126 - Building a Bridge to Intimacy

You're listening to the Pure Desire Podcast, your safe place to find hope, healing, and freedom from sexual addiction, betrayal and relationship issues. Hey, hey, hey. I'm your host, Trevor Windsor, and you are listening to episode 126 of the Pure Desire podcast. Here with me, as always, is my co host, Nick Stumbo.

Sleigh bells ring, Are you listening? In the lane snow is glistening. I sure hope this podcast comes out in December or this is going to be a really bad intro.

Well, you know, here's the thing. A lot of people, because, I mean, when we're recording this, it's in November, it's not even Thanksgiving yet, and people listen to Christmas music already and those. I am one of the curmudgeons that just can't stand it. So I'm going to keep my thoughts to myself.

It's like after Thanksgiving meal is when you can start playing it, huh?

That's absolutely right.

Well, it's a beautiful sight. We're happy tonight. Walking in a windshield wonderland.

Look, we have got an awesome episode for you today, but we're gonna. We're switching some things up. We wanted to let you know about a couple things. First before we get into it. The first thing is if you're not subscribed to the Pure Desire podcast, do it, don't wait. You can find us on all the major platforms and look, give us a review. If you give us a review, even if it's. Even if you give us three out of five, we're not gonna be too upset. But do it, because the more reviews we get, the more people will see the podcast. And also if you don't follow us on social media, Facebook, Twitter, instag your DesirePDMI. And you can watch the full episodes of these podcasts also on YouTube, just search pure Desire Ministries. Then the last thing before we get into today's episode, we're rounding out the year. And look, we continue to see how generosity of other men and women who've experienced freedom creates more opportunities to expand the message of hope and healing for so many more. Because of this, we started a campaign that we're calling Free People. Free People.

Yeah. I think we've all heard the concept that hurt people hurt people. That when we don't deal with our stuff, we have a way, inadvertently or intentionally, of passing it to those that come after us. And so as we find healing and freedom and hope and joy, we all want to be people that help pass that along. And just one of the ways that can happen is by being a part of what we do. Here at Pure Desire, by helping us with you make a difference in the lives of more men and women. And we're just, you know, we feel at times like we're a tiny drop in a humongous bucket when it comes to this problem and trying to help people. And so to have people step up and partner, even at, you know, as small as $10 a month, being regular giver can make a huge difference. And so we hope that people will consider, man, I'm finding freedom and I want to pay it forward. And we hope you pay it forward in your relationships and in your church. But if you feel led that you would pay it forward by being a part of partnering with us financially, that'd be really awesome. Yeah.

And to give others that freedom, go to PureDesire.org FreePeople alright, so let's talk about. We had a really good episode that we just had. We sat down with Harry Flanagan, who I will mention is an og, original gangster, been here for a long time. Pure Desire, one of our clinicians, authors, he's been a speaker and we talked about building a bridge to intimacy.

Yeah, I won't reveal that I thought OG meant old guard, so I'll work on that one.

It can mean old guard, that's fine.

But yeah, Harry is great. And I think it's a reminder for us that even when we feel like we understand maybe the concept of intimacy, that there's always so much to learn, there's so much more that we can lean into and grow in. And really that's what makes marriages and family relationships exciting, is they don't have to be this static. Well, Ben, they're done. That kind of feel like we can learn and grow. And I know you and I felt like as we heard from Harry, that we were learning and growing and we've got a lot of things we can take home into our marriages and families. And so I hope every listener feels the same because this is really a huge topic of what healthy relationships are all about.

And I really think that this is the first of many episodes where we begin to explore more and more what intimacy is. So enjoy. Harry, we're glad to have you back. Thanks for being here.

I'm glad to be here.

So as you heard, Harry is one of our clinicians. Really what I refer to him as is one of the Pure Desire OGs. For any of you, if you don't know what an OG is, you can Google it, find it out yourself. But basically he's been here for a long time, right?

Yes.

How many Years.

How many years Since I was the first hired full time employee of Pure desire back in 2007.

So like OG, like way back in the day. Well, cool. Well, we're glad that you're here and we're excited to about this topic.

Well, Harry, I think today's topic is a crucial one for a lot of couples and something we really want to try to help unpack because there's a ton of marriage advice out there about communication and finances and some of those basic stuff that we all need. But I think today's topic is really the undergirding of so many strong relationships and it's missing in so many relationships that are struggling. And so we want to really get into intimacy. So we've used that word quite a bit on this podcast, but would you unpack for us a little bit? What does that intimacy mean? What does that word mean when we use it?

