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.zachspafford.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 225

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Hey everybody. And welcome to thrive beyond pornography. I'm your host. Zach Spafford. So today I want to share with you something that came up probably five times this week in my coaching. It is the difficulty that we have in relationships and the difficulty that is going on for most people who are struggling with pornography and they want to create a new relationship. One of the biggest difficulties that's occurring. Is that we don't know how to go through the process of creating that new relationship. It's often difficult because we have a dance and that dance is a really particular dance. It's a dance that you and your partner to a degree have agreed on, and it's no longer serving you.

If you don't have somebody who can help you see that meaning frame, understand what's happening within it, and then make the adjustments. It becomes really difficult to change the meaning frame, the dance. So one of the things that is often occurring within these relationships is that. Each partner wants something that's slightly different, but they don't know how to get it.

And the first part of knowing how to make that shift. Is knowing what's likely happening. So this came up, like I said, probably five times this last week. I want to share it with you. But before I share it with you, I want you to know that on the 1st of January, I'm going to announce something that I hope you all listen in.

Listen next Monday and you'll hear exactly what it is, but I hope that you are there listening and that you share it with somebody that needs to hear it.

Okay. So I'm going to read from you read to you from David His book, passionate marriage. This is what's happening in a lot of marriages. Where there, what happens is your relationship comes to an impasse. Maybe your partner is viewing pornography. Maybe you're struggling with your partner viewing pornography.

Maybe you're the person viewing pornography or you've stopped viewing pornography. This is happening a lot within the coaching conversations that I'm having is that the partner has stopped viewing pornography. But the relationship isn't improving. And a lot of times what happens is the wife comes in and she's like, well, if he would just stop doing porn, that would be better.

Or if he would just tell me the truth. Then we would have a better relationship, but, but we don't know really how to go through that process of shifting. So I'm going to read from David shards, his book, and I'm going to talk about. The key concept here that I talk about with my clients within these conversations.

Okay. So he says, here's something important to remember. So this is on page one 18 in his book, passionate marriage. So if you want to read that book, it's really dense. So feel free to read it, but it is a lot of information. It's very dense. Material. It's very technical, but it is good material. So if you're looking to improve your marriage, this is a great place to start. So he says, here's something important to remember when your relationship seemingly grinds to a halt.

So this is what's happening with these relationships. Guys, either Quip viewing porn, or he's still viewing porn, but th but the relationship is not progressing and neither party is getting what they want. When your relationship seemingly grinds to a halt when your partner and yourself reach gridlock, neither of you can reduce anxiety through accommodation.

And neither of you has any of the old kind of validation to offer. So. What he's talking about here is accommodation and validation. These are two ways that we often manage our relationships. So in a relationship where someone's viewing pornography. A lot of husbands, a lot of the men who are viewing pornography, what they do is they accommodate their spouse. So the wife gets mad.

The husband becomes ultra helpful. He shifts into this mode of "I'm going to be the best version of a husband that I can be" because in doing that, I'm going to save my relationship best I can. So they get into this accommodating mode. I used to do this, right. So Darcy. Darcy would tell you that I was the best kind of husband.

All of my buddies were making fun of me because I was changing diapers. And making sure that the house was taken care of best. I could. I was really quite hands-on as a dad and as a husband, as a father, all of that. And so she would say I was a great husband, but I have this one problem.

Okay. So I was deeply into accommodating my wife. I was highly validating of her and. For her. I couldn't reduce the anxiety around pornography because of that. I wasn't able to manage her well enough through accommodation and validation. To reduce her anxiety around pornography because I still was struggling to deal with porn and. She didn't know how to validate or accommodate me.

So, especially at the beginning, as she worked to understand, okay, how did, how is porn. Impacting me. One of the things she would do is she would accommodate me sexually. She would try and validate me sexually. And make it so that I never quote unquote wanted for sex. And, or she tried to become. Just a different kind of sexual partner, even though that wasn't natural to her.

She would try and be a little bit more accommodating in the bedroom. It wasn't her choosing me. It was her trying to manage me. So that's what we're talking about. When we talk about accommodation and validation, it's utilizing the tools of saying and doing nice things to put your partner into a position where they will reciprocate that's what's happening.

So he goes on, he says, " Truly validating your partner when you've reached gridlock means. Accepting that he or she is less likely to accommodate you and you'll have to confront yourself at the point of gridlock, your choices are limited." So what he's saying there is. A lot of relationships, they come to this point where they're like, "I can't. Accommodate I'm unwilling to accommodate or I'm unwilling to be accommodated."

So that happens as well.

