman was talking and she said sometimes she wants to turn to the porn using partner for reassurance and comfort and at the same time she wants to punch him in the face and get him away from her. Okay, so there's this huge ambivalence and you start feeling like the porn using non porn using partner may start feeling like they're going crazy because they want two seemingly contradicting things at the same time. So we can talk about dialectics. In another video, questions the non porn using partner may ask themselves. Why am I not enough? Why am I not desirable? Does this person want to leave me? Does this person think about porn when he or she is with me? What else has he or she lied about? Is he or she having an affair? And how in the world could I have missed this? The functions of pornography. And I see in the chat room y' all are talking about age restrictions on pornography. And as we talked about in the last class, the impact of pornography, porn on the adolescent brain is significantly more problematic and significantly more damaging, if you want to look at it that way, than the impact of porn on the adult brain. Because the adolescent brain is still relatively malleable. It's still forming the prefrontal cortex where you've got all your impulse control that's not fully formed until the age of 24 or 25. When youth see this, when you see pornography, it has a much stronger reaction. We're talking about a robust dopamine reaction. Well, what's robust for an adult that's going to cause brain changes in an adult is like a monsoon in the brain of an adolescent. So there are more prominent brain changes in the adolescent. So yes, these are things that we do want to be aware of and point porn doesn't necessarily, you know, it comes up in sneaky places. I'm finding now we started watching and I won't name the video series. The other day I was watching it with my 15 year old. It was supposed to be sort of a new, new age, Twilight Zone sort of thing. So, you know, we all watched the Twilight Zone when we were little. It wasn't graphic and There was one of them that was extraordinarily sexually graphic. And she just kind of got, got up and walked out of the room. She's like, these people can't keep their clothes on. I'm gone. And I'm like, oh, thank you, God. As I'm, you know, she's walking out as I'm trying to turn it off. And, you know, I was glad she had the presence of mind to walk out of the room. My point in that is that mainstream tv, Netflix is becoming more and more graphic in their presentation of sexuality. So we need to make sure we're processing with our adolescents. So what are the functions of pornography? Self soothing? We talked about this some the other day. When especially a youth discovers pornography as a way of self soothing, when there's nobody else, you know, available to help him or her out, then this may become a habitual pattern of self soothing. Sometimes for adults it develops this way, though. They're, they're feeling like they just, they can't, they can't feel okay. And they realize that sex makes them feel better. But, you know, maybe they're not having sex with their partner or there's trouble in the relationship and that's one of the problems. So they may turn to porn as an intermediary and that becomes a easy way to self soothe. They also found a high correlation between people who have difficulty with pornography usage and alexthymia. They can't adequately articulate what they're feeling or what their drives are. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired, I don't know, I just feel icky. You know, it's one of those things they can't, they have difficulty sorting it out because they are so emotionally kind of twisted up at that moment. You know, because of the distress, they have difficulty putting a label on it. One of the things as clinicians we can do is start helping them identify their feelings using mindfulness and identifying alternate ways to address those and prevent the vulnerabilities. So they don't need to feel like they need to self soothe. Pornography can provide a sense of connection. It may be a fantasy connection, but it can be a sense of connection for someone who feels lonely. For someone who has social anxiety. This is a place where they're not going to get rejected. It may provide a sense of vitality. It may make people feel wanted. You know, you take somebody who, you know, may not feel like they are desirable anymore, but in their fantasies they are completely desirable. Interestingly, the very people who are the most desperate for affection and approval are often the ones who usually can't ask for it. They don't know how, they don't have the self esteem. They, you know, are too ashamed, whatever it is. And instead they project blame and rejection and perceive the worst in others. So they expect people to react to them as they're reacting to themselves. So we need to help them work on this. Self blame and self rejection and everything they're expecting from other people, they're probably already projecting onto themselves. So we need to help them deal with that self loathing as well as learn how to ask for help. There are certain needs fueling negative cycles. In the book they talk about husbands needing acceptance from their wives. You know, I have difficulty breaking it down into gender specific needs like this, but you know, go with me here. When a husband's pornography viewing is discovered, he may feel now like he's unacceptable. One of the questions from last week's class was what's the percentage of male versus female people, males versus females who have problems with porn? And roughly the numbers are 70% of people with pornography problems are male and 30%. 