Understanding Your Husband: A Deep Dive into Pornography and Emotional Avoidance

Episode 256

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Zach Spafford: [: 00:00:00

Darcy Spafford: Hi. I'm back. It's been a while. I've been, uh, avoiding going on air.

Zach Spafford: It's not like you don't have other responsibilities.

Darcy Spafford: That's true. That's true.

The other night Zach and I were talking about our coaching clients and thinking about what it was that we could talk about on the podcast this week. And we kind of came up with the idea of doing a two part series on helping our clients understand their spouse better.

So this week, I'm going to be asking Zach questions, to help the wives understand their husbands better. And then next week, Zach will be asking me questions.

Zach Spafford: I love it.

Darcy Spafford: So I'm going to be asking Zach some questions to help our wife listeners understand why their husbands watch porn and struggle to stop. And it's going to be really aimed at how we can foster more understanding and empathy. So, the first question, Zach, can you explain some of the underlying reasons why husbands might turn to pornography?

Zach Spafford: Sure. I think there's a variety of reasons. They, they vary from validation seeking, you know, there's sexuality in there. There's curiosity. I can't tell you how many times I've had a client say, I, you know, one of the ideas that pops into my mind is. Has this person done naked pictures? Uh, it can be a component of novelty.

So novelty is always interesting within the sexual context., it could be hormonal, fluctuations in hormones driving this, especially for younger men. There is a, you know, there's a, there's a new set of hormones to a lot of them that they're still trying to learn and manage. You know, and, and at various times, these things can shift.

So it could be one thing, it could be another thing, and that can shift throughout life. The more mature clients that I deal with, for the most part, what they're looking for is validation. They are going to the internet and the internet is saying, I love you, let me give you some dopamine. And I know that sounds a little bit strange or a little bit trite, maybe.

But the reality is, is that when a man goes to the internet and he says, Hey, I'd like to see boobs. However he does that. The internet never says no. It never is like, "no, I don't really feel like it tonight. You know, maybe we can try again tomorrow," that sort of thing. So it's highly validating for a man to go to the internet and ask for these things and it allows them to escape whatever it is that they're struggling with in the moment.

And that is oftentimes, I find that's the main reason why men view pornography, when it falls outside their value structure.

Darcy Spafford: So what emotional or psychological needs do you think they're trying to get met?

Zach Spafford: Yeah, so that's an interesting question. I'm not convinced that they're trying necessarily to, to replace their spouse in terms of an emotional or psychological response. I think it's a different, I think it's a completely different mechanism for most men who are trying to, to resolve

some emotional or mental issue that they don't have a way to resolve. I've talked about this on the podcast, but I talk about this a lot with my clients. It's, your brain is offering you these ideas. And then if you get an emotion, you don't like anxiety, frustration, stress, all of those things you, what is happening for you?

In the moment after that is your brain is saying, how do I get away from this? And if you're not good at one, recognizing those emotions and two, dealing with the underlying issue that your brain has presented, that's created that emotion. Then, you might be looking to take that off ramp and go, yeah, I just want to escape from how I feel right now , instead of dealing with this problem, I'm going to just get away from it. I'm going to avoid it. I'm going to go down this rabbit hole. And it's not just porn that people do this with. It's, it's food, it's video games, it's shopping. There are a number of ways in which people avoid their discomfort.

Porn is one of the many, and it's a pretty convenient one in terms of its, its emotional boost. In the moment. High emotional value in the moment, low cost in terms of what it requires to attain that emotional boost. Unlike, say, shopping where it's really, you know, you've got a pretty high emotional boost in the moment, but your costs are, you know, dependent on what you're buying, for instance, so.

in that context is trying to [: 00:05:00

They're trying to resolve an unwanted emotion. And then to do that, they go into a place where they're escaping from that emotion rather than dealing with it meaningfully.

Darcy Spafford: So, you mentioned in your work that avoidance plays a big role in pornography use. Can you elaborate on how emotional avoidance can drive someone to watch porn?

