The Ultimate Intimacy Podcast
Nick and Amy are the creators and owners of the Ultimate Intimacy App and brand. They dive into all the tough topics regarding sexual and emotional intimacy, and discuss the things that most couples deal with regularly in marriage, that are seldom talked about on other podcasts. They are raw, unscripted, personal, and Nick will most likely say things he will regret ;)
They have been married over 22 years and have 4 kids, 3 dogs, and share their own life experiences and trials that have helped them transform their own relationship. They are on a mission to help couples not just survive in marriage, but thrive in marriage.
Their podcast is focused on helping you find "Ultimate Intimacy" in your relationship both in and out of the bedroom. Also, for a great resource to help transform your relationship, check out the Ultimate Intimacy App at ultimateintimacy.com
The Ultimate Intimacy Podcast
287. The Tools And Strategies That Work To Overcome Porn With LMFT Austin Ellis
Have you ever wondered how unresolved emotional pain can manifest into destructive habits like pornography addiction?
Today, we welcome back Austin Ellis, a dedicated therapist specializing in sexual addiction recovery, who shares his intimate journey from personal struggle to professional savior. Austin’s deeply personal anecdotes and professional wisdom provide a roadmap for couples grappling with the devastating impact of pornography on their marriages.
Austin tackles the root causes of addiction, beyond the superficial fixes often suggested, and explores deeper issues, such as chronic stress and feelings of inadequacy, and shares how they fuel addictive behaviors.
We promise you'll walk away with hope, practical strategies, and a renewed belief that recovery and happiness are within reach.
If you haven't already, go check out the Ultimate Intimacy App in the app stores, or at ultimateintimacy.com to find "Ultimate Intimacy" in your marriage. It's FREE to download and so much fun! Find out why over 700,000 couples have downloaded the app and give it such high ratings and reviews!
WANT AMAZING PRODUCTS TO SPICE THINGS UP? YES PLEASE... CLICK HERE
The Ultimate Intimacy Sexual Intimacy Marriage Course can be found HERE
The Intimacy and Adventure Marriage Retreat to connect on a deeper level as a couple! Find out more at https://ultimateintimacy.com/retreats/
Follow us on Instagram @ultimateintimacyapp for app updates, polls, giveaways, daily marriage quotes and more.
If you have any feedback, comments or topics you would like to hear on future episodes, reach out to us at amy@ultimateintimacy.com and let us know! We greatly appreciate your feedback and please leave us a review.
Enjoy the podcast or have some feedback for us? Shoot us a message!
You are listening to the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast, where we discuss how to find ultimate intimacy in your relationship. We believe that, no matter how many years you've been married, you can achieve passion, romance, happiness and ultimate intimacy at any stage of your life. Join us as we talk to not only marriage experts, but couples just like yourself and people who are just flat out fun. The Ultimate Intimacy Podcast is for couples who have a good relationship but want to make it even better.
Speaker 3:It's the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast with Nick and Amy and we welcome back Austin Ellis. Back to the podcast. We are going to talk about pornography today. Welcome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, great to have you back, and last episode we did with you was just fantastic, and we're real excited to talk about this really important subject. We feel like this is something that a lot of people deal with and, as Amy and I have shared in previous podcasts, it's not fortunately, it's not something that we've had to deal with in our marriage, but because of that, we often don't know how to talk about this as effectively as maybe we want to, and so we wanted to have an expert on so here we are. Well appreciate it.
Speaker 4:Um, maybe, if you're okay, I'll just give a little quick background of my experience with this. Okay and um, my journey as a therapist be started because of my own struggles with pornography. I wouldn't say I was addicted at that point, but I was definitely struggling early in our marriage after not viewing pornography for, like, I hadn't viewed it much before and then not at all the first three years, but I was starting to go down this slippery slope and it was affecting things. So I decided to become a therapist because I wasn't figuring it out. And then I became the director of a clinic that was all focused on sexual addiction recovery for couples.
Speaker 4:So everybody that came was a husband and wife duo where pornography or other sexual betrayal had occurred. They still cared about each other, still loved each other and they wanted healing and that that was my heavy focus for, like, the first eight years of my career, and so I have a lot of personal and professional experience in that and there's a lot of, there's a lot of important hope. Like people can heal, people can overcome. I'm excited to go into that today and ask, you know, answer some specific questions and really hopefully help couples see that even in this devastating space that can be so painful for both. There is hope, there is healing and there is happiness again.
