How Can "Love" and "Attraction" Evolve Through Disclosure and the Recovery/Healing Process?

Episode 221 comes in response to the heart-felt submission by a PBSE listener struggling after the disclosure of her porn and sex addicted partner. Have you ever felt the flame of love flicker and feared it might go out? That's the heart of our latest episode where we peel back the layers on rekindling romance in the wake of a porn/sexual addiction disclosure. We share our own stories of navigating the rough seas of love post-recovery, offering listeners raw insights on how marriages can not only survive but grow stronger through these trials. The journey is not just about rekindling what was lost, but discovering a new depth of connection and understanding with your partner. We can choose to redefine love—not as a whimsical emotion, but as a daily, conscious choice.

02:20 - 04:40: A Listener's Heartfelt Submission—Introduction to a listener's raw and open submission questioning "Where's the joy" after a partner discloses his porn and sex addiction and his years of betrayal?

04:40 - 07:00: Reflections on the Past and Present Relationship—Discussing the contrast between the listener's idealized past and the reality of their current relationship.

07:00 - 09:20:  Yearning for the Past vs. Accepting the Present—Addressing the listener's desire to regain the 'spark' and excitement of the early relationship years.

09:20 - 11:40:  The Challenge of Addressing the Submission—The hosts discuss the complexity of the listener's situation and their approach to addressing it.

11:40 - 14:00:  Insights into Recovery and Relationship Evolution—Sharing professional and personal insights into how love and attraction evolve over time in recovery and healing.

14:00 - 16:20:  Understanding the Honeymoon Phase—Discussion on the difference between the initial honeymoon phase and the pre-betrayal phase in relationships.

16:20 - 18:40:  Authenticity and Guardedness in Relationships—Exploring how authenticity and being guarded affect relationships during the honeymoon and pre-betrayal phases.

18:40 - 21:00:  Loss and Discovery Post-Betrayal—Addressing the profound sense of loss and discovery of true selves following betrayal.

21:00 - 23:20:  Love and Attraction Post-Recovery—Discussing how love and attraction change and become more conscious choices post-recovery.

23:20 - 25:40:  Evolution of a Relationship Post-Betrayal—Reflection on how relationships evolve and become more authentic after overcoming betrayal.

25:40 - 28:00:  The Realities of Love and Choosing Each Other—Examining the deeper, more holistic understanding of love that develops in long-term relationships.

28:00 - 30:20: The Desire to Return to Simpler Times—Contemplating the natural desire to return to simpler times versus accepting and valuing the evolved relationship.

30:20 - 32:40: Embracing the Present and Future of Relationships—Encouragement to embrace the current state and future potential of relationships after recovery.

32:40 - 34:55: Conclusion and Invitation to Explore Further—Closing thoughts and an invitation to explore deeper into relationship recovery through Dare to Connect.

Learn more about Mark and Steve's revolutionary online porn/sexual addiction recovery and betrayal trauma healing program—"Dare to Connect!" To try a free, 2-week trial, visit—daretoconnectnow.com

Find out more about Steve Moore at:  Ascension Counseling

Learn more about Mark Kastleman at:  Reclaim Counseling Services

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:07

Hey everybody. I'm Steve Moore and I'm Mark Castleman. We know the pain and heartbreak of porn and sex addiction.

Speaker 2: 1:20

And we know the triumph of breaking completely free. Every day, we help our clients find hope and healing. Join us in the fight to take back your life, your marriage, and be stronger than ever. This is the PBSC Squared Podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:50

Hey everyone, mark and Steve, on the PBSC podcast, this is episode 221. And it's interesting. This was a very heartfelt, pretty open and raw submission that came into us and it's fascinating because here's the here's how this. We're not going to read the whole thing because it's really long, but a very first part of this is a question Where's the joy? That's how she starts this out. Where's the joy? And she says she went back and listened to our episode one, 156 was, which was all about uh, was all about relationship.

Speaker 2: 2:34

How do you restore a relationship after disclosure and after addiction and all of that In her description kind of perfect utopia, fabulous, kind of romance novel, kind of stuff where it was just fantastic for 10 years. Then comes disclosure. Right, he comes out with the addiction. He's been hiding that whole time and now she's finding that the relationship has changed and she wants to get back what they had. But here's the interesting thing when she describes the current relationship as we read it, it's like it's still pretty darn close to perfect. To tell you the truth, right, he's a good guy, he's patient, he's a good husband, father, he's just good in all these pretty amazing ways. But she's just finding herself kind of left yearning for what they had, and she's just like I got to get all that back.