Well, I want to give you the right brain definition because we can come up with a clinical definition of intimacy. But the truth is intimacy is driven by emotions. And if you aren't in touch with your emotions, your ability to be in a healthy, intimate relationship will struggle. So intimacy is about learning to have a relationship where there are healthy boundaries but no walls, where people know what your motives are, what drives you, your intimate partner can trust that who you are when no one else is around is the same as when you are in the face to face relationship. So intimacy ultimately comes down to learning how to build trust. But it's not just trust in the other person trusting you, it's your learning to be reliable to your values.

So what you said at the beginning though, is it's all about an emotional connection, being able to be open enough and vulnerable enough with someone on an emotional level that there's deep connection and bonding that happens there.

Absolutely. Because we think we are people who think and sometimes feel, but we're not.

Not me. Yeah, that's a lot of feel and maybe think.

Absolutely. That's exactly it. For all human matter of fact, before the three of us sat down for this session today, we all carried in an emotion. Mine was terror, but we all brought in an emotion. And then only after the limbic system has established in an emotion, it brings in associated thoughts. So the thoughts aren't even showing up until after the limbic system is said. This is the emotion that's going to drive this. So we are emotional beings and we have done a good job in our culture for many of us, many of the people who come to us for help have repressed their emotions. They are still there, but they are out of their conscious awareness. We have to help them to bring those emotions to the surface so they can begin to be aware of what drives them to do the things they do. Paul tells us in Romans 7:15 that he said, I find the members of my body doing the very thing I don't want to do. Well, we help them to unpack why that's happening.

Yeah.

And walk. Excuse me. And walk through that. And a part of that is getting in touch with your emotions, with your feelings, right? Yeah.

It strikes me that emotions are kind of like what we talk about with wounds or trauma in our life, that everyone has them to a degree or to a level. The question is more whether or not I'm aware of it. And so even a person listening who feels like, well, I'm just not an emotional person, I don't have feelings. It's more likely they're not aware or in touch with what's really going on under the surface. And so in terms of building intimacy, I think becoming aware of those emotions is gonna be step one for some people.

Well, and I've heard Rodney Wright, one of our friends and staff members, talk about. And I've always thought it was cheesy, but it is a really good visual. The idea of intimacy is into me, you see. So it's that idea of really opening, and it is cheesy. And I know you're nodding your head, Harry.

Cause, you know, cheesy.

But we love you, Rodney. But in all reality, it is enough awareness to know what's going on under the surface, and then enough courage. Open the doors and let somebody see that. Let someone experience what really is going on underneath the surface.

One of the things that we kind of forget in this process is I want to win my spouse back. But the beginning of winning the spouse back has got to be me learning how to live an integrous life with my values. So what wins the back is not manipulating my wife or my husband into doing something that I want them to do, but that my integrity allows them to trust the choices I'm making in the process of how we cope with life. So, Nick, your comment about I don't feel emotions. You're talking about people who don't feel emotions. That's because early in life it was a strategy to cope that you learned how to push away or be dismissive of emotions.

Emotions can feel unsafe.

Yes, absolutely.

Let's press into this because I think that intimacy is really not something that we naturally run After, I think it's something that we all want and yearn for. But when we realize maybe what's at stake, there's this. I don't know if I want to do that. So can you just explore that? Why is it so difficult for us to be intimate or intimacy to have that?

Our friend Michael Dye calls it the universal double bind. The thing that I desire the most is also the thing I fear the most. Because intimacy requires vulnerability. And vulnerability has three ingredients to it. Because our culture is very anti vulnerability, even within the church, especially within the leadership of the church. That's something that historically we've pushed away from. But vulnerability requires you to be in a situation where there's uncertainty and that uncertainty requires you to risk. And when you risk, there is emotional exposure. Which is a nice way of saying my fears and anxieties comes with a certain surface. And so that's why we fear intimacy, even though we hunger for it when we cry for it. So we try to take shortcuts. That is what Harry Schomburg, a psychologist out of Colorado, called false intimacy. He wrote a great book about it. And that false intimacy is when I start putting on masks. The word that Jesus used for hypocrites in the Greek literally means an actor who wears a mask. And we put on the mask thinking that's going to convince our spouse, our loved one, to embrace us. We need you to learn how to take off that mask. Realize that we all have weaknesses and strengths and that being honest and open about what you're working through and having them become your greatest cheerleaders when they see this sincerity by which you're doing the work that you're doing to restore that intimacy.

Yeah, I know the three of us have all been impacted by the work of John lynch and Trufaced. And he talks about that mask so well. Of that the mask gets all the love and yet I get none. So what I deeply crave, I'm not experiencing because I wear the mask so well.

Yes.