Speaker 5:And I think that's why we're so excited to have you on, because you have the personal aspect and you have the professional aspect and you are helping tons of people with this problem.
Speaker 3:Well, and I can honestly say for me.
Speaker 3:I think one of the reasons I've been fortunate enough to not have this come into my life is because Amy and I have some people that we're very close to, several people that we've seen how this has really impacted their marriage and their relationship, and so I think, for a long time, seeing the devastating consequences of that, it really had an impact on me, devastating consequences of that.
Speaker 3:It really had an impact on me and um, I, you know we've joked around about this, but I remember telling Amy I'm like I pray every night that I won't have the desire. She's like why do you pray about that if you don't have the, you know, if you don't have a problem with it? And I'm like because I don't ever want to have a problem with it and I think it it really is something that can come out of nowhere and capture you if you're not careful. I mean, I think oftentimes we look at situations like, oh, I would never do that or get into that. But I think for so many people, this is a topic that can almost just, you know, like a plague or a sickness, almost just come. It's coming after everyone and it really is scary.
Speaker 5:It's everywhere. Now right, it's in every show and social media. It's everywhere.
Speaker 3:Well, I should say that yeah I've seen porn because you, you cannot get away from seeing it in this life. But we're talking about you know obviously further than that, but mean the point I'm trying to make is you are going to see it, your kids are going to see it, but what can we do to not become, I guess, addicted to it and make it up for our lives and if we are like he's saying, there's hope and healing, which is incredible.
Speaker 5:We've seen it, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:There's an important place to start here that unfortunately, you don't often see in the therapeutic world or the media, and, um, I'll just share this little backstory. So I was a clinician there in las vegas and we had a conference come and this was. This was when, uh, you know, social media type places were figuring out like hey, there's this dopamine thing and like we can get people addicted to video games and you know, throwing little birds across the like we can get people locked in for hours, this gamified thing, right, and they presented this information and it was, it was neuroscience, like it was like, hey, we can manipulate the brain, like we can sell stuff and we can get people locked in. And I remember at this conference, um, you know someone who had been in kind of this, uh, you know this, this tech world figuring out the how to how do we lock people in to this online thing? They kind of had like an awakening and they're like, oh, this can be used in a in a not healthy way. And what they said is they figured out how to get kids just addicted to like video games and like push the button and we see this kid, an adult, lost for hours.
Speaker 4:And the presenter made this really profound statement. He said if, if they learn how to hijack it, you know, with just video games and things, they're going to figure out how to do it with something way more powerful, which is sexuality, which is pornography. Right, and since that time you know this was maybe 12 years ago we've seen this explosion of like people getting locked in and we need to be aware that I mean, there is people that are figuring out ways to hold men and women and children in and it's intentional and it's sinister, like it's not. There's not good intentions there and I believe there's an adversary that wants to pull apart families, that wants to hurt couples and parent-child relationships, and we see it all over the place and it's being talked about more that pornography is a struggle, but we're not talking that. There is opposition and there also is hope. There is a way to grow past it.
Speaker 4:And so just, you know my belief that there's an adversary. I also believe there's a savior that can help us heal. And I'd love to go into, you know, aspects of this journey, this thing that is affecting so many, from this perspective of how do we twofold, how do we avoid it, how do we safeguard our families and ourselves? And then two, if we're in it, right, if we've been affected by it to various degrees. Maybe you're not addicted, maybe you're just starting, or maybe you're full blown out of control, like, um, talk about some of that if that sounds okay for the two of you.
Speaker 3:I think that's great, because I think there are a lot of people out there that are like I don't have a problem with this, but even if you don't have a problem with it, there's still certain boundaries or things that you need to put into place to continuously keep, like you said, the adversary. He's going to do everything he can to try to destroy your family, and I really believe personally that this is one of the probably the biggest things, if not the biggest thing, that he can utilize to destroy a family, because there are so many consequences of going down this path.
Speaker 5:So to speak, and even if you don't struggle with pornography in general, I like what you said. We're talking like video games, all those things that are breaking apart the family like maybe put yourself in this this doesn't always have to be pornography, but like breaking apart the family comes in a lot of different ways, right? So the adversary is, like you said, affecting us negatively.
Speaker 3:Well, and, I think too, real quick, just like we've said, that if it is something you're struggling with, it most importantly is to provide hope to you, to make you recognize that, yeah, there is hope and, although you're struggling with this, you can. You can get out of this, you can, you can find peace and happiness and and break away, uh from from these things that are holding I think a lot of people do.