And I've told this story of how I was like, I'm not going to accept duty sex anymore. I want you to step into this relationship. Uh, around sex differently. And this is what's happening is you're saying, okay. If I want to validate my partner, I have to be willing to stop accommodating her. I want her to know that I love her and I want to say, Hey, your choices are yours, right?

So I'm validating her choices, but I'm not. Engaging in management. This is the difficult part. So this, the four choices that he offers. And I think two of these are, are basically the same, but they're. You know, flipped around. So there's choice number one, which is: " Push your partner to violate himself or herself by accommodating you." I know someone who. If he chooses to view porn, he will not. Relent on asking his wife to have sex with him until she does have sex with him because that's how he knows he's quote unquote. Okay. So that behavior is him pushing her to accommodate him.

You can see how that might not be a valuable tool. The other version of that, which is the flip side of pushing someone to accommodate you is to turn yourself over to our partner by accommodating them. So, if you're looking at your relationship and you're in this position of I'm. Seeking accommodation for my partner.

I'm asking them to, violate their own sense of self or violate their own personal desires by trying to remove from them their choice so that I can feel good so I can feel like I'm okay within this relationship so I can belong to the relationship.

So I'm asking my partner to stop belonging to themselves so that I can belong to this relationship. Then there's this accommodation going on?

Those are two sides of the same coin. And then the other, the third choice is to separate yourself physically or emotionally. How many times have you heard or seen, or even done this where you've got one partner saying, "you have to leave." "You have to go sleep on the couch." "You have to remove yourself from our house." That's one of the ways that people are trying to hold on to themselves while in relation to another person and especially around these difficult struggles in our relationship. When you feel like you can't hold onto yourself, that may without physical separation, without physical distance, that may be one of the difficulties that you're engaging with and you're going to need to do something different. And so these are the two ways that your relationship is interacting. There's a third option.

There's an option that doesn't require you to lose control or. Take control of your partner or to violate yourself or have your partner violate themselves so that the relationship can continue to exist, which is really what a lot of these tactics are about. It's about making so making it so that the relationship continues to exist while the individual ceases to exist.

And this is people don't like that, like in the long run, that's not really what most people want. Most people want to belong to themselves and belong to something else to, to belong to their relationship, to belong to their church. Whatever that is.

That dynamic becomes difficult if one of those things, either the self or the relationship takes over all of the belonging. Which is what sometimes happens within our relationships, where we go, I can't get divorced.

I can't leave my partner. I it's, it's unacceptable in my view to leave my spouse or to. Make a different choice. It's, it's unacceptable to continue on in this vein. And so we ceased to belong to ourselves. And we sacrifice our sense of self to maintain this. Relationship. How many of you have ever heard somebody say, "well, we'll stay together for the kids." That's exactly what this looks like. And it can be a variety of different ways across a variety of spectrum of, of issues.

But that's really what we're looking at. We're looking at either. I separate physically and mentally and emotionally, but I stay to maintain this relationship. So I stay in some way, but I'm really not there. Trying to maintain space so I can have control over my sense of self or I violate my sense of self. And I accommodate, or I push my partner to violate them their sense of self and they accommodate me.

When you comes to this impasse, when it comes to this what David Schnarch calls, gridlock, where the relationship isn't working, the way that you would expect it to, or that you might want it to where it's just stopped being enjoyable. Honestly, it stopped being interesting.

Okay. So the, the fourth option that he lists is to confront yourself and become more differentiated. And the way that I like to talk about differentiation is having a solid sense of self. While in relation to others. So you can choose closeness with another person, but also not getting lost in their anxiety. And this is a fairly difficult concept to deal with, partly because it requires self confrontation.

Meaning I have to be able to look at myself and say,

What's going on for me, that makes it difficult for me to hold onto myself, to have a good, solid sense of self.

For instance, if I'm viewing pornography and that's not part of my moral compass and my wife, doesn't like it. And that's something that we don't want in our relationship. My continued viewing of pornography means that my sense of self is less solid. And so it becomes easier to get lost in someone else's anxiety.

It gets easier to lose yourself in trying to maintain the relationship. So belonging to something. Rather than learning and figuring out how to belong to yourself. If you're the wife and you feel you're feeling betrayed your partners. Engaging in this activity and you believe that it's about you. You start to get lost in, "what's my worth in this environment?"

Is this about me? Why is this about me? How is this impacting me? And you stop being. You stopped feeling a sense of self that's. Like I'm, I'm a good person. And I'm good with who I am. And you, you very meaningfully start to question who you're being. So having a solid sense of self. While being able to choose closeness without getting lost in the anxiety of the other person.

