Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
110. How Do I Know the Past in the Past?
Everyone has a past, but when it comes to relationships, how can someone be sure it no longer has a hold on their present? Whether in dating or marriage, navigating past mistakes, previous relationships, or personal struggles can be complex. How much should be shared, and when does transparency build trust versus causing unnecessary pain?
In this episode, Jason and Lauren Vallotton explore the balance between honesty and wisdom, discussing when full disclosure is valuable and when it may not be helpful. They break down how to recognize genuine healing, build trust, and have important conversations about the past in a way that strengthens relationships rather than creates insecurity.
Key Topics Discussed:
- How to discern if someone has truly moved on from their past
- The role of full disclosure in building trust
- When sharing past mistakes strengthens a relationship versus when it creates unnecessary harm
- How to navigate difficult conversations about previous relationships, personal struggles, or past wounds
- Signs of true healing versus patterns that indicate unresolved issues
Whether preparing for marriage, working through past hurts, or striving to build a foundation of trust, this episode provides insight and practical tools for moving forward in a healthy way.
Resources Mentioned:
- Episode 20 - A Plan for Pain, Part 1
- Episode 21 - A Plan for Pain, Part 2
For more conversations on relational health, subscribe to Dates, Mates, and Babies with the Vallottons and share this episode with someone who would benefit!
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We're the valetins and we are passionate about people.
Speaker 1:Every human was created for fulfilling relational connection.
Speaker 2:But that's not always what comes easiest.
Speaker 1:We know this because of our wide range of personal experience, as well as our years of working with people.
Speaker 2:So we're going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family and parenting to encourage, entertain and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health.
Speaker 1:Welcome back everyone to Dates, mates and Babies with the Valetins. We're excited to be here with you.
Speaker 2:We sure are. Happy Wednesday, everybody, or whatever day it is that you're listening in. I have a question for you. Are you ready?
Speaker 1:I'm ready.
Speaker 2:Okay, I have a question for you Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay, have you ever wondered if the past is truly in the past, whether you're dating or married? That weight of previous relationships, maybe mistakes you've made, or even deep personal struggles those can follow us into our present. So how do we know when something is truly behind us and, more importantly, how do we know when something is truly behind us? And, more importantly, how do we navigate conversations about our past in a way that builds trust rather than breaks it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, honestly, this is a huge question and one that a lot of couples are wrestling with right, Because some people believe that full disclosure is the key to intimacy, while others worry that sharing too much might create more harm than good. So what's the right balance? How much should we share? When does transparency build connection and when does it just stir up unnecessary insecurity in our lives?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So today, you guys, we are diving into that tension between honesty and wisdom. Today, you guys, we are diving into that tension between honesty and wisdom, the difference between healing from the past and being controlled by it, and how to have the kind of conversations that lead to trust without fear. So, whether you're in a new relationship or you've been married for decades, this conversation is for you.
Speaker 1:It's a great conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's get into it. So okay, For starters, how do I really know if somebody has truly moved on from their past? This is a great question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean this is a great question, um, it's. It's interesting because coming into the marriage it looked like I had the bigger, crazier past.
Speaker 2:Right, it's true. Yeah, you were married before for 10 years and had gone through a divorce. So I mean, that's quite a past to reckon with. But you're right, the truth is is I had not been married before, but I had dated probably five or six guys in the course of 36 or 40.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, no.
Speaker 2:I had dated a handful of guys, though, between high school and college and then after college, before we met. So, on one hand, I had a lot more experiences to reconcile and a lot more experiences that, ultimately, and a lot more experiences that, ultimately, either I did or didn't do a great job in boundaries regarding, you know, physical, emotional, relational boundaries that I either kept or didn't keep, all of those experiences that I had different people, you know, a couple of which I had wanted to marry at different point, you know, like I had thought that they were quote the one. So yeah, even though you had been divorced, it's not like I was over here without anything to reconcile, and it's not even like you shouldn't have had any questions for me about my past, because, as we know, the past is not actually just relegated to the past. The past absolutely impacts our present and our future. So these are all really valid questions.
Speaker 1:Your past is an interesting thing because everybody has one. And the past is only the past if it doesn't control your future and if it's not controlling your present.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So when we talk about the past being the past, your past is supposed to be a benefit. It's supposed to build trust in your life and be this place of hope and purpose for people. Life for people life for people.