Zach Spafford: Yeah, so, I've talked about the detour cycle before and it, it really is, your brain says, "hey, this is a thing that's a problem, I'm unsuccessful, or I'm unwanted, or I'm bored," or whatever it is. There is a thought. And then there's an emotion. So it could be boredom. It could be stress. It could be anxiety.

They all kind of run in a circle of anxiety. Even boredom has an anxiety tinge to it. And in that framework, what they're saying, what your brain is doing is it's saying, I don't like how this feels. So instead of dealing with that upfront and directly, it says, "Hey, let's take a break. You deserve a break.

It's time to relax. Hey, . Let's deal with this problem. After I check my social feed," you know, I see this a lot with kids who are in college where they have to sit down and study and their brain says, "Oh, well, let's just take a few minutes and check on Instagram."

And when they do that, what they're doing is they're avoiding the immediate stressor, the immediate anxiety, and they're moving into a where it feels good right now. And, you know, that's, Not necessarily a problem, but it is a problem if doing it falls outside your value structure and.

You have things, you know, say, so say you have a deadline on that studying, you're actually using more time away from studying than you are putting into studying, or you're putting more time into viewing pornography than you are into, say, doing your, your project work, whatever it is that, that you have at work.

So you actually compound the problem by viewing pornography. So what happens is not only do you do something that falls outside your value structure, but you also. Compound that with guilt and shame and other things, as well as making it more difficult to do the thing that made you anxious in the first place.

So it creates this compounding effect that in the long run kind of brings us down overall. And a lot of that has to do with not dealing with those first two steps in the, in the detour cycle.

Darcy Spafford: Awesome. Next one.

Zach Spafford: Okay.

Darcy Spafford: Can you talk about the role of shame and guilt and how it perpetuates pornography use?

Zach Spafford: Yeah. So like I just mentioned, when you're engaging in an activity that falls outside your value structure, you're not simply doing something that isn't part of who you want to be. You begin to compound those losses. Uh, there's a phrase winner's win, but it really is true. You know, you look at. Like Alabama, which is a football team, or the Yankees, or the New England Patriots, uh, you know, you look at those winning ball clubs over a period of time, and when someone gets drafted into those organizations, they believe they're gonna win because they're part of a winning organization.

Well, shame and guilt. Is like getting drafted to, I mean, the lions are better now, but the lions of my childhood where they were losers, they were perennial losers, they were never winning. And you get drafted in that club and you're like, Oh, I'm a loser. And this guilt and shame just kind of, it compounds over time in that so many people say, "well, this is the last time. I'm never going to do this again. I'm going to put in so much effort after this." And they continue to fail because they don't have a skillset and this, this shame of like, I'm terrible because I can't seem to figure this out. And I'm a horrible person because if I was a better version of me, then I wouldn't do this.

That actually drives you back to these behaviors that allow you to escape because shame is in its, in its fundamental essence is I'm not enough. I'm, I am bad. And when I can't get out of that mentally, when I don't have a way out of that mentally, I might as well escape from it.

Darcy Spafford: So how do you think these feelings affect a husband's ability to be open with his wife about what he's struggling with?

Zach Spafford: I think for most men, we don't have a vocabulary. We don't have a Western culture of having a vocabulary of feelings, especially early on in our marriage. If I came to you and I was like, man, I'm really, really stressed and I'm super frustrated about this, this, and this, that was not something that you would have had any sort of experience dealing with in a man.

essentially, that's not how [: 00:10:00

One, he probably doesn't know how to do that. He probably has not had a good example of that in his life. And, and then having those feelings all by themselves, they perpetuate, they create additional guilt. And they perpetuate additional shame because like, how Like I'm not enough because I, I clearly I can't hold it together.

I'm supposed to be like this knight in shining armor and I'm supposed to be stoic and capable. And so for me to be able to come to you and say, you know, this is how I was feeling, especially early on. I simply wasn't able to do that. I didn't have the tools or the skills or the, or the wherewithal to even look at my emotions and go.

This is, this is how I'm feeling. I always joke, men are only allowed to have three feelings. Hungry, angry, and horny. Those are the three feelings that Western men have, and those don't fit into me sharing anything with my wife. Like, I can't tell you that I'm lonely in the way that I think, I think women are a little bit more emotionally fluent than men, generally speaking.

