Episode 328: The Billy Graham Rule and What It Does to Men Too

What if the “Billy Graham rule” (or the evangelical distortion of it) says more about fear than integrity? In this episode, Danielle Strickland helps us unpack the assumptions behind the idea that men and women can’t be alone together—and ask whether it protects integrity or quietly reinforces suspicion, segregation, and control. Drawing on Scripture, leadership research, and real-world church experiences, our conversation explores how transparency—not isolation—is a stronger safeguard against abuse and moral failure. We also dig into how purity culture, pornography narratives, and fear-based systems shape the way we interpret opposite-sex friendships, mentoring, and authority. If you’re ready to rethink gender, leadership, and trust through a more Jesus-centered lens, this one will give you plenty to chew on.

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LINKS MENTIONED: 

• Danielle’s Book, “Better Together”
• Danielle’s Website
• Danielle’s Substack
• “The Billy Graham Rule” aka The Modesto Manifesto
• Podcast Episode 192: How Every Young Man's Battle Makes Everything Worse: 
• "Recovering From Purity Culture" by Dr. Camden Morgante 
• The Whole Story courses

Transcript

Sheila
Welcome to the Bare Marriage podcast. I'm Sheila Wray Gregoire from baremarriage.com, where we talk about healthy, evidence based biblical advice for your sex life and your marriage. And I am joined by my daughter, Rebecca Lindenbach.
 
Rebecca
Hello.
 
Sheila
And you're going to be joining me later.
 
Rebecca
Yes, I'm going to zip off in a minute.
 
Sheila
Yeah, but we have a great interview coming up with Danielle Strickland about the Billy Graham rule.
 
Rebecca
Yeah.
 
Sheila
Otherwise known as the Mike pence rule, otherwise known as men and women can't just be friends because that's dangerous. And so that.
 
Rebecca
Why can't we be friends? Why can’t we be friends?
 
Sheila
So we're gonna be talking about that, but before I get to that interview. A big shout out to people who make what we do possible. So our patreons were so grateful to them. They support us even for as little as $5 a month. And their support has allowed us to do the research projects that we've done, the support from them, and from those who donated to the Good Fruit Faith initiative of the Bosko Foundation, where you can get tax deductible receipts by the way.
 
Rebecca
If you live in the United States,
 
Sheila
States, you live in the United States. We're working on it for other countries. They've been able to support our translation work. We're doing some great stuff with Spanish that's ongoing. We're doing our docu series, our academic papers, and so much more. So yeah, if you want to get our message out to more people, you can join our Patreon group.
 
Consider making a donation. We really appreciate that. And of course, when you hit like and subscribe, when you are watching on YouTube or when you leave a comment whenever you see them in social media, it helps other people see me too. So you can be part of the solution. And without further ado, I'm going to bring on Danielle Strickland.
 
Sheila
Well, I am so thrilled to bring on the podcast, a fellow Canadian and a friend of mine, Danielle Strickland. Hello, Danielle.
 
Danielle
Hey, Sheila, always great to be with you.
 
Sheila
I'm going to let you introduce yourself because I always do a bad job of it.
 
Danielle
So do I, do a bad job too
 
Sheila
What do you do?
 
Danielle
What do I do? That's a good question. But primarily these days, I guess I do a lot of communicating. So lots of speaking around the world at different events, lots of consultation for leadership things, project development and strategy. And I'm a mom and I'm a wife and I'm a, you know, avid outdoor person. And I live in Vancouver, so you can often find me hiking. Those are some of the things I do.
 
Sheila
Yes. And first, I really tuned in to who you were at a difficult time in your life when you were trying to raise awareness of what was going on at The Meeting House. So yeah.
 
Danielle
Yeah. So abuse advocate sometimes come into the bio. Yeah. Kind of in some ways accidentally. Although I spent a large portion of my life trying to help women exit sexual exploitation and advocating for changes in Canada to support them better. And so yeah, so then I found myself actually doing something similar inside the church, which is not what I had expected or desired, but what the Lord invited me to do.
 
Sheila
And for those who don't know, the Meeting House was one of the largest megachurches in Canada, and it turned out that the head Pastor Bruxy Cavy had been guilty of clergy sexual abuse or at least charged with it. He couldn't. The case didn't go forward, I think, because it.
 
Danielle
It got timed out. It just got timed out. Yeah. But he was the investigation that the church did already, you know, gave credibility to the accusations. And there were more than one. And I think in the end in that church there were like 20, 22 cases with four different leaders.
 
Sheila
Right.
 
Danielle
Yeah. Yeah. So it was, you know, a systemic issue inside of the church. And then of course, the response of just like trying to, you know, makes it appear less of a problem and then just carry on. Is what caused, you know, is what perpetuated the kind of abusive system there.
 
Sheila
So yeah. Yeah.
 
Danielle
There was lots of learning and uncovering and exposing and then just really, I think for me like, well, obviously for everybody a lot of grief, but also, I think a lot of learning. I think the Holy Spirit's really, I think a lot of the things you're discovering and teaching right now, Sheila, is evidence that the Holy Spirit's just wanting to show us a lot of stuff.
 
And I think, you know, God is always working for our liberation and for everyone's liberation. So I think this, you know, let's actually talk about it is not scary. It's actually an invitation to face some truth so that we can be freer and safer and more liberated.
 
Sheila
So and so the church and so the church can actually represent Christ. Right? Because the church is not representing Christ when it's being abusive. So. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I want to have a conversation about the Billy Graham rule. And I thought I was like, who am I going to talk to about this? And I thought of you because of the whole Meeting House thing, and also because you're just a fantastic human.
 
But I don't want to talk necessarily about all of the bad parts, like how it actually hurts women. There's been a lot of discussion about that. You know how if you are in a church with a Billy Graham/Mike pence rule, where a man can never be alone with a woman, then women staff members can never be mentored in the way that men staff members can be.
 
There's all kinds of implications for careers and even in a university setting, you know, for academic help. So all kinds of negative repercussions for women. So we know all that. I'm going to put that on.
 
Danielle
The side for men.
 
Sheila
And for men. Yes, I'm gonna put that on the side burner.
 
Danielle
Okay.
 
Sheila
But what I want to actually delve into is the assumptions behind that rule. So I want to unpack what's actually going on with the Billy Graham/ Mike pence rule. So if you think about this rule that men and women can never be alone together, what is the assumption there, like the main assumption.
 
Danielle
Yeah. Okay. Back for one second. So this is so funny that you reached out about the subject because I wrote a book called Better Together. So this is how women and men can heal the divide and then learn to lead together. Yeah. And two very prominent, like, very kind of famous pastors said they would do the forward for the book and then wouldn't, they pulled out because of me because of the Billy Graham Rule literally.
 