Speaker 2:Could you, I think, okay, full stop because that is not. I don't think like common perspective on the past. How does your past build trust between you and your partner?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an interesting thing, right. So when we got married, I had again I've gone through a divorce and I had also in my life I mean, everybody knows my story, right I'd struggled with pornography, I had struggled with addiction and masturbation. I had been divorced. I was working through like tons and tons of anxiety. So part of it, when we got married, I was able to talk through my past. I mean, I told you about the everything and I told you about my divorce and what happened in it, what my part was in it. But even more importantly than that, I was able to talk what I did in order to heal. What was my journey? What journey did I go on to work through the pain? What journey did I go on to address my side of our marriage and what I didn't do well and what I could and should and will do better next time, should and will do better next time. And then I think not having any questions off limits for you says I'm not, I'm not hiding, I'm not afraid. I feel powerful.
Speaker 2:I actually feel proud of my story in that I made mistakes, I've gone through hard things and I've built trust, even with myself, through the course of that journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this idea that I'm not living in shame.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right. Like I am proud of myself, I'm not proud of all the mistakes that I've made. I'm not proud of the places where I got stuck, but I'm proud that I am no longer that man. I've come out on the other side and I can talk about it as a what A testimony. Your past is now your testimony.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:See, it's an interesting thing when, when we come to Christ, this is a foundational piece that a lot of people miss and mess up. When you come to Christ, he says come to me as you are. Yeah, you don't get yourself cleaned up. And then come to Christ, right, you come dirty, you come broken. You come mangled. You come bad mindsets, you come with filth right. Everybody comes into the kingdom like a baby comes into this earth. You come messing yourself. You don't have it all together, you need somebody else. Then you get put back together and cleaned up by God, by the body, other people's input, right Like. You get pieced back together not by yourself, not by your great works, but in your sacrificial life. I lay my down, I give my life and he heals me, cleans me, makes me new again.
Speaker 1:Okay, what's that supposed to do for you? Well, if you come as you are, then you are seen for who you are. You are fully seen, fully accepted, fully loved, even though I poop my pants. Yes, even though I screamed at my mom. Yes, even though I didn't share. Yes, this is every child's story. Even though I was so selfish, I only thought about me. Yes, even though I made mistakes while dating, even though I was trapped in pornography. So he takes all of your messes and all of your mistakes and he doesn't hide them and say now you can go in church and see people and they'll never know what you did. He doesn't. He takes those and he goes great, I'm going to heal you from that, I'm going to make you new from that. And now that is your weapon. Everyone else who's stuck in that will look at you and see hope in life. And why am I going on and on and on about this? It's great Because this is the foundation of us as believers.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's from this foundation that we date and from this foundation that we get married, as someone who was a sinner, who was fully known, fully restored, fully healed. And now your testimony. Your story of what you did wrong is a testimony to God's power in redemption. It's not a testimony to how bad you are.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:A testimony to how everyone should be afraid of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a testimony to how powerful God is and how he healed you.
Speaker 2:Yep, I think that this is what I would imagine is that for married couples who find themselves still feeling stuck in their own past, maybe it manifests like um, there's parts of my past that I haven't actually ever told my spouse or maybe it manifests like wow, I get really triggered when this topic comes up because it spikes my shame about my own past.
Speaker 2:Or I avoid talking to my kids about a certain area of their life because I don't feel like I ever cleaned up that mess of my own or got it right for myself. So how could I actually teach my kids about it, like I think us not wanting to look at our own pasts? In marriage, you know, topics are off limits. My spouse doesn't get to ask me certain questions about this, or I get angry when he does or she does. You know my my, without somebody's specific story in front of me, I would say generalizations would be that person probably has never learned how to process pain, disappointment, guilt or shame about their own past. When we don't feel powerful to process all the way through something into freedom, we want to avoid looking at it and we want to say silly things like that was the past, that's not me anymore, and so I mean we got other episodes for that right. We've got a part Processing Pains, part one and two. Yes, way back in the podcast list.
Speaker 2:So that would be a great. Yeah, I could throw that in the show notes just as a quick reference, but I think that's the reality of the situation is inside of marriage. When that's the dynamic, well, for starters you're in a pickle because a marriage covenant, marriage, is only as strong as our trust.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And by nature, you only have trust in the area where there is truth exchanged. Yes, so we're pretending otherwise, and you actually can't build on a marriage where there is no trust at the foundation and you might be like no, we have trust. I make great choices now and I do quote all the right things now. They should trust me. That was the past. No, no, sorry, there's actually no trust unless there is the exchange of truth truth.