Speaker 1: 3:35

Well, in that part I guess I am going to read I want to care when he's in the room. I want to feel thrilled when he puts his hand on my waist. I want to have sex with him. I want to be flirtatious again. I've tried to just do it. I've tried to say, hey look, he's in the room, hooray. In my head I've tried to say, well, how comforting his hand is on my waist. In my head I've initiated sex, thinking it's like going to the gym. Maybe you weren't totally up for it going, but afterwards you're glad you did, but instead afterwards, all I feel is indifference. If this is this it, you know as he is. If this is it, it's still going to be a better measure marriage than most. And then she talks about you know, I enjoy being around him. Um, but I want that spark back, right? She talks about that multiple times. I want that spark back. I want that fire back, right, want that, that passionate desire side.

Speaker 2: 4:26

Yeah, she's like I want things the way they were during the first decade. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:32

Well, and and and I I'm I'm going to be totally transparent with the audience here. We've sat on this question for several weeks now, just once it finally came up in our waiting list. And there's the big reason why is because it took some thinking about. You know what, how would we go about answering this? How would we look at this Cause? There's a lot of ways something like this could be, could could be, come out and as we talked about it, you know we can't. There are lots of cause this is a very detailed submission and there are lots of parts of this relationship I'm sure we're not aware of. We know nothing, for example, about what the recovery process looked like, what came out on the disc. We know none of that. None of that's talked about, right.

Speaker 1: 5:12

But we did think it would be an opportune time to talk about and share with you guys, because I think you know, mark and I have oodles of training. We've done this for decades, helping couples and individuals get better. You know Mark has certifications. I'm a CSAT. We, you know I work, we both work with partners and all this stuff. But at the end of the day, I think Mark and I continue, despite all the letters behind names and whatever else. I think our best weapon, if you will, is the fact that we've been there, done that right. We know what this process is like.

Speaker 1: 5:46

Mark and I have very vivid memories and a vast story, each of us, of living in addiction, as addicts, going through very traumatic disclosure and the hard, difficult stages of getting in a place where you wanted to change, and the hopelessness of the marriage and our wives almost leaving and that whole bit, and then going through that recovery and evolution process now with years and decades of sobriety.

Speaker 1: 6:06

And so we have a pretty good first world account of how does love, how does attraction, how does this really evolve and change over time in a recovery process, and so we wanted to go through some of the thoughts with that today. This is a vast topic. We are going to glance over it. I can just tell you right now If in our Dare to Connect program, if slash, I would probably say, when we tackle this, this will be like a month to two month deal of spending, you know, three to five hours a week on it, it's true, but it's so. We're going to give this a really broad treatment today, but we did want to at least introduce the topic and and, uh, put some thoughts out there about you know a couple from a couple of guys who are with currently with our spouses, who went through this, who have had many conversations and much dialogue with their partners and who are in really good places and have been for a long time.

Speaker 2: 6:59

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:59

So I guess, uh, kicking that off here, I mean, let's, let's talk about the honeymoon phase of a relationship. She talks about that, and when we talk about the honeymoon phase, usually in culture, first there's the popular cultural definition, which is the beginning of a marriage or relationship where everything is new, novel, fresh, everything is just like you just bought a brand new car. It's got that new car smell, smell and everything's new and different.

Speaker 1: 7:27

If you come from a conservative background or abstain from a sexual relationship prior to that level of commitment, that's even new, right? There's all these new components that are different and exciting and crazy we're living together and all these different things that make it all new, and so there's that definition. The second different definition would be what we refer to in recovery, which would be the pre-betrayal definition.

Speaker 2: 7:52

Pre-betrayal, pre-disclosure day, pre-discovery, right, all of that. And I would say something else about the honeymoon stage that you said. Everything is new, novel and fresh. We also can all relate to the fact, if we've been in a relationship or relationships for a while, that we're also on our guard. We're trying to be our best selves.

Speaker 1: 8:17

Absolutely, we want to trust the other person.

Speaker 2: 8:19

We don't say our whole truth or even know what that means.

Speaker 1: 8:23

A lot of things are very filtered.

