Liz and Jesse join us for a deeply honest conversation about what it means to deconstruct faith while rebuilding a relationship that began inside a high-control church. Liz shares her experience growing up as a pastor’s daughter and the shock of discovering her father’s double life, a revelation that shattered her worldview. Jesse reflects on his eclectic spiritual background and the dissonance of questioning the beliefs that once defined him. Together, they unpack the toll of purity culture, the weight of community expectations, and the struggle to find themselves beyond performance and dogma. Through it all, their friendship has been the anchor that’s held them steady through deconstruction and healing. What emerges is a story of liberation, self-discovery, and rediscovering joy in the simple things.

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• Also check out The Religious Trauma Collective

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work, the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today.

I recognize the deep connection that first nations people have to this land, their enduring culture, and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded, and it always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

Hey there, and welcome to beyond the Surface, the podcast where we explore the stories of people who have survived religious trauma, left high control occult communities, and are deconstructing their faith.

FOREIGN I'm your host, Sam, and each week I'll talk with individuals who have taken the brave step to start shifting their beliefs that might have once controlled and defined their lives. Join us as we dig into their experiences, the challenges they've faced, and the insights they've gained.

Whether you're on a similar journey or you're just curious about these powerful stories, you're in the right place. This is beyond the surface.

Welcome, Liz and Jesse.

Thanks for having us, Sam.

I am so excited about this episode.

You guys are my first couple, and I remember sending a manic voice memo to Liz going, I don't know if this is possible, but I kind of want to make it work. I thought of you guys first and. And so I'm so grateful for you both being here. And is this technically your first podcast, Jesse?

Oh, no. I've done heaps of podcasts.

Not in this space.

Not in this space, yeah. In other spaces. Yeah.

Okay. But talking about this sort of stuff.

I think we've done. We've even done podcasts about this deconstruction. A little bit like our faith journey. A little bit, yeah.

It's been a while, though. It's been a while, yeah. Right.

Well, I'm so grateful to have you both here. I like to ask people where in the world you are for people who don't know you.

Although I'm pretty sure I'm gonna take a guess that most of my listeners are gonna know Liz, but where in the world are you at the moment?

On the Central coast in New South Wales.

Beautiful. And so I'm going to suggest Liz has been on the podcast a couple of times already, one of those, sharing her story.

So I'm going to suggest to save a bit of time for people who don't know Liz's story story to go back and have a listen to that. But for a bit of context for you, Jesse, give us, I guess, the Cliff Notes version of what life was like for you before you met Liz.

So I grew up in a family that when. Well, my first five years of life, I remember going to church, so but never in a. Like it was like just going to church.

And it was a Pentecostal church. My parents were pretty involved. It was like a small local church.

And then one day we just stopped going and I didn't really know why and didn't really understand why. And then for my parents got divorced when. Or they separated when I was 10.

And then I lived with my mom for a little while and you know, mom, like she was fairly, I guess you'd say, like nominal. Like she didn't really have a faith or talk about faith or God or any kind of spirituality. And then when I was about 15, so my mum moved out of town.

She lived on a farm and so I lived with her. That was awesome growing up on a farm. And then when I turned 15, it was like, I want to be with my mates, I want to go to parties, I want to.

I want a job. Like so it just became more convenient for me to live with my dad. And my dad was a fair bit more of the spiritual person of the.

Of the two parents, parental figures. And so my dad was a little bit more eclectic in his spiritual walk. So like into everything.

Eclectic sounds like a very interesting word to use there.

Yeah. Oh, like he was into everything. Like he was into. Like I remember him having books on Deepak Chopra. Like what else did he have? He just talk.

He'd talk about the Bible, but not in a very dogmatic way. Like in a very kind of open handed way way. Y And then so I lived with my dad and then my dad was a music.

My dad was a professional music so worked on the weekends and. And whatnot. And I got into music at high school and that eventually led me to essentially working with my dad.

So we ended up working together and so I kind of had a fairly close relationship with him. And then one day when I was 21, he just started going back to church. Like he just so. And that was Liz's church. That was the church that she.

Her dad was a pastor of. Yeah. And. And I remember the pastor coming over a couple of times and. And my dad was like, oh, it's really powerful this church.

There's something different, blah, blah, blah. And after him going for About a year. I was like, I'd never touch it. I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

You know, I work, I'm a muso work on weekends. I want. Sundays are sleep ins.

Yeah.

But then one Saturday I was working with my dad and he's like, oh, tomorrow's Father's Day. I'm like, what do you want to do for Father's Day? He's like, just come to church for me. That's, that'll be cool. So I'll go to church with my dad.

And I'm 21, grew up in a rural town and walking in and I can hear all this singing. Like it's a small little scout hall and yeah. Car parks full.

We're late and so we're walking in and I walk in and I see people dressed in suits and then there's bikies and then there's like all these different personalities and I'm like, I was just really struck, like, oh, wow. What is bringing together such a diverse collection of people.

And that was the start of the, of my Christianity, real Christianity from that point on. Yeah. And it was a Pentecostal church again. So. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, how long between. When you sort of like led into that Christianity space, did you then start dating Liz?

Like, when did Liz come into the picture for you?

So we became friends straight away, like. And yeah, we just built a really solid friendship, I think. And it was really.

And then she went to Bible college at Hillsong and that kind of like started. Oh. Like, I think I've got feelings for like the distance made me go.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder Heart grow fonda.

Yeah.

And that really, like we were talking on the phone every week while she's at barber college and a couple times a week. And Yeah, I just really started to realize that I had feelings for it.

Like, it was more than just a friendship and it was kind of cool because our relationship was founded on a friendship. So, like, it wasn't. Yeah. Like the romance had some solid foundation to, to build from.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I, I'm suspecting.

And it's the therapist part of me that is like almost hypothesizing that, you know, in the relationships that I've seen in my office, that's the thing that is often having that foundation makes the rest of what this conversation is going to center on.

It makes it so much more manageable and tolerable as opposed to the relationships who were put together or who were arranged or who dated to marry and who you Know, didn't necessarily choose one another. And so.

My, My, like coming as a pastor and also counseling people when I was a pastor and stuff like that. One of the things. So I read a bunch of psychology post my Christianity. So, like, I've got a case while.

I have a loud faith.

I've got a psychology, like, behavioral science counselor kind of mind because I. I love it. I have. But I've done no formal training. So one of the things when I.

When I reflect is that romances that start with that romance honeymoon phase, but they don't build that solid foundation of friendship. Like, it. It's kind of. It's kind of like the icing or the froth and the bubble and then when that goes away, what's left of that. And so.

And I think one of the things that's.

We'll probably talk about why we're still together at some point, but part of the reason is because we built such a solid foundation of friendship in the beginning.

Yeah.

I mean, when we first started hanging out, we became very good friends very quickly. And I was. I'm five years younger, so I was in. I was like 16, I think, when we met and just starting my rebellious partying, drinking.