Danielle
They wrote to me saying, I follow the Billy Graham Rule. So it would be hypocritical for me to write the forward of this book. Oh, which I think is like, that's when I was like, oh, wow. Like, this is the. So I think what you're hitting on is there is something so deeply, you know, woven into the evangelical, you know, male practice site, you know, all the theology even that. And that is like it's in the way it's deep. And I wouldn't have thought. I mean, I see a lot of things in that book. I wouldn't have thought that was the one that was the game changer, you know what I mean? Like, I was like, what? That's the deal breaker, like anyway. So anyway. And then I thought, oh, wow, like, you practice the Billy Graham Rule, anyway, so what is the theological, you know, the way I think?
 
Okay. One is I think seeing women through the lens of threat or temptation is the deep problem with the Billy Graham Rule. Yes. So it doesn't allow you. And, you know, one of my favorite realities about the Billy Graham Rule was sort of like trying to push, like exposing it a little bit is that Jesus didn't follow it.
 
Sheila
Yeah, right.
 
Danielle
Like I'm just like, okay. One, it doesn't work. So just pragmatically, this is not a good way to live. And then two, it's not like Christ Jesus did not follow the rule. And there's like a very specific statement, you know, the Samaritan woman is the most obvious example. But there's others as well. But I would say that, I mean, his resurrection, he's alone with the woman in a garden.
 
Yeah. You were just talking about that this weekend. I mean, Jesus does not follow this rule because Jesus does not see women through a patriarchal lens. He sees them through a sacred one, through a created one. Right. So, like you, you know, so much of your work is saying, hey, we're supposed to, our relationships are supposed to model something beautiful to the world and the Billy Graham rule and I don't want to be I don't want to be too, you know, too hard on Billy Graham because I actually really like Billy Graham. And I know a couple of his, like, great nieces and stuff. And they always say to me, you don't understand. Like, Billy was like the holiest of them all, you know, like he was so kind.
 
He was always encouraging, like all the things. And partly it's good to know that Billy Graham was in a system that was set up to see women as a threat or as a temptation. So he was in a sexist system. So he's doing the best he can within his system. So there's that. I don't want to be too easy on him either.
 
But I also want to say that the Billy Graham Rule, this is really interesting. Sheila, it was three things. One of the things was don't be alone with a woman who's not your wife. Now keep in mind. He's also an itinerant pastor. This was not him setting up a system where he was. He was on the road.
 
So he was trying to say like, how do I push back against the temptation that I see my contemporary itinerant evangelist falling into? Right. So he was just literally like that temptation of sex. And then he was part of the Southern Baptist system, which just saw women as not as gifted as men, clearly disagreeing with the Holy Spirit.
 
And then he had a rule about money. So he, you know, capped his salary at like $35,000. This guy was making millions of dollars, and all of the money was managed by a team for the ministry, and only a tiny tiny salary came to him. So I would say, especially those two pastors that declined to do the forward, I'm like, oh, do you like, do you practice?
 
Sheila
Which one do you practice? yeah
 
Danielle
Which rule do you practice? And then the third one was about power and that was he refused to have the final say on decisions about the Billy Graham Association. He made a team and the team was in charge because he saw power. So I actually follow the Billy Graham rule. When you're on the road, fight back against sexual temptation.
 
And of course, we're talking about like a generation ago. So like, I'm like, actually, I think not viewing porn might be the contemporary version of the Billy Graham rule. We should do it, you know, like, all of us should do it together. And then also like when you're on the road, there are different rules that apply that when you're home and you're in good communities.
 
And then also I think we should talk about money. I think so when. So this is interesting too. So when guys say, well, pastors say or when we say I follow the Billy Graham rule, they don't follow the Billy Graham rule. They have taken one thing disproportionately out of Billy Graham, sort of: I want to be a man of integrity.
 
And they have just made it about that, and they've made that rule about exclusivity and segregation, which is bad for everybody, everywhere. Name a place in the world where segregation led to anything good. Just go ahead, I dare you. There is literally none. There's not one. All the examples are horrific and we're all sorry about it later, you know, so I I'm.
 
Sheila
I have to think. I am going to have to think about this.
 
Danielle
In my book. I made this connection because I was trying, I was trying to say like I also was digging, like, what is it about this? Why are we so scared of each other? Like, why do we why? And even the idea of your whole leadership having a rule that segregates women from you to protect you is really evidence of like, are you an untrustworthy person?
 
Like I really am. Like, if you have to follow the Billy Graham rule, like I'm all for moral safeguarding of your life, which, by the way, the best way to do this, according to all of the research and best practices I could find, is transparency.
 
Sheila
Yes, right.
 
Danielle
Just be transparent about what you're doing. Like, yeah, let everybody know who you are. Like being transparent. So don't have any secrets. Don't have any hidden places. Don't have any like oh we're not going to tell anybody about that. So I'm like that's the rule. Being transparent should be the rule. Not like I'm going to segregate myself from certain things or certain people. And especially women. But I think I have a hunch, and I say this in my book that pornography is fueling this.
 
And I think nobody ever wants to talk about this because we don't like talking about this. But the amount of Christian leaders who view porn on a regular basis is astronomical. Yeah. And I think that porn has a narrative. So regardless of what porn you're watching porn’s narrative. So this is framing our brains and our minds, and our perception is that women are a temptation or they're a threat, but the lens is sexual.
 
So we are seeing each other through a sexualized lens more than we have ever seen each other that way in history, I think. And I don't think anyone and the Billy Graham rule is just, is just maybe a reaction to it. But also, it's a false narrative around flipping the script like the opposite of that.
 
So like, I'm not even going to be with a woman is not the answer to a culture that has sexualized everyone. So like a poor narrative, literally like you go to work and your secretary can't wait to, you know, to have sex with you or. Yes, right. Like your babysitter can't wait to have sex or you're, you know, and on and on.
 
This ghost, like every woman in your life, is being sexualized through this narrative that men are watching all the time and probably more than we even know, because they're probably self-revealing, you know, the very minimal amount.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Anyway, absolutely.
 
Danielle
I think it has to do with the sexualization of women. And it's a deep, deep, deep problem, as you said, for like the results of it are terrible you know, it really limits us. But also, I think that a person who has that view, it's a really sad way to live. Like I'm like, I'm sorry that you are trapped in a world that sees people through a lens of selfishness, or that you see people through the lens of threat, or you see people through the lens of temptation, and that you can't be liberated the way Jesus was to see people as people with God given gifts that are, you know.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Okay. I need to respond to two things. First of all, I am going to have to, I am blown away by that idea that Billy Graham had three rules for integrity. And we only talk about the sex one, because that is true. We have like, if you say the word integrity, people like people think not watching porn and not having an affair is a synonym for that. Right? Like that. We've entirely about sex and not about anything else, which is super exciting. But the other thing, I think.
 
Danielle
100%, Which is also like church is having right now, especially this is interesting to where churches are like, we got to make sure that, like, we're really clear about our rules about sexuality. And I'm like, actually, I think you should be clear about your rules about financial management because it seems like greed is the thing killing our world right now.
 