30% are female. So that's a pretty big honking number of females. So we don't want to say that females are never bothered by this or don't have this problem. They do, about 30% of them. So 30% of the people who have problems are female. That being said, I think there are a lot of females out there who need acceptance from their significant others. Wives need a sense of closeness with their partner. Now this can be, this does tend to be more of a female trait. We tend to go more for affiliation and cooperation. We're more on the feeling scale of the mbti. But that's not true for all females. And you know, some men really desire that sense of closeness. However, when the husband's pornography viewing is discovered, the partner may feel like he is sharing the most intimate part of himself with someone else, even if only in fantasy. And that's a betrayal. When partners turn to porn when distressed, that denies their significant other the opportunity to nurture and provide acceptance and validation. In the book they talk about reaching out versus acting out. When people start down the recovery process or recovery path, sometimes it's hard for the porn using partner to be there and be present for the non porn using partner. When people experience distress, stress hormones are dumped. We know the HPA axis starts going, you know, crazy. Gottman in his research found that women tended to present as more heated and passionate, while men actually reacted internally and physically to a much greater degree. And it took them longer to Re regulate. So men, even though they may not be as overtly upset, tended to be much more strongly physically affected by distress. So let's take the scenario. You know, you have Jack and Jack's wife found out that he'd been using pornography. And you know, Jack's wife, Sally is just so upset. She's enraged about this. Jack may not want to approach Sally because he knows if he approaches her then they may get into an argument or, you know, there's going to be a lot of negativity. His stress response is going to go through the roof and he's going to have trouble re regulating. Women tend to share their distress to soothe it. So Sally may be like, okay, I need to tell you about this and tell you how it made me feel. Men, on the other hand, often try to tend to fix it or avoid it altogether. It's like, okay, you know, I know I did wrong. I just let me go think about it instead of being there to hear. And one of the things we need to help partners do, whether it's male, female, male, male, female, female, whatever, we need to help partners learn how to be there for each other and be able to listen and hear one another. One of the techniques they talk about is heat, hurt and hope. Heat is an emotionally intense situation. So, you know, when Sally found out about Jack's porn usage, that was the heat that was emotionally intense. She just wanted to rip him a new one. Hurt is the fear that the situation brings regarding the relationship. So obviously we can see why Sally may feel hurt. Jack may feel hurt because he's anxious. He's fearful that Sally's going to reject him, that Sally's going to throw him out, that his world is going to fall apart. There's a lot of reasonable anxieties there. And then hope is the willingness to convey to your partner exactly what's going on and what you need. So hope is choosing to stay there and stay the course, not run away, not avoid it, and hear what the other person needs as well as communicate effectively what they need. And we need to help with the hurt identification. You know what's going on when this happens, you start feeling angry, you start feeling frustrated, you start feeling defensive, whatever words you want to use, okay, that's the hurt. What thoughts motivating those feelings and what do you need in order to deal with those feelings? The partner, the non porn using partner, experiences emotional trauma when they find out that their partner has been using in secrecy. Trauma is a sense of helplessness and a loss of control and safety. So Thinking about why does the non porn using partner feel unsafe? You know, that's kind of a interesting word. You don't really associate porn and lack of safety. But the non porn using partner, number one, may feel unsafe because they didn't know that something was going on right under their nose. So they may feel like, what else am I missing? Am I safe in this relationship? They may feel like they don't know if their relationship is going to last. They may not feel like they're safe, that they're confident that that relationship is going to continue on. They may not feel safe in terms of, you know, maybe they're concerned that their partner is also engaging in affairs and they may feel like they may be at risk of contracting STDs. There are a lot of safety factors that we want to talk about. The non porn using partner may be traumatized by the use of pornography as well as the awareness of the secrecy and lying that accompanied. It keeps coming back to the if I didn't know about this or if you were lying about this, what else were you lying about it about? And in their mind, porn is sort of like the mistress that stole their partner. Porn pulled them away. Porn convinced them to lie. Porn has them doing these things that they weren't doing before. The non porn using partner had the emotional