Speaker 2: 8:25

Yeah, we walk on eggshells, we go along to get along. I mean, there's just so much that goes on in that. That whole you know, several decades of me being in addiction was a honeymoon phase by any means. But if someone asked me, mark, during those 20 plus years that you were in addiction and hid it from your wife, did she know you? I'd say absolutely not. She knew a part of me, pieces of me, right, the parts that I let her see, the parts that I tried to bring out, the parts that I tried to do whatever. But did she know me? No, and vice versa, did I know her? And the answer today is clearly no, because she was guarded.

Speaker 2: 9:18

She had to watch what she said. She was naturally a very pleasing, nurturing, rescuing person. Did I know her? Those are also aspects of the honeymoon phase.

Speaker 1: 9:30

Yeah, for sure, cause it isn't just yeah, it's not just this pre-betrayal in terms of, well, we didn't know this stuff before, but now we do. Right. The reality is is that most people on a coupleship don't know themselves as well nearly as well as they think they do, until you do the hard work. Tie it in with recovery Right.

Speaker 2: 9:46

We were talking about this. On Dare to Connect yeah, because did I know me during those addiction decades? No, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 9:55

Well, and most couples. We were talking about this on D2C. You know our Dare to Connect program for addict spouses and couples. We were talking about this. You know a while back about this idea of you know most couples do live in a place of what we would refer to as kind of a healthy naivety state. Sure.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Right Until certain certain things in life, whether and betrayal is one of the big ones or other things happen in life. Most of us carry with us baggage, preexisting trauma triggers, et cetera, that may or may not be activated in the relationship, depending on the gravity of the situations or the things that come up to do that.

Speaker 2: 10:31

And you could even say in some ways that that's probably good, because the maturity of the relationship isn't ready for such things yet.

Speaker 1: 10:38

For example, there are a lot of relationships that go through an entire marital existence and they have a fairly good marriage, that are highly codependent but, certain circumstances or situations never rose to such a stress level or such a chaotic catastrophic.

Speaker 1: 10:53

You know, flash point, if you will, where those issues you know became a hit, a critical mass and they had to be like, addressed, work through whatever right, and those kinds of things go on all the time in relationships. When a relationship goes out undergoes betrayal, which, I would argue from a coupleship standpoint, is probably one of the, if not the biggest thing that a relationship can go through, possibly in some ways even out trumping the loss of a partner, because betrayal is very much that a loss. And having watched my mom go through the loss of my, my dad when I was a kid and watched countless other couples I worked with, I could definitely speak with some authority to that. It definitely is very much. You know, there's a huge ground shaking and falling out from under your feet kind of event, and with betrayal there is that loss of it's a loss of everything. Right, we talk about this oftentimes. Right, betrayal is a loss of everything, especially a marital or committed relationship. Betrayal because, generally speaking, that relationship is the one that's held in highest regard. Right, it's the one we keep closest, it's the one that carries some of the highest trust and when the bottom falls out of that relationship, inevitably what happens is that it doesn't just cause one to question that relationship.

Speaker 1: 12:03

We begin to question in many ways, both as addicts and especially partners, any relationship that kind of falls down the totem pole. Right, if he could pull the wool over my eyes, if he could do these things to me and me not know if he could go on for 10 years? Right, doing X, y and Z. And we're just in this blissful state of not just me not knowing about the betrayal, but, like Mark said, right, where there's a filtered version of him in the room and possibly a filtered version of me. Right, and the bottom falls out from underneath that. We start therapy, we get in a program like Dare to Connect, we start listening to podcasts like PBSC. Our knowledge, our awareness, our understanding, our mindfulness all begin to increase. Our understanding, our mindfulness all begin to increase. We start to see not just the significance of the betrayal. We begin to look at details of the relationship that may have been glossed over previously.

Speaker 2: 12:50

Oh yeah, as you and I were preparing for today, one of the things that came to me clearly uh, some partners, uh, some partners, some questions about the partnership, for example during so in her case, during that first decade of their relationship, were both partners being truly and I mean truly authentic, as what Sovereign individuals, sovereign independent individuals Were they truly being their authentic selves? Was he showing up quote, perfect as she describes it because he was coping secretly in his addiction? That was very true for me. I could show up in good ways for my wife a lot of times because I was dealing with hard stuff over in my secret addiction. So I'd go and cope with everything and then show up with her oh, it's all taken care of, I think I'm good now.