Speaker 5:You believe that a lot of men feel like they and some women, like there's no hope right, like I'm never going to overcome this, and you've seen so many people break through this.
Speaker 4:We've seen people break through like there is, there is a way out yeah, let's probably dive right there, like maybe this is the most hopeful thing. I can say like 100 people can overcome this, even from the depths of addiction any addiction, to be honest. Um, and the quickest way isn't what we I would call the defensive ways, it's these offensive ways and all kind of distinguish between those. When people are in in an addiction, when they're struggling with pornography, for example, or, honestly, maybe they're being pulled to an affair, or even in an affair like we disconnect from ourselves, right. So if you and or your marriage started with a value system that these things aren't okay and I want to be faithful to you, and and then somewhere along the way, you gave in, what I start to see happen is people change their values and they're like, hey, this isn't so bad or it's harmless or whatever, but it's affecting a partner. And instead of saying, hey, I changed the game because I had my belief system switch, we need to come back to like, where did we start this thing? We started with beauty and love and this vision of connection. I need to go back to that and get connected to I don't want to cause you pain. Instead of, let me talk you into why you shouldn't feel pain, right, which happens a lot. And so this first piece that I want to help with, this offense, um, I'll share from my experience with playing defense.
Speaker 4:Okay, so I got myself addicted and I was like I'm gonna cut out all technology, all computers, I'm gonna be super safe, and like I could limit it. I just I just didn't have access, right, okay, um, but I was putting all of this misdirected lust towards my spouse. I wasn't operating from love all the time in our intimacy and she felt that I think a lot of women feel that way. Where a husband is viewing pornography or wanting to, he's approaching her just from a physical desire space, not a I love you space, and that in and of itself can be damaging.
Speaker 4:Okay, but as I gave in and again, it's a progression, so I wasn't maybe addicted right off the bat, but I was turning to it, you know, when I wasn't feeling good or when I wasn't investing in my marriage and intimacy wasn't available, or, honestly, it became a point where there was plenty of sexual intimacy and I was turning to it for stress or boredom or like. This is what happens your brain starts to use it any addiction for all sorts of things. Anyways, playing defense only worked until there was an opportunity to have it, and then I would go into it and I'd have a relapse and it, you know, hurt things. And then I'm like, okay, we'll lock it up tighter. And for a long time I wasn't trying to figure out how do I face the temptation and choose not to go into it? How do I be stronger than it? Right, yeah?
Speaker 4:I love that and I would say for anybody struggling, I've seen this really powerful thing happen in some of the work I do where, okay, your emotions, your sexuality, your mindset is geared towards wanting this, to view this thing, to experience this. You know this. Escape this high, whatever right. And what I'll often tell people is I don't believe your spirit is addicted. Okay, I think your humanness has become addicted, your brain has become hijacked, but your spirit is whole and your spirit can be affected, I think. But more so, people disconnect from their spirit and they live from their sexuality and their desires and things.
Speaker 4:And so, if you can reconnect to who you really are, right, you're a child of god. Check your value system, right? Do you believe you came from divinity? Um, get in tune with like. Who do you want to be? I want to be a loving husband or wife, a loving father, and when I engage in this behavior, do I feel like my best self or do I feel like I'm giving a part of me, my energy, my attention to this screen?
Speaker 4:Right, people aren't typically thinking logical, they're thinking emotionally or sexually when they go into this, and so one of the first steps I do to help people is I try to help them reconnect, to like who they really are and what they're capable of, and I help them see, you can get to a point where the temptation can be in front of you and you have the power, the choice, to say I'm not going there today. And even better than that. What I've seen is people can go, they can get to a point where they heal. They heal their mind, they heal their thoughts, they get in tune with who they want to be as a you know a faithful spouse, and they can train themselves to a point where something that used to would have triggered them. When I use the term trigger, I often like to use the word flooding. Okay, a trigger can be like, oh, like I kind of felt a little, a little sexual emotion and this little thought of like I might want to go sit at the computer. That's a trigger.