Speaker 1:One of the main problems is that if you didn't believe that your past is still affecting your future, you would share everything. So this idea that my past is my past and I just want to move forward into marriage and I don't want to open up isn't really true, because the thing is is it's your fear of rejection, it's your fear of being known, it's your fear of if they really knew what I did, you wouldn't feel this way about me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that sometimes people who are afraid of looking and addressing things like that sometimes I don't even think that there's a full awareness of that reality Like I don't consciously think to myself if I share, I will be rejected it just manifests itself in like anger or loneliness, or incredible feelings of guilt or plug in your whatever emotion is your go-to, I think, but what's important is that we'd go okay if you're listening to this episode, but what's important is that we'd go okay if you're listening to this episode and you go, yeah, there's areas of my past that I feel like are quote, under the blood.
Speaker 2:I don't want to go there, I don't want to talk about it, and I get triggered when it's brought up. That's an invitation to go okay, hang on a second Under triggered. What's actually going on Under you know, and we would say, yeah, there is more going on, uh, under you know. And and we would say, yeah, there there is more, there is more going on under there. And ultimately, you're going to find incredible amounts of freedom in your marriage when you get to a place where you can exchange truth.
Speaker 1:Well, the beautiful thing is that when you open up and you share everything, when you open up and you share everything, and that person loves you and sees you and cares for you and affirms you and maybe it's hard for them at first, but what ultimately happens in your marriage is now you're fully known. Right Now you're fully seen. You don't have this thing.
Speaker 2:There's no place for the enemy to come in and say, if she really knew about this or if he really knew about this, he wouldn't look at you like this. Yeah, you actually don't get to enjoy true love unless you are fully known, fully seen and then fully accepted. So you'll walk around the rest of your married life actually not feeling loved by your partner if there are areas of your past that are hidden. So okay, here's a question. We've talked a little bit about the marriage context, but dating is a bit of a different ballgame. Ultimately, you're after the same thing and I would say ideally right, like there's a lot of married couples that are in that situation that we just described, but ideally you would really do a great job laying framework for this in your dating relationship. So what does that look like?
Speaker 1:Well, I think in the dating context it's important At first you're not going to share everything from your past, because I mean you're building, you're building trust with somebody, and you're answering a different question like can we have fun and are they safe and how do they handle boundaries?
Speaker 2:We always say that in your dating relationship, the level of intimacy you go to so intimacy being emotional intimacy and physical intimacy should never surpass your level of trust and your level of commitment. So you don't start out talking about marriage. You start out asking can we be great friends? You don't start out having sex, you start out going do we have a good time together?
Speaker 1:Do we know how to have fun Do?
Speaker 2:we have the same core values, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, as you start climbing that ladder, ultimately what happens is you go wow, they're fun. Wow, we have the same type of values and core values. Oh my gosh, we are really working through conflicts. Well, and pretty soon you hit this point where you go. I think, in order to continue to move forward, they really need to know where I've come from and who I am, and so that's when you start to share your past, because people have preferences, and that's okay. There's not every woman's going to want to marry a divorced man with three kids.
Speaker 2:I don't know why.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's been really easy yeah.
Speaker 1:And not every man's going to want to marry a woman who's dated. You know a bunch of guys and that's okay. It doesn't. It's not a commentary on you, it's a commentary on them. It's commentary on their preferences.
Speaker 2:Especially if you've already gotten to the point where you know your story is your weapon and it's a testimony.
Speaker 1:Well, here's the thing is you want to know, before you're married, how they handle you and how they handle these hard things. So you may not want to marry somebody who doesn't handle your past well. So, it's as much for you as it is for them, opening up right, because not everyone handles things very good.
Speaker 2:Right, that's true.
Speaker 1:And so being able to share your past and to go hey, this is where I'm at and this is what I've done, and the before you go, will you marry me? Cause the problem with bringing this stuff up in marriage. If you don't bring this up in dating, a lot of times people feel very side sideswiped, like very caught off guard when they go wait, we've been married nine years and I'm just finding out that you had an abortion or you're. You slept with a bunch of girls or you slept with a bunch of guys like yeah it's not that I can't forgive you for that.