It makes me think about too how we describe it in so many of our group materials. It's that desire to be fully loved, which we all have, and to be fully known. And it's not possible to be fully loved unless we're fully known. Because then we feel like they're only loving a better version of us. And so that deepening, deep human hunger. I think that's why we're addressing this today, is to recognize that's something about that seems very God given to be fully known by another person and accepted by them. And in so many ways, that is the definition of faith. That's what God gives us, is that ability to be fully known and fully loved. And if we can find that there with him, trusting that perhaps in other people will find something similar because the love of God has impacted their life. And so we're trying to enter into that divine love that is, as you said, scary. It's a double bind. But there's really no other way to experience that depth of love unless there's a depth of knowledge with something that.

You said, too, about the church culture. It's interesting because for me, growing up in the church, I think that so many of us who maybe you know, because, like me and Nick, I know we both had dads who were in pastoral ministry, and that was a part of our story and our upbringing is that we almost look to the pastor as if he is the he or she in this situation, that they are the professional Christian, quote, unquote. And. And there isn't vulnerability or authenticity or really just someone who's willing to be real from the front in leadership. It ends up being modeled that I'm supposed to be this, like, always wear a suit and tie to church, but not even that. But that's the way I should present myself, that I have it together. I don't have struggles. I don't have issues. And so I know for me, that was a huge hurdle when realizing that someone has to completely know me in order to be completely intimate with me. And it was like, well, I've never seen that done before. For me, it created this huge hurdle of just fear. I don't know what this looks like, and I know people have written books on it, but it's not like there's a playbook on. Here's exactly what it looks like to finally be vulnerable. So for me, that's why group was such a huge thing. Once you leap over that, over that hurdle, you start to understand people actually crave you to be more vulnerable.

So the interesting thing is that in the realm of.

Are you gonna counsel me right now?

Yes, I am counseling. No, I promise I won't. Trevor. Maybe a little bit.

That's good.

But I just said to you that vulnerability requires uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. But there's another word that our culture, and especially our Christian culture, really embraces, which is courage. But courage requires the same three things. You have to be in a place of uncertainty and risk. And this idea of fearless courage is a myth, because courage has to be done in the presence of fear. Otherwise it's not courageous.

Right. It doesn't exist.

It doesn't exist. And I would tell you that I think faith is the same thing. Faith requires us to be in a place of uncertainty, to exercise our faith. So here we are believing that faith and courage are things to be embraced, but when it comes to actually living them out in the presence of our spouse, we're afraid of it, because we're so afraid of being rejected, abandoned, hurt, wounded, be dismissed. And we've all experienced those kind of wounds. So for us, the healing actually begins not with our spouse, but with us dealing with our issues, learning how to be integrous. There's a researcher that the two of you know I really appreciate. Her name is Brene Brown, and she gives a definition of accountability is to own your mistakes, apologize, and make amends. And if we have our people who are listening to this podcast, they really take ownership of their choices. Not trying to blame or deflect onto other people, but realize, I made a mistake, I need to own it. And if I can, I need to fix what I've done. And we have that opportunity. But it also ties into reliability that I say what I'm going to do. So I can't over promise. How many of us have over promised because we wanted the approval of someone else, especially our spouse. And we have to be aware of our limitations again, being able to embrace the vulnerability of I have strengths and I have weaknesses. And we're going to be this way from my perspective, until we see Jesus face to face. Yeah, yeah.

It's a process and it's messy. And yet, as we've been saying, something within us knows it's good. We know it's what we need. And so, Harry, if that's the case, if intimacy is what we want in our relationships, let's look at what are some of the things that really tear down or prevent intimacy in a relationship. What would you list as the things that we really have to guard against if we want to build intimacy in a relationship?

There are three things right off the bat. Number one is isolation. And we have to separate the difference between isolation and solitude. Solitude is a good part of intimacy because intimacy begins being intimate with yourself. When you're isolated, you not only push other people away from God's perspective, Jesus at the end of Matthew says that in the parable of the King, when I was hungry, you fed me. And he goes on, but they said, when did we do this for you? He says, as you've done to the least of my brothers, so you've done to me. So when we isolate from other people, the significant people of our, our life, from his perspective, we're isolating from him also. But the biggest piece is we isolate from those parts of ourself we don't want to look at. So the beginning of developing intimacy is learning how to love yourself in the midst of your strengths and weaknesses, your imperfections and being able to. We all have self talk. As a matter of fact, your limbic system is giving self talk 247 all the time. And we need to start talking to ourselves as if we're talking to someone we love. We're living out Jesus bonus commandment out of Matthew 22, love your neighbor as yourself and being able to do that. But I think that it goes beyond that, that we need to be.

Being.