Speaker 2: 13:41

And then I could show up in the relationship, but not because I was bringing everything to the relationship. I was keeping a bunch of how I was coping completely secret. And in this case, has this person been walking on eggshells, moving into rescue, nurture or get-along mode? Has she been real Right? Are we two truly healthy, independent individuals who then come together to be interdependent, or have there been certain codependencies and enmeshments that developed over time?

Speaker 1: 14:24

free or free of other significant events, can oftentimes work and function fairly healthily without those things being brought to the surface, with those kinds of issues. Right. But when this questioning happens, when this examination occurs, when that awareness hits right, all of those things it it. It does bring about an evolution in the, in the relationship. That brings about new knowledge bases, new scrutiny and and things do not look as pretty as they did before and what often happens this happens for both addicts and partners.

Speaker 2: 14:51

Addicts will say and I said this for a long time when I finally got into real recovery, I would look in the mirror and say I don't know you. I don't know who you are, because people say, well, mark, who are you? What's authentic to you, what's real for you? And I basically looked at them in the beginning to midterm of recovery and said I don't know, because I've escaped from myself.

Speaker 1: 15:15

It's been a lifetime people pleasing and being a chameleon.

Speaker 2: 15:19

And what do partners say? One of the biggest devastations of my betrayal is such a humongous loss is we'll have partners say to us suddenly I'm standing here and I realize I don't know this guy. Yes.

Speaker 2: 15:34

I don't know him. This is a stranger to me. Where did all this stuff come from? You mean, this has been going on the whole time behind my back? Yeah right, and that's one of the biggest losses of betrayal the loss of what I thought I had, the loss of the guy that courted me and dated me and was engaged to me and made all kinds of promises to me. I don't know this person and who I thought I chose. I didn't choose. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:59

Who are they? What do they stand for? Right, what are his likes dislikes? Right, there are so many things that we addicts oftentimes are either not aware of or deliberately conceal from other people because we've been doing it for so long. Right, and like Mark said, we oftentimes don't even know ourselves. So there is that loss of who your partner was, but the loss is so much bigger for a partner in this process, right, it's a loss of innocence. Let's talk about that for a second right.

Speaker 1: 16:22

Before betrayal, trauma occurs for many spouses, the following realities may never have applied to you. I know they didn't for Brittany. We've talked about this multiple times, so let me just read off some of those. He can and might hurt me, oh yeah, right, he can and might deceive me. He may be so good at it I can't even tell. And if he can do that, what does that mean about everybody else? Yeah, I spend time with this guy all day. I have sex with him, I take him to bed. I didn't know about this stuff for a decade. What the crap else is going on?

Speaker 2: 16:54

What does that say about me? Am I dumb? Am I stupid? Am I naive? Am I completely incompetent? Yes, right.

Speaker 1: 17:01

He may choose other women emotionally or physically. I'm not guaranteed safety in my relationship any longer. Yeah Right, I'm not guaranteed and therefore I am also not guaranteed safety in any relationship. Now, intellectually we may have known that before. Right, if you ask somebody that question, people would say no. No, of course that's not guaranteed. But again, most coupleships pre-betrayal. We operate in a space where we're not questioning that right, it is this healthy naivety place and I don't use that denigratingly. That's a good place to operate from.

Speaker 1: 17:35

No spouse should wake up in the morning and be like is he screwing me over today? That's not what we would want people to do, right, but pre-betrayal we don't ask those kinds of questions. Post-betrayal we do yeah, right, yep, yep. So there's a whole piece to this, right Tons of elements to this loss.

Speaker 2: 17:53

right, lots, yeah. And we have other podcasts where we've talked a ton about betrayal trauma.

Speaker 1: 17:57

Identity of self right. Who am I in this marriage right? What do I value? What is my value to him of the relationship? Well, what the hell does this mean about our coupleship Right? He used to be one half of it and he's completely different than who I thought we were. Now the marriage is different. What are our goals? What do we stand for? What are our hopes or dreams Like?

Speaker 2: 18:21

what does any of that mean? And and the addict starts asking, who am I with and without my addiction? Yep Right, I know what I've been in living life, coping through these outlets I've had. What am I now without those outlets? If I get sober and then a partner has to look, and I noticed that in this partner that submitted this to us right, who is she in the relationship with him, in or out of addiction? Because she describes kind of this utopia person and this utopia relationship they had when he was in addiction.

Speaker 2: 18:51

But, I submit that that was not the true him. So, now that he's sober, who is he and what do we have?