Right. And it seems like there's nothing on violence, you know, nothing on power. But like, we got to really be clear about the sex thing. So I think there is this, like, weird thing in our defensive exclusion. And this is what happens to religious people without the spirit of the liberating Spirit of God working within us if we get defensive. And so then we build fences. And this is the whole I mean, Jesus is like most, you know, I would say like aggressive might be the wrong, but most like the strongest words of correction he had was for religious people who were building exclusive fences around themselves. And those people were outside and these people were inside. And I just think it's interesting to be in a season where Christians are that kind of defensive again, it's evidence that we really need the spirit to help us.
 
Sheila
Yeah, absolutely. And I think what you're saying is that this is that men and women can only ever relate to each other as potential sex partners, right? Like that. That is, if women are sexualized, then men are too. And so men and women can never just be friends. We can never just be colleagues. We can never be coworkers. And yet I seem to remember a certain Apostle Paul writing in Romans 16, talking about all his fellow coworkers who were female.
 
Danielle
Yeah. Oh, and he goes on. I mean, or Gentile or, you know, so this thing is like the women's conversation too. And I think it's like the most core, you know, it's the deepest root of what broke in the curse. So I think it always and this is what always surprises me, like even with these two pastors, with the forward like I'm like I suggested a forward where they say I don't practice everything that Danielle says in this book, but I still think we should at least listen to it, you know, like, and even that, they're just like, they don't want to go anywhere near it.
 
And so I think it's really interesting like I think it's the original breakage, you know, is this created intent that God had for men and women to lead together? That's the thing that broke first. So I think it's this wound that is the deeper wound. So even in the civil rights movement, so, so many of these principles, by the way, that are even in this Better Together book, they're overlapped by like anywhere there's a diversity, you know, exclusionary, segregated, you know, threatening view of the other. These are great. I'm hoping that the Gospel is always pushing us towards a different way of living that shows this, like the incredible power of God in this original created intent for mutual flourishing. And women just are at the very. So even the civil rights movement leaders would express regret because when it came to women, they said, we'll get to that when we get, well, this part of what we need. And then they never, ever got to that, of course, because it is such a deep thing within humanity, you know, that was broken. And so imagine how powerful it is then to address that thing and see it differently.
 
So Paul is a great example, literally would have prayed, thank God every morning he would pray. Thank God I wasn't born a Gentile. Thank God I wasn't born a slave. Thank God I wasn't born a woman.
 
Sheila
Yeah, before he knew Christ, like growing up.
 
Danielle
As a Pharisee. They would literally pray for that as a thank you. And then all through the book of acts, when you see Paul's trajectory, literally, it's Gentile, literally it's a slave. And then it's women. And you see that the spirit is literally reversing his so-called religious prayers by showing him the better way and the Spirit's liberating power.
 
And women are a key feature, the whole origin of the church in Europe. By the way, Lydia is the grandfather of our faith and becomes a base of operation there. There's a slave girl who is the one that actually exposes the economic systems of justice. And this is all, Paul. And when all this happens, he rejoices, even when he's in prison, because he sees the gospel on the move and that's the basis of our European tradition of church. Go Figure No women, no Church
 
Sheila
Yeah. I think what's your Paul church? Yeah. Is that when Paul arrives in Macedonia because he's had this, this vision of this man from Macedonia, and so they changed their entire plans of going further into Asia, and he pivots and goes into Macedonia to Europe. But where does he headfirst? He heads to a river where the women meet to pray. So even though he's had a vision of a man, the very first thing he does is he goes where women end up.
 
Danielle
Yeah, I think this is accidental. I actually think the spirit gave him a vision of a man, because he wouldn't have probably gone if it was a woman. Yeah, yeah. And he's looking for one. He's looking for the Jews. Right. That's where they would be cleansing before prayer. And to have a Jewish temple in those days would require ten Jewish men. So what it's telling you is that there aren't ten Jewish men in Macedonia or in Philippi. And so Lydia is there and then and Paul's like, great. Then it's Lydia, right? Like that's the and that's what people don't. And even with Jesus in this Samaritan woman like I, I'm always like Jesus's culture was way more patriarchal than ours.
 
And he refused that cultural practice. He just did not practice. And women were in his company. The whole Mary Martha thing is about discipleship and about him saying, I refuse to comply with patriarchal culture. And we always say it's just about Martha being upset about the dishes. It is literally Jesus's noncompliance with systems of exclusion and control. And he won’t comply with it. So I often say, what is it that makes you so afraid that you can't be like Jesus?
 
Sheila
Yeah, like, how do you make it worse. That's what I wonder. Like, how did today's pastors think they have it harder than Jesus did, right? Or that they're more that they are more of a threat than Jesus? Because what people will often say is, look, I don't see women as necessarily sexual. I don't objectify women, I don't want to have sex with women.
 
But we know false allegations happen. And so we have to do this to protect the ministry. And this is what I often hear pastors pressing back at. But like, do you not think Jesus had to fear? Like, do you think you have to fear that more than Jesus did? Like that's crazy.
 
Danielle
Yeah. And again, I always say transparency is your best strategy, you know, not exclusivity. So if you really want to protect the ministry, have a ministry in the keeping of Jesus and the Spirit of Jesus, which is totally transparent. As a matter of fact, when they call, when they call Jesus in and say, tell us everything you've been teaching, Jesus says this line, everything I've taught, I've done so openly.
 
Yeah, there's no secret here. There's no secret agenda. I've not told my disciples something secret that you don't know. I've spoken openly in public spaces and often, you know, and I haven't done enough research, but I'm trying to say that Jesus only taught in Solomon's Colonnade, which is the only part of the temple that was open to everybody.
 
Sheila
Yeah. I love that
 
Danielle
I think Jesus refused to preach at exclusive places. So if women couldn't listen to him, he wouldn't preach there. That's I think that's how committed he was to this gospel, being for everyone and for him, being for everybody. It's the same practice for the disciples, of course, and you'll always hear them there. They met at Solomon's Colonnade, and I think they had to meet at Solomon's Colonnade because their company was not welcome inside of the temple.
They weren't clean enough. They weren't proper enough. They weren’t
 
Sheila
Isn’t that beautiful?
 
Danielle
Yeah. And they just didn't do that. So then they ended up meeting in their homes. But when they were teaching at the temple, it was always in Solomon's colonnade. So I think it literally means the gospel and the way that we live as representatives and witnesses of this resurrected Jesus is meant to be a pushback of a dominant culture, not a submission to it.
 