So for instance, on the husband's side or my side of the street, what would happen is I would go to Darcy. And I would say, this is what's going on for me. I'm struggling. I'm having these urges. This is how this is going on for me. And in the beginning in particular, she would really be anxious about it.

She'd be like, "well, why?" "are you going to get fired or is this going to happen? Is that going to happen? Why is this going on for you?"

And what I realized was that all of those questions were really about Darcy trying to create a sense of self on her side. So I stepped back from that anxiety and I held on to me and I said, am I showing up in the way that I would expect myself to show up? Am I being the person that I would expect my children's spouse to be.

So this is a really great way to frame this question so that it's not about me. But it's about what I might expect of someone else in this similar situation. Am I acting in a similar way that I might expect someone who is outside of me to act. And that creates this capacity to start self confronting. To start. Learning to differentiate, to start learning, to say, what does a solid sense of self look like?

Like how do I be a solid person? How do I create and live in an integrated space? In order that. I can choose closeness with my spouse without losing myself in some anxiety that they might have about what's going on for me. Now as a Christian or as someone who has lived their life in a way that they can say, "I do X because this is what I believe." That's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about a solid sense of self. This is not about accommodating someone else's perception of who you should be.

This is really about being like, "I believe in this way of living, because it is the right way to me to live." That doesn't mean someone else has to live that way, but I'm okay. In this space, owning who I really am. So the person who, who I am when I'm alone with myself is the same person that I'm okay sharing with my spouse. .

That's what an integrated solid sense of self might look like.

Not getting lost in their anxiety. Is being able to say, okay, "Darcy. Like, I appreciate that you're upset or that you're worried. I don't have any answers for you about why you're not feeling good. All I know is that I'm working to be the best version of me that I can." So I'm stepping into the void of "I can tell that I suck." And I can tell that I'm not really perfect. But I am conscientious. And I'm meaningfully working to being a good version of me, even if that good version of me isn't fully formed yet. You see where I'm going here? And on her side of the street. Just to step back into anxiety and start to think, "well, why am I afraid of what is going on for Zach? Why am I afraid? That he might be viewing things on the internet that. I don't agree with, or that make me feel bad. "

So for her, she needs to step into that and go. What would a solid sense of me look like around. Him choosing pornography. Even though it goes against our values, even if, even if it isn't the way that we want to live our life. What is going on for me and can I become more solid around that particular struggle?

And this is something that when Darcy works with wives, it is, I swear to you guys, it's a magical shift. Because when she works with spouses, they begin to create a much more solid sense of self to where they don't get lost in the anxiety of pornography. They don't get lost in the anxiety of their partner, not being perfect.

They stop being. So deeply. And offended is not the right word, but hurt by it. And they start to be come a capable of leaning into the relationship and seeing, well what's actually happening for you. What's going on for you? That. Is taking you towards this choice, even though we've agreed. It's not what we want in our relationship.

So they, they are able to engage their curiosity and their empathy much more. Readily rather than live in this space of, well, this is going to hurt me somehow. So that's a, that's a really meaningful shift. So, this is what. I want you to, I want you to kind of start to understand. I, this is a pretty high level concept.

It's an important concept, but I want you to. Understand this. So going on and Dr. his book, he says, gridlocked couples experience themselves as falling out of love. Ironically, the ability to love doesn't truly develop until the honeymoon food honeymoon phase is over. So if you're out of that honeymoon phase, this is a good time, right?

And the gridlock arrives. Gridlock drives you closer to your own core as it nudges you towards differentiation, meaning. It drives you to be. More capable of articulating well, what is it that I actually want? What, what would make me a solid person and how can I become more solid without getting lost in my partner's anxieties around their own growth. While still choosing closeness to them, which that's a really difficult task sometimes. As you get more firsthand experience with your own essence, being the person that you expect yourself to be. You become more accepting of everyone else? Including that partner, by the way, who may not be living up to the standard. That you might be expecting them to live up to. I hope this has been helpful.

Let's make this the last year that pornography and your relationship struggle over this.

I want you to understand that Darcy and I love you guys. Thank you so much for listening. If you want to do something to give back this year. For anybody out there who's struggling to figure out pornography. Go put a review on apple podcasts. If you will take the time right now. It'll take you 30 seconds.

Take the time right now to put a review on apple podcasts. Somebody else will find this. Somebody who would not have found it, otherwise we'll find it. And that review will make their life change. Maybe it's the way that it's changed your life. If it's changed your life to do a review, you don't have to put your name. A lot of people do there. They're reviews and it's a pseudonym.

So feel free to put whatever you want. All right. My friends Merry Christmas. I'm so excited for what's going to come in the new year. I'm looking forward to working with so many of you this coming year. I will talk to you guys next week.