Speaker 1: 18:59

Well, and it wasn't the true marriage, and it wasn't the true marriage. We were talking about this in pre-production. What is pornography? There are lots of different ways to look at pornography, right, but one definition that one might use is it's a selective airbrushing, filtering and pulling a singular piece and then amplifying in unrealistic ways a singular piece of a healthy, connected relationship. It takes the sexual component, isolates it from anything real, airbrushes the hell out of it, and then there you go.

Speaker 1: 19:30

Right and builds itself, as this is what a relationship looks like, or this is what a healthy sexual experience looks like, yeah, this piece is the whole. Exactly Right. Well, think about this. And now again, we're operating with limited information here, but how many of you out there possibly the person who submitted this how in some ways, how much was your relationship? Possibly emotional porn? Now, I don't want to be. I want to be gentle with this, because that doesn't mean that everything was a lie. No, right, but were things?

Speaker 1: 19:57

airbrushed? Yeah, yeah, were things hidden? Yes, were selective pieces, like in the case of this decade? Why was this a utopia is? It sounds like this guy was really, really good at hiding all the crap, right? Any any porn video out there. It looks a lot less attractive when you see the whole story, the porn stars, background, why they're doing these videos in the first place.

Speaker 1: 20:21

What's the been the emotional cost to them? Right, when you pull back the camera and you look at the whole picture and you see this for what it is, it's no longer what it was and a relationship operates the same way, right? We addicts, we are very, very good at casting ourselves and other things in a certain light. You don't get to be a fully functioning adult with a good job, good marriage, capable in different areas of your life, in your church or whatever, without being a really really we call it master deceiver, and so we got really good at our stage lighting, so to speak, when it came to the relationship and airbrushing and whatever else. And now, all of a sudden, what are we seeing? We're seeing the relationship for not just what it was, but now asking the question well, what is it? What the crap is it going to be now?

Speaker 2: 21:08

Yeah, and you know we, we have a little title here in our as we were preparing. It says what does life, life and love look like? On quote the other side right For me what, what, what, what is it? What do I look like? Who am I? Who is my partner? Who are we? Now that I'm pulling off the masks, I'm letting go of the filters, you know one of the one of the things uh, you know you and I talked about the love and attraction look and feel very different after disclosure, after we get into recovery and healing. Right, it becomes more of a choice and less something that chooses us or chooses me.

Speaker 2: 21:49

Like all the time you feel obligated, you feel right, I have to do this. I mean, sometimes we even get married because we feel obligated or people pushing us into it. But now we're in this place where it's like, oh wow, I'm seeing him for the first time, I'm seeing her for the first time. She's finally standing up and speaking her truth and acting in authenticity. What does this mean? Am I going to choose her? Is she going to choose me, like the whole of who we are? And, oh crap, we're seeing the whole of it for the first time.

Speaker 1: 22:26

Yeah, one of the things that I've learned over nearly 20 years of marriage and 15 years of recovery or well, 10 years of sobriety, 15 years of recovery-ish.

Speaker 1: 22:37

Those first five years were a little sketch, but what I have learned. If I could go back and change a cultural term, or any cultural term, one of my top three would be this idea of falling in love. I don't like it and I don't like the way that we term it, because what I am learning and what we're going to talk about now as we shift gears into the hope side, is that those who have been in love for a long time and those who have lived real life and those who have done the hard and been through the hard and have lived a little bit of life and gone through some tough stuff in relationships, you learn more and more over time that love is a choice. I choose love. Love does not choose me. Attraction chooses me, lust, sure as hell chooses me. My hormones will choose the other person, right, but loving another person is a conscious process yep, it's a choice, it's, it's a continuous practice yes a skill that needs to be developed absolutely.

Speaker 2: 23:36

I was trying to remember an old country western song. It was something about I thought I knew what love was and the guy singing it you know they're newlyweds and he's he sure he knows what love is and and it was legitimate, real, what he was feeling, absolutely what he came to realize is that he had much deeper things to feel. And he, I think in the song I think they lose a child and then they discover one more level of what love really means. And then they all this stuff and finally, at the very end of the song, they're these two old, wrinkled, you know 80, 80 plus year couple and they're looking at each other and going now we know what love is Right and you just, you just look at that evolution.

Speaker 1: 24:17

Yeah, well, and it's so true, right, and every coupleship goes over this. It happens in a physical sense, right? I? We're talking on Dare to Connect a while ago and we were kind of going through this. You know I'm not and Mark will speak to the same thing. I know my wife is incredibly attractive, but I'm not an idiot. We've been married 20 years.