breath knocked out of them and now needs to restore it. It felt like they got kicked in the gut and now we need to feel that, help them get that breath back, help them start breathing again, get regrounded. Common methods of trying to restore trust and safety in the non porn using partner. These are common behaviors we see. Checking computer histories for ongoing betrayal. In depth. Questioning about what's and whys. What were you doing? Why did you do that? Why were you late? What were you doing? Who were you talking to on the phone? You know, all those things where it almost seems like your helicopter, helicoptering, is that even a verb in the relationship? Checking cell phone records to see who the partner is calling and what they're doing on their phone. Checking data plans, obsessing about appearance. A lot of times porn, non porn using partners may attribute part of the virtual infidelity, if you will, to not being desirable in some way. Withdrawing to self protect, you know, okay, I can't, I can't be with you. I can't think about that right now. I need to put some distance between us or lashing out in anger to make the hurt known. And people can vacillate between withdrawing and lashing out. It just, it kind of Depends. We want to prepare people for how they feel and just to be mindful of it and use that mindful acceptance, that radical acceptance of okay, I am really pissed off right now. Doesn't mean I have to act on means I have to acknowledge that I'm feeling really angry and I need to figure out what I need to do to improve the next moment for me. We can't change our partners. And helping the non porn using partner acknowledge the fact that they, they didn't make their partner do anything. Their partner chose to do that and their partner has to choose to stop. They have a choice. The non porn using partner has a choice on how to improve their next moment. Dealing with vulnerability Most partners, interestingly, and it makes sense when you think about it, have more moments of insecurity and vulnerability as things progress towards restoration. Think about climbing a mountain or, you know, rock climbing. If you go to the rock climbing wall, the closer you get to the top, the scarier it is. If you look back behind you and you look how far, how far you've come and how far you could fall, you need more reassurance as it goes. You go further up the mountain. In this type of relationship recovery as the non porn using partner lets their significant other back into their heart. The deeper that person gets into their heart and the more vulnerable they become, the more reassurances they may need. Remembering that security is like a battery and it regularly needs to be recharged. So we can't just say, all right, I told you things are good. You know, we're good. I shouldn't have to say it anymore. People need to be regularly reminded that, you know, things are okay. And this is true in all relationships, not just ones that have been affected by porn. We need to regularly check in with our partners. We need to do things and say things so they know that there's still a connection, that you know, there is that trust we need. You don't just build it and forget it. You've got to build it and continue to work on it through open communication. The non porn using partner may experience grief that comes in waves. That's okay. Think about grief of anything else. It comes in waves. You know, some days are better than others and that's okay. And I say that phrase a lot when I'm working with clients. That's okay. It is what it is. And recognizing that this is not any different than anything else that may need to be grieved because this idyllic relationship that you thought you had, it's gone now. And you have to grieve that and move on. Waves of grief, even if they're coming a month, two months, three months later, you know, hopefully those waves are getting smaller. But an occasional flush of grief and potentially anger doesn't necessarily mean the person is holding on to resentments and just refusing to forgive. And that's really important for the porn using partner to understand. They're not holding, lording it over your head, they are just having a resurgence of that feeling. One thing you can do is have people journal or keep a log if they don't like to journal about these waves. Ideally you want to see the waves become smaller, less intense and further apart. So maybe initially it is like seven times a day, and then we want to see it to once a day and then we want to see it to maybe once a week. And then you see where we're going with this. As the person starts to adjust to their new normal, they will get further and further away. And this is important to share with the porn using partner because they may get frustrated. They both partners just want it to be over with. But the porn using partner may be like, okay, I told you, I'm not using it anymore. You know, it's over, I'm sorry, I made a mistake, yada yada, and why can't you just let it go? It's not that easy. And it's important for that partner, that porn using partner to be able to see that the person is making progress, but they have to do it in their own time. We also need to recognize that if the non porn using partner has been affected by porn in their prior life, you know, when they were, you know, children, maybe it impacted their, their family somehow, then there may be other things that are being brought up when they find out that their current partner is using porn. And we may have to deal with