I'd go out drinking all weekend and, like, come to church and lead worship, sometimes a little bit drunk. And Jesse was sometimes.

Well, I was a muso, so I was out gigging.

So he was gigging in some of the establishments I would frequent.

And I'm like, oh, there's the pastor's daughter drunk. And then on Sunday morning, there's the pastor's daughter leading worship. And I'll be like, I'm like, liz, what's going, like?

And I'm going, I'm my new zeal Christianity phase.

And I'm like, it's very concerned.

But, like, as we became friends and, you know, we were young people, so, you know, if we hooked up with someone on the weekend, we'd be each other's first call. Like, we were good friends and.

Yeah.

And we kind of knew. We knew a lot about each other. When we find. When he finally realized that he liked me, I knew. So that's okay. But. Yeah, no, it did.

It has saved us, I think, in the end, having a deep friendship.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what were those early.

Because, I mean, I talk a lot about, you know, purity culture with people and the fact that part of that is, you know, you date to marry and thing and like, courting and you know, all of that, like, sort of really, like, very, like one Direction, sort of thinking. What was that early part of your relationship like once you did realize that you liked one another. Let's not place blame.

Once you realize that you liked one another and you did want to start the transitioning into a different kind of relationship, what was that like in that space for both of you?

For me personally, I was trying like again, I was 21 when I became a Christian. Really I was how long I was on when we got married.

You were 26.

26, so like 25. Yeah. So like it was still the early days of my Christianity. I was really involved in the church.

So I was really trying to toe that line, that purity culture line. Yeah. You know, never would. Never like with the rationality I have now, never would have like, you know, you love someone. Yeah. Committed to someone.

I mean. Yeah.

You let the relationship take its, take its natural course.

Yeah. So it was challenging and also a good challenge. Do you know what I mean?

Like it wasn't, I didn't at the time feel like I was limiting myself or holding myself back. It's probably different for Liz and I could probably let her talk about that. I don't know.

Well, I grew up in purity culture where you probably didn't. And so I think, um, I'd had boyfriends and things, but I never had sex outside of marriage or anything like that.

And my talk with my, with my dad about becoming a woman was simply, if you come home pregnant, I'll kick you out. So I was a little scared of becoming pregnant and that informed a lot of my early choices.

Like in the mid teens we moved to Jesse's town when I was 16 and I just started year 12 and I just started to rebel a little bit, like have my little foray into rebelliousness I guess. And so I was trying to break some of those shackles off my life. So when we finally started dating, we had this really interesting situation.

Can I, I can say I was like, what the hell are we waiting for? Like we're going to get married anyway. And Mr.

I've just become a Christian and I'm trying to do the right thing was like, we are waiting till we are married. And I'm like, oh no, we're getting married like next week. Like what's the. And he was more like, it's next week, we can wait another week.

But I guess we lived apart for a lot of our dating as well. I was still going to Bible college in Sydney and so we only lived in the one town for about what, 12 months before we got married.

Just over 12 months. Months. And, you know, we figured it out.

Although I. I do think there were kids, like people our age on our team at church who were getting themselves into situations and there was a lot of judgment placed on them.

Yeah.

But I think part of just being the pastor's kid, we flew under the radar a little bit and we were probably put on a little bit of a pedestal. We didn't quite get that judgment. I think everybody thought I was so straighty 180 that I wouldn't, you know.

Yeah.

Do anything. So I don't remember people asking, being too nosy and making sure we were doing the right thing. So.

Yeah, I mean, I guess the assumption was, of course you would be. So, like, that means that you don't get asked the questions.

Right.

So.

Yeah.

So, I mean, once. What was like, once you're married. Because obviously, like, that's the goal. Right. So, like, once you get married.

Once you get married and you've sealed the deal. And what was church life like for you guys as. As a couple and transitioning into being pastors and. And things like that. Yeah.

What was church life like as a couple?

I. I personally loved it.

We were all in. We were all in, like that couple. Yeah.

So I loved it. We. Yeah, we got married a couple of years. Married at where we lived in. In rural Victoria.

And then Liz's dad took on a church up here on the Central coast. And Liz moved up here early.

I moved up here 6. A few months before maybe because he still had gigs booked. Sorry that he had to play out, but we were just. We were all in.

And when my dad took on the job up here, there was really no question as to whether or not we would come up. And our whole life was built around church. We were even laughing about it the other day.

We just got back from two and a half weeks in Bali for a friend's wedding. And we. We love travel, something we've discovered in midlife and want to do more of it. But I remember being in our 20s, which is typically.

And childless in our 20s, typically when people can go do all the fun adventure stuff.

And we were like, you know, we would say to each other back then, can't believe people don't take the church seriously enough to, you know, take multiple weekends off at a time. Like.

And I think, though, even back then, I won't speak for you, but there was like a real silent jealousy in me for people taking time off, but because of who I was and the pastor's daughter and we were pastors. I just knew that was never a possibility.

Yeah.

In the current life I was living. So I think a lot of our ideas around church and what we could and couldn't do was built around this sunk cost bias of this is the life we've chosen.

And so. Well, for me, anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think for me, I started to feel the same towards the end of our church experience because, like, as you. As the shine wears off, then you start to look around and go, oh, I just. I remember we were campus pastors.

I remember driving on a Sunday, sunny Sunday morning, driving through a tourist because I had to drive through this town to. On our way to the campus that we, we passed. It was like 7 o' clock in the morning.

I had to go to this hall and set up chairs and volunteers and all that kind of stuff. And I'm watching people running in the sunshine, drinking coffees and laughing and families swimming and I'm like going, they're all going to hell.

But in my mind I'm consciously sit. Consciously saying, they're all going to hell. And in my heart going, I wish I could do that.

Like the dissonance, it's when that dissonance.

Starts happening and that's, I think the dissonance, like that was the loud clanging that started to. And now I can really see that my true self, the heart was going, this is what I long for. And the head, like that's what that clanging is.

And at some point, if you don't listen to that, it's going to rip you apart. Like.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, to a degree it ripped us apart and then revealed the true self, if that makes sense. So.

Yeah, because let's like to be clear, we didn't leave church because we wanted to go to the beach on a Sunday.

No. Yeah.

Yeah. But that was just. That's just indicative of the. The lifestyle that we had. We never went away for more than 10 days, two weeks at a time. We like.

Church was so urgent for us. Every day was like, you never have.

A weekend off, though.

Like, you'll never have a weekend off. Yeah. So that's just indicative of the kind of hamster wheel that we were on for a good long time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Would you say that you guys had, I guess what would be. Have have been considered like a traditional biblical marriage in terms of gender roles and things like that?

I would say in the beginning. Yeah, definitely. But it wasn't even something that we thought about really.

Yeah.

It just was.

You just run. Not you just run. It on the rails that.

Yeah, yeah.

That were shown to you.

Yeah, yeah.

Example to you. So.

And while we didn't have kids, that wasn't such a big deal. Like. Like, we had our first. First kid when I was 28. And then a second when I was 30.