Speaker 1: 24:35

My wife used to be on the rowing team. You know those big, long boats. They row on rivers. She used to be on the rowing team. She used to be on the volleyball team. She doesn't have a rowing team body anymore. She doesn't have a rowing team body anymore. She doesn't have a volleyball. You know sophomore in high school body anymore. Right, I can, I think that she's amazing and incredibly attractive, but I'm not blind to the fact that you know, with both of us, things that are were perky aren't anymore and things that you'd wish weren't perky they're perky now. And right, in a physical sense, we've both changed a lot. But I can honestly also tell you that, for for me she is and I and she tells me the same, and I believe her I feel more attractive to my wife than I did when I first knew her, which was in a totally sexualized addiction, which is really saying something, right?

Speaker 1: 25:24

I actually love her more, and the reason why is because my definition of love has matured over time. She still is incredibly physically attractive, but when I see her now, the love is deeper, because it's not just wow, she's pretty. I guess you could say it this way Emotionally and physically, I love my wife because of the scarring I guess you could say that she's picked up along the way in life. I love myself for those same reasons, right, I, I, I love her whether we're together physically or emotionally. I'm able to appreciate those, those deficits, because they aren't deficits when I look at them through the lens of. These are things that she's picked up oh, through a lifetime spending time with me, investing in our relationship, burdens that she's carried in the marriage.

Speaker 1: 26:16

Why do her shoulders slouch a little bit more, carrying my sorry ass through addiction? Why is she a little more tired on days now than not? Because she's gotten that way over 20 years of adventuring and doing fun things with me, yeah, right. And when you start to embrace those things and the context behind them and you start to develop out that appreciation, what you see is this evolution. And I don't do it perfectly, and neither does Mark, but I think we would both speak to this idea that love Was it love? I love what Mark said. Was it love on year one, in the honeymoon stage? Yeah, of course. Is it love now? Yes, but I would argue that today's is much deeper because it's much more holistic, it's much more all encompassing, it's much more real because it's battle tested. I don't know what the right term would be.

Speaker 2: 27:08

Yeah, Right, yeah, and understandably, in the beginning we were not just seeing parts of each other physically, because I was a very parts-focused person, right, sure, young and massive testosterone and new relationship and it was very physical parts focus, which is not a bad thing, no, but we were also seeing pieces and parts of each other. Emotionally. We're seeing pieces and parts of each other. You know, spiritually and and and and mentally we didn't know each other fully yet, we couldn't totally. Yep Now that we know each other and we don't know each other fully yet. But it's so much more seeing the whole of a partner.

Speaker 2: 27:50

Now, when I see my wife, I don't see parts, I see a whole person. And when I see her, it's all of those things combined at once. Everything we've been through, everything we've experienced her incredible loyalty and resiliency, all the hard stuff and the good stuff it's all wrapped into this. It's all wrapped into this physical manifestation that is her. And when I see it, frankly, sometimes just like wow, like wow, and that's a different wow. Then, when I first saw her and met her at the beginning of her, that was a wow too, but this is a different wow. Look at all of that, wow.

Speaker 1: 28:36

Right, Absolutely Right, In other words, guys, and we got to wrap up. We knew this was going to be a longer story because again we're trying to tackle a crazy nebulous topic that is very difficult to explain and we're doing it in the span of 30 minutes or less.

Speaker 1: 28:51

So we appreciate your patience with us. But here's the reality. And if we were working with this, if I was working with this woman individually right in a session, one of the things that we would be talking about is that relationships, they're always in a state of evolution, right, just like the people in them are in a state of evolution physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, like mark said, right, and the relationship evolves with it. We can so connect with. We have been the guys who have asked this. We have been with partners who have many times have asked this. We understand that there's a very human side that wants to go back, that wishes in some ways we could recapture the clock and we could go back to that place pre-betrayal, pre all the things that we know now for better or worse. Back to that innocent place, back to that simpler time. Right, I really, really that's been something I've been focusing on in my own therapy recently is in my own work is there is a huge part of me that wants to go back to a simpler time? Yeah, right, I've been learning about that just recently with me. But the reality. And it's okay to have those desires as long as it's paired with the acceptance and the realization that there is no going back Right.