Darcy Spafford: Yeah

Zach Spafford: and I don't know, I mean, maybe on your side, you could talk to, you know, men wanting to share these things with wives and wives being like, I can't hear that from you., and maybe we'll talk about that in the next podcast. But I think that's a component of this meaning frame that we bring to our relationships where men aren't supposed to really have any feelings.

They're supposed to show up and do.

Darcy Spafford: So what are some common communication barriers between husbands and wives when it comes to discussing pornography use? How do you think men and husbands can approach this topic in a way that encourages openness and honesty?

Zach Spafford: Well, I mean, going back to that same like meaning frame structure, being able to talk about these things, we, we do not really want to talk about these things.

I don't think people, but even people in general don't want to talk about porn, but religious people in particular don't want to talk about porn too often. I think the, the broad strokes are too easy. Porn's a sin. It's bad. It's going to destroy you. That's really what the conversations often look like. So, being able to come up to my wife and say, Hey, you know, I'm viewing pornography because I don't know how to deal with my emotions. All kinds of things automatically start going through your wife's head. I mean, you can speak to that better than me, but for me to be able to come up and say that one, it reveals who I am in a way that I'm not comfortable with.

Like, I want you to see me in a certain way. And I only want to present that person to you. And we do this at work, we do this at church, we do this in other environments. And there's a good reason for it, because you can't go to everybody and just be a bleeding heart all over everyone, especially as a man.

But in general, you know, we all have somebody on Like social media who shares too much and we're like, whoa, tiger, bring it down a peg.

Darcy Spafford: People might think that about our podcast. Yeah,

Zach Spafford: probably. But for me to come to you and say, I have this problem that I know is so bad that it's going to destroy our marriage.

Of course I want to hide that. Of course I want to be like, I got to deal with this before I bring it to her and say, Hey, by the way, I used to have this problem. Like I that's, that's the mentality that I think a lot of people bring to this.

Darcy Spafford: It's like, you want to solve it before. So it's like, it's in the past.

Zach Spafford: Yeah. It's in the past. And You know, I know a lot of people, when they disclose this, even before they get married, and this is, this is, I think, one thing that the younger generation is doing better than our generation and the generation before us, is they're sharing this more often. We hear a lot more, hey, I told my girlfriend, or I told my fiancé, or I told my wife before we got married, but I still haven't been able to solve this.

And she thought, she thought when we got married, it was going to be solved because we were going to be able to have sex and all that stuff. But being able to talk about this just isn't, we don't, like, I don't know of a lot of sermons or. talks in church meetings where someone's saying, if someone struggles with porn, that doesn't have anything to do with anybody but the person who struggles, and we can have compassion for them.

I can't imagine that being a phrase that comes out of any church leader's mouth. Now, I'm sure it's happened, but it doesn't, it's not, it certainly is not the

Darcy Spafford: overarching message. It's not the

You're exactly right. So. I [: 00:15:00

Which means one, which means I'm going to have to get good at being invalidated, right? Because if I come to you and I say, Hey, I'm watching porn, you're not going to be happy about that. But that's not, that's not to say that that's a bad response. It's simply to understand How you feel about something that I'm doing isn't necessarily about me, but I'm gonna feel invalidated in the face of it.

And so I have to, on the communicator's side, the person who's choosing porn, I have to be willing to say, I gotta get stronger at taking the hit, taking that uncomfortable reality that you don't like what I'm doing, and one, not make it about me. Not make your response about me, even though it's my behavior we're talking about.

And two, I have to be willing to see myself clearly. And when I, when, when we get invalidating messages around our behavior, we don't usually like to look more, any more closely than we have already. We like to avoid it. We like to kind of blow past it, brush past it. And that's, That's our ego talking. It's like, how can I get back to a mental stasis of I'm an okay person?

And, and that's not really a good way to foster communication. So you have to be willing to stand in those uncomfortable communications and. And, and deal with it head on. It's really not fun. Like I too often, I'm like, yeah, I'm going to teach you how to feel bad to our clients. And they're like, I don't want to feel bad.

