Learning to Thrive Beyond Pornography use was the greatest challenge of our life and marriage. It had rocked my self confidence, tainted all of the most important experiences of my life and become the most impossible challenge I had.

With this podcast or at https://www.GetToThrive.com you'll learn about the struggle, how to overcome pornography use, and where to find additional resources to begin to thrive beyond pornography with your spouse.

At some point I took a step away from all the 12 step meetings and councilors and started to figure out my own brain, to look at my issue as something that I had the answer to and I was going to figure it out. Here I share those lessons and give you the power to start your own journey free. Whether you struggle with unwanted pornography use or are the spouse or partner, whether you feel stuck or just don't know where to start, here I will teach you principles, tools and skills that you can use today to change how you think and, in the end, what you do.

You'll hear interviews with my spouse, with experts on human sexuality and with former and current pornography users on how you can overcome your own struggle with addictive behavior.

The Thrive Beyond Pornography podcast will bring new perspective to your struggle and keep you coming back to improve all aspects of your life. (formerly, The Self Mastery Podcast: Overcome Pornography Forever)

Episode 276 - Remaster of Ep. 76

===

And I hope that you find the conversation useful. I hope that you use it in your own conversations with your spouse and start to do the work of making the commitments and also declining to commit to things that you aren't capable of committing to. I hope this is a helpful conversation.

If you have questions, if you would like to meet with Darcy or I, go to gettothrive. com slash work with us. We'd love to have a conversation with you. I hope you have a great week and without further ado, here's that episode.

Zach Spafford: Hey everybody and welcome . I'm your host, Zach Spafford, here along with my lovely wife, Darcy. Hi. How you doing? I'm great. What's going on? Not much. We just had a house full for some, uh, yummy food. Yeah. I love when someone else makes brisket and I get to eat it. It's pretty awesome.

It's amazing. I love brisket. I love all things barbecue and meat and bacon and, you know, all that sort of stuff. And Darcy being a vegetarian, she just watches us eat it. Pretty much. Awesome. Hey, recently I was discussing a specific commitment. I had a conversation with my client that his wife was expecting from him, and one of the skills that I teach my clients is to bring their urge responses from a place of unconscious habit to a place of choice and planning, and as my client was working through this with his spouse, one of the things she asked was that he not look at pornography while she is in the house, and not, not surprisingly, he committed to that immediately.

He said, yeah, I'll definitely do that because it doesn't seem like an unreasonable request, right? Especially if you're in that place of I'm in trouble and my wife wants me to stop looking at pornography and I'm trying something new and she's like, well, that's fine. Just don't look at pornography when I'm in the house.

Okay. And then he immediately broke his word. And I think this is really interesting because his desire to be good, quote unquote good, for his wife was pretty strong. And I think that a lot of us do things like this. We commit to things because we want to, and we think doing so is going to help us and our spouse feel better.

And it doesn't seem like a huge ask, right? She's like, Hey, Don't do this while I'm in the house. That doesn't seem like a huge ask and we should be willing to do whatever we've been asked, especially if we're like the offenders here. And I use that term because I think that's the way a lot of spouses feel.

And I don't think that we're offenders, but I do, I think that's a way, you know, that conversation usually begins in that spousal relationship. But this particular commitment is one that I think It comes up pretty often as men and women work through their discussions about pornography in their lives.

And, like I said, it seems simple. She says, Please don't look at pornography while I'm in the house. Or, please don't look at pornography while the kids are in the house. And I think most of us want to acquiesce. I think we want to give this request its full due. Uh, we don't even really want to be viewing pornography at all, you know, in the way that we are because we're using it to manage our lives and we don't, you know, this isn't how we want to manage our lives.

So why wouldn't we say yes to this? And I think that's a really important question for every one of us to answer. For a lot of us This boundary is hard and fast and should never move. So let's just kind of discuss it because some of us, this is going to be a, you know, something that is movable. Some of us, this is going to be something that this is a hard and fast boundary and it's never good to move.

So there are a couple of things that you and your partner need to be clear about and understand when you make commitments. And I think there are two really important questions that you need to ask. The first one is, is it realistic? And we're going to go into these and kind of talk about them in more depth, but the second one is, is it going to produce the results that we want?

So let's start with that first question. Is it realistic to ask your spouse to never look at pornography in your home? So to give this a little bit of context and a little bit of color, I want to start with a small statistic. Americans spend something like 70 percent of our time at home, right? So this means that.

Home is the most likely place that pornography is being accessed.

Darcy: So when we think, is it realistic to ask our spouse to never look at pornography in our home?