So I really think, yeah, and I really think we have to ask ourselves, you know, why we're so afraid? Because that's the other thing, is the Billy Graham rule the way it's done now. Sort of the bastardization of the Billy Graham rule is fear based. It's a fear-based approach. And I don't think people understand that fear is the currency of oppression. So I used to understand that fear. If you're afraid, if you're the one being oppressed, that fear then can just kind of keep you oppressed. What I didn't understand, which would change my mind, just blew my mind. Sheila is when I was reading Exodus, and it says that because Pharaoh was afraid of the Jews, he began to oppress them.
 
Sheila
Oh yeah.
 
Danielle
And that's when I understood that fear is like a currency of oppression. Because if you're motivated by fear, no matter if you're the one that has the power, or you're the one that doesn't have the power, it will. That motive, that fear, will push you into a cycle so that you will either be oppressed or you will become an oppressor because you're motivated by fear.
 
And I think this, you know, this version, this, this version of the Billy Graham rule is really just a fear. And pastors are being motivated by fear instead of led by the spirit. And that motivation of fear is putting them and pushing them into a cycle of oppression. So even without meaning to, they will become oppressive people, or they will become oppressed one or the other because they fear their motivator.
 
Sheila
Yeah, I think it's interesting to know when, when people say, well, you have to understand these false allegations. And so we can’t have these false allegations mean, first of all, false allegations are so rare. Like they're so rare.
 
Danielle
One Percent.
 
Sheila
But what?
 
Danielle
That's the other thing too is people don't. And this is again just a narrative of fear. Right. So we're just going to set ourselves up. Also we're still painting women as the threat.
 
Sheila
Yeah. That's what I was going to say here because in, in a, in a pastor congregant situation who's actually the threat to who.
 
Danielle
Yeah. Statistically. Yeah. Like everyone should actually have a rule in the church not to be alone with the pastor. That's what it would seem.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Like the idea that a pastor that a pastor can't be alone is a woman because she might make a false allegation, but that paints the woman as the main, as the main threat to the pastor. Whereas we know that the pastor actually is far more.
 
Danielle
Like is more of a threat statistically. Right.
 
Sheila
But also, I often wonder, okay, when men say, let's say forget the false allegation thing for a minute when they say, you know, we just there's too much of a temptation that something's going to happen. There's also another underlying assumption there, right, which is that she wants to sleep with you and like buddy.
 
Danielle
Yeah. Or even I push back on this with some guys and they're like, well, maybe I'm keeping you safe from me.
 
Sheila
Yeah.
 
Danielle
And then I'm like, then you shouldn't be a leader.
 
Sheila
Yeah.
 
Danielle
Like this isn't about like, oh gosh. But like, if I. So either way, if you're trying to keep yourself safe from me, then you're literally just assuming that I want you, like that I'm sexually attracted to you, which I can still want to sleep with.
 
Sheila
You, but yeah.
 
Danielle
I'm not. Yes, maybe I just need to, like, we have to have a conversation saying I don't find you attractive in any way sexually. Now, can we get on with the business? You know, and then the other piece, of course, is that he's the threat. And if he's the threat, then he should not call himself a Christian leader. Christian leaders should not be threats to other people. They should be safe people. So either way that that rule or whatever this is, I don't even think it's a rule. I think it's a prejudice that's disguised as healthy practice. It's just sexism. It's discriminatory, you know, like it's all the things I don't know that we call it.
 
We put Billy Graham in front of it. It makes it holy, I guess. And then call it a rule. It's a discriminatory practice that is fear based. And one doesn't work in two, diminishes all of us. Yeah, but what I would say is that what I do push back on is Jesus also wasn't a big one on one guy.
 
And this is one of the problems with how we've highly individualized and hierarchy our leadership styles. So actually one of the problems that are sort of in the foundational pieces of Billy Graham rule or things like it, is that we've got this model that's much more like a Roman model than it is like a Jesus model of leadership. So Jesus offered team circles, you know, practice-based learning, transparent spaces over the table, you know, like the way that Jesus led and invited his disciple, even in his most intimate moments, he took three, you know, he took three.
 
So just even this idea of like, I'm the top of the chain and then I'll take the and, you know, I joked with some pastors the other day, I'm like, if only Jesus had been more explicit in his teaching to the disciples not to lead like that, you know, which of course, he literally said, don't lead like that. You see, the way the Romans lead? We're like, one is over the other, and they're jostling for position and power. Like, don't do that. I'm showing you a different way to lead. So even that practice of one-on-one mentoring and like only certain people can get into this club and like all that stuff is literally the opposite, again, of Jesus's leadership.
 
And he said, don't do it that way. So, you know, I have pastors who say, but how will I do this? How will I mentor a woman? I'm like, mentor differently, man, try to model your life after Jesus, right? Like having a team invites people to do things together. Like, and these are some of the practices I think can really help.
 
Sheila
Yeah.
 
Danielle
I could go on for a long time because I wrote a whole book on it. Yeah, yeah.
 
Sheila
And Better Together we will put the link in the podcast so you can check it out. I think one of the other things is if you think about false allegations just for a second, I've often had people push back saying it can't just be 1%, because I know so many people who are falsely accused and my, my, what I say to them is something very similar to what you said at The Meeting House is, how do you know it was false? You may think it was false.
 
Danielle
Yeah. Or you were told it was false. Yeah. And again, like, I think it's really important to talk about how transparency is the best strategy for false allegations as well. If there's nothing to hide, then let's go. Like, yeah. Like I feel like and I am interested I started preaching at a church here in Vancouver, and when I had a conversation with the pastor, I just said, yeah, I feel like I should come with a warning based on what I've been through, you know, because this isn't my desire. But for some reason, and I have a hunch it's because no one ever sees strong women very often in the church. You know what I mean? Like they're not platformed. So when a strong woman is platformed, who really doesn't buy into these sort of like, subservient sort of things, there's some sort of permission or freedom for women to find strength in it.
 
So I think there's something that happens. And so anyway, I said to the pastor, like, I, I feel like I should come with a warning, you know, if you have skeletons in your closet or if you have abuse history in your church, you might want to deal with it. Now, if you want me to come, or just maybe, I don't need to do this, you know?
 
And he said they were together. There's two of them, and they both said, if there's stuff, let it come. Like we want to know. Like we want to know if there's stuff going on in this church that is abusing people or limiting people. We want to know, like let it out. And I was like, okay, that's the posture. Why? Why is our posture like, what about if this happens? It's like, no, we want to understand how we're doing. Like where's the hunger and curiosity and discovery to say we want to be more like Jesus. So if there's anything in our system that is in the way of that, let it out. Like and this is what I don't understand about churches’ responses to abuse.
 
Like, it's like a church's response to abuse should be like, tell us everything. Like and then how do we like, let's get to this. Like we got to rid this out of our body and out of our system because this is horrible, you know, and that should be our natural response. But I think we've trained ourselves in this fear base. And of course, women are the enemy. And because we have this, women are either a threat or a temptation. Then everything women do is through that lens. Not just leadership, but everything. So every time a woman speaks, it's like it's a threat or it's a temptation every time, right? So we see women through this vilified lens of they’re against us or their whatever, which is so contrary to the truth, as we know that women actually love the church.
 