Willing to embrace the ongoing journey that when we're in an int relationship we're asking two imperfect people and we are going to experience iron sharpens iron. There's no way around that we're going to experience that. And we have to be able to embrace that experience of recognizing we are going to make mistakes, we are going to at times fail. And when we own up to it, when we face our issues, it builds the trust of the spouse to see that kind of integrity taking place.

Yeah.

So what are the other two? You said that there are three.

The second is passivity or passive aggressiveness where we, we don't want to fail anymore. So we let the other person make the decisions and then we're passive aggressive. We let them make their decision, then we're critical of a decision they make. You know. And the third category, I don't know why it's always last, but it's procrastination. Yeah.

You were going to get to it sooner.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Those three, those three all self protective behaviors that we do. And remember I said that is having a relationship without walls. And those self protections become walls that interfere with. Make our spouses question whether or not what they're seeing is real. You know that if they discover that I'm saying I've got this done and I have never even started it, the project, well, what does that say to them? What other areas am I lying to them? And remember there's two kinds of lies. There's a lie of commission where I tell a lie and there's lies of omission. And both are incredibly painful and powerful in the disrupting of building intimacy because it says there really isn't a partnership happening in this moment.

Yeah. It strikes me, Harry how your response to that is very similar to what John Gottman finds in his research, like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse when it comes to marriage, destruction. And the key role that criticism has in really undermining intimacy, that if someone is vulnerable with us or opening that door of this is the real me. And our response is critical or condemning or shaming what we're saying to that person. And this could be with our spouse, it could be with our kids, it could be with a family member that when they have that courage to start to be real, if that's our response, what they're going to learn is that's not a safe person and I can't be vulnerable with them. And thus it's really going to be a barrier to intimacy. And I say that not as a condemning jab at someone else, but knowing in my own life I can be a very critical person. And when people make mistakes, there's a part of me that can be like, why did you do that? Or what's wrong? Or how come? And that critical spirit says, you can't be vulnerable with me. And so I have to guard my own heart. And I think it comes to what you say about that personal work, in solitude of knowing myself, accepting God's grace for myself, being in a good place for me. So that when someone takes that step in a relationship, my response can be one of love and acceptance and gratitude. Thanks for being open. I appreciate you sharing with me. And then they can learn, oh, this is a safe person for intimacy to develop with.

In Connections, I wrote chapters six and seven on shame because you can't cover shame in one lesson. As a matter of fact, it's a lifelong lesson. Yeah, and even two chapters isn't enough. But Nick, one of the underpinning issues of shame is contempt. Whether it is self contempt or other centered contempt, where we have contempt for other people, there can be no intimacy. When contempt is a driving force in the relationship. When shame is a driving force in the relationship, researchers would tell you that it is the most powerful of all emotions, that even it has the ability to even tarnish love. Because shame describes communicates the message that you are unworthy of love and belonging. For example, there are people who are listening to us who have experienced the silent treatment. And some of us have even initiated the silent treatment. But the message of the silent treatment is you are so horrible that you are. I can't talk to you now. You are unworthy of even embracing. And the message is that you're on the outside looking in on this relationship. And when that happens, we have all these broken people when they already feel shame and they get that message of shame from their spouse. This is where they go to their destructive coping behaviors because they feel like they have the only person they can trust to meet their needs is themselves. And then we go back into all the addictive issues that they tend to come to us for. Counselors, counseling for speaking of shame.

That is definitely something that a lot of parents carry especially into when they start to have kids and they start to understand what it means to talk about sexuality. And that's why we're really excited to tell you about a new offering that we have. We know that this world is a scary place for a parent. Can we agree on that?

Yes.

Okay. So we both know it. And of all the scary topics to talk about with our kids, sexual seems to always be at the top of that list. So we're super excited for our newest book by Rodney and Tracy Wright. And it's simply just called how to talk with your kids about sex.

Yeah.

And interesting in the title how important that little word with is that it's not about talking to them and having that one time birds and the bees talk, but really creating a new conversation, a new culture in our home where we're able to talk about sex and sexuality and be of a part, part of helping our kids form in their thinking and not just think we can fix it all in one talk. So I'm super excited about the book. You know, in my role as director at Pure Desire, I was evaluating whether or not we were going to print it. And so I'm reading the manuscript and I knew the book was good. When I continued to find that I wasn't reading it as the director of Pure Desire, I was just reading it as a dad.

Right.

And I was taking notes and thinking about how to build into my kids. And when I was done reading, I thought, I am so glad to have this book as a dad. And I also thought, I really wish my parents had had this book. So if I could say anything to our listeners, it's the kind of book you want to have and that will really form your thoughts around how do you parent your kids and help them in this area.