Zach Spafford: Or while we're there.

Darcy: Or while we're there. You know, 70, if 70 percent of our time is spent at home, then there's a fairly good chance that that is where Where pornography, where they're gonna be looking at pornography, be accessed.

But that may not be, right now, available to him, or to you.

Darcy: Yeah, and, and this, this thought just came to my head, and I, you know, as I sit here and think about that, I'm like, Well, you know, when we think of our kids, and them having bad behavior, often times we say things like, "Well, at least they save their bad behavior for when we're home."

Like we always would get tons of compliments when we'd go out with our kids. Like we had six kids, seven and under, and we would go out and every single time we went out to dinner, people would compliment us. And we went out to dinner a lot. And Zach and I would always kind of look at each other and kind of chuckle like, Oh, if they only knew what it was like at home type thing, you know, because they're crazy at home.

And we had a dentist once that said, "well, like, where do you want them? If your kids are gonna misbehave, isn't at home the best place for that to happen?" And, I'm not saying that our husbands are kids and that they're quote unquote misbehaving, right?

But I am saying that, looking back, would I have rather Zach looked at pornography at home versus, say, At work, I would probably prefer that he looked at pornography at home.

Zach Spafford: Yeah. So is it realistic? Is it reasonable to think that this is a good idea right now? And I think the other component of that is if you are looking to begin the process of really eliminating this from your life, home is probably the best place to, you know, I'm not saying engage in pornography, but it's definitely the best place to learn.

That is what home is for. Home is from the beginning of our lives. Home has been a place of learning. It's a place where the people who love you the most are going to be giving you the best feedback. The feedback that hopefully is most geared towards helping you become the best version of you that, that you can get.

So it's a really, I, I think that aside from it being a question of realisticness, it might also be a question of like, what's the value in, in this particular question. And I think we're going to get to that in, in the next section. You know, is this going to provide the result that we're looking for?

Darcy: And I, and I remember saying things like, well, I don't want you looking at pornography in our home because you know, I, I had this thought like that will drive out the spirit or, or I don't want you to be looking at pornography if we're around because What if we see it or you know, I remember having those thoughts, but Really what I was honestly trying to do is I was trying to control the environment to make it so that I I felt like I was okay and if I thought that Zach could commit to not doing that in our home, then I thought that that would be a value.

Zach Spafford: That might help control the possibility of me even looking at it, right?

Darcy: Yeah, yeah, because if he was like, no, I won't do it in our house, then I was like, okay, good, then it'll be that much less.

Zach Spafford: Yeah, and I think also that pushes a little bit of the shame narrative and the shame difficulties that we have with this, which is, you know, if you have this problem, you need to take it away from us.

Right? Like, we're so ashamed of it in a certain respect that we're saying, you know, get away with, get away from me with this problem of yours. And I think it's also a little bit scary to think, you know, he'll be out there somewhere looking at pornography. Which, where do you want him to be looking at pornography?

The public library? No, of course not. What about work? No, definitely not. In some random, random parking lot? When I ran an insurance agency, we, my landlord, he was like, yeah, I find people sitting in our parking lot all the time. Hooked up to our Wi Fi looking at porn, you know, so you've got somebody Accessing pornography in a public place essentially what kind of you know long term issues is that going to create not just in terms of his own shame and the shame that you're dealing with internally as a family But then what if there are additional exposures that I don't really want to get into in this conversation But you know, they are possibilities and we want to make sure that Not that we're keeping this from exposing itself to the wider world in a sense of shame, but creating a scenario where we create more danger than, than we really need or want in our lives.

Zach Spafford: Yeah. Being like, Hey, you know, whatever your problem is, you need to figure it out outside of where we live so that you, you can come back to us whole and not, you know, not make this the safe place that we, that we want it to be.

And that's an interesting, that's an interesting message that we're giving to our spouse and to ourself. Right.

Darcy: Yeah, and I just think, you know, if I just also think of like my son, if my son was struggling with pornography or my daughter was struggling with pornography, it would be really hard for me to be like, hey, whatever you do, make sure you don't do it in our home.

Make sure, if you're gonna struggle with that, you go do it elsewhere. Um, because to me, the home is the best place for us to struggle.

Zach Spafford: Yeah. And I think the place to really, again, like I said, grow is in the home because that's a place where you can learn and grow together. So if we go back to the original question, which was, is the request that we're asking our spouse to do realistic and is it going to produce the results that we want?

And the example that we're using right now is, my client who had his wife ask him, You know, please don't use pornography while I'm here in the home. Is that request going to produce the results that we want?