Yeah.

I think. I can't remember. Somewhere around there. And so when. When the kids came along.

Yeah.

And life got a bit bigger, it was, you know, it became more apparent how those gender roles might not be quite serving anybody. Well.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, was it there in terms of.

And I'm sort of asking this question because even though I married someone of the same sex, even this sort of still came up early on was like, there were those undertones of, like. Even though we were the same gender, we still were trying to ascribe to traditional gender roles.

And so did you, like, you know, I guess, like, biblically lead the household, Jesse, like, in terms of, like, spiritually led?

I don't know if you. I can't really remember thinking or feeling that way.

I remember having a conversation. I'm laughing because my best friend running.

Through something in her head.

One of my best friends, Sarah, they started coming to our church around the time I had my first kid. So 15, 16 years ago. And she asked us point blank, she's like, you know, who is the head of your home?

And I said to her, jesse is the spiritual head of my home, and he makes the decisions. Which I think before then, if somebody had said that that's what I thought, I would have thrown up. And I can't remember saying it to her.

But apparently Jesse was the head of our home and he made the spiritual decisions. But I think for us, our relationship's.

Always been pretty mutual. Yeah.

We've always managed to somehow not get too trapped. We've always been a little bit left of center, even when we were very conservative.

And in fundamentalism, we've always managed just to be a little bit off kilter enough that we get the signals.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah.

That things might not be working or whatever.

Yeah. I mean, sometimes it's like the regurgitated responses, knowing what the other person wants to hear in that situation as well.

Like, if we think the other person wants to hear you say that Jesse's the head of the house, then that's what we say.

Right, that's what you say.

Like the regurgitated sort of like scripts that we. A given that we just say without thinking sometimes. Which is probably why you have no memory of saying it.

Probably. And I think you are Spot on. I would. I do.

I've just thought, though, it's not really gender roles, like, in terms of delineation of domestic duties or whatever in the house, but definitely, I think gender roles in terms of emotionally what we bring to the. The marriage and the relationship and our children.

You know, growing up in fundamentalism, I was very much taught how to be codependent and a people pleaser.

So even in saying to Sarah, oh, yeah, Jesse's the head of the home, I can see now through many years of therapy and work that that was me being pleasing, saying what I thought I needed to say. And that's sort of the role I played in the family, too. Like, what do I need to say and do to be acceptable, to be pleasing?

I mean, there's nothing that I thought of consciously, but that was subconsciously built into my. My makeup, if that makes sense. So the gender roles for us have probably been more, you know, in the foundation, not in the practicalities.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Now, I know that you go into more detail in your episode, Liz, about, like, I guess, what led you out of this space and the. The volcano eruption, essentially, that happened, but what was that like for you both navigating that together?

Because it wasn't just a small thing that happened for you guys?

Yeah, no, not at all. I, like, it probably didn't realize how disruptive it was at the time. Going into. It's like going into a storm and going, I'm just on my journey.

And then you're like, oh, this is hectic. Like, yeah, yeah.

And not realizing, like, Liz probably said it in her podcast because I've heard her say it before, but, like, literally, I resigned from church pretty much on a. I think this is what I need to do. Like, it wasn't. Here's what I'm going. It wasn't any kind of a plan.

It was like, I just had this sensation that I needed to resign and everything would just. I'd find my way. And so I resigned from church. It inevitably took months because it kept getting delayed by the senior leadership. Like, oh, you.

In your contract, you got to give us, you know, 90 days or something like that. Notice. I can't remember what it was. It was something ridiculous. Anyway, so.

And then when I first handed him my, like, I've verbalized my resignation, this funny thing happened where the senior past was, like, went away for two weeks afterwards. When he came back, he's like. I said, oh, like, let's talk about our resonation. I wanna. I wanna finish up.

And he's like, I thought you were just having a little fit that day. Like it was so dismissive of my personhood and, and so gaslighting just to.

Get a meeting about it.

Yeah. Like it was kind of like swept it under the rug and acted like it was just a little tiny thing that I was having that day. Yeah.

Which was totally unlike my personality to do. I was very much a toe the line kind of personality. Never, never threw tennis to get my way. So anyway, finally we resigned. I resigned.

Like the last day occurred and then we went away. I had some, I must add four weeks of annual leave or something. So we went, went down to see our family and stuff like that.

And on that drive, I just remember the wheels falling off the cart. I was like, okay, so what is church for? Our church is to get people saved. Okay, what's getting people saved for? What does the Bible say about that?

And it's like I started to dig into all those questions and once I started to dig beneath the surface, I was like, a lot of this doesn't have any significant meaning in the human experience. Really. Like not to dismiss. I'm not dismissing Christianity, but I'm dismissing. But like what I. My experience of evangelical Christianity was it does.

It's such a wheel spinning.

Yeah.

Process. Like it's such a wheel spinning system where everything's moving, there's lots of action and nobody's bloody going anywhere and.

And lots of people are expending energy and nothing, no fruit is coming from it. So ye. And the more I dug into that, the more I was like. Because I had every intention to go back to church. I was just like, I have four weeks off.

Get it. Like go into my new job. Like I got a job working at a coffee roaster and then I was going to come back to church.

Well, I never went back to church ever again. Like. Like once I could was free to question all of that because my income wasn't dependent on anymore. My role as a significant person wasn't.

The only real thing tying me to church was really family and some friendships and, and I. And in the weighing of all of that for me personally, I was like, I can toss all that out.

That's all the cost I can pay because it's not, it's not true to who I am. So that was this door, that was the way I felt coming out. How did it affect us? Like I resigned, not resigned.

I was at peace with the fact that Liz could figure it out for herself. Like, I was like, she can keep going to Church. I'm not going to church.

Like if she wants to go to church, if she wants to continue thinking the way she wants to. And I trust that it'll all come out in the wash, like however it comes out. So I felt fairly. I didn't feel afraid for our marriage or our family.

I thought I'll cross that bridge if I need to cross that bridge. Really. That was my approach and process towards it. I think Liz, like speaking on behalf of. She'll speak for herself in a second.

But I felt like Liz was probably a little more concerned at first and then as it started to unfold she could see it was going to be okay.

Yeah.

Did I represent that to you?

Yeah.

I think it's is probably significant for you to talk about a little bit because us leaving church and deconstructing was almost a three to four year journey process.

Yeah.

That started with my dad who was a senior pastor of our church. Came out that he was living a double life.

Yep.

Him I hear my mum, you know the story and how that affected you. And so there was four years, two to three, four years there where you were really holding everything together.

Yeah.

For the sake of the church, for the sake of whatever it was, was that we were holding everything together for. So when you finally let go. Let go, it was like you were holding your breath for so long.

Yeah.

And on that drive down to see our family, you actually had that exhale and that's when you went, oh, what have I been doing?

Yeah.

But there's sort of four years worth of very pent up.

I think like Liz's dad being the pastor, I really kind of enjoyed. I think Liz might have struggled with it more being here. His daughter and the family, the family tension.