Speaker 4:But, some of you understand what it feels like to be flooded, where you have a trigger and, like, all of a sudden, all the emotion overwhelms you and you're just like in it. I've sat with people I've experienced this where, like this, flooding comes and I'm like shaking, wanting this dopamine hit right. I want it so bad. This is the depths of addiction. So you can go from a place where you're having a you know, a triggering experience that floods you to a place of healing where that exact same external stimuli you can see a beautiful person in a you know a, a bikini or whatever and the brain no longer floods you, it no longer triggers into that dopamine thing. Now, that's what we want to get, yeah right that evening space where we go.
Speaker 4:Hey, I'm gonna encounter the world, I'm gonna encounter people that are attractive, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get triggered at some point, but I'm in charge, not my brain or my, you know, my penis, my desire. That's, in my opinion, that's what we want to get to, but we're not always like fearing this monster coming to get us, but we turn and face it and we say say no, I'm a child of god and I can be more powerful and I'm not going to be overcome anymore. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:that's beautiful yeah, I love to. I love how you approached it and I love the analogy you gave of, I mean, I guess, I guess, being caged or shutting yourself off from that, like you can put a, you could get locked up for 10 years and you see this with people in prison all the time. You get locked up for 10 years and you see this with people in prison all the time. You get locked up for 10 years and they get let out and they go back immediately to what they were doing before. And I think, hitting on what you said, you know you, oh, I didn't have a computer or I didn't have a cell phone and rather than addressing the problem, I'm really glad you approached it that way, because that makes a lot of sense to me that.
Speaker 5:That makes a lot of sense to me. Um, when you were saying that. So we did an episode quite a while back probably a year ago, almost now with a wife that had really struck. Her husband had been addicted over and, over and over in their marriage and she had stuck by his side and helped him heal. And then it happened again like over and over, and they were sharing their story and I asked her naively um what, like you said, why don't you just get rid of the computers and give him a flip phone? And blah, blah, blah. And she's like well, I didn't want to be his mother, I'm not his mother. And I was like, okay, I get that, but I would think that if you were so hurt or broken or this was destroying your marriage, you would do everything in your power to just, and you probably would right, but I like how you said like I don't want that to be the fix.
Speaker 3:I want it to be like yeah, I gotta confront it right, like and that's, I think that's what everyone wants.
Speaker 5:They, they want to not be triggered at all.
Speaker 4:Right, they want to heal from that yeah, there's this really cool research on on addiction recovery. Um, we have to recognize that the most popular approach to addiction recovery started well before we had neuroscience. Like right, we didn't have our understanding of the brain and dopamine and receptor sites and all this stuff, and so I've really tried to follow the neuroscience and one of the coolest things I've seen more recently is they're saying that the good news is most people that heal from addictions. Literally they just walk away, they regain their choice. So, you know, sometimes we say addiction takes our ability to choose, like we're just, we're impulsive, we're just going from stimuli to action and then we're like, wait, what happened to me? We almost feel like a victim to it.
Speaker 4:But what they're saying with the neuroscience is you can come to a place where you go consciously. This is not who I want to be, it's not creating the life I want. I'm going to shift, I'm going to change and they begin to learn. I'm going to face these cravings, these triggers. I'm going to now face boredom or loneliness or abandonment or reject like painful human situations where they typically take those things to numb out with the behavior pornography, masturbation, gambling, whatever the addiction is and they consciously go. I don't want to do that anymore.
Speaker 4:I keep taking this pain to this thing. That leaves me with more pain, and, and they go. I'm going to have to find a different place to feel this way and we go. Okay, you're gonna feel that way again. That's the human condition, right? You're gonna feel this. What if you take that pain, not your temptation, not your sexual desire to your spouse? Right, because I see this too. Hey, I'm really tempted with pornography. Can we just have sex? That's actually not going to fix the problem either. Now your spouse is just being used to help you numb right, yeah right.
Speaker 4:The solution to financial stress isn't more sex like that doesn't even make sense. But that's what people do, right, and so we need to go. What if I bring the pain not the desire or the temptation to my spouse and I say, hey, spouse, I'm noticing I'm feeling this desire to go, look at pornography. I think it's because I'm super stressed out about our finances and I just feel really inadequate at work and I'm afraid I'm going to lose my job and like I know this isn't logical, but my anxiety is like and then we're not going to feed our kids. Like you can go down this rabbit hole, I'm not going to feed our kids and now I just want to go numb out.