those, to deal with this grief and you know, the waves of the anger that may come. Remember, grief is denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. So you may have waves of depression or waves of anger and that's okay, you know, identify those triggers, develop distress tolerance skills to deal with them. You know, like I said, sometimes the triggers could be as simple as watching a show on TV and there's a particularly explicit scene or a scene about porn and it triggers something in the non porn using partner. Help them develop distress tolerance skills. So when they are triggered, they have something to do with that emotionality. Instead of lashing out or lashing in, help them process it. Remind them to ask themselves what are the facts in the present situation. You know, this reminds me of when Jack was, you know, using porn six months ago. But is he using porn right now? No, he's sitting on the sofa right next to me. Okay. You know, yes, I still remember that. But in the present situation, this is what's going on. And are they confusing high and low probability events? They may start wondering, well, is he going to go back to using or whatever? Two simple questions for people. But if they remember to really stay focused in the present and recognize what's going on in the present situation, it may help them start integrating and writing their new narrative. And we've talked about this in other classes, writing a narrative and think of it like a television series, you know, at the end of season three, you know, maybe Jack and Sally have been married for three years. At the end of season three, this is the cliffhanger. You know, Sally finds out that Jack has been using porn and there's this big blow up. And you don't know what's gonna happen in season four? How are you gonna write season four? What's gonna happen to the two main characters, you know, Jack and Sally in season four? How's it gonna ride out? How is it going to develop into a story that you want to watch, into a story that you want to be a part of? And yes, it can seem safer, as Renee points out, to not forgive. However, most of the time, if clients are in counseling and trying to work through this, or even if they're not in counseling, if they're trying to work through this porn problem, it feels safer to not forgive. But they recognize that they have to forgive at a certain point. And I point out to clients that forgiveness is a power move. It's not giving up control. Forgiveness is saying, holding on to this resentment is not worth my energy. I am choosing to not expend my energy holding on to this. That way I can use it to move forward. Questions that partners in these types of relationships may need to discuss. And there's a lot more questions in the book, but some of the highlights. How do you experience life differently now than before the discovery of my pornography use. And this really helps the non porn using partner identify their hurts and their hang ups so they can start talking about them and the two of them can start coming more together and supporting one another. How have my behaviors impacted your feelings and beliefs about intimacy? What fears do you currently have about the relationship? What makes them worse? What makes them better? What do we need to do so that you can feel safer? What aspects of my behavior were most painful for you. What do you see as being the most important priority in our relationship at this time? Now, another little issue I guess I have with the book in particular is it doesn't look at what led to the pornography use. And if there were relationship problems prior to the porn using, partner using pornography, then there may be other relationship issues. Both people may have to ask these questions of each other because there may be some. Some hurtfulness that led to the lack of intimacy and the emotional separation which then led to the pornography use. You know, we've got to consider that the bigger picture with this. But it is important for people to start discussing their fears about the relationship, what needs to happen so both people can feel safe, and what the current priorities are in their relationship at this time. What do we need to work on? It's important for both partners to make opportunities to discuss feelings and the right course of action. And this may be daily, this may be once a week. You know, it just kind of depends on the partners. They need to set a quite set aside adequate time each day at first to talk in greater depth and just listen to fears, frustrations, hurts, and understand and empathize both ways. So the poor and using partner may have these frustrations that, you know, I'm doing all the right things, I gave it up. I'm not, you know, I'm not doing any of that anymore. I'm trying to make it better and I feel like I'm not making any progress. And that's frustrating. Okay. You know, that person needs to be able to feel hurt as well as the partner who's hurt saying, you know, I'm still emotionally raw and feeling betrayed and violated. However the conversation works out, but both partners need to be able to sit there and hear. It's important that both partners recognize that they don't need to verbally respond to fix it or convince the partner that they're doing better or whatever. It's just important to listen and empathize. I hear you're feeling that you don't need to fix it, just empathize. Speaker needs to avoid getting upset if the listener doesn't say the exact right things. You know, we went to school for