I want to feel good. Well, the good news is, is the better you get at feeling bad, the less it will impact you. And the more often you'll feel good because you're more able to see yourself and solve those problems more directly.

Darcy Spafford: What do you think husbands want their wives to know about this struggle?

Zach Spafford: What do I think? What

Darcy Spafford: did you want me to know about this struggle?

Zach Spafford: Well, I think, first of all, I didn't know what I wanted you to know about this. Well, first of all, I didn't want you to know about this struggle. And I think that's part of the problem is that I didn't want to be known. And that's a really scary thing when you think about a relationship and intimacy in the context of a marriage where You have a somebody that you're saying, Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to be with this person forever.

I'm going to be part of this relationship. I didn't want to be known to you because I didn't like who I was. So, you know, maybe.

Darcy Spafford: So you hiding had just as much to do with your own issues as it did with me. Like.

Zach Spafford: It had more to do with me than it had to do with you. Like, I didn't want you to know me cause I wanted you to see me in a certain way because I wanted to see myself in that certain way.

And I wasn't that person. So I, you know, a lot of husbands are like, well, should I tell my wife? I don't want her to feel bad about this, but more often than not, it's, I don't want her to feel bad. So she makes me feel bad. We, most husbands in there, most people in the way that they calculate this, they forget that last step of, I don't want them to see me in a certain way.

So I don't have to see me in a certain way and feel bad. And feel bad about who I am, how I'm showing up. So, I didn't know what I wanted you to know, because I didn't know I wanted to know about me in the first place. Like, it's like, it's, it's an unknown, unknown. Like I had no idea.

I think the things that I would say now, based on our experience over time with our own journey, and then the journey of so many of our clients is, I just want you to know that I love you, and I'm not doing this in any way to try and hurt you. I know that my behavior doesn't help people feel good, like it doesn't help, you know, when a husband or a wife looks at pornography, it doesn't help their spouse feel good about them.

But I don't, I'm not doing it to hurt you at all. I'm almost invariably doing it as a self management tool is what I would have wanted you to know. And I think beyond that, I would want you to know that I was doing my best. Like I know I'm not living up to my own standards. I'm not living up to the standards I've set for myself based on who I want to be.

even met you is probably as [: 00:20:00

And I think. I would hope that that would provide you with the ability to be a little bit more compassionate. I think, as wives watch their husbands struggle, I know they want to be compassionate, but I also know they want to, that, that, that sometimes they make it more about them than it necessarily is.

And that's a tough place to be because it's not, there's no excuse for someone choosing a behavior that you've both agreed shouldn't be part of the relationship. That doesn't necessarily alleviate the problem of this isn't really about you. And so, this is a fine line to walk because there is hurt.

There is struggle on both sides of that street. And you don't want the wife to feel like, no, this isn't about me. So I don't get to have feelings. That's not true either.

Darcy Spafford: So for a lot of the women that I work with, they just, Can't understand why it is that their husbands would lie to them about this. And for a lot of them, they were lied to about this for many, many years. Can you share your experience of why it was that you lied to me and why it is that you see clients lie to their spouses?

Zach Spafford: This is a tough one because it, not telling the truth is sometimes done out of a, you know, trying to protect the other party. You know, if somebody's got a fat butt, we don't go, Hey, you got a fat butt. Right. And, and, and that's an acceptable way to not tell the truth. And then there are less acceptable ways to not tell the truth, like, hey, I'm struggling with this problem, and I don't know how to deal with it.

And I think, number one, when I lied, it was self preservation, 100 percent self preservation. And part of that was because I knew you couldn't handle it. Not because you really couldn't handle it. Cause you could in the long run, we grew to that reality, but you had demonstrated some just extraordinary anger and vitriol over knowing the truth.

And that was hard. It was hard to like, tell the truth around that. The other thing was, you know, there's this culture, especially, well, There's, there's a culture within, um, within religiosity, a little bit of. Like, we don't really tell people what's going on, because if we did, we could get ostracized. You know, I have clients who, they're part of ministries where if the ministry knew their reality, they might not have a job.