Speaker 4:Yeah, addiction is not logical, it's reactive, right, but if we can learn to bring that underlying human condition to a loved one, then they can help us, they can comfort us, they can give us, you know, courage. They can say I believe in you. We can do this together. That's one aspect where a relationship can be really healing. Um, and again, like if you're someone that's been affected by a partner betraying and you're trying to support them, which is a hard job because you have your own pain that they're taking on both. Help them, yeah, like, I'll just briefly be transparent, like my wife, she told me like she felt like the person she knew, like that she fell in love with, had died. Like that guy. He was lost, and so she was grieving this man she loved, while also seeing him struggle Right and and I have a lot of empathy and respect for how hard her journey was, you know, in those times. So if you're in that place, like, you connect into your own worth as well, because this is what I often see Someone gets locked in an addiction and they're looking at pornography and they're lost and disconnected from themselves and then a part of the attacked also you're not good enough, you're not sexy enough, you're not beautiful enough, and so they might try to amp up sex.
Speaker 4:Sex, more sex, better sex is not the solution to a pornography problem. Pornography is not about sexuality. It's typically about what we call mismanaging emotions. And so we have to learn, like, what am I taking to this thing that my brain believes will be a solution, but it never is? And we really have to retrain our brain and say, hey, like pornography doesn't solve our stress, at least not for more than you know the time I time I'm in it, I'm just disconnected from the stress. Does that make sense?
Speaker 5:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4:So there is a cool process and it doesn't have to be a long one. Just, very frequently People aren't aren't discovering that and so, going back to what I said, I prefer instead of recovery. I say we develop past addiction. So you developed an addiction. You learn to use it in the various ways you did. There's triggers for it. You're smart enough, you're strong enough, you're you're bigger than your emotions, you're you're a soul, you're a child of god.
Speaker 4:Let's grow past the addiction and I very frequently am seeing, you know, men and myself go okay, I'm gonna face temptation and because I'm human, I will always be attracted to sexuality and attractive women like I. I will, but that's not in my value set. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to hurt my wife. Now I can choose that when that temptation comes in, I can become aware to not compulsively or impulsively turn to it. I choose not to go there and that choice is actually much more safe and strong than I. Just never feel a temptation anymore Because we're going to get tempted. That's part of this human journey.
Speaker 3:I think too, when you continuously overcome that temptation and you're able to be above that, that's going to continuously make you stronger as well, to know that, hey, I can overcome this, I have.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, to know that, hey, I can overcome this.
Speaker 4:I have Right. Yeah, you know, in my own journey I've had periods of relapse, which have been hard for all of us, and it was tricky because my therapeutic journey started with trying to figure this out and a lot of what I was learning I was doing and it wasn't bringing the results and I was frustrated. I was like I'm doing all this stuff and it turns out a lot of what I was learning was old stuff. Um, we understand the brain pretty well. There is a process of overcoming um, that, that research I referred to. It's interesting because they say there's a group of recovering addicts we typically don't hear a lot about. They're the group that walked away. They're not defining their lives by that struggle. They overcame it and they went in there. They're living healthy, happy lives and I'm like I want, I want that. Yeah, it's awesome there's hope for that.
Speaker 4:It's cool.
Speaker 5:Right, I've got a question, I'm just trying to think how to present it. Do you feel like I guess this is a really stupid question, but men struggle with this more?
Speaker 4:than women, correct?
Speaker 5:yeah, but it's on the rise it is on the rise, but I feel like like when we first got married, I think I was just as sexual as him, and I would like to argue with the fact that some people say that men are more visual than women. I disagree with that. I don't know, I could be wrong.
Speaker 3:I mean, how could you not like this?
Speaker 5:But I think that we're just as tempted in those ways as a man, Like 100%. So what do you think is the reason why you feel like more men struggle with pornography versus women? I know it's on the rise, but what do you think is the reason why you feel like more men struggle with pornography versus women? I know it's on the rise, but what? What do you think that is?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's, that's important. I think I think one of the big reasons, um, I think, kind of going back to what I said earlier, I think there's a natural part of men and there's a spiritual part of men men and women. Right, men have typically this higher drive sexuality and most men don't learn to contain that in a healthy space in their upbringing. So I have a colleague and he works with a lot of young men that are struggling and he asked me this question. He's like, why do like 13 year olds start to have sexual desire? And then, god's like, don't use that until you're you know you're in a committed relationship, until you're married 10 years later. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Right Discussion and the idea was like they probably need 10 years of training with this high desire thing to learn to manage it. Because what happens is most men come to marriage and they're like I don't have to contain this anymore, it's game on all the time.