But I kind of really enjoyed being a pastor and going to church and all that. In that dynamic we inherited, we inherited some quite post. Liz's dad, like.

So it came out, that was a massive shock for us like that her dad was living a double life, had been having affairs for most of his married life. And so that really changed the dynamic and it really forced me to ask where my Christianity was at. And I just dug in more like at that point.

So then we inherited these quite famous pastors and that felt it's. It's. To me I was like, oh, this is like this is a God thing. Like this is a miracle handed to us. We're gonna.

All our dreams of what church should be like are going to come to pass. And my experience of that was completely different.

Like I was Like, I remember in the last couple of years of them being the pastors and me working underneath them. I remember one night, some. One of them getting up and going, this is what heaven's gonna be like. And I.

And I remember saying inside myself, if heaven's like this, I don't want to go to heaven. If heaven's like another church service.

Yeah.

Yep.

I don't want to go to heaven. Yeah.

There was lots of those moments before the final, you know, resignation.

So, like, that last experience of church, really, really, like, it was like. Like, this is. I've reached the pinnacle, and it's not anything. Like, it's not what I managed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, particularly for you, Liz. Like, obviously, you know, this was your dad. Like, we had a huge. Like, it's a huge emotional fallout.

There's so much, like, anger and grief and fear and, like, all of those really big, heavy emotions. And so what was it like for you to just even exist, Exist in a relationship with Jesse through all of that?

It was incredibly humbling. Like, I wouldn't say humbling. I. I felt. I internalized a lot of humiliation.

Yeah.

I really prided myself back then as being someone, a quote unquote, who's a little prophetic or a little. My intuition was good. I could read someone really well.

And little did I know what I had been living with pretty much my whole life started when I was just a little baby. So I felt humiliated. And I also. I remember back when I was maybe 18, when Pat Merced everything, that.

When that all came out, we got a letter from the AOG because my parents were pastors, explaining that he'd been. Sit down and all of that. I think you might have even been in the kitchen. But someone was with me. And I said, thank God.

I never have to worry about that with my parents. Then it happened with my parents.

Yeah.

And then I was like, is anything safe? Like. And I think a little bit similar to Jesse. I just doubled down on, you know, looking right, being right, saying the right things.

If I just toe the line, maybe we'll make it, serve the church, tithe.

A little bit more. Like, give more in the offering.

I give more, I'll receive more.

Yeah, you look after God's house. Gotta look after your house.

Yeah.

The cliches.

Oh, God, we really lent on those, going, well, if there's any time. If there's any time for God to show God's self as being God, now is it?

Yeah.

So we. We did it. And even when we got the news of who was going to take off on the church. We were like, oh, we're being saved again.

Like this is just a God thing. And like Jesse, I would say there was the heartbreak of what happened to my family and how difficult that was.

But then the couple of years afterwards were probably more difficult.

I was carrying so much pain and I was told by other because it was a fairly big church here on the coast with lots of staff, wasn't just a family, you know, situation. And some of the staff had told me, nobody wants to hear about your dad. It's head down, bum up.

Like there was no way for us to process what we had been through. In fact we got in figuring out what my dad had done and what to do with him.

The state executive had aimed a fair bit of accusation and blame towards us.

Like we'd kept it, they were trying to suss out if we'd kept it undercover for, for however long.

And then even.

And so like we're going, hang on.

Like we're like, you know. And then even the state executive were like, oh you, if you were in any other church you'd be fired and you'd never work in a church ever again.

I'm like, we're the kids. Like we haven't done anything. So we were kind of gaslit into being really grateful for still being having a job and still being included.

And I just doubled down on everything.

The good thing about us is we've always talked and because we've had that friendship, like we talked everything through, we were able to kind of, I think the crisis of it and the chaos of it just pushed us together a little bit.

Yeah.

I would say it wasn't until a few years after that, like when God wasn't the head of our home and we didn't have a common spirituality keeping us together, we really had to find what was that thing, that essence that was the glue in our, in our marriage.

Because up until that point I had thought, well, we're going to be in ministry together and we're going to believe the same things together and we're going to have a common purpose and a common thing to.

Once that disintegrates, what have you got?

What have you got?

Yeah. So I'm just trying to think like it's really been. Communication has been our way through that. We've always.

Because we've been good friends and we talk all the time.

Yeah.

And even now, like we've been married for 20 odd years and like we can talk until they're not well, if I don't fall asleep first. But we can talk into the night when there's no kids around and we can have conversations with.

We can continue to talk and find common ground and find common direction. I'm, I'm very much, you know, and Liz is awesome for this, but I'm very much a question asker.

Like, I challenge everything, including what she believes and including what I believe.

Yeah.

To sometime to, to maddening amounts for her. Like so. But I also think that has been a pathway through all of this. So. Yeah. Yeah.

Because I mean, the reality is, is that like that huge amount of emotional fallout, like there's so much dysregulation, but also that head in mentality just means that you are so disconnected from yourself and what is happening and probably mass amounts of dissociation happening also to make it make sense.

Essentially the reality is, is that that would force even the best of couples to drift apart for there to be conflict, for there to be disconnection in the relationship.

And so like, if I thought miracles happened, I would almost say that that would be a miracle that, that like you were able to still communicate and for that to not just go up in flames.

We were really lucky. I think luck and hard work all mixed together. But the year that we left church was the same year that the My Brain the Liturgist podcast started.

Yeah.

And we, I grew up listening to Michael Ganga and you know, all of their. We were, you know, similar age, similar churches, all that kind of stuff.

So when they started talking about some of their journey, we'd never heard anybody talk about deconstruction up until it happening to us. So we weren't really sure what we were going through ourselves.

It was like, I remember listening to a religious podcast where they talked about their deconstruction. It was probably like episode five or six of their podcast. And I was like, holy shit, there's someone else in the world. Like, this is not.

I feel like somebody. Like, what I felt like what we did was there's this big cruise liner and we said to that cruise liner, up, up yours.

We're paddling away in a little rowboat, like, and, And I thought, like, it kind of looked and felt like that had never happened before, but when, when we heard the litigious, it was like someone else has done this. Like. And I remember actually crying because it, I. I felt some sense of relief that I wasn't on my own.

Like, we'd like candles, we get a bottle of wine, we put the kids to bed. I love Listening to that podcast is our. Is that a date night? But it was like we had from that.

I'm so grateful for it, which is why I love doing these sorts of podcasts, because it helps other people. Just help.

Yeah.

The more we took and talk about this stuff, the better. But we had. That podcast really led us into having some pretty big conversations. Like, what do we think about monogamy?

What do we think about our kids and, you know, being teenagers? What are we going to do? How are we going to talk to them about sex and sex before marriage? And what are our values going to be around that?

What about what we believe politically? Does everything need to line up for us to be aligned? And so that podcast really helped us have some of those hard conversations.