counseling and paraphrasing and all that kind of stuff, and we still don't always say all the right things. Somebody who hasn't had years of training in it, it's going to be even harder. The goal is to show your partner that you're trying, you're trying to empathize and listen. If the partner thinks that they're going to say the wrong thing. Then they're going to be so busy formulating their response they're not going to hear what's being said. It's important to be able to cut each other some slack. I find that when partners have these discussions the first few times, it's best to do it in the therapy office. You know, obviously if they're in therapy in order to mediate the discussion and go, okay, you know, so what I'm hearing and model what needs to be said. But then if the listener says something that's, you know, not quite right but you know, they were giving it a good honest try, you know, reinforce that and if they go down the fix it path, be able to stop it right there and go, you know, not hearing where you actually have indicated what Sally was, was feeling. So what can people do? You know, we've talked about a lot of, a lot about the problems. Encourage people to be honest about past sexual behavior. And this is true, especially true for the porn using partner in the early months and you know, whatever, provide accountability for whereabouts, commit to complete electronic transparency. Show a willingness to seek help. You know, some of those things may feel like being micromanaged or helicoptered. Sometimes it may be necessary in order to re establish that trust that's going to be on a patient by patient basis. Other things that can be done. The porn using partner can initiate family activities because you know, when you think about it, porn drew that person away from the family or form the couple. So initiating these family activities is a way of showing, hey, I want to be a part of this. Some couples are not ready or partners are not ready for one on one activities right away. You know, it may be okay to go out and go to the park with the kids and stuff but you know, I'm not ready to go out on a date with you yet because I'm still angry. That's okay. Eventually it would be nice to move to that place. Offer to spend time talking about the non porn using partners day. Ideally both people. You spend five, 10 minutes, it doesn't have to be long. Recognize that physical presence does matter. Even if you're both at home. It matters if the porn using partner is actually trying to be physically present in, you know, maybe you're sitting there watching the same television show or you know, at my house I'm usually we've got the TV on but I'm playing Words with Friends or something but we're in the same room and there's a physical presence that can be felt and that that helps with the connection a little bit. Also, when there's a physical presence, the non porn using partner is pretty sure that the porn using partner isn't viewing porn. So you know, it's doubly helpful. Encourage the porn using partner to stop trying to prove what isn't. You can't prove that you're not viewing porn. You know, it's you're not but or and you can't prove you're never going to do it again. All you can do is focus on the now and show you, show the person what you are going to do. If you're working with somebody who's a smoker, they want to stop smoking and they want to prove to other people that they're not smoking anymore or whatever. Encourage them to do things that are supportive of their new goals because when they're doing that, when they're spending more time with their kids, they're not going to be smoking. When they are going to the gym, they're not going to be smoking. So if they're doing things that are characteristic of this recovery oriented life, then they are going to be creating what they want. Instead of eliminating the bad, they're creating the positive. Encourage the non, encourage the porn using partner to stop explaining, defending and minimizing. Just let the non porn using partner be heard. You know, they hear you but they need to work through their own stuff. The porn using partner. Well, both partners actually you need to help each other get what we all want. That feeling of being in love, that feeling of being loved. So talk with your partner. You know, both partners need to talk about what it looks like to be loved. And here I turn to the book about the five love languages. What does it look like? How can I show you that I love you? What works, you know, acts of service, you know, words of appreciation, physical touch, gifts, whatever. Create greeting and parting rituals. You know, don't just walk in the door and grunt at one another and go about your evening. Actually take time to say, hey, welcome home, how was your day? Whatever, Increase touch or if that's too much, at least closeness. Communicate more. Share mealtime mindfulness. And this can be done really pretty easily and in early stages of recovery it's almost refreshing. Have breakfast together or you know, wake up and talk about it before you. If you don't eat breakfast, how do you feel? What are your needs? What are your hopes for the day? At lunchtime, call each other on the phone. Do the same thing at dinner time, have a meal together and ask you know. Talk about how your day was. Connect and be mindful about what each person needs. Validate and appreciate the other person on a daily basis to show acceptance. Listen and empathize with the person when you're communicating in order to