The other thing I would just say, as a victim advocate over the past years, I would say that there's nothing to win for a woman in an allegation. Yeah, literally there's nothing to win. She is annihilated. She is crucified. She is vilified. She is excommunicated. She loses all of her good relationships. She sacrifices everything that she's, you know, been part of just by taking that risk. So the reason why there's so few false allegations is there's no win in it. Yeah. And people don't understand that. It's like they think somebody has something to win. I'm like, I can tell you that I have watched the carnage of women who have tried to stand up to, to stop cycles of abuse in at least four different major, you know, Christian organizations or churches.
 
And they have not won a single thing except their own integrity and their deep desire to stop the abuse. That's it. They want to stop it for the next generation. There is no other win. They have all lost and lost deeply. I spoke to a friend of mine who's a megachurch pastor in America, and he was, some things were going on and he was saying, like, Danielle, all it takes is one, you know, this, this whole thing, all it takes is one false allegation and my job is over, you know?
 
And I'm just like, that doesn't seem to be the truth either, though, does it? Like I 've known pastors, I can name pastors who've had many true allegations who are leading churches now. They are fine. Like Mark Driscoll waxes eloquently like he's, churches and I mean, he'll go through another, you know Bruxy Cavey, just started a new church. I don't know if you heard that right.
 
Sheila
Andy Savage has started as a new church.
 
Danielle
Started online healing.
 
Sheila
Robert Morris is going to have a new one
 
Danielle
Oh yeah. He probably had one in prison. He'll probably make a whole comeback on the prison tour. I've been seeing the podcast tour of what's his face, the Hillsong guy. You know, he's going to be a marriage expert now.
 
Sheila
Carl Lentz Yeah.
 
Danielle
Infidelity. Right. And so you're just like, come on. Guys like that aren't even true. Even that's not true. I'm like, even if you were even, like, properly, but even if you actually abuse somebody and it was an accusation and it was proven and they even took you to court, you could still lead, like this is the real threat, everybody likes, oh, anyway, so the whole thing is just sort of this fear-based concoction to exclude, and I think to protect yourself from the transparency that actually is your own freedom.
 
So when you look at the rates of pastors who are lonely, chronically lonely, you know, some of them, some of the latest research on pastors who genuinely thought about self-harm or suicide. I mean, it's higher than it should be, Sheila. And I think one of the reasons is because we have walled ourselves into these protective bubbles that actually end up being prisons.
 
And so one of the keyways of being happy, according to all of the research, is to be fully known and fully loved. And all of these exclusionary practices in these Walden things and seeing people through the lens of threat or fear is all a way of walling yourself into this prison. And you can call it holy if you want. But it is the saddest way to live. And I think and.
 
Sheila
I think it comes from such a corporate view of church as well. Right. Which is what you were talking about, where you have the one guy at the top who has to remain untouchable, or else everything's going to fall apart. And the bigger the church gets, then the scarier it is. Because what if this guy falls now? Because now all of these jobs are relying on him. We've got 10,000 people coming every week, and it all trickles down and it's like, maybe we just weren't meant to do that. Like.
 
Danielle
Well, yeah. Like in a private leadership call in the early origins of Bruxy’s allegations, they said, you know, these allegations have come forward. And so, you know, we're launching an investigation. And one of the leaders, it was just a zoom call because I think it was still maybe in opposition to Covid or whatever. And one of the leaders just said like, well, what are we going to do? We're all here for him, right? And I was like, oh, there it is. Like, if we're all here for him, we're here for the wrong reason. Like we said last time I checked, we're all here for Jesus. That's what we say. Like that's what. That's what we do. So even just this idea that, like, actually, we're not all here for Jesus.
 
We've built something around somebody that is not Christ. And so that that will never fall. That's in perpetual falling, right? Babylon's always falling. Jesus is the one that is the true one that won't fall. So that's another opportunity even for pastors who are listening to this, to actually say, like, am I here for Jesus? Like, is this, you know, is this the most? And I know we say it, but I mean, look at your practices. And when these things sort of come and these issues come up, or when these challenges come, the invitation is actually really look at it like, why are you so afraid? What have you got to lose, you know, who are you following? Yeah.
 
Sheila
I think and I want to end this. If we see women as threats or temptations and that's the only way that we see women, which is basically how this does. The ironic thing is that is actually the root of sexual abuse.
 
Danielle
Yes.
 
Sheila
So they're trying to prevent it. They say they're trying to prevent it. But by doing this, they're actually creating the very conditions where this breeds.
 
Danielle
For it to thrive. That's right, 100%. And then also what you're doing is you're perpetuating a view that doubts, fears and dismisses women. So when there is truth to be told, right? Like when there is something that needs to come to light, you've already set it up so that women are disbelieved, right? Women are threats already. So? So the whole construct sets it up so that women are stuck. So I'd say the whole construct is abusive. I mean, it's segregation. Think about just the practice. It's illegal unless you're the Taliban.
 
Sheila
This is actually something that I find so.
 
Danielle
If you want to be the Taliban, keep doing this. This is excellent. Yeah.
 
Sheila
I find this so interesting because much of the Billy Graham rule would get you written up by human rights, like human resources in most secular workplaces.
 
Danielle
Well, even in, Sheila, you were saying that like, it's because the church is so corporate. I'm like, well, actually, this is part of the corporate world. We don't adopt
 
Sheila
We don't.
 
Danielle
Yeah. It's actually like people that come from the business world that are women leaders that come into the church, they're always like, what is going on here? Like they're shocked, I meet with them and they're just like, is this like, I've never had a problem getting an appointment with my,  I've never had an issue at a work meeting you know, at HSBC we've that's never been a question of whether or not we should meet since we're both leaders. And I'm like, yeah, they're like, what is happening here? So I think.
 
Sheila
And then you start in
 
Danielle
The Church is more sexual than the workplace is. Think about that for a second. That's how crazy this is, that we've allowed this to be something that leads us, you know.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Absolutely crazy. You know, we did. We had a recent study published in the Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion, and we talked about this in the podcast a couple of weeks ago or last month anyway. But one of the things we found is that teenage girls who grow up in churches that teach heavy modesty messages, you know, like you have to can't be a stumbling block for your brother and dress in such a way that you want to entice him, etc. those girls are 79% more likely to be sexually harassed or abused in the church.
 
Danielle
Yeah, because they've been groomed. That's grooming.
 