But I would say from what I went through with my dad and then what I went through with the pastors that took on the church after that, that I was very much in a state of dysregulation. And so I wasn't going to question anything because I just felt so unsettled in my own life.

So Jesse deconstructed, and I was like, I just felt I'm powerless to stop anything.

I just felt free to do, to just let it all unravel and.

But I was having this experience of we should be going to church. And I think I tried to have the conversation with you once when you. You said, I'm never going back to that place.

Yeah.

I said, well, you've got to call someone and tell them. It was like, they can call me. And I was like, I. I felt like the right thing.

Not the right thing, but what we have been told is the right thing to do. We should do it. But the fact that he said, I'm not doing it. I felt I was having these visceral feelings of relief. Yeah.

And I was like, how can I stop him from doing something that is making me feel safe and relieved? So I was having these weird kind of cognitive dissonance. Yeah. Physical sensations for a number of years after that.

It's probably been more the last six or seven years where we.

We have different ideas on spirituality, different ideas even on some political things, parenting, that we've really had to employ some really good tools on how to keep our marriage. And, like, we've had some really hard years and some really good years. But, yeah.

I mean, in terms of. Once you sort of. And it's obviously not uncommon that you enter into those deconstruction stages at different paces and at different times.

But if we move into that Part of your world. One of the questions that came up, you know, I threw a story in my. Is, you know, Instagram stories, a question box in there. And.

And one of the questions was, how did you navigate potentially holding different beliefs at different times, particularly when some of those beliefs have been foundational for you either your whole entire life or a really big portion of it up until that point? Because that can cause a lot of conflict.

A lot of conflict. Do you want to start?

Yeah, I'm just trying to think about how it outworked itself for me. I mean, I said earlier that, like, I trusted.

I just had some trust or faith or whatever you want to call it, that it had come out in the wash. Yeah, I really sensed within myself that I had to be true to myself. And so being true to myself doesn't mean just abusive to everybody else. It means being.

I think being true to yourself is really finding out who you are in your core, like being still and silent and. And using inward analysis to recognize who you are and then allowing that to come out.

And I thought if I was true to myself then in whatever, that way that outworked itself, then things would be okay, however we ended up. And so for me, that was being. I'm. I'm deeply analytical, so. And question asking. So that was like reading. I just read a lot.

Like, I read hundreds of books in the. In the years after. Like, I know I didn't read any books except for Bloody Bill Hybels and the Bible, like, at church and a Brian Houston book and.

And maybe Phil, what's his name?

So good.

Phil, the guy from Triple C in Oxford Falls. That guy. Anyway, I read one of his books. I remember that's about all I read.

I was like, we're not getting any better with that progression.

And, oh, and Joyce Meyer. So it wasn't just men. It was one Woman. And so, like, in a decade and a half, I think that's all I read. And then the Bible and then post my church.

I literally just went headlong into books. Like, I discovered I could listen to books, and that became an unlock for me. And then I. I was running. I. I started running every day.

It was so funny to outwork this internalized stress. I started running and I could feel it was so meditative and stuff. And I just listened to a book on high speed and run.

So I was like, learning and doing, decompressing, all of this at the same time. And that really helped me find myself, like, analyzing the world from all these other perspectives. Helped me Go, oh, okay.

So who, how, what do I align with. With all of this knowledge? And then once I could find myself, then I could just trust that Liz would find herself. That mostly.

And then we just communicated a lot.

Like, I mean, there were some epic fights in between all of that.

Yeah.

But we were always epic. Like, even as Christians, we're epic fighters. So, like, it wasn't. That wasn't anything.

We know how to conflict.

And I think, like, that's even been a journey for us now.

Like, Even, you know, 20 years into our marriage, like, we're going, do we really want to fight like this or do we want, like, do want to be more healthy in our conflict?

And so he probably had a bit more of a regulated experience after we left church, because I think, like, I touched on before, I just seen my parents lose their marriage and all their friendships and pretty much everything that they'd built careers for 20 years, and it was devastating.

And never talked to her dad again.

Like, never. I still don't have a relationship with my dad. There was a very dramatic court case that happened.

Yeah.

And.

And you were quite physically unwell through a lot of this too, weren't you?

Yeah, I became unwell.

No, no, no. You. You, like, all through your arc. Like, she'd have, she would have. I've got a sore back. I have. I have a sore back.

And she go to the doctor and the doctor's like, I think I can't find what's wrong. I think you need back surgery. And then the next thing it would be like, I think I've got carpal tunnel syndrome. I've got a migraine.

I've got tinnitus. And like, all it was, you know, like, Liz didn't know. And I think therapy's really helped it unlock, block, all of this.

I've always been a sensitive little soul.

She's sensitive.

Yeah.

She holds it in her body and her body tries to figure out how to do, how to deal with it. So it outworks itself in all these things.

But I did become quite clear. Yeah. After we left the church. But I think there was a lot of fear keeping. I felt very hyper vigilant in the years after leaving church.

We also had two little kids.

Yeah.

And no money. So I, I, unlike Jesse, I didn't quite feel the freedom to find my true self. I was still scrambling a little bit.

I just started this business back then called Pocket Fuel, which had gone viral all about the Bible devotionals. And I love the fact that I.

I used to have it as A teen.

That's so funny. Yeah, hilarious. And the world is a crazy place.

And so I was still trying to figure out how I could provide for our family but not write anything I didn't believe in. And what did I actually believe. Like, the unwinding of my beliefs probably took a little bit longer.

Where Jesse had only been in the church since he was 21, a lot of this stuff had been baked into my being and I didn't know a lot of it.

And still now I'll be in with my therapist and I'm like, oh, that onion layer that I just peeled off this last couple of months I didn't know was there and, you know, like.

And it revealed something else.

Something else. And so I incubated a fair bit. I isolated myself a fair bit from my friends. I mean, a lot of our friends were still in church.

And I didn't want to disrupt what we had because it was almost all that I had. So it wasn't until that I got quite ill. And then I started to understand what was happening.

Like the brain, the gut brain connection, the stress and the silence was keeping me sick. And so then I started to talk about what I really felt and how I really felt and what I really believed with a bit more freedom that I became.

Well, by that point, I think enough time had passed that I could see that we could still trust each other in a quote unquote secular relationship. And we had talked about some things enough that I. That I knew I could start, you know, putting my toe in the water.

Yeah.

In terms of who am I and what do I really believe? And there was some surrender that needed to happen too.

I think a lot of people do really hold on to this idea that to be in a good marriage, you need to believe the exact same things, vote the exact same way. And the. The more and more we got away from church, the more our personalities could find their own space in the world.

And I think some people find that threatening because they see all the things that could, you know, pull them apart. Instead, I think we both made a few fairly. We committed to really trying to see the beautiful parts of. Of that and try and celebrate that.

Like, it was a decision that we had to make to not try and hold on to old versions of each other and make each other play roles or games or things that we think we needed in order to stay connected and safe.

Yeah.

What did that look like?

Practically?

Because, like.