Darcy: I kind of think the idea of, like, if I ask my spouse to please not look at pornography while I'm in the home, then my brain goes to this, like, little sneaky thought, like, Oh, well, if I just never leave him at home alone, then he won't be able to look at pornography.

In our house at all or I'll only leave when he's somewhere else somewhere else, right? It's just I I don't know. I think it would be Yeah, I think that's that's kind of the result that we're all looking for, right? Like she's looking to I think you're you know as the spouse I think you're looking to reduce the pornography viewing.

Zach Spafford: I think you're looking to maybe create a more sacred space I think that's a totally reasonable Thing to try and create say hey, you know our home is a sacred place I think it depends a lot on what it is that you are trying to accomplish. What's the result that you're trying to accomplish? If the result is to reduce pornography viewing or restrict pornography viewing, then I would say no.

The answer here is, if it were that simple, pornography viewing wouldn't be a problem, right? If you could just say, hey, that's fine, just don't do it at our house, and, you know, here are a couple of other rules, then pornography would go away, right? But I don't think it's that simple. And I think for most people, you know, they are not thinking about it two and three steps ahead.

They're thinking about it in terms of, well, I just don't want this to happen where I'm going to be so I can feel something, whatever that something is.

Darcy: For Zach and I, when we were going through this in the beginning, it felt very much like I was the parent, he was the child. I was the one making requests, really demands.

They weren't even really requests, they were demands. And I was expecting him to, to follow them, right? And when we began to really make progress was when we actually started working as a team. And I stopped looking at Zach as The one who was ruining everything and he was the one that was, you know, risking our eternal salvation and, and I really started looking at him as my spouse who was truly struggling with this and didn't want it in his life.

I think it's hard to make requests of our husbands. When they're not at the level that they could really follow through with the request. I feel like it's unfair. I feel like if Zach came to me and said, Hey, I know you're struggling with yelling at the kids or whatever, keeping up with the dishes. I need you to commit that you're not going to yell at the kids or you're not going to fall behind on the dishes.

And if, if my skillset isn't that, which I am able to keep up with it, then really, he's setting me up to fail.

Zach Spafford: Yeah, and I think a lot of people are looking to rebuild trust in their relationships, and I think this particular request, and so many of the requests that we make of our spouses, they seem like really good ideas.

Darcy: And, and they're really where we want to end up. Yeah, totally. Because the, the end goal is that pornography viewing is not occurring at all.

Zach Spafford: Right, absolutely. But I think the problem is, is that this particular request for this particular client, it's was creating a situation where failure was really inevitable.

And this really is a tough moment, right? Because it's really clear that he can't really be honest with her and commit to this particular requirement because he's really setting himself up for failure almost immediately from the get go. And then that creates a situation where he doesn't want to go to his wife and say, hey, this is what happened because he had literally just committed to not doing that.

You know, two, three days before. So it's, I think it's really important for each of us to be really clear about what we're committing to. For this client, he needed to have a really candid conversation with his wife and tell her that this isn't something that he can commit to at this point. Not that he doesn't want to commit to it, which I think is different, but that he is not currently capable because if that were something he will, were capable of, I don't think he would be looking at pornography as much.

Darcy: For instance, right now. I cannot commit to not eating sugar ever again, and I know that for me, reducing sugar and not eating sugar would be a really good thing for me, because there's lots of research out there that says that sugar feeds cancer, and being that I had melanoma, like, It would be really wise of me not to eat sugar, right?

Zach Spafford: At least that's what a lot of people say. And so, but I'm like, I, I just am not there. Like, I cannot commit to never eating sugar again.

And, yeah, and I think that really candid, honest conversation with yourself and between spouses can be difficult.

Darcy: Yeah, even though I'm like, yeah, I think that not eating sugar would be really good for me.

It would be good for my health in so many ways. But yet I am not there yet.

Zach Spafford: Yeah, and I think if you want to rebuild intimacy, which I, I would hope that is one of the primary goals of what's happening with you and your struggle with pornography, is that you're looking to rebuild true, honest intimacy, then you're gonna have to be willing to have these candid conversations, and husbands are gonna have to be willing to say no when a wife asks for something that's totally reasonable but not within their current skill set. And I think wives are going to have to be willing to say, I understand where you are, because even though I'm requesting something that I believe is reasonable and totally within, you know, what we want in terms of our long term parameters over how our relationship should be, but is not currently within your skill set.

That's hard.