Yeah. So if you want to pre order the book and start the new conversation in your household, go to PureDesire.org kids. Okay. Harry, this is super good. I mean, I feel like anytime we have a clinician on, I feel like I just need to, like, not be hosting and just be listening.

I'm Writing a lot of notes over here.

Yes, so many notes. So you're talking about three ways that really self protective ways that keep us from experiencing intimacy or tear it down. So let's go to the good stuff then talk us through some stuff that we can do to create that intimacy or start to build a bridge to it.

Well, the first is about self awareness. We have to learn how to become aware of our emotions. So one of the interesting things I think because I used to teach for 10 years, I used to teach church history and everything that we believe about a devotional life actually comes out of the monastic movement in the Catholic Church. Everything, 100% of it. And yet for those of us who are not of Catholic persuasion, there are people who refute everything. If it's Catholic, it must be bad. But I want to tell you that one of the things that, that they have developed in recent years is something called welcoming prayer. And it's about me learning how to surrender my life to Christ. Today, Lord, I welcome every emotion I'm going to experience. Because remember, emotions are informative emotions. Tell me something I need to know. And there are really joyful emotions, there are pleasant emotions, there's uncomfortable emotions, and there are emotions that I feel fear. But there's no such thing as a bad emotion. Every emotion is there to communicate something that I need to hear. And when I push away those emotions, I push away all of the emotions. And I'm not going to allow myself to gain insight into why I feel the way I feel. Do we have time for a story, please? Two weeks ago I had a strange thing happen in that I had on Thursday morning I had had two of my clients cancel their afternoon appointments. And I told my wife, Debbie, I said, you know, you know, I'm tired, I'm going to go take a nap. So I went to take a short quote, unquote short nap and woke up two hours later. And I was immediately aware the house was empty. And I was uncomfortable with that. And I didn't hear even the mundane things that Debbie normally is doing. I didn't hear doing any of that. And so I thought, well, she could be at the far end of the house in the office doing her pure desire work. So I got up and I was halfway through my house when all of a sudden it hit me. It wasn't that the house was feeling empty, it was that I was feeling empty.

Empty.

Normally that means I turn on the TV or I go to my computer and start either looking at my football trivia stuff or get into My work or I turn music on something to push away the emptiness. But I thought to myself, what's this message about? And I allowed myself to kind of sink into this emotion. And I discovered that the emptiness I feeling was actually a loneliness. I didn't expect to wake up without the presence of my wife. And she was just out on taking advantage to do errands, not doing anything. No, not at all. But it led me into being grateful for even some of the mundane things that she did. And that led me actually into a period of time, maybe 15 or 20 minutes, where I was just feeling this overwhelming sense of gratitude for all the things that God is doing in my life. And that wouldn't have happened if I wasn't willing to dig into that empty feeling I had. And yet I look back at my life and I'm thinking how many wasted years I had when I pushed away those emotions and feelings because I thought that they were something that were unwanted.

That's one of the pastors and authors I've been really listening to very recently is a local guy here in Portland. John Mark Comer is his name at Bridgetown Church here in Portland. One of the things I've been hearing him say and kind of explore is this is actually a quote that he said that secularism or atheism is not the. It's not really the reason why people aren't seeking out Christ anymore. And it's not the reason why spiritual formation isn't happening. It's actually we're in a hurry or we're busy. Which really what it is is nowadays it's your phone. Like, when I'm bored, I have something I can go to. I've got Netflix, I've got tv, I've got my phone, I've got social media, I can listen to podcasts. And I was having a similar experience where I was on my way home from the speaking thing I was a part of. And I was on my way home, I had a 45 minute drive and I had this sense like, okay, I need to put something in my ears now and listen to it. And I just felt this little prompting like, what if you didn't.

Yes.

What would happen? And I'm gonna tell you it's not like. And it probably doesn't happen every time. I did not have this experience where it was this overwhelming, like God spoke to me in the moment, but it was this little, like this little press into my soul. Like, it's okay to just explore how you feel right now and to be present with where you're at that. And, man, I'm starting to crave that more and more. Those moments of, you know what? Even though I feel weird and need something and want something, I don't have to have it. I don't have to fill my mind with something else. I can just be present and let the Lord do what he's going to do in that moment.

