How to Reclaim Personal Agency in Marriage When Facing Pornography Addiction

Episode 262

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And when you listen to these episodes, I hope that you feel that there is a possibility of change. I hope that you see that you have more capacity to do the work here than you, you might feel that you have, and that in doing this work together, you and your spouse together, you will have more power to put this pornography problem in the past and start thriving beyond it than you may have ever seen before.

So I wanna share this episode with you. I hope that it's helpful. Please feel free to go to GetToThrive.com/workwiththrive and set up a free consult. Darcy and I would love to meet with you and change your lives and help you thrive beyond pornography.

Without further ado, here's that episode. We'll talk to you guys next week.

Zach Spafford: Hey everybody and welcome I'm your host, Zach Spafford. Zach Spafford and today with me I have Darcy. Hi. How you doing? I'm good. We did something really cool today. Yes. You want to tell them about it? Or you want me to? No, you always want me to.

I'll tell them. So we had the amazing opportunity to do a fireside for a ward in northern Utah with some just really amazing people. They asked some really awesome questions and one of the things that came up was a question that was really I think appropriate for today and today's conversation. And I really like this question.

It was a really good question from, I assume it was from a wife. We're going to talk about it as if it's from a wife.

So, in this fireside, we ask people to send in questions anonymously. Lots of people send in questions anonymously. If you would like us to speak to your ward, we'd love to do it. We love having this conversation with people.

It's so funny to say, hey, let's talk about pornography for fun. But it kind of is fun for us because we like to help people see this in a totally different light. So the question that came up was, you say that no one will overcome this behavior until they are ready to overcome it. Does that mean that close family members that feel hurt by the person using this behavior have no right to demand a change of behavior?

This is a really interesting question and I really want to talk about it from a couple of perspectives. Like, number one, we can demand anything we want of anyone we want. We can ask people to do all sorts of things, right? But at what point do you expect that demand to be met? And in this particular case, I think the premise of the question starts from a place that the person who is doing this behavior, the person that's viewing pornography, doesn't want to stop.

We're gonna stick with that premise, although I don't agree with it outright, but we're gonna stick with that premise and we're gonna say, Okay, you want to demand, Darcy, you want to demand of me that I stop looking at pornography. What's the reality here?

Darcy: The reality is, is that I, I can ask. Anything of anyone.

Like, I could ask you to stop looking at pornography, or I could ask my kids to clear their plates, or all sorts of things, right, of, that we ask of people, but if they are unwilling to do what you ask, then you have no option, right? Like, there's no, you can't make someone do something.

Zach Spafford: Yeah, I think that's true, and I think the question that this person really wants answered is, Well, at least the question that I'm going to project onto this person is how do I move forward with my own needs and wants when my partner is not meeting this particular desire for our marriage?

What do I do to be the person that I want to be? That's a great question. I, I, I firmly believe at this point you've got to take back your agency, right? You have the ability to choose what you are willing to put up with and what you're not willing to put up with, right, in a marriage. Make a choice to stay or go from a place of love and no longer be the victim of your choice.

choice that you are willing [: 00:05:00

So what does that look like? Great question. When we feel stuck, and like our lives are happening to us, and we don't have any control over them, or that, uh, we, we are the victim here in our, in, in this story, it really puts us in a very disempowered, hopeless place, right? Like, we, we just feel so stuck, and like, life is happening to us, and we have no choice.

But the reality is, is that we do have a choice. And we, and we need, we need to own that choice, right? We are either choosing to stay married to our spouse who views pornography, or we are choosing to leave our spouse and, and deal with whatever consequences come of that, right? And so when we can accept our agency and our capacity to choose, then we can move forward with.

Confidence and love. So I think one of the first questions you asked yourself was, do I want to stay in this marriage? Yeah, and for me I, I did. I really wanted to stay in this marriage and the reasons were because Zach was a really loving supportive husband. He is very hands on with our kids. He was a good provider, we enjoyed each other's company, right?

We, we, we went on date nights and we had fun and we loved to go on double dates with our friends and play games and all of the wonderful things that come along with being married and so for me I was willing to deal with this struggle in our marriage because I, I wanted to, like I wanted the benefits of all the other things that Zach had to offer.