Because I'm just thinking, like, there is going to be so many people listening to this going yeah, but like, I don't know how I would feel if my husband, wife, partner felt or believed this thing or voted this way or had this kind of ideology. Like, how did you practically not let that drive you apart? What conversations did you have and how did you navigate those.

Poor.

It's a different perspective. Like, look, where, where do you want to go with this conversation?

The macro idea of it is I really believe that we're losing the skill to have nuanced conversation and public discourse. So that's the, that's the macro picture.

Our children are growing up in an age where everything is a sound bite on tick tock, on Instagram, on Snapchat. Nobody is spending the time mining for details. Why do you think that? Where does that belief come from? And how does that work itself, shaping you?

And so, like, there was a little while I remember leaving church, I'd voted. I'm gonna say names of parties, but there's no shade or judgment. People. Okay, so be free.

Yeah, but I remember voting green for the first time in my life. Right. And my mother was not about it.

Yeah.

And I think you voted for somebody else.

I probably donkey voted.

Actually, he donkey voted for quite a number of years, which I had a real problem with because I'm like, we're going to change this country. You can't be wasting your votes. But when we bothered to sit down with each other and say, I would say, why are you doing that? It's infuriating.

And then he would explain why in a non. Not in a power over way, in a hey, let me, let me talk to you about it. And we could ask each other. I mean, look, we got it wrong.

Many times we fought till 2 or 3 in the morning. We've sworn at each other, we've thrown around the divorce word. Like we. It hasn't always been sunshine.

I think we've come like. And long after we left church, in the unpacking of all of this, it's really come down to the nitty gritty. What do I really believe?

How much, how much do we want to be together? And I think we probably, we skirted dangerously close to the line of going, what do we want to be together.

And rather than rushing that decision, like just sitting in it. And I think because sometimes in an emotional state, you make a rash and snap decision and then you're stuck with a consequence of that decision.

And I'm very much a thinker under stress. So, like, I can say something rash, but I won't. I don't think that I would take the action without some long form consideration. So, yeah, like.

And then. But like, anything, everything has a heartbeat or a breath.

And so, you know, your marriage has, like, I think about our whole married life, it has had ups and downs and ups and downs. And every time we've been through the down, we've always come back to the up.

Yeah.

And one of the things I can say, overarching macro, is that the ups keep getting higher and even the bottoms keep getting higher, if that makes sense. Like, the down, the valleys are actually, I think, touch wood.

And, you know, as humbly as I can say it, we've been probably, hopefully through the lowest parts of. Of our married life.

Oh, God, I hope so.

But like. But that, like, even just the hope of that, I think helps a marriage.

Like, you can't have this without some goal to move towards, without some kind of sense of we're going somewhere together.

And did you do all of this on your own or did you both go to therapy together?

I've never been. Yeah, well, I've never been to therapy, Jesse.

No, you've never. He's never been to therapy.

Everybody should go to therapy, at least.

Okay. This is Liz. This is Liz. You're just replicating her to me.

Sam and I didn't talk before this episode. We didn't talk, but I. Liz is.

Always like, I think you need to go to therapy. And I've. I've read dozens of books on psychology. I have.

Stop now while you're still.

You can make fun of me and you can laugh at me, and also, I can also be myself. And like, I have. And look, I'm happy to go to couples therapy. Like, we've recently talked about this. I'm happy to go to couples therapy.

He's just stating it on.

On the record.

On the record. And Liz can, when she needs it.

Make a reel out of this part.

Yeah, I will.

Yeah. But that being said, like, I feel like when I reflect on myself, I feel like I've navigated things mostly pretty well.

And then I can hear from Liz and her journey.

Yeah.

And reflecting. It hurt. What? The way that I have behaved. I can see the trajectory of my life coming out of this.

Look, I think one of the lucky things, and this is luck for both of us, is being in church for so long. Like, we counseled people, we had no business counseling. Right. But we're used to talking about things we're used to.

Communication is super key. Like, it's actually.

It's really key.

One of the values that I came out of church with was Brene Brown quote which is clear, is kind and unclear, is unkind. And I like, it's literally like a core value for me.

I, I permeate it through our relationship, through our relationship with our kids in our businesses, with our staff, with our friendships. Like I can literally go if that person is not going to be clear with me, they have no business being in the circle of my life.

Like if I can't talk about things openly with them. And so I think that's a really key part. Has been a really key part. Like we've talked earlier on. We've kind of communicated our way through this.

We've communicated, we've done lots of reading, listened to lots of podcasts.

Yeah. I think a commitment to lifelong learning is another key.

It's another key to that part.

Like we are both learn it. Like we, we, we're self directed learners. We, we seek out perspectives and advice and. Yeah.

But I did just want to say I think one of the hardest things.

I love basically like physically telling Jesse shut up.

Well now that you've said that you're happy to do couple syrup, you don't need to say anything else. I'm joking. One of the most difficult things is like in any sphere of life I think is trying to let go of trying to control other people to feel safe.

Yeah.

And that was a very big. As much as I think we've highlighted. We always communicate blah blah. We do all these good things.

We have tried to control the heck out of each other as well at times, at times to feel safe in the ways that we were taught me. It's through people pleasing and I have done so much for you.

Can't you see everything that I've done and everything that I do and I've had to really like we hit probably a pretty low point in our marriage maybe three years ago.

Yeah. Maybe.

Maybe a bit more. And I had to really. I couldn't figure it out because I thought I'm, I'm a great person. Yeah.

And I do all this great stuff and why isn't it working and so.

But then part of you also doubted that. That too.

I, I did have a lot of bad self image situations going on as well. But trying to let go of controlling another person.

I think we all do it to an extent to make us feel safe, to make us feel like we belong, like we're okay. We're on the right path to let go of that. There's a great quote. I think it's by T.S.

eliot, and he says, the beginning of love is to let the person you love be themselves fully. It sounds like a. I've paraphrased it. Yeah, it sounds like such a lovely thing. It is so, so much hard work to outwork in a marriage.

And I think for the most part, as much as we can in the different stages that we've been through, we do try to do that for each other.

It's another thing that I found personally for me is if my vision. If I find that my vision of Liz is judgmental, I'll get. I'll get that version of her and.

It'Ll be a baby.

And do you know what I mean? Like, if I. The more I am critical of her, the more I see the best in her, I get that version of her.

Yeah.

And I think it's challenging in, like, I'm now trying to talk to your audience who are in these, in this situation. The more.

The longer you're in a marriage and the, and the patterns you've built of criticizing each other, of niggling one another of stuff like that, if you can start to look for and affirm the best in the other person, you'll get that version of that person out. And if you're criticizing that person, you'll get that part of their personality out. And it continually compounds a problem.

And that's what I think divides relationships. And it took. It took all of what we've been through for me to really find that and discover that.

Yeah, it's, you know, you understand a lot about the brain. I think an interesting fact about neuroscience, this is. I'm gonna. This is the analytical.