Solitude. Yeah, exactly, Trevor. That's terrific, because all of us need to slowly. Okay, that caveat. Okay, I accept. But I think all of us need to be able to slow down to do self discovery. Because when we're dealing with intimacy with our spouse, we're not stagnant beings. And if we don't do some self exploring and have something to share with our spouses about what we're learning about life, what we're learning about ourselves, then we lose the ability. Actually, there's another word that is just screaming in my head right now. When we deal with our clients here at Pure Desire and I bring up sensuality, the room goes quiet. It goes totally quiet. And everybody is thinking that sensuality is about sex. Where actually, in truth, sensuality is a very, very small percentage of sex is a very small percentage of sensuality. Sensuality, embracing our emotions and feelings. And so the courtship with our spouse needs to be sensual. The sense that we do activities that are novel to us because we're created for novelty, we're created to grow, we're created for new experiences. And it's about what our five senses experience is. So a sunset for some people taking a walk on the beach or a great gourmet meal. There are many things that we do for this, but it creates. If we're always pursuing the building of our relationship and not just the maintaining of our relationship by continuing to court our wife or our husband is going to go a long way. But take sensuality out of the super sexual definition of it and get to what it really is, which is you're incorporating your five senses into looking for those experiences with each other that heighten our relationship.

Yeah. And when we think about building intimacy in our relationship, I know for us as a couple, early on in this journey, the ability to sit down and talk through our faster scales, which we've talked a lot about in this podcast, because it has that crucial first question in whatever level you're at, how do you think and feel and learning to share feelings and perceptions and why I did what I did and doing that with Michelle, with my spouse, it opens so many doors of conversation, of people, things I figured she knew or was aware of, but her ability then to see into how work made me feel. My performance issues. It was an easy. I'd hate to say easy as if it was simple, but it was a simple, easy way to start sharing my emotions and becoming aware of them myself, but also aware of them in our marriage, which created more connection and made her aware or be able to share what she was feeling about things going on. So that's one thing we recommend if you're looking to build that into your marriage. How can. How could you just have a weekly night and we didn't do it on our date night because we wanted our date night to be fun and about the relationship, and it was more of a connection time. And I think that made a huge difference for us. So, Harry, speaking about couples and going back to building intimacy in our relationships, I'm sure there's many people listening that are kind of questioning, like, well, I think we have intimacy. I think it's okay. I'm not sure. So what are some practical tips or tools, tools that you would give to people to check up on the level of intimacy in their relationships?

Wow. With the diversity that we have, I think that the evaluation comes down to how much. If I ask a general question about trust, we're going to get a different answer. If I say, do you generally trust your husband or your wife during the course of day? On a scale of 1 to 10, I'll get 7, eights, nines, occasionally a tens. But I say, well, how much do you trust them in their fidelity to you? It's a two. They don't know. So the crux of all of this is the establishing of trust, that there is a clear expectation that both husband and wife agree to. That allows that to go forward. But a part of this is the trust has to be revealed through sharing your inner world. So, Nick, the faster scale is great. Debbie and I created something called hlp. I tried to get an E in there, but I couldn't. It really just wouldn't go in work. But we have them sit down and they take five minutes and they share their emotional high. What was the event and what was the emotion, their emotional low and what they found themselves to be preoccupied with and the accompanying emotion. And their partner can only ask clarifying questions or make empathetic thoughts, but no fixing each other doing this. And I had couples say to me, this is so mundane and simple. And they contact me a week later saying, we're talking like we've never talked before because we discovered that it's safe. So I have a one page document that Debbie and I created that we would be glad to share with you to put on the, the website so that people can have access to that. Because I think it's important for them to have face to face time. And in that face to face time, it needs to be without interruption. So turn off electronics, schedule at a time when the kids are finally in bed or before they get up, depending on your schedules, because I think that's important. But I also think it's important for people to dream together, that they have a target they are shooting for. And part of the problem I see when people come in and they have gone down a dead end with addiction by someone in the family, they've lost their ability to dream. And part of the healing process is to give them back something to be moving forward in their lives that they can embrace both individually and as, as a couple.

Yeah, we, me and Amy have been a couple things. We've tried the Gottman cards, those ones that just like. And we've done that on long drives. We know we're going to the beach or somewhere where sometimes we'll ask those questions. And even if we've gone through them before, it's still just basically almost like reopening lines of communication again. And then another thing that we do is it's called the marriage journal. And I can put a link in the notes as well for people. And it's just. It asks the same six questions every week. Like, you know, what's something that brought joy? What was a challenge? It asks, is there something you've been dreaming about this week? But then also you guys, you map out your schedule together. And that as small and simple, as mundane, that is too. It helps facilitate like, oh, you know, for us it's like Justin, who's on staff and his wife Abigail, they come over every week and so we'll talk through. Oh yeah, that's right, we have this on Monday. Do you want to play this game? Do you want to watch this show? What do we want to do? And then it just helps us plan out our week where it's something that is really small and you will wouldn't think we're developing or establishing intimacy, but at the end of it you're like, I do feel closer. I feel like we've gone in together as a team on something and we're together.