Yeah, absolutely. I think you should have stayed. I appreciate that you stayed. So how did that change the conversation for you? Because early on in our marriage and early on in this struggle for us, there were a number of times where you said, if you don't figure this out, I'm leaving. And I think I hear this just about every time I work with a couple.

Uh, maybe not every time, but pretty regularly when I work with couples, uh, when I work with the husband, that's where he is, and, and when Darcy works with the wife, that's where she is, they're in this place of, my wife's gonna leave me, or my husband's gonna leave me if I don't figure this out. How did that change, how did you say, okay, this is, this is what I want to do, I want to stay in this marriage, this is why I want to stay in this marriage, how did that change what you would say to me?

And how you would react to me, and how you would react to pornography use in our In the beginning, when we were struggling with pornography and I wasn't really taking ownership for my decision to stay and I, and I felt like I just had to, I, I have these little kids, what else am I going to do? Yeah, I really did feel trapped.

I just, it was such a heavy burden to feel. I felt, I felt physically drained and, and mentally drained and really emotionally drained. And then. Years later, when I finally realized, no, I am choosing to stay in this marriage, and this is why, these are the benefits it provides, then I was able to feel so much more love and compassion for Zach, and show up in a place more of, like, curiosity and understanding of what's going on for him, instead of a place of judgment and fear and anger.

Disappointment, sadness, all of those not very fun feelings. That was pretty rough. Yeah. Well, and I can imagine you feel bad because I'm not living up to the standards that we had agreed on. Yeah. Then you feel bad because you think, well, it's about me. Yeah. Feel like it's about me as a person. And then you feel bad because now that this is out in the open, now that it's, we, we know what's going on.

And I say, hey, you need to stop this behavior. It still doesn't stop. And that's, I think, where this particular question came from. This woman is, she's in this place where she's saying, why doesn't this stop? So what do you think? What, why do you think it doesn't stop for the man? I think for a lot of men, they, they truly don't know why it is that they keep going back, right?

avior just kind of kicks in. [: 00:10:00

And I think that's kind of interesting because Yeah, I mean, I'm sure he does like to look at it, right, because in that moment you do, but afterwards I would bet that he doesn't necessarily like that he looked at it because of the consequences of his actions. And so Well, this is interesting, right, because I think as men in American society we are basically taught we don't have any feelings that we're supposed to have except for, you know, Three.

Those three, and we joke about this all the time, men have three feelings. Two of them are angry and one of them is horny, right? And those, that's not true. And the idea that men could be conscious of their feelings and understand what's going on and be And this is a way of really being able to, you know, parse out, okay, why am I feeling this way, and what is it about this feeling that drives me towards pornography, is a really important one that helps each of us figure out how do I want to interact with my life rather than how do I want to react.

And just follow the patterns of behavior that have gotten me through, that have just made it so that I don't feel terrible in a moment. This, this idea that we could have some different interaction with our feelings rather than just pushing them down and pushing them away and keeping them at bay is really foreign to, I think, most men and I think you're right and I think for the women on, on that side of it, when women are looking at men and they're saying, well, why is he upset?

Why is he sad? Why is he frustrated? Why is he lonely? He has me. I think you think, I think women in general think, well, men shouldn't have these feelings. Like, when I started to really deal with my feelings and deal with this work, I became much more, uh, we'll call it emotive. I don't know if that's a word, but I became more willing to tell you, this is how I feel at work when I was stressed.

And that scared you. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I was worried like, oh gosh, what are you stressed about? Are you going to make your deadlines? Are you going to get fired? Are you like, anytime he had a negative emotion, I would go into, you know, Freak out mode. I could see how me freaking out like that would make him not want to talk to me about it and to bury that feeling and, and, and feel good.

And I think that is a very common reality for men, especially, you know, men within the church and men within the United States, especially where we're told, you know, you've got to be tough. You've got to be a man. You got to, you know, you're responsible for all these people and you have to carry this load and there's no, There's not a lot of room for, well, how are you feeling and why are you feeling that way?