Sheila
Right? And churches and churches that teach this are also grooming predators because their peers are more likely to be abusive towards them. So teenage boys are more likely to abuse in churches that teach this stuff. So it's like because
 
Danielle
you're teaching your boys that it's the woman's fault from the very beginning, right? You're teaching the boys that the girls are dressing in a way that actually makes you. So you're to blame. And, you know, seeing girls through the lens of threat or temptation is what's happening. Yeah. Yeah, brutal
 
Sheila
And it doesn't work. It doesn't work. And so I know I get a lot of pushback from women saying, but I want to know that my husband isn't going to have an affair, but it's like, honey, if he's going to have an affair, he's going to do it with or without the Billy Graham rule, you know?
 
Danielle
Yeah. What's the best way to have a marriage where your husband isn't having an affair? What, like, you know, go buy The Marriage You Want. The best way is to have transparency within your marriage. To be honest within your marriage, to pray together in your marriage, to play together in your marriage, like to actually see each other as people who are wanting the best for one another. Like and even that won't seal the deal. Even though we're all prone to potential. But we will never have good marriages if our marriages are based on exclusion and threat and fear and control, which is all of those things are all just. That's what they are. The Billy Graham is the Billy Graham rule, distorted as it is in our context, is just a version of control. It's, you know, training ourselves to think like the enemy.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Wow
 
Danielle
We shouldn't do that. We shouldn't do that. Let's live differently, Sheila. We could do it.
 
Sheila
Amen, Danielle. Thank you.
 
Danielle
Jesus doesn't keep the Billy Graham rule. Spread the word.
 
Sheila
Amen. Danielle, where can people find you? You're on social media.
 
Danielle
DanielleStrickland.com, Substack. You know all the things. Google
 
Sheila
I will link to those in the podcast notes. You can find her. You can find her book Better Together. Thank you for joining us. I really appreciate it.
 
Danielle
You got it.
 
Sheila
You know what, Becca? The internet can sometimes be a really, really terrible place.
 
Rebecca
Absolutely.
 
 
Sheila
But I have a happy place.
Rebecca
We do.
 
Sheila
That is our Patreon group on Facebook. It's the place where I go, where I need some encouragement, where I just need to bounce something off of people to see if I'm crazy or not. And also where I get the best ideas for our podcasts and our blog posts.
 
Rebecca
Absolutely. And we also have a lot of fun there too. We've created a fantastic community where we, you know, share funny memes that we've seen throughout the week. And we talked about the terrible takes that we saw on Instagram. And you can go somewhere and know that you don't have to defend your belief that women should have rights.
 
So if you are looking for a way to support this podcast, if you love what we do and you want to give us a tangible step up, you can join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month and get access to our Facebook group, where you'll get to join in the fun and know that you're supporting a fantastic cause.
 
Sheila
To join our Patreon, it's just Patreon.com/baremarriage,  Or take a look at the link in the podcast notes. You know, I have known Danielle for a while, but that was such a fun interview. I was not expecting to be liked, I knew she was going to be good, but that left me with so much to think about. I never knew the Billy Graham rule was three rules and that we only pay attention to one.
 
Rebecca
Yeah,
 
Sheila
That is what I am going to be thinking about.
 
Rebecca
I have not watched the interview.
 
Sheila
Yet a long time.
 
Rebecca
I also did not know that there were three rules and not just one.
 
Sheila
It is. That's wild. Okay, but along with the reason that I wanted to talk to her actually about the Billy Graham rule was because I got this a series of different comments and emails all in a row in one week, which all had to do with this assumption of how men and women relate to one another and what happens when you grow up in a certain environment.
 
And I thought, well, let's just tackle the Billy Graham rule, but I want to also tackle some of these questions. And so I want to read you a story that someone sent in and then let you comment on it. Okay. So here's what she said. She says we were part of a male elder led church. Well, it appeared somewhat progressive on the surface.
 
Authority was firmly centered in male eldership. And in hindsight, my husband and I have functioned more egalitarian in our marriage while trying to live within a complementarian structure.
 
Rebecca
Very common.
 
Sheila
A lot of people relate to that. Both of us were shaped by purity culture and high controlled religious environments, which created a constant posture of monitoring for sin, especially around sexuality. Yeah, about a year ago, leadership learned that I had been texting a male friend. My husband knew about it. There was no secrecy. When the elders heard, they labeled it an emotional affair and removed us from leadership.
 
I was pressured to confess and to formally state that I had cut it off. The elders’ wives told me their husbands were on standby for my husband's devastation. When I told him, his response was, come, that's it. He expressed his honor that I would be attentive enough to end something that could potentially become unhealthy, even if he didn't believe it had crossed that line.
 
His posture was peace and trust. Leadership interpreted this as weakness. One elder contrasted it with his own past response to infidelity, punching a hole in the wall, implying that anger was a more appropriate masculine reaction. Ultimately, my husband was told he had abdicated his role as head of our family and was leading us towards destruction. Compounding this, concerns about my supposed sin crisis were never addressed directly with me by the male elders.
 
Conversations happened through my husband and through their wives. Yet I was labeled deceitful and divisive, and we were publicly described as unrepentant and under discipline when we left. What I'm trying to understand is the larger pattern. It seems that assumptions about male sexual temptation, female moral threat, and male headship combined in a way that escalated the situation. There also appeared to be an underlying assumption that relational connection between a man and a woman must be inherently sexual, and that a husband's lack of anger signals spiritual failure.
 
And I want to start out and say, look, texting relationships can be dangerous. We're not trying to say.
 
Rebecca
At the same time, if you look at my phone and Conner's phone, the number of friends of the opposite sex that we chat with on a weekly basis.
 
Sheila
Yeah.
 
Rebecca
Is not zero. Yeah, it's not three. It's like a lot. Yeah, like that's totally normal, guys.
 
Sheila
Yeah.
 
Rebecca
Like, here's the thing. It's like, why are we pathologizing this. Why are we pathologizing? This is like it's not weird for me to text my friend if he happens to be a dude.
 
Sheila
I think the weird thing is when you get into secrecy and she said there was no secrecy, like dad often sends your dad often sends TikToks and reels to like, there's a bunch of there's a couple of nurses, like just different people from different. And they're constantly sending medical reels  back and forth. And what we do every night before we go to sleep is he shows me all the reels, like the good reels he's found today.
 
Yeah, I'm never on social media. I never see reels unless your dad shows them to me. So, like all the ones that you sent him. Yeah, I see them because, like, like so and so, like, every night he's showing me these conversations, like.
 
Rebecca
You see this? Oh, and here's what Catherine said. Here's what Melissa said. Yeah, exactly.
 
Sheila
Now, I am not saying that this can never cross a line, okay? And I know a lot of people who have crossed the line and it's been devastating. And we're not trying to downplay that. What we're trying to say is this assumption that it will always be sexual is simply untrue.
 
Rebecca
Yeah. The fact of the matter is like, I mean, I have many male friends who I have very fantastic conversations with in DMs and texting where we get into really deep stuff. It's really lovely. And then what I do is I'm like; I have the best conversation with so-and-so when I talk to Connor. Yeah, because it's not a big deal because we're friends and Conner's in like, group projects with this school, with these two women who are in his program, who they've all bonded so well and were actually planning when they're going to come and visit us.
 