This is not a small thing, Trevor. This is big. Because what you're really describing is that you are learning. In our addictions we learn to be Isolated. Here you're learning how to work in communities. Community. And that community begins with you and your wife. So you and Amy together and those simple dialogues open the door for this. But I would encourage everyone, you can go online and I think that I can safely say there is about three gazillion feeling wheels out there, you know, different variations on feeling wheels. And I want to encourage people to get that because we, you know, I had a fellow show up and he, I asked him about his feelings. He says, I'm really simple, mad, sad and glad. And that's all I asked. His wife looked at the same list, it was from John Gottman, and saw 47 things listed. And she said 47 emotions. Well, it's a start. And so we have to help people. And I've seen some women who have mad, sad and glad. So we have to help people discover how to have a vocabulary for their emotions.

Speaking the language of emotions.

Yep, exactly.

So what?

Because I think that, you know, especially in our line of work in this area, when someone is starting to explore what health looks like and then they realize that intimacy isn't actually what's been happening in their marriage and they want to pursue that with their spouse. Sometimes someone will run into a situation where their spouse is not on the same page, is not about establishing intimacy, and seems closed off to it. What would you say to that person? This is man or woman in this area. And maybe it's a betrayed spouse that realizes intimacy needs to be infused back into a marriage. How would you encourage them?

Well, listen, there's some problems that we have in a marriage that the couple is equipped enough to be able to handle with themselves. But I would tell you that I went to a church in upstate New York, great church. If I was living in upstate New York, this is where I would be attending a great fellowship. But I asked the congregation, how many of you. And this was multiple service congregation. I asked how many of you had a quality birds and bees conversation with your parents. Four people. Four people. And I asked them to meet with me after each service. And they all told me it was all just biology. So we've done a really poor job of equipping people to what it's like to have an intimate, healthy relationship. And so I would tell you that there are times where you need some professional. Sometimes going to a weekend seminar is great. You're going to get some tools. Sometimes, though, you need more in depth help. And when you have a husband or a wife who has a wall that looks a lot like the Berlin wall from the 1960s. Then you need to get professional help to negotiate. But remember that. Not that I haven't memorized, but Michael Dye on PA Paragraph 2, the last sentence says that being stuck is waiting for someone else to change. In order for you to be okay, we have to help people get centered back to their relationship with Christ and that they can be okay whether their husband or wife are making good choices or poor choices. Because ultimately our well being is going to be found in Christ and not in another, another person.

In this area. I always think of an old joke I heard in comedy that do you know the key to really good comedy? Timing. That's why I'm bad at comedy because I can never figure out the timing, the long pause for drama there. But I think a lot of it comes to the timing and your relationship of how and when you bring this up. Because I think when a spouse feels that they can tend towards nagging, they tend towards lobbying you always and you nevers. And it puts the other person just in this defensive posture from the get go because of how and when it's being brought up versus finding that timing of when are we at an acceptable place where we're both at ease, we're able to talk about how we're doing and to bring up, I'm feeling disconnected from you and do it in a way that hopefully could lead to productive conversation versus at 11pm at the end of a long day, suddenly trying to bring it and the other spouse is like, I'm exhausted. Like now we're going to try to talk about this. And so that timing is key. And the other thing that comes to mind is that the idea, and it comes up in several of our workbooks as well, that men tend to pursue sex in order to feel connected. Women tend to pursue sex because they feel connected. And I think it is appropriate for if it's the female in the relationship to maybe bring that up and say, you know, honey, I know you're interested in more sex in our relationship. I think it'd be helpful for you to see that the way my psyche works is that when I feel connected to you, I'm more likely to engage and be in that kind of a zone. And the way I feel connected is when we're emotionally connecting and to bring up that key of there has to be that level of growing intimacy. And I think for a lot of men that I've gone through group with, that's been a big understanding for them of, oh, it's not just about being a better husband and helping more in the kitchen. And those things help. But understanding how to speak the language of emotions and connect with their wife emotionally, that it leads then to more physical intimacy as a byproduct versus pressuring. I wish we had sex more. I wish we had sex more. So I think those are just a couple of ideas for a spouse to think about. What's the timing to bring it up and how could I communicate that our physical activity together could increase if we focused in on a better emotional connection through throughout the day?

Accusation does not work. Yeah, totally. And so In Galatians, Chapter 6, Paul encourages us to correct with all gentleness. And we tend to think that we have to power up to get the message across. But emotionally communicating, I'm hurt, I'm feeling alone, I'm feeling isolated, I'm feeling like you're physically here, but emotionally you're somewhere else. Being able to communicate that open the door. And if that doesn't work, that's when I would be telling people it would be a good idea to get some professional help.