Speaker 4:And what happens is women are like hey, I have desire too, but if you let slide the emotional pieces that cause me to want to be married to you or connected to you, my sexuality can dip right the reason that I think it's it's so prevalent for men is one um, I think they initially literally learned to create pornography that was from a sexualized space of men that a lot of women don't go to unless they feel super safe, and so, right, when a woman feels safe and secure, she's more willing to be adventurous in a sexual way.
Speaker 4:They started to create pornography where women were acting that way and men were like oh cool, like she's, she's acting like what I would want, and they learned how to hook men in. And it's easier for a man to go have this heightened sexual experience with a computer than to do the work that allows a wife to want to be fully invested in that right again and again, where a woman's like hey, when I feel safe and cared for, like I can try out fun things that are exciting to you and I can even share mine.
Speaker 5:I think the internet made it, so people don't have to do work, because isn't it funny how I'll post something on social media about the things a wife needs and a husband like I get so many comments, excuse me, so many comments. Like a wife's list is so long, like I have to do this and I have to do this and I have to do this, and I'm like but you did all those, naturally when you're dating and you didn't complain about it, right? Like, did you just get lazy because that absolutely has to come before sex.
Speaker 5:Like emotional intimacy comes before sex, correct? Like how many times do we have to say that and I'll sound like it's this big old? It's not like you have to go buy your flowers, go take her on a like. It's like making her feel safe, making her feel loved. Those should be natural.
Speaker 5:So the fact that you brought that up like maybe a society we are getting a little bit lazy, like maybe that's the problem like you're right like this is an easy fix to this, instead of really having to work at my relationship, really having to dig down deeper and and be emotionally connected and communicate with myself now we want things now and and and community, even communication and trust and those things alone. They do require some effort, right?
Speaker 4:a lot of couples that have you know are there being sexual.
Speaker 4:You know um frequently when you ask the quality of it, both people are typically it's not super connecting, it's not super amazing, it's just functional right right and and so exactly what you said like people aren't doing the work to create that connectedness outside of the bedroom that allows the bedroom to be more than mediocre, right, right. And so in the work that I do with couples, it is this discovery process of how do we make it amazing across the board, outside the bedroom first, because ideally this is what I see right. We we typically start with a physical attraction at least men do. I'm attracted to that woman.
Speaker 4:Women often can say he's attractive, I want to get to know him, older, right, and this progression of attraction in different areas it happens, and typically in a healthy space a woman doesn't hey, he's attractive, let's just go to the bedroom. Now this is happening more and more, but it's changed from when I started as a therapist. I won't go into that right now, but if we look at this like there's a physical attraction space and then a guy starts to talk with her and she's gauging his personality, do I feel safe, do I want to go on a date, and he's? Typically got his best foot forward, right?
Speaker 4:yeah, for sure. And they get to know each other and they're having conversations and that attraction is still there, without the intimacy piece, right? And then what happens is, you know, ideally, a couple gets married and they start adding sexuality and very often, when sex is on the table, the common thing is men, drop all this stuff that allowed her to want to not just have sex with him but to be with him, right? Yeah.
Speaker 4:And so you. We need to re-implement what works. It's conversation. My favorite word to use is attunement. Can I tune into my spouse? And I use this analogy I learned it from another therapist years ago of like those old radios where you had to like turn the dial to the station right you get it clear.
Speaker 4:And so I come home and my wife has had her whole day and you know, kids stress, whatever, and I've had mine. And if I can come in and go, hey, where are you? I can tune into her. Can I? Hey, where are you? I can tune into her. Can I help you out? Are you happy? What were your highs and lows? Like, I'm just tuning in, I'm getting right connected and then we can go to my channel and I can say, yeah, I did this and this was stressful. And now she's seeing me, we're seeing each other and if the you know, if the station is low for either of us, right, it's like it was a rough day. Right now we're together and because we're together, hey, let's shift into something better.
Speaker 4:What do you want to do tonight? I'd love to watch a show. Can you rub my feet? Maybe we could go for a walk and, you know, maybe we see where that goes, or, right, it'd be great tonight if we could. Just, we could make love. Sure, I'd be happy to make love. I just really want to share some things, uh, on my mind that can help me be present. Right, it's this, this process of sharing ourselves, that help us get to that. That deeper connected space and right pornography doesn't do any of that. Pornography is like turn on the computer and you can. You can have a, you know, a little dope, not a little a big dopamine hit real fast yeah, which just is going to cause more disconnect.