And yeah, like, it's lovely and people don't need to be threatening. It's the fact of the matter is like, if you're just being aware and if you're holding yourself accountable, that if you have security, like insecurity issues or if you're someone who like this also just requires a level of self-awareness, if you're someone who craves sexual attention, then yeah, you probably shouldn't be texting people. Yeah, because that's an issue that you need to deal with. But the issue is not your texting. The issue is you crave other people's sexual attention. This reminds me of that study that we looked at a while ago about how the men who say that teenagers are dressing to ask for it are more likely to be dressing to ask for it themselves.
 
Yeah, like the people who we project our insecurities onto other people often, right? Like, if you're someone who wants sexual attention, you're likely to assume that other people also want sexual attention. Whereas if you're someone who doesn't want sexual attention, you're likely to see things much more innocently. And so that's something I would also just say.
 
Sheila
Yeah. And so this couple was put on church discipline.
 
Rebecca
For texting a guy friend.
 
Sheila
They were gossiped about. But part of the problem wasn't just that she was texting, it was that her husband wasn't adequately angry about it.
 
Rebecca
He needs to be more controlling.
 
Sheila
Yeah.
 
Rebecca
What we need is more controlling men, according to this church.
 
Sheila
And this is the kind of situation where they're normalizing that it is better to punch a hole in a wall, like, punching a hole in one that requires a fair amount of anger.
 
Rebecca
And like to be. I'll be honest, if you found out your spouse had an affair, you get to, I don't care, punch a hole in the wall. That's kind of one of those times where I'm like, yeah, I don't know. Like I'm not I'm not judging anyone's response for finding out that, quite frankly, yes.
 
Sheila
No. That's true, that’s true
 
Rebecca
Because he's not saying that when they argue. But it's like if his wife had an affair, like, I don't know, I feel like I'm not judging people's responses in those moments. Yeah. But my thing is like, the fact of the matter too, is what this also does is it assumes that your best friends are going to be women, or your best friends are going to be men if you're a man. But what about if you make a couple friends and you get along with the husband? If I get along with the husband better? Or what if Conner and the wife get along really, really well? Like, are they never allowed to hang out? Like, are they never allowed to go to the gym together? Are they never allowed to like text because something funny happened about a shared interest?
 
Rebecca
Like.
 
Sheila
Yeah.
 
Rebecca
It's weird to me, and maybe it's just a millennial thing, like, I don't know, like I am a baby millennial. Like maybe this is becoming more normalized, especially since.
 
Sheila
Well, I know among younger couples, so many people have the opposite sex, like Maid of honor or best man. Yeah, like I know, I know a lot of people who like a lot of women. Well, not a lot, but I know a handful anyway, who had a male maid of honor.
 
Rebecca
Yeah. Or like the or like a lot of guys were like, it's their friends who've been with them their whole lives. A lot of them are female, and they're like, I want you to stand with me. You know. I think that's lovely.
 
Sheila
And so this is just. Yeah, it's just a strange, strange thing that we pathologize it. So again, wisdom is needed here. Okay. Like if you're in a relationship where there is a high likelihood that your spouse is going to be having an affair and what, you don't have access to their phone and.
 
Rebecca
Well, you have a reason. If you have reason not to trust your spouse, don't use this as a reason to gaslight yourself into trusting them. That's not what we’re saying.
 
Sheila
No, but we're just saying this assumption that relationships between the opposite sex will always be sexualized, and the assumption that you should be very angry, you know, is, is just yeah, it is problematic. And that is another sign that you're in a toxic church. So I'm glad that they are out of that place and they do have support, she said.
 
Rebecca
100%.
 
Sheila
Okay, here's another question. And this is coming from a woman who what she was saying was like, the fact that my husband grew up in a purity culture really affected how he sees sex. And I hadn't, and it's been really toxic. So she said, she says this he has a deep seated belief that attraction is bad or dirty, so he seems to not want to say that I'm attractive and didn't want to give me attention when we were dating to show that I was, and if he felt like he wanted to be intimate, but it was more of a biological urge versus a romantic one, he felt that that was dirty and he couldn't bring that to me, so he would go to porn. He said that he would feel gross and used to it if I initiated intimacy with him out of nowhere, like not after a date or something. And this left me feeling really unwanted. He also didn't know how to handle interactions with attractive women, and so he'd hide the fact that he would interact with women when he wasn't with me, even if it was benign. This secrecy was extremely harmful and led to more objectification. Some things I don't fully understand, but he'll describe it. He'll describe how he put so much emphasis on being a virgin that when we were married, he didn't really think he needed to do much else besides provide financially. Shame seems to also be a giant component that got in the way of making any changes and adding to secrecy. I don't have a great understanding of exactly what's going on, but I do know that after he read the book Recovering from Purity Culture, which is a great book, Camden Morgante I think I have it here. Yeah. Right there. Yeah. Me here. Yes. Good friend of ours. Shout out to Doctor Camden on social media. It opened his eyes a lot to what was going on internally. Being able to articulate that to me has sometimes been difficult.
 
Rebecca
Yeah, and I think this is really good because we often talk about how purity culture teaches women that sex is dirty, but it also teaches it to men.
 
Sheila
Yeah. And so here she is. Yeah. So here she is. She's not growing up in church. She marries this guy who did. So she became a Christian later in life. And she has no idea of all the crap he's been taught. And like, she's just totally blown away by all this. But, yeah, he feels like I'm attracted to her.
 
Rebecca
I'm being that animal is probably, frankly, what the sounds like is like a trauma response to being 12 years old and being introduced to Every Young Man's Battle framework, and having your body be seen as a threat and being, in essence, told you are a predator.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Remember that Every Young Man's Battle and we did a podcast on this one. I still say it's the book that broke my heart the most. And I'll put a link to the podcast note in the podcast notes in it, but it opens like on the first, like within the first three pages. I think with the story of how normal it is for this 13-year-old boy who wants to take his clothes off in front of everybody, you know and wants and wants women to see his penis like that’s not actually not normal. And when.
 
Rebecca
For most people that’s a nightmare. For most people that's a nightmare.
 
Sheila
Yeah. And so when you're telling 12, 13, 14-year-old boys who are reading this that that's normal. Yeah, they're going to feel like they're monsters.
 
Rebecca
Yeah, I do. It is. Yeah. It's very sad. I'm glad that he's getting help with the books and everything, but yeah, I mean, we also obviously don't know everything that's going on, but that to me sounds like I mean, it's not hard to imagine why someone who's being raised in purity culture, who is a man who desperately wants to actually to treat women well and to be a good husband and in that context, can just hate himself and be like, why can't I get over this? Because he's been taught that his bodily functions are sinful, not just a part of him. Yeah, right. Like, and that's just how it often works.
 