One of the things that I've been thinking about too, and I'm the type of personality that when I learn something, I just can't wait to tell everybody and get them all. That's why I feel like in some ways that's why we use certain books here, I've had certain conversations here, or why my friend group is passionate about this or that. If we talk about the Enneagram, which we have before. I'm a seven enthusiast. That's literally what I do. So for me, I tend to get overexcited and want to implement all these things and do all these practices and try all these things in my marriage. And even this weekend I was having a conversation with some trusted friends who are stages ahead of me in life, which is just a kind way to say that they're old. But one of the things that they told me is just the idea of you need to just implement this practice in your life and let the fruit really just start to manifest in your life and allow that to be the one that starts the conversation in some way. And so whether it's stuff with my wife or my friends, it's just something where I need to allow God to work in my life and then allow conversations to be birthed out of the fruit of my life rather than, oh my gosh, I read this great book, let's just put our phones down and never use them again. It's like, no, and this is my own self talk. Slow down Trev, you can do this. Just start doing this in your life. Allow it to bear fruit. And then when an opportunity arises, then talk about it.

If you feel led to do it, that is. Yeah, yeah.

Which I'm terrible at. Like, don't. And I, you know, it's just. I'm not good at that so far. It's just something I'm learning and trying to put into practice now.

So, Harry, any other pitfalls that you see when people start to work on building intimacy into their relationship?

Well, I. I made allusions to this. There is a lot of codependent behavior. And codependent behavior is when you think of the. Ultimately that you're saf. Safety is dependent on your being able to change your spouse to be the spouse that you want him or her to be. The reality in this process is that manipulation, no matter how good you think your motives are, manipulation is not healthy. What we're looking for, instead of controlling somebody else to get what we need, we need to learn how to be assertive. And truly, assertiveness does not require any controlling or manipulation of another person. It's me being able to, in a gracious way, ask for what I need. And they may say no. And they may have very legitimate reasons to say no to me, and that's okay. But they will know that I have sought connection with them, that I'm asking for their involvement in my life and learning how to ask those clarifying questions. A clarifying question isn't a leading question. A clarifying question is saying, I really don't know the answer to this. I would love for you to be able to explain to me, help me to understand why you're doing what you're doing. And that opens the door for that communication, Nick, that you and Michelle talk about when you're doing your faster scale, for example.

So you're saying that dropping hints, waiting for them to mind read, hoping they'll notice the mood we're in and ask if they can help, that those aren't going to be successful in building intimacy. Okay, note taken. Thank you.

Literally, notes being taken. So let's just end with this, Harry. I think a lot of us know what it means to not have an intimate relationship, especially after listening through this episode. There are probably areas of our marriages or our relationships that we're like, okay, maybe I don't have as much as I thought I did. So how does having true in intimacy in a relationship, how does it change that relationship?

Well, it changes the relationship because you're allowing someone else to have an influence on your life, you're willing to, you know, when we're in a friendship, we. We're going to go through the highs and lows together. When we are in an addictive mindset, we. We want to push away all of the uncomfortable emotions, feelings, and circumstances. And there is no real, true ability for partnership. So when we're intimate, it is the connections that get built through going through not just the high points together, but working through the difficult and low points together. And that creates an intimacy. When I married Debbie, I thought, wow, I can't think of a better life partner. And I look back, back now, 20 some years later, later this month, it will be 23 years later that I look and think the depth of my love has increased as I've gotten to know the depth of who she is as a person. And we've gone through some great times together and we've gone through some difficulties together and both helped build us into the people we are today. So it's being willing to have that level of vulnerability, that nasty word again, vulnerability show up. Because remember that it actually is a form of courage. To be vulnerable is courageous. So we're choosing to be courageous in our relationship and willing to go through those highs and lows together.

So good.

So one thing becomes very clear, Harry. We need to have you on the podcast more often. Often, if anything, so that you have more courage to do it, that you won't feel insecure, because this has been awesome. We just appreciate your thoughts and your expertise and really your experience in leaning into intimacy in your marriage. So thanks for your time.

Well, thank you. And you know, with two of you, we all work together, but the truth is we have more face to face time here than anywhere else.

That's true. That is true. That is true. And what also is true is that real and deep intimacy is possible in a marriage, even one which has experienced sexual brokenness and, and betrayal. But it's going to take difficult and intentional work to break down those walls and come in really uncomfortably close to each other. So we hope that you or anyone you know understands that pure desire is here to help create a roadmap for your healing. If you or someone you know is looking for help, go to PureDesire.org and start your healing journey. And if you haven't subscribed to the podcast, hit that subscribe button and keep the conversation going. Write a review, help others find the podcast, and never stop being healthy.

Sam.