Why are you lonely? Why do you feel lonely? Oh, you know, and digging in and dealing with that. So when it comes to you as a woman dealing with your own agency in a marriage, in what ways were you not taking ownership for your reasons for staying? In a lot of ways, I would blame you, right? If I was having a bad day or if I, you know, Was frustrated with the kids and I, I, or if you chose not to go do something.

Yeah. Yeah. So I, I would blame you for it. Or, you know, I would feel like I couldn't leave because if I did then like, how would I support myself and how would I take care of these kids if you weren't around? So you very much were giving away your agency. You were saying he's in charge of how I feel. He's in charge of whether or not I do stuff at the same time.

Asking me to give away my agency to you to stop doing something that was, was helping me, even though it wasn't necessarily something that I wanted to be doing. It did have the effect of being a coping mechanism for me. And, and you were saying, Hey, you need to give up your agency on this. And I'm going to help you do that by taking over some of the load.

I'm going to be in charge of, you know, what's on your phone and what apps you have and all that sort of stuff. So really interesting juxtaposition. Like as we're talking about it, I want you to be aware, and if you're listening to this, I want you to be aware that you do have the capacity to choose. You can choose to stay or you can choose to go.

One way or the other, you are choosing it. If you choose to stay, I would 100 percent say do it from a place of love, do it from a place of, of empowerment, do it from a place of understanding that when you stay, it's because you're choosing to be there. And that you, and that you want to be there, right?

l happiness and you can feel [: 00:15:00

And this, by the way, is not just about marriage and staying in marriage and going from marriage. This is about everything in our lives, right? As a, as an employee at times, so I work for myself now, but when I was an employee, you know, there's this trade off that you have with every job you have. You give them time, they give you money.

And there are reasons why that job doesn't work. It's better or worse than another job, but you're staying there because you choose to be there. You're not staying there because someone, you know, handcuffs you to the desk. And this is the same reality that you have within your marriage. It's, I am here because I choose to be here.

And I need to take full responsibility for that and not feel as though I'm a victim of the moment. A victim of my, you know, my spouse's choices, and that goes for men and women. Like, I deal with, I have a lot of men who, they, they have not had sex with their wives in three years, right? Or their wife in this particular, right?

Wives, wife. I mean, we are, we are Mormons. So there's that whole polygamy question out there. So I don't want to confuse anyone at all. I want to make sure everybody knows we're just talking about one wife, right? They haven't had sex with their wife in over three years. And what is that doing for them? Are they there because they want to be there or are they being embittered by this and.

And it's not helping them regain their, their own agency and their own footing within their marriage. So, you know, be aware that this is, this is not a one way street, this is a two way street. And for all of you wives who are out there, what do we have for them? If you go to our website under the stuff, I created a guide to healing for wives.

And in there, you'll find a lot of good information and a lot of good questions to ask yourself and ponder. Kind of figure out, you know, what, what you want, how you want to handle this in your marriage and in your life and go from there. Yeah, I, I think the title of it, it's Guide to Healing for Wives, and one of the things that it says in there is, imagine a world where pornography does not define your relationship.

And this, I think, is key for every woman out there, everyone who is out there who's dealing with a spouse who's using pornography, whether you're a man or a woman, you want to build your life in a way that is what you want, not built around whether pornography is driving the relationship. Every single decision.

Go pick this up. It's great. It's free. It's amazing. Darcy did this, uh, for the About Progress podcast, and I think anybody could benefit from, from going through it with, with their spouse or with themself. It's a great resource. Awesome. Thanks for putting that together, Darce. Yeah, you're the best. Hey you guys, have a great week.

We're looking forward to another beautiful week this week. We'll talk to you next week. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Self Mastery Podcast. Imagine you, sitting next to your loved one and no longer bogged down by the greatest trial of your life. Each month I offer a free webinar that you can attend where you can get your questions answered about how you can break free from pornography use.

Take a moment now and go to the website zachspafford. com slash free call and you can sign up for free. You don't want to miss out on this amazing opportunity to ask questions, learn a new skill, and even get coached live if you like. We'll see you then.