Speaker 1:It's not that that stuff's unforgivable, it's that. Well, now I have a question about your character.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've been living a lie for the last nine years. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So it becomes very, very painful. Right, it's a completely different conversation In dating. That's where you're supposed to have it. It's a really powerful conversation that says, hey, I made some mistakes in my life and they've been redeemed. Okay, cool, when I opened up my past to you, you got to read my journal. If you wanted to, you got to ask any questions that you wanted.
Speaker 1:You got to watch me interact with my ex-wife. You got to ask the kids questions. It wasn't just me saying I'm well, I'm doing good. You got to investigate that area of my life, which is what you should have done. Dating.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:It's what dating's for? It's an investigative process. Now, I'm not investigating to necessarily convict anyone. I am saying what you're telling me.
Speaker 2:I need to actually see if this is real, you're telling me you're ready to date me. We're going to find out if you're ready to date me by this, this quote investigative process.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm asking you questions. I'm watching you. I'm seeing how you interact with your spouse, I'm seeing how the kids I'm seeing how you handle problems with your kids Like it is very much an intensive situation. So, anyways, dating is the place. That's the place where you're going to feel the absolute, most powerful Both people to go. Hey, actually, man, I really appreciate my time with you, right? I just don't know that this isn't this, that I'm ready to go down this path.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, you know, and I think obviously there's a question of like do I share everything with my partner or are there some things that are actually just left, better left unsaid? And I think you already semi-answered that, but I guess I just want to reiterate in a dating relationship, you're going to go at a pace, You're going to pace through that and you're going to respect your levels of intimacy and commitment and you're going to build trust from there.
Speaker 1:I can give. You shouldn't be proposing to somebody that you don't fully know their past.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:And they shouldn't be proposing to you At some point. You have to have this conversation when you start to talk about marriage and you're talking about marriage.
Speaker 1:the conversation is hey, before we go further in talking about marriage, because I know it's on both of our minds and hearts I just want to make sure that we both really know each other and know each other's past, and that you have full permission to ask questions about what I've done, I have full permission to ask questions about what you've done, and that we're both excited about who we are today, having gone through what we've gone through. Yeah that's good. That's the question.
Speaker 2:We have this little joke. I mean we say it in jest, but every now and then one of us will be like, actually, you often ask me. You're like hey, is there anything I don't know about you? And it's kind of funny because, like I literally can't think of one thing. I'm like the chronic oversharer. So there's literally you know more than you'd like to know about me. But in marriage there is a freedom.
Speaker 1:There is such a freedom in being fully known and it's the gift of a covenant bond is meant to be this safety, this unconditional acceptance that you get with one person that you don't necessarily get with anybody else.
Speaker 2:And so I would say, if you're married and you are not in that kind of freedom currently, what would you say is like, let's just say, somebody has been married for X amount of years and they've not done a great job in this area. What's the first thing they should do?
Speaker 1:and they've not done a great job in this area. What's the first thing they should do? This happens a lot and I answer this question a lot with married couples, a lot, a lot. I think the first thing that they should do especially okay, there's a difference between I'm struggling with something today and I struggled with something in the past.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I'll answer both of those. I think when you're talking about, let's say, that you slept around with your boyfriends and you didn't tell me that, no, the conversation very much is hey, I want to live in our marriage, I want to have a marriage that's totally open and transparent and I want to go to the next level of trust with one another. And so I made a mistake when we were dating and when we first got married, that I didn't share everything, probably because of fear, because of shame. I don't want our marriage to be like that and I want to own that. So this is probably going to feel scary, you might feel some anger at that. I mean, I want to tell you what I did and then give you space to share whatever you need to share.
Speaker 1:And I want to build trust with you, and then you can go in and share whatever it is, and then you're basically making amends, right? You're basically going. I did something to you that I know is hurtful. I want to clean up that mess with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would expect you to have feelings about this.
Speaker 1:I'm going to open up and share for the purpose of connection and growing closer, and we'll work through it together. If you feel like you want to talk to a friend or a counselor about that, I'm a hundred percent committed to restoring a strong marriage. I don't want to carry this anymore. That's going to go. That conversation is going to go well, probably because you're taking ownership, you're giving them permission and ultimately, you're doing it because you want a stronger marriage.