Speaker 5:She's going to feel pushed away, or he, um, the disconnects gets bigger, that emotional intimacy gets left. I mean, yeah, like it's just yeah so just along those lines.
Speaker 4:You know, I think it's really important like we're not getting into this right now. We don't want to minimize the pain like this is destructive for a lot of couples, even if they're not fighting. It's really hard for people to connect because it takes a part of us. Like a lot of people lost in pornography addiction, actually more than other addictions, tend to be disconnected from themselves. There's a higher amount of shame typically, and because we have a natural sexual desire, it can be more difficult to overcome. I use this analogy of a door and it's like I might have gotten addicted to alcohol, but my natural being doesn't have an alcohol desire. That's connected to my addiction, whereas with pornography I do have a natural sexuality.
Speaker 4:So it's like how do I have my natural sexuality open to healthy intimacy in my marriage but not flung all the way open to sexuality on the internet or with other people? And so this process of learning I must you know I have a sexuality and I want that to be only in the context of my healthy relationship. Not even fantasy about other people, truthfully. Not even fantasy with a spouse. Go on that journey of conversation and discuss like I have this fantasy and I'm. If this fantasy came true. It helped me feel this. It's typically a heightened sense of lovability.
Speaker 4:Well, you can get that without the fantasy you can say spouse, I want to know if you really, really love me. Hey, yeah, I totally love you. Or here's what would help me love you more, rather than having to have a fantasy come true does that make sense.
Speaker 5:That's great.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's great wording yeah, so that's the cool thing is, um, people heal. People heal all the time. They overcome these things, and I would say the journey of healing for a spouse that's been betrayed is often harder. To be honest, um, it's easy to disconnect and not feel good enough, like, very commonly, someone is feeling not attractive enough, not pretty enough. Rarely is that the reason they're turning back. It's typically because they've been manipulated into an addiction that never is chosen. But I mean, we are. We are susceptible to people understanding our brains better than us and presenting a whole lot of things that cause us to disconnect from our loved ones and ourself and God. And um, the healing comes in reconnecting and that's that's available.
Speaker 5:And I think what's really hard for the the person who's super addicted to it, is they're not going to feel, um, good enough, their confidence is going to go down, they're going to feel like a lousy spouse and all those feelings the adversary is going to creep in in that way on top of it, right. And then the other spouse is like well, I feel like maybe you're cheating and like like they're going to feel completely betrayed, they're going to feel the brokenness and they're going to be like don't touch me, I don't, I don't trust you anymore, or all those feelings. And then I mean the big question is like how do you like say, the one person really wants to change and overcome this, but they need the love and affection, and you like like almost have to come together. You begin like pulled apart, right like that's really hard.
Speaker 3:I mean I think, yeah, I think you're right, I mean I think it and maybe I'm wrong, but if, dealing with an addiction, it almost requires or needs both spouses to overcome that right yeah, that's hard especially one doesn't feel like they.
Speaker 4:It's their fault at all, you know yeah, the best, the best healing for both actually comes in the context of the relationship.
Speaker 4:Very frequently, therapeutically, people are separating people, honestly, because it seems more daunting to manage his stuff and her stuff in a relationship. But some of the coolest things I've seen with couples is I say hey, this is what you're facing, right, let's just lay it on the table. Yeah, you're addicted, you feel like traumatized. Because of that, there's pain, there's hurt, there's anger, like let's just, this is what your relationship is now facing and if the two of you want a healthy relationship, you're both going to have to work to overcome it. You're going to have some work to do to overcome your behavior and, unfortunately, you're going to have some work to do to overcome your behavior. And, unfortunately, you're going to have some work to do to overcome trauma. And in the context of a man betraying, hey, my friend, you're going to have to learn to be a source of safety for her and you're going to have to learn to be there for her when she's feeling hurt and comfort that and spouse, if you can. If the goal here is a reconnected marriage, you're going to have to.
Speaker 4:You know, work on your healing and can you be a source of support and love while they're coming out. Yeah, and what's really, really valuable is when a couple can see hey, I don't know that, we chose this, you might have made a bad decision to turn on the computer and to look at something and to go back again and again and you hurt and you're responsible for that. But rarely do people choose to like destroy their whole lives, like with their eyes open right, right.
Speaker 4:And so I see this with a cup, with couples, where early on, if we can say, hey, there's a lot of pain here, there is hope for healing. Do you two want that?