I've had clients who were in synagogue, they're studying to be, he was studying to be a rabbi and they, he would not have a job. He would not have his religious community anymore. And that's a really harsh sentence for someone who is, like I said, doing their best. So just understanding that a lot of times, because we are looking for conformity within our religious structures, we sometimes create a culture where not being honest and not being open about what's going on for us is a matter of self preservation. And that's a tough thing to say, because I know. Even those religious communities, those, those religious communities are trying to do their best.

They're trying to create a standard and ask for people to live up to their best values and best ideals, but that's not, but that's not always a safe enough space for those people to communicate what's really going on for them.

And I think that's a component of why I didn't tell you the truth because I had an acculturation to where if I would go to the bishop and say, Hey, this is what's going on for me.

He might take my recommend. And then I'd have to explain to you why we couldn't go to the temple. Or I would have to explain why I'm not taking the sacrament or whatever it is. And that framework is a tough framework to live in. I don't want to make an excuse, but I do want to really put a fine point on if we want people to be able to be open and honest, we have to create an environment where open honesty is more valuable than anything else in, in the context of like becoming a better human, especially in a religious community.

nts that come along with bad [: 00:25:00

And I think that's not true, for starters, because I don't know of too many people who are like, I just want to sin because I'm bored today. I think most people choose behaviors that help them feel good in the moment because they don't know how to feel better and they don't know how to deal with why they don't feel good.

So, um, you know, just keep that in mind as you stand there and you go, am I judging someone or am I creating a place for that someone to actually become better by being open and intimate and honest with, with me?

Darcy Spafford: I just always think of the saying people who feel good, do good and people who feel bad, do bad. That's what came to mind for me on that.

Zach Spafford: Yeah. And I love that. This is a really great conversation. I hope as people are listening to this, they're thinking, number one,

I want to create that space where someone can have an honest dialogue with me over this issue. And then I'm going to work on my side of the street to not let what someone else is doing be about me. Now that's not to say, by the way, that someone else's behavior doesn't impact you. But it does say, right, so there's a difference between someone else's behavior impacts me and someone else's behavior is about me.

Those are two different things. And I don't think, by any stretch of the imagination, do people in general, do the men that I work with, they don't generally view pornography to spite their spouse. It does happen. I don't want to, I don't want to categorize that as it never happens, but it does happen, but , it's generally not the reason why.

Darcy Spafford: Yeah. I would say like sometimes resentment.

Zach Spafford: Yeah. Resentment can

Darcy Spafford: lead to pornography.

So, so one of the points I just wanted to talk about really quick was the idea of, like, why you would lie and you talked about self preservation and all that. I think a really important part of the growing process is learning to be honest in spite of whatever it is that your spouse is doing. So whether or not your spouse gets angry and mad and maybe even withholds and all of the things that you as a husband becoming your best version of yourself is to be able to stand in the face of your wife's invalidation, your wife's anger.

And still be open and honest.

Zach Spafford: Yeah. And that is really tough. I know a lot of people do that and they, they stand in there and they go, I see that you're upset about this and I see that you're making this about you. And I'm, I'm not okay with that per se, but I am okay. I'm going to be okay because I know your anger is not about me either.

It's this, you know, it's the same card. It's just, you know, uno reversed. It's not making your wife's anger or frustration or upsetness about you and allowing yourself to be okay in the face of, of that frustration.

Darcy Spafford: All right, Zach. Well, thank you for sharing all that. And really, I wish this, all of this that we talked about today are things that I wish I understood better and knew, you know, 20 years ago when we were starting this journey, because those are the things that would have helped me see things differently and be able to address the pornography struggle in our marriage in a way that actually helped us move forward instead of keeping us stuck for so long. So,

Zach Spafford: And I'm looking forward to interviewing you for next week's podcast.

Darcy Spafford: I'll have to be in the hot seat.

Zach Spafford: You'll have to be in the hot seat. So I'm looking forward to that.

Darcy Spafford: All right. All

Zach Spafford: right, my friends, we'll talk to you next week. Bye.

Darcy Spafford: Bye.