Speaker 2:Totally.
Speaker 1:If there's stuff that you're struggling with now, which?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you're in a current.
Speaker 1:Let's say that you're currently I'm just going to use a normal one that I hear that's big. If you're currently looking at pornography and in emotional affairs with somebody, then to me the difference is when you deliver this information. It's going to rock your spouse because it's going to totally catch them off guard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and instantly break tons of trust and place tons of questions in their head about what's true and what's not true. And who are you, all of the above? Yeah, and instantly break tons of trust and place tons of questions in their head about what's true and what's not true. And who are you, all of the above?
Speaker 1:Totally so. You have to do this conversation in a place where you have a lot of time and where you have some help set up, so you may not know who the best help is for you ultimately. Know who the best help is for you ultimately, but to me it's get a babysitter right. Do it in a space where your spouse, husband or wife can get angry, where they can cry, where they don't feel like oh my gosh, the kids are in the next room.
Speaker 2:I have to keep it together. I got to keep it together.
Speaker 1:Yep, and then hopefully you should, in my opinion, have set up a counselor that knows, or your pastor that knows it's going to be in your story helping you. So to me that would be, if I had been having an ongoing emotional affair with a woman and I'd done that for a long time and I was going to tell you about it I would already call Danny Silk ahead of time and say, hey, this is what's been going on. I want to tell Lauren. I'd have my mom or somebody watch the kids and I would sit down and tell you. And the beautiful thing about that is that you would know that Danny knows and you can feel free to tell who you need to tell. But we're not on this island, I didn't drop something in your world. And then you're like, oh my gosh, now, what do we do Now? How are we going to fix this? So that, to me, is a good pathway to at least start.
Speaker 2:That's great. It makes me think of you know, when we're married and we kind of bring up conversations like that. When we're married and we kind of bring up conversations like that, you know that it's going to rock your spouse's boat and it's going to be a journey, right, I think in dating, ideally right, you're having these kind of conversations about your past. Now again, current struggles would be a different sort of conversation in dating. But let's just talk about the past for a minute. When I, when we have this conversation about our past and I share and you share openly about what your past looked like and how you worked through it and how you learned and what you learned and where you are now, you know you don't necessarily know how people are going to respond, no. So in order to, in order for that conversation to be a really trust building conversation it doesn't have to be I blanket statement, love and accept everything you just shared I may actually have to go and process it. I may actually have to listen to your story in fullness and then go. Thank you for sharing with me.
Speaker 2:That's very vulnerable. Thanks for the transparency, Thanks for the vulnerability. Uh, I need to. I need to sit with that for a minute and I need to feel. However, I'm feeling about that for a minute and I need to weigh it and consider it and, but, ultimately, thanks for sharing. You know I do. I just want to mention, though, that how you handle somebody in their vulnerability is a, has the potential to be a trust building experience in your dating relationship, or it can also contribute to some breakdown.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let me just talk to that last piece. A second ago, you want the person to not gloss over your past and just to go. Okay, yeah, no worries, I, I wanted you. I mean, I wanted you to ask me questions, I wanted you to think about it. I wanted you to talk to your mom about it and your dad. I wanted you to read my journal. I wanted you to hear a couple songs that I wrote during that time, like I wanted you to read my journal.
Speaker 2:I wanted you to hear a couple songs that I wrote during that time, like I wanted you to go.
Speaker 1:You wanted me to really feel it. Do you have questions? Do you have some concerns? Do you have some deep thoughts? Are you afraid of it?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Again, it's not a commentary on me. It's a commentary on what you're going through and how it's going to affect you. Because I didn't want a woman. That was terrified of my past. I didn't want to be married again and have a woman go well, I'm just terrified that you're going to do that too to me, or that your decision didn't get resolved with, or what are we going to do with, like ask, all those things in dating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't want to be with somebody that's scared of your past.