Darcy: Yeah, and I look back to the years when Zach was struggling with pornography, and I used to make the request, like, "can you just please not look at pornography while I'm on vacation?" You know, I'd go to my parents, I'm like, just please, just please do not ruin this vacation. Like, I want to be able to enjoy myself, and I don't want to deal with you looking at pornography while I'm on vacation.

Or, like, when I would go out with My girlfriend for girls night out like I'm just be like, please just don't look at pornography while I'm gone Like that was always my request, right? Yeah, and

Zach Spafford: And that's really interesting that you say that because those are the moments when I felt the loneliest Like I'm remembering one particular vacation where you were gone.

I think for like a month and a half to To, uh, Wisconsin, and we lived in California at the time, and I was alone, and basically I worked and worked and worked and worked. And it was probably three or four weeks, maybe five weeks, into it. It was right, like, right near, maybe a week before you were coming home, and I just broke.

And I didn't fulfill that request, and I felt like such a loser. And it's interesting because now I know what happened, right? What I, what happened was I didn't know how to manage my emotions. I didn't know how to manage my thoughts. I didn't know how to manage being alone and lonely and horny and alone and all those things that come along with being, you know, a young man who is away from his wife.

I didn't know how to manage any of that stuff and I felt like such a failure.

Darcy: Yeah. And, and I guess what I was trying to get at is, is that back then I would make these requests of you and you would, Fail. Yeah. And then I would come home and I would be like, ah, I'd be upset about it. Right. And then, but now like where you are now, I could totally say, Hey, can you please not look at pornography while I'm away?

And I'm like, I always like, yeah, right. He's not.

Zach Spafford: Yeah. You thought I was going to fail. I was desperate to prove you wrong. Yeah. And it was never, it was never really what we wanted, which was knowing each other. Truly knowing each other and not holding our faults and failures against us, against each other.

And that's what intimacy is. That's what we're trying to create here. And I just want you to be aware that when you make these requests of your spouse, and we look to, you know, try to renegotiate that boundary of, and the reality of our sexual lives and what that looks like in terms of pornography and intimacy and even sexual intercourse and all those things as we renegotiate those boundaries.

Being honest about where we are, what our skill sets are, and what we're willing and able to actually do is just as important as the request to stop or start any particular request.

Darcy: Yeah, because I think back then I would have rather you said Instead of saying, yes, I, I will do that. I would have rather you said, I'm going to do my best, but I, I can't promise you that I won't fail.

Zach Spafford: I didn't think I had that choice. You know what I mean? I didn't think that that was available to me. I know that's available to me now. And you know, I don't remember when that turning point came, but at the time, especially deep into it, I thought I just had to do whatever you asked.

Darcy: Well, yeah, because you were scared I was going to leave and take the kids, and I had threatened that, so that, that would make sense.

Zach Spafford: Absolutely.

So I think that's really interesting that you're like, this is what I really wanted you to say, which would have been a much more honest answer. Yeah. You know, I want you to say, yeah, I'm going to try my very best. And it, when I Slip up. I'm going to have that conversation with you, but I'm not going to guarantee any result here, which would have been a much more honest answer than I'm not going to look at porn while you're gone for six weeks.

Darcy: Well, yeah. And I think, I think it's kind of, you know, enlightening the idea, the concept that it's like, if we could just make these requests of our husbands, then our husbands would never struggle with this. Right. Because, um, We could just request like, "hey, don't look at pornography when you're home and don't look at pornography when you're at work and don't look at it at all on your phone and don't...", you know, like we could just make request after request and if they just commit to honor that request and just do it then that would be, that would be so simple.

Zach Spafford: That would totally solve all our problems, right? And I think all the men out there are like, Oh, sweet. So I should be able to make requests, right? Which are like, Hey, can you make sure that the kids are bathed and put it, put to bed before I, before I get home? Or can you make sure the house is clean or whatever you like, whatever thing it is that you as a man want in your marriage, would you, can you commit to having sex like four times a week, rather than whenever you feel like it, you know, all of those things, if we could just make those requests, Based on our our desires, not based on the capacity of the person we're requesting them from.

And then that person just has to commit to them, then all our problems will be solved. Wouldn't that be nice?

Darcy: Yeah, in a lot of ways it would.

Zach Spafford: Right now, she's like, can you work out? Seven days a week, Zach. That's, that's I want a six pack. I never had a six pack, even when I was playing football all summer and all winter.

That six pack is never going to happen for me. That's alright. Is it? Yeah, I still love you. You do? That's awesome. Alright, you guys, listen. We love this topic and we'd love to have you come and have a conversation with us.

All right you guys, we will talk to you next week. Leave a review! Yeah. Leave a review. Talk to you later. Bye.