So rough consensus is we take in about a billion bits of information per second, right? And then the brain can only process 10 bits of information per second. That is a. That is like a hundred million x less of reality.

And so our worldviews are really formed on this little narrow bandwidth. Wherever we point that to reality is what we get. And so it's really important.

And the way that we get the reality that we want is we point that bandwidth, you know, and then what we start, then a brain starts to affirm it. Confirmation bias and all that kind of stuff. And, and it's interesting.

More miracles have happened to me post my Christianity by just pointing my worldview at the right things than. Than I ever had in my. In my Christianity. It's so, so interesting. So. And I think for my marriage, the more that I see the best in Liz, the more.

The best that I get out of her. If that makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah. I think, too, when people are deconstructing, give yourselves a freaking break. Because it's such a. Like, it can be such a fearful time.

Yeah.

Like everything is changing.

That's true.

Your value system are changing. The. The vision that you might have had for your life where you thought. I just remember being frozen.

Like, really experiencing such a frozen state for a long time because I grew up getting prophecies in those types of churches about the woman I would be, the man I would marry, and the ministry that we had together.

So when we left church, particularly when old mate over here was saying, I'm never going back to that place, I'm like, all the dreams that I'd had, they weren't necessarily my dream, like, as in the things that I dreamt about being as a little girl, but they were the things I thought I needed to be.

Yeah.

To live a blessed life, get into heaven, get the lotto ball of blessing dropped on my head. All the things that I was taught that I needed to get. So watching those dreams die in front of me.

Yeah.

Was a really fearful time. And when we're trapped in fear, we very rarely make. Make good choices.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's so much grief in that. Right. Like, in the changes.

So much great relationship. Yeah. Yeah. So much. I thought, like. And I know being outside of the church now, that this is a little bit of a ridiculous line of thought.

Neither of us are educated. Like, we haven't been to university or whatever in that calling Bible college, not education.

Liz, how dare you?

I am right here on this podcast I went through. Anyway, none of us are. So we had these positions of leadership and authority in a church that made me feel good about myself. I'm just gonna.

I'm just being really honest and really real. So even a part of. What am I going to do now? Just work at a shoe shop? Love shoe shops, by the way. If you work in a shoe shop, it's beautiful.

I own a deli now. Like, so I make sandwiches for a living.

Like, if I knew that back when I was leaving church, there would have been a part of my ego that went, that's not going to fulfill you or sustain you. Like, this is what you want.

And so there was a lot of unlearning that I needed to do about significance, what it means to have purpose, what brings me worth and a sense of belonging. Because all of those things were built, like, on lies and on foundations of quicksand when I was a child growing up.

So I think because you know, Jesse was able to get a job fairly quickly. We had a little bit of security. The app had just started doing really well.

We actually were able to breathe a little bit and not make any too rash decisions out of fear. My therapist has always said to me too, if like, don't make a call on your marriage. If you're safe, yeah. You're not being financially abused.

Like if you can guarantee your safety, emotional and physical and financial, then these are long decisions, not quick decisions to make. And I was safe. I was, you know, my kids were safe.

In any kind of tension that we've had and in any kind of figuring out who we are and what direction we're going to take our lives. And yeah, take your time with it and talk to people. Get some good sound advice and don't let fear make some decisions for you.

And if your partner, like I would also say don't rush. You've likely said if you're safe. All those areas of your. Don't rush.

The ditching your partner or throwing your partner out if they're not the person you want them to be. Yet that takes a process that is not. You don't go from here to here in a step. It takes multiple choices day in and day out.

And sometimes you are the person to help bring that change to their life with small decisions, like I said, just even my own of seeing the best in Liz. Then I changed a lot of the way that I related to it. I made sure one of the things I remember doing, I remember reading about the, the 22nd hug.

The 22nd hug rule. Like it releases oxytocin in the brain.

And so I started hugging like holding her, not just the 2 second hug in the kitchen, holding her and sitting with her. And. And I could start to see the changes, you know, occurring because she felt held and safe.

Our hearts like oxytocin released in the brain so she felt connected. And so yeah, like those it's. But it takes, you can't do that once you've got to do that. Like, yeah, that's how your relationship started.

That's how your relationship started. You started hugging each other and kissing each other and all that kind of stuff.

And 20 years into your marriage, it's just like a one second hug or a little peck on the cheek. Now you've gotta bring back that physical sense of closeness as well as the perspective that you're.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's 20 second hug, six second kiss. Is, is the numbers attached to that.

Yeah.

But okay, before we. Because I I love when people just, like, do my job for me in these podcasts, which is like, usually I ask, like, what do you want to tell people?

But I'm gonna shift a little bit before we completely change avenues and talk about something completely different. What wins and beautiful moments and joy have come out of deconstructing?

Because I think, you know, we've talked a lot about the heaviness and the conflict and, you know, the fear and the grief and all of that. There's also so much beauty and joy and pleasure and all of that that comes from that as well. So what has that been like?

Like, let's give some people some hope.

Some hope, I think. Oh, so many things. So many things. I mean, even I'll just go straight there sexually.

There's such a freedom because you can start to even talk about what you like.

I have a firm belief with my couples, if you can't talk about sex, don't have sex, please.

Like, oh, my gosh. In churches you're not taught.

Like, I was literally, literally taught that if you didn't have sex before marriage, you would have have great sex after marriage. And I was always. Because lovely gentleman here had had previous partners, so I was a bit nervous. Yeah, we'd always had pretty good sex.

So I was like, already. I was like, there's some disconnect there in the teaching. But we still never really talked about what we liked, what we wanted, what worked for us.

So even just having fun with that is a. Something that you can explore and figure out together.

And when you're not too serious about it, you can have a whole lot of fun and do a whole lot of laughing. I mean, just the fact that we regained a weekend was a revelation.

Yeah.

Sunday mornings and Sunday evenings. Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, and particularly because we both worked for church for the first time in our adult lives, we were paid appropriately. After we left church, we went from broke.

Like, we literally had a net worth of zero leaving church. Yeah, pretty much. And like, financially, I can see we've had big wins.

We just lived week to week.

Yeah. Well, now we don't live week to week.

And the other thing is, like, I feel like our kids have grown up really quite healthily and we're seeing the fruit. Like we've got a teenage, a mid teenager and a kind of like an early teen. And. And I'm really proud of the people that they are.

They kind of had the same upbringing as me and they had the first early years of their life in church. Probably not understanding church or even but. But outs.

But then they just transition into like normal secular kids and they're really both, like, they're both older ones are such good kids. Like, they are. They're really good people and I'm proud of them as a parent. Like, and that's, that's a massive win.

Like, we have friends who still go to church. They don't believe it. They're like, we grew up in church and it kept us safe from the world. Like, from the world.

And I'm like, that's not resilience building. That's just like.

Yeah.

And I feel like we've really been resilience focused with our children and it's like we're starting. We've still got a ways to go but like, we're seeing the dividends of that and that's a massive win. Post Deconstruction.

I just think going on holidays.