increase closeness and intimacy. Share laughter. Laughter. It releases endorphins and helps people feel closer. And a lot of times when we're laughing we tend to reach out and touch one another or or whatever and it can increase oxytocin a little bit. Other Interventions Install what I call netnany programs. We talked about those before, like bark in order to alert the non porn using partner. If the porn using partner goes to an adult website, that will help just ease concerns. Install firewalls that only the non porn using partner has the password to begin gradually reconnecting. One thing that is suggested with sex addiction is to consider taking sex off the table for a month or sometimes longer so there's no pressure. The non porn using partner doesn't feel like they've got to forgive and get in the mood and the porn using partner has no expectations so there's no pressure there and they start reconnecting like they're courting again. When the porn using partner is unable to view porn and masturbate, the desire for those positive neurochemicals is going to go through the roof which can increase courting type behaviors. Doesn't always, but sometimes it does where that person is way more attentive to their partner. Now open a dialogue about sex. And we've talked in the in some other classes about the yes no maybe list and those are available online. Usually they're in forums that have to do with kink or BDSM or But start somewhere with opening a discussion about sex and what each partner wants and hopes to get out of the sexual relationship. Pornography viewing impacts the viewer, cognitively changes the way they see their partner, changes the way they see themselves, changes how they think about sex. It impacts them emotionally, physically and interpersonally. The non porn using partner often feels betrayed because she or he feels the porn dominates their significant other's thoughts and fantasies. Pornography use is often a means to self soothing and relief or pleasure during periods of distress. Masturbation's effects on the porn user's physiology can lead to obsessing about porn and the compulsion to watch it. So there is going to be sort of a detox period in early recovery. Are there questions and again, when we're talking about pornography addiction, we do need to look at the reason the person was viewing the porn. What function it served for that person and how to help them meet that need in ways that are healthier for the relationship. So if they were feeling lack of intimacy in their relationship which led to the pornography use, then that's going to be an issue that needs to be addressed. If they were feeling inadequate as a partner and because they lost their job or for whatever reason and that led to the pornography use, then that will need to be addressed in order to help them help both partners start turning to each other in a time of need and supporting each other and increasing intimacy. And yes, our electronic society is unfortunately promoting this. I mean pornhub is free now and and there are lots of other sites and it can get pretty edgy pretty quickly. In general. Kimbry the Just like with other addictions, the brain has the ability to recover. It just it takes a while. And depending on how long and how intense the use and any other underlying issues, you know, it could be six months or a year. But yes, the brain will is really awesome. If it can't recover in a particular way, it finds workarounds, which is really super. In answer to Lisa's question, whether you place limits on what shows and movies you watch depend on the couple. Some couples, if they discover that one partner is using porn, once they work through those issues, decide that it's okay to watch porn together, but only when they're together in the early recovery period. Some couples choose to let the porn using partner still use porn as long as they're doing it together. And others say, no, we need to have break from any pornography. It's really important for each couple to figure out what's comfortable for them. There is a really good website for those of you who are still here. I know we've run out of time. All right, that's not it. I will find the link and I will put it in your class. It's called your brain on porn. But. And it's a really good. Nofap.com is another really good resource. FAP is another word for masturbation and it helps people stop masturbating as much. Okay, everybody, have an awesome day and I will see you on Thursday. This episode of Counselor Toolbox has been sponsored in part by Foundations Events. As the behavioral health industry evolves, the need for collaboration is greater than ever. Join Foundations Events at the Innovations and behavioral healthcare conference June 20th and 21st in Nashville. Focused on listening to both the patient and provider. This conference offers two days of sessions that follow the journey from meeting the patient where they are to helping them find recovery. Special pricing for licensed clinicians is available, with the opportunity to earn over 20 CEUs. Visit foundationsevents.com counselortoolbox for more information and to register today. If this podcast helps you help your clients or yourself, please support us by purchasing your ceus@allce.com or getting your agency to sponsor an episode. A direct link to the on demand CEUs for this podcast is@allceus.com podcastceus that's allceus.com podcastceus to sponsor an episode of Counselor Toolbox and reach over 50,000 clinicians per week, go to allce.com sponsor thank you.