Speaker 1:Sometimes in dating we're so excited about where we're at, we're so excited about the potential of marriage, and we're so. That's the problem with having sex before marriage. One of them is we're so emotionally enmeshed that I look over these things that are actually big deals because I feel so because of the endorphin release.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we feel so connected that it doesn't matter to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Because in marriage you're going to feel a whole lot more sober.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the challenge is if you don't build trust in dating, then when you get to marriage, you're so vulnerable and you're so intimate and you're so enmeshed in one another's lives that now the fear raises and it's like, oh, I want to talk about your past. I'm like, well, I gave you a chance to talk about it before, but now you're whatever. So, anyways, it's a big gift. You're offering somebody a gift. If they handle it really well in dating, great. If they don't handle it really well, you want them to not handle it well in dating. So I think there's this misconception that handling it well means that you don't have any emotion around it or any fear around it.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That's not true. True.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:To me, handling it well means that you're not shaming somebody. That you're not, yeah, I mean, shame to me is the main word that you're going. Wow, thank you so much for telling me. I really need to process some of this Because, it's true, you could feel sad, you could feel angry, you could feel you could have a lot of questions, depending upon what happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you should probably have a lot of questions for somebody that's not. That doesn't mean that you're handling it bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It actually probably means that you're really mature.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And looking at it, it would be normal for the other person to feel insecure because of that. That's great. Your security doesn't come from your partner. Your security needs to come from God. Right right and I need to know that lauren can be rocked by my raising three kids, my divorce, the situation that you can feel unsure about it and unsure about us, and I'm still okay yeah that's part of what helps me and that would be.
Speaker 2:there's a difference there between me feeling insecure because I need to go on a journey of learning whether or not I can trust you in this area. That's different than the person with the past going. Well, past is the past and I, you know, this is my story, it's who I am. Take it or leave it, because I think the truth is is that was it was only okay for you because you had actually worked through your brokenness, your story, and so I guess I'm saying there's responsibilities on both ends. There's a responsibility for me. As the person marrying into a family that had gone through divorce, I was responsible to determine for myself whether the level of healing was high enough.
Speaker 2:Sufficient for you high enough, sufficient for you, sufficient enough for me to know I could trust you and have an appropriate sense of security in our future marriage. Absolutely, that was my job, but you, it was your job to present a lot of information to me that helped me build trust in that area. If somebody can't provide you with a lot of data, like a lot of evidence that they have gone on a journey of becoming whole, then that's not territory you really want to go into. You want to date somebody to discover if they have enough information to give you about their healing journey so there's responsibility on both ends.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, this is a conversation that is wildly important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:And often the difference between a really healthy relationship and one that struggles for a very, very, very long time. This is not one that you gloss over. So I think, if you're married and you are feeling like there's a bunch of stuff from the past that hasn't been addressed, this is a great conversation to have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what do you do if you feel that way, but your spouse actually doesn't want to go there, doesn't want to talk about it?
Speaker 1:I think that's where I would do a joint counseling session with somebody, I mean people like that aren't usually open to counseling.
Speaker 2:That's the problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're back to going. I don't want to live in a marriage where we're pretending, where we're hiding, and so I want to feel known by you.
Speaker 2:I need to feel free in this marriage to talk about anything. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, you can't force somebody to do something.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:But you sure can cast some vision and say if I don't know your past, if you're unwilling to share your life with me, the good, the bad, the ugly how are you ever going to feel unconditionally loved by me?
Speaker 2:Exactly, that's it.
Speaker 1:You're not.
Speaker 2:Casting vision is the way to go I want to get rid of shame from our lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you can pick the counselor you can pick. If you don't want to do it with a counselor, I'd love to sit down with a really close friend or a father or somebody that you feel comfortable with. I don't want to be married and not us not know each other Totally. I don't actually really know you. It's great, so that's what I do, all right.
Speaker 2:It's a good topic.
Speaker 1:It is important.
Speaker 2:It's going to help some people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, guys, thank you so much for listening this week. We hope that this blessed you and, yeah, if you're interested in any other podcasts that we've already done, just go check it out, like if you're in the middle of this and you need to work through some pain, like Lauren talked about, we have so many podcasts that we've covered tons and tons of topics.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll list some of the ones that would be really relevant. That would help you work through this. You love this content and if you want to help us be able to make more great content like this for free, you could help us by joining our team on our Patreon account. We've got a link at the bottom of these show notes that will take you there. You can actually partner with us and help support this podcast monthly, and it would help us so much to continue carving out time to make this possible. So we thank you, those of you that are already part of our community. We love you guys. We thank you so much, hey, and if this podcast is something that you think would help somebody send it along, forward it like subscribe, comment, do all the things. We really appreciate you guys. We hope you have a good week thank you, guys see ya.