Speaker 4:right you want to get maybe better than it's ever been. That's always what we're saying. It can get better than it's ever been because if it was amazing in the beginning and you were both your healthiest selves, you may not have disconnected from each other in these various ways, because a healthy marriage can be a protection. Now I'm going to make this caution. Very frequently, someone says let's just have more sex and it will help me overcome the addiction. That's typically not helpful, or true. I see where people are having plenty of sex and the addiction still remains and that sex is at the expense of someone feeling trauma. That's not a connecting thing anymore. But going back, I think it's important, if you can as a couple, to come to a place and say, hey, we're being affected by this. Let's bring both of our strengths, both of our highest selves and learn to support each other, to live in this higher level of growth and connection, and let's overcome this, the effects of it and the addiction to it. I just want to say that's that's available. Like that. That happens.
Speaker 5:Do you feel like if there's a couple that's struggling with just a little bit a lot, they're destroyed? Right now they're. It's just wrecking their like. Do you feel like your breakthrough session is probably the answer to this?
Speaker 4:Yeah for sure. Yeah, that that I've had a lot of couples come in like literally, for example, like finding out about an affair like recently. I won't say that in that context it makes it all better in a day it doesn't, but it does create this space for healing and reconnection where a couple can say, okay, this is what's in front of us. Do you want to walk this journey of healing together and let's learn the tools to do that? Absolutely, I would start a couple with a breakthrough awesome, and in that context I would probably have. If it's a man, I'd have him come to an event. He's going to need to connect to him and how to really support her. And that's one of the key things with the men's events. It's really hey, we need to help you be a solid spouse, whether or not there's addiction there.
Speaker 4:Does that make sense, yeah, right, yeah, for sure oh yeah, like the most beautiful part of my work is like I've learned from couples we can overcome things that nobody wants to face. It's awesome, and if you're in that, you need to know that you can overcome, you can heal individually and together. And if you don't decide to stay together, there's typically others that need the healthiest version of you too. Often this is children, right, and so being apart and not getting healing doesn't solve the problem either. And so, yeah, I would say, dive in to your growth, because where we started this conversation was the offense part is I'm going to get in tune with me and my best self and my values and I'm going to start to align myself with that, with the help of God and faith and prayer. To align myself with that with the help of God and faith and prayer, and I'm going to bring the best version of me into my marriage, into my relationships, and support my spouse in doing the same, and when that happens, like magical, magical healing can come. Love it.
Speaker 4:And it's cool. Just a little last piece. It's cool to see people come from destruction to better than they've ever been. That's that happens, and that's not me. I believe that's true.
Speaker 3:Well, I love I love this podcast episode. How positive it was, how full of hope it is that you can overcome this and, um, I felt like this. You know talking about such a tough subject. That's a lot of times negative.
Speaker 5:This was a very positive approach and a very positive podcast touching on and I think you work all aspects of really hard things in marriage in a positive way.
Speaker 3:Like I always, which I love. I appreciate it.
Speaker 5:I mean, you've seen people go from the brink of divorce to completely fighting ultimate intimacy in marriage and that's pretty. I don't know that's.
Speaker 4:That's really awesome senior marriage and that's pretty. I don't know that's. That's really awesome. Yeah, yeah, couples are amazing. Yeah, um, yeah, I just last little pieces. If you're in the in the dark place, whether a man or a woman either, you know, in the throes of addiction or or betrayed, um, I would say the very first thing is just to close your eyes and to know that you're loved and you're worthy of love and you can heal and become all that you want to be. And just start with that belief and I would encourage um, just that surrender of uh, I'm not gonna let this defeat me and any of that feeling defeated. Surrender that and grab on to hope that you're capable of overcoming.
Speaker 4:So, appreciate the opportunity to talk about this because it's hard for a lot of people, and people need hope.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you for being so open about your struggles and things like that too. I really feel like that's when people learn the most and are able to help the most is when you know we're open with the things that we all struggle with because we do all struggle with different things right, and there is hope. And if you've enjoyed what you've heard Austin say and you're someone that's maybe struggling with an addiction or feel like you need help in this aspect, reach out to us, amy at ultimateintimacycom, us Amy at the ultimate intimacycom, amy at ultimate intimacycom, and we can put you in touch with Austin and you can get on a great path to where you want to be in your relationship. So again, appreciate your time today and, as we always say, until next time. We hope each of you find ultimate intimacy in your relationship.