Sheila
Yeah. So yeah. And so I just, I just found that really enlightening that and again further proof that the teachings that we get in evangelism certainly distort our relationships, as Danielle and I were talking about and distort our view of the opposite sex. But they can even, you know, impact our marriages, like our even our ability to have healthy sex lives like this goes really deep.
 
And so we do have to get this right. Like we don't need to sexualize everything, okay? You do not need to sexualize every interaction you have with the opposite sex. We certainly should not be sexualizing it for 12, 13, 14-year-olds. And so if you want to prevent or hopefully prevent, make it less likely that a boy will grow up with this.
 
Please take a look at our puberty and sex course called The Whole Story. Moms can share it with daughters. Dads can share it with their sons. Or if you are a single parent, you can use it the other way. There's help for that. But yeah, we've got an older version and a younger version. So the younger version is 10 to 12, older is sort of 13 to 16. Sometimes it depends on what your 13-year-olds like right. Which one do they do?
 
Rebecca
fall into.
 
Sheila
But we have it for both boys and girls. It's really positive. And it will teach them that. You know what, it's not always sexual. It's not wrong to notice. Biological reactions do not mean you've lusted them. You know, like and here's how you can show respect to one another. So just get rid of a lot of this toxic crap.
 
Sheila
Yeah.
 
Rebecca
I mean, what this all brings to mind for me is when I was studying social psychology, and I'm so sorry because I'm not going to be able to get out the exact study anymore because it's from my textbook, from way back when.
 
Sheila
Okay.
 
Rebecca
They did these studies where they would, in essence, you know, have something negative happen to a raccoon after a certain buzzer went off. Okay. Right.
 
Sheila
Poor little raccoon.
 
Rebecca
And then they did other ones where when there was a green light on, the bad thing never happened. And then when the green light turned off, a bad thing happened. And so they were measuring two different things.
 
Their behavior when they had a threat that the bad thing was going to happen soon. And then if the raccoon had a safety measure. So like, you know, that it's not happening. Right. And anyway, the raccoon behavior is different based on how when the red light comes on, they get really frantic and everything gets really, really bad. And then of course the bad thing happens and then they're actually like, fine for a little bit and then they get anxious again. Then the red light goes on. And then the raccoons who had a safety area. We studied a lot of these very I don't know how they passed ethics approval kind of studies that they do with raccoons where they are measuring was how does our anxiety and our like reactions how are they affected by having warnings when something bad is happening, but also kind of green lights that we know nothing bad will happen.
 
Okay, right? And it was just really interesting because in essence, what happens is a lot of people, even when there are like.
 
Sheila
Poor little raccoons.
 
Rebecca
Raccoons, then they constrapulate to humans, right? We as people, we don't only need to have warnings for when something is happening, we also need to have clear green lights that something is not going to happen right now. And I think that what's happened is with relationships, there's no ability to have a safety zone because everything is seen through the lens of am I sinning, am I lusting? Am I going to have an emotional affair? Because the assumption is always as if something bad is going to happen. But the fact of the matter is, often nothing bad is going to happen. Yeah. And the majority of the time it's completely benign. And if we've been taught to be hypervigilant and to be overly concerned and overly cautious about these things, we can remove our safety zones even when nothing bad is happening, because we're anticipating what might happen, instead of focusing on whether or not it is happening.
 
Right? Right. And sometimes things do get bad 100% but then deal with it, if it's getting bad. But if it's not getting bad, you don't need to worry about all these things. Like if you experience sexual desire for your spouse, you are not the creepy man from Every Man's Battle, right? You are experiencing sexual desire for your spouse.
 
If you're having intrusive sexual thoughts of a nature that you are uncomfortable with, that's something you can deal with and you can talk to a therapist about and you can work on, but you don't need to worry about if you're going to start having intrusive sexual thoughts. If you're not having intrusive sexual thoughts, right? You don't need to worry about if you might start talking to a man one day, and it might become an emotional affair. If you're very capable of having friends without having crossed lines, you don't need to worry. You don't need to borrow trouble. You can simply be wise and be self-aware. And again, if you're someone who wants attention in an unhealthy way, you can hold yourself to boundaries that you wouldn't need if you're someone who's actually fine, you know?
 
And if you're someone who grew up with purity culture and you're turning to like, self-damaging and quite frankly, like the letter user like her husband turning to self-punishing porn use. You're so like I'm already disgusting, right? I'm already destroyed. I already have a problem. And so why is this at least better than doing it to my wife, right?
 
Like dealing with those issues. Stop punishing yourself.
 
Sheila
Right.
 
Rebecca
You don't need to. A lot of the stuff is so much less serious than we were told that it was because they've flattened the playing field and it's like, no, this stuff really is serious. But then there's the rest of us.
 
 
Sheila
Yeah, right.
 
Rebecca
And most stuff is here. Most stuff is not this.
 
Sheila
Yeah.
 
Rebecca
And so we need to have our warnings, but we also need to have our safety zones.
 
Sheila
So yeah, that's a good distinction. So yeah. So thank you for listening to the Bare Marriage Podcast. I'm going to put a link to Danielle's book in the podcast notes and the other things we mentioned. But yeah, appreciate you being here and we will see you again next week. We'll probably be in our different studio.
 
Rebecca
Oh, is this the last recording?
 
Sheila
Last one that we are recording before we are leaving our house of 19 years.
 
Rebecca
That's wild. Yeah. 19 years
 
Sheila
Yeah. And I need to tell a story before we end. So everyone's been asking me, do you feel sad about leaving your house? And I don't, because this has not emotionally felt like my house since Katie moved out. Yeah, because, you know, we bought this house when.
 
Rebecca
I was 12.
 
Sheila
You were 12. Katie was ten. And we bought it for you guys to be teenagers here, right? It was a big enough house that we could. We could manage it. And there's this funny front room, and the piano used to be in there, and you guys both took piano lessons all through, all through high school. And a lot of my life for years was just listening to you both practice piano. And I have a video of right before we moved Katie playing piano. And then five minutes later, they came and took it on the truck and left. And when that piano moved, that's when. That's when this house emotionally changed for me, because we bought it for you guys as teenagers. And then dad and I, we've enjoyed it. It's been a great house. It's not that I don't appreciate the house.
 
Rebecca
No. But it’s
 
Sheila
But yeah, we bought it for a purpose. And then when the purpose wasn't there anymore. It was like, well, it doesn't feel like me now. And so we're moving to a place that feels like me, and we're going to be closer to other family, like you guys and your kids.
 
Rebecca
Same building.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Same building. So I'm very excited. So yeah. All right. So we'll see you again next week in our brand-new configuration, hopefully.
 
Rebecca
It'll probably be the first round.
 
Sheila
It'll be beta testing. It will be better. We won't be set up but we'll try it. So we'll see you next week on the Bare Marriage Podcast, bye bye.