Going on holidays.

We're still in the practical.

Yeah. Yeah.

Like, we went away for a month last year. Well, we tried. We've gone away for a month a couple of times now.

Yeah. And.

And it sounds ridiculous, but.

But it's so important for relationship building.

You can't like, and for self nurturing, like for soul restoring, like being away from your normal environment, for, for allowing yourself to breathe and rest and all those kind of things. It's so important and we just kind of dismiss it. I think, I think even in the secular world, I don't think people holiday enough, to be honest.

But it's been a real key value of mine. Post.

I just remember, like, luckily said, when we're in church, I'd watch people go on holidays and I'd feel a sense of resentment towards it and I'd justify it with holiness or, you know, and now I'm like, actually, if I'm honest with myself, I wanted to live that and do that for myself and for our family and for our marriage.

So, yeah, I just wanna. I know we keep talking. We could like talk for hours. But I will.

I just wanted to say when, like, it can be really scary letting go of your old beliefs and trying to figure out what kind of person you're going to be afterwards. But like, when you can finally let go of some of those more dogmatic ideas of heaven and hell and what makes you a worthy person and a good person.

I remember going down the slippery slope, going holy. Am I going to be alive at the end? And I was alive and well at the end and free at the end. Like, I don't dream about going to hell. Anymore.

I don't fear for my children. I don't like the. The mental freedom that you can find when you do the work to get released from some of these dogmatic ideas and foundational.

There's.

I talk about it in my own work as a mechanism of fundamentalism which is very much leans into black or white thinking, codependency, all or nothing type. Living where you're in or you're out. When you can be more nuanced with your thoughts, when you can flow a little bit more.

When you can let yourself not know something and experience, explore and be curious.

Yeah.

Oh, the freedom in that. Like, I don't feel like I grew up hearing altar calls. If you leave this building tonight.

Yeah.

And you get hit by a bus, do you know?

Y.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt now I'm like, no, I don't know. Now nobody does. Like, nobody knows what happens when we die.

Yeah.

And there's such a freedom in that. It's. It's not scary. It's not scary at all. So when you can let yourself.

What do you. What do you believe now? Can I. Yeah. This way. What do you believe now, Liz?

I believe there's something. But for me to say, I no longer feel the pressure to have that nailed down. Like, my kid. My kids ask us this all the time.

You know, My youngest is 6, and he discovered death a few years ago. All our children have discussed like. Like when they realize that people die.

And we always lean into that moment because I feel like it's a pretty significant moment.

Yeah.

And so I always say to them, nobody knows what happens when you die.

Yeah.

So the point is to live here and now as best as you can, as full as you can, and as true as you can. My inkling is that something beautiful is beyond this world, that there is something connecting us all together. God, Earth, us, each other.

There is something bigger happening. But for me to tell you exactly what that is diminishes the mystery itself.

Yeah.

And just distracts us from being here now in this moment. Yeah. So my.

My. My discovery is that you can have heaven on earth or you can have hell on earth. Yeah. And so it's interesting. I.

Like I said earlier, I was headlong into the church, and I remember someone saying, heaven's gonna be like, this isn't. You know? And I thought to myself, in that moment, it feels like hell to me. Like.

Yeah.

And, like, I realized post that experience, I was living in hell. I was going to church, and I was doing all the things that Everyone said, but I was living in hell. And post, post that experience.

The more I lean into my truer self, I'm living in heaven. I have a beautiful wife. I have a beautiful family. I have hope for the future. And like, I have all of this beautiful stuff happening to me.

I feel like if, if I whatever, if heaven's gonna be whatever you feel like, you get to have, like, you get to experience that. I'm like, I'm getting to experience all these beautiful things that are true to myself. And this feels like heaven.

So what I would urge everyone, leave heaven now. Dudes, live heaven now. You can live it now. And your life will then, rather than delaying some thing into the afterlife building.

A mansion in heaven.

Like, make choices now. Make choices now that are true to yourself, and you'll find that your life will open up like it's heaven.

And I, I just like, I know I'm. I'm. We talk a lot. So I did just want to caveat before we finish.

Yeah.

If the marriage doesn't survive deconstruction, that's okay too.

Yeah, that is okay. Like, I agree.

I think one of the only reasons that our marriage has. Has done really well is because individually, apart from each other, we've done a lot of hard work.

Yeah.

And our marriage wouldn't be what it is today if I didn't feel like I was being a complete and honest and whole person in and of myself. And if old mate couldn't handle me doing that or if I couldn't handle him doing that, we'd be having a very different conversation now.

But as long as you.

I know the term do the work gets thrown around a lot, but if you are doing showing up for yourself and you're taking care of yourself and you're being curious and open. If the marriage doesn't survive deconstruction, there is still a big, beautiful life waiting for you and one happening in you.

And that is part of your journey. And that's not anything to be ashamed of. And it's not a failure. It's just part of the story.

And just because our story, you know, there were some times there we thought we probably wouldn't be together. And at this present moment, I mean, ask me tomorrow, but at this present moment, we're. This is where we are. And I'm grateful for that.

But it might not.

It doesn't matter how it works out for anybody listening, as long as you are able to be true to yourself and honest and you can do the healing that you need to do. And take it step by step, then that's a win, no matter what happens to your marriage.

And it does, it does take work. Sorry, that. Yeah, but it does take work. You think, to build up your Christianity, to build up all those beliefs you had together took work.

You had to go to church every Sunday. You had to read your Bible. You had to. All that kind of stuff. Well, it's going to take work to get a broader perspective.

And that's okay with, like, to be objective. That's okay.

And then luckily, says I, once you're true to yourself, you can trust that whatever unfolds is gonna be, is gonna bring more trueness of yourself to yourself, if that makes sense. Whether it's staying with your partner or finding a new partner or being on your own like yourself. Yeah, yeah. It's literally unfolding, I think.

What, to become a Christian, you really have to fold yourself up.

Well, yeah.

And like, to fit in that bubble. And like, as you unfold, you give yourself to the universe to like, not.

I don't mean that in some kind of weird new age way, but like you giving, you're opening yourself up positionally when you're your true self. Another Brene Brown quote is soft front, strong back.

So when you're soft front, you're actually presenting a vulnerable part of yourself to people, the world, your situations, your, you know, co workers, whatever, your partner. But you're, you're being true to yourself by holding you back, strong, like physically and positionally. So. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, I love you guys. You guys are the best.

And if you're right back, I mean.

And also, thank you for sharing so vulnerably about your relationship. If people have not already got enough of Liz and Jesse, please stick around next week because we are about to continue recording.

But you won't hear it just yet.

But we're going to talk about their kids and we're going to talk about parenting and navigating deconstruction in the parenting world, which I have no doubt will just be filled with, like, mass amounts of wisdom, just like this episode has been.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, love you, babe. Thank you for having us.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of beyond the Surface. I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did.

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Remember, remember, no matter where you are, on your journey. You're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning, and keep moving forward. Take care.