Speaker 1: 30:03

My favorite example of this is the biblical story of you know we're talking about Lot's wife. I really empathize with that lady. You know she's having to leave sodom, she's having to leave gomorrah and and sometimes I think we can you know those who reference from a biblical old testament standpoint reference. You know it's easy to look at her and just be like man, what a slacker. Why didn't she just listen and just leave? You know what's the problem? Big deal. You got to leave. Well, that was her home, right, that was what she knew. That was a comfortable place for her, it was a place where she raised her kids. It was a place where she probably had a garden, she had a goal she had, she had a place, she had an identity, she had friends, she had all these things. And when you start to think about it that way, is it understandable to want to go back Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 30:47

But what she failed to realize is that whatever Sodom or Gomorrah had been at one point in time, to realize is that whatever Sodom or Gomorrah had been at one point in time. It's on fire now and you have to leave because there is no going back. And that's the reality with the relationship, right, as much as a part of us may, and some of it may be even healthy, we want to recapture those pieces. We have to connect with the fact that this relationship, whether it was because of trauma or anything else, they do evolve and that that's not a bad thing, because new phases of recovery is bring out or not recovery. New phases of relationships, whether it's because of recovery or whatever else, bring out new stages, new things to appreciate, new ways to grow, and and that's okay and we would never try to talk anybody out of wanting that but if all, but if we stay stuck there, it will prevent us from being able to enjoy the present, to prevent us, prevent us from enjoying and appreciating the present.

Speaker 2: 31:40

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:41

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:41

And you and I, we talked before. And is there some part of me today, every once in a while, that says I kind of miss that? Uh, you know the old LaDawn that was just sweet and would always hug me and if I was needy or whiny or whatever, she'd hug me and say you're such a good man and I'd write all that stuff. That used to go on. And now what do I have? It's a woman who is very confident, speaks her truth, stands in her authenticity.

Speaker 1: 32:08

Still is that way in many ways yeah. But she holds you accountable for your crap.

Speaker 2: 32:11

now she's still nurturing and loving and kind. But if she sees I'm not doing my personal work and not tapping into my own support system, she'll say man, I can see you're in a bad place today. I'm so sad that you're there. What are you going to do about it? Instead of running for the rescue and would I rather have that or the old her, I would rather have the current her, and I'll tell you why Because the current her is the real her, the whole her, the authentic her, and that's who I want. I don't want somebody who has to hold back, pretend, shut parts of themselves down. I want the whole her because I love her and care about her, and so I work hard to create an environment where she can be all of her and where I can be all of me.

Speaker 2: 32:59

Cause, then, what can we do? Knowing as much as we do now about each other, which is pretty darn close to everything, we actually get up each day and choose each other. You're like you mean knowing all that. You still choose me. Yeah, I do, and that is just. I can't tell you what that did for my shame. Resilience work, for my being confident in my own self, work. I mean, it's just so beautiful. I mean that that is love at the highest level. I know all of this about you good, bad ugly and I choose you, I choose us.

Speaker 1: 33:37

Yeah, love that.

Speaker 2: 33:38

Love that. I don't want to go back to the old, I like this.

Speaker 1: 33:42

Well, guys, that is just scratching the surface on a topic that requires lots more attention than we gave it. Come with us and quit scratching the surface. Okay, we gave it, come with. Come with us and quit scratching the surface. Okay, get to get out of the outer candy shell and get to the mushy center of this thing.

Speaker 1: 33:57

If you want to take your recovery to the next level, dare to connect is the place to do it. We never lie on this program. If I knew of a better place, I would send you to it, but it doesn't exist, which is why we made ours. Um, we would love for you to come over. You won't find any place where you can get a Better Bang for your Buck, with more content, more hours of it. More specific, we just released a whole new element to Dare to Connect called Dare to D2C Academy, which, in addition to the 30 some odd hours of content or whatever, we provide a month, we now have self-study courses for people who have been in the program for six months or longer that you can go through and access with their own handouts on topics. The first one is on on navigating a formal disclosure process, with the second one slated to be healthy sexuality.

Speaker 1: 34:44

Steven mark jumping into your bedroom how shocking and crazy does that sound? Um, it's uh. You just won't find anything better out there. We hope and invite you that, if you like what you hear on the podcast, you'd love Dare to Connect, come over and give it a two-week free trial at daretoconnectnowcom. We'd have you love, have you? We'd love to have you come join us and, as always, if you would like to send us questions addressed, albeit with a I was going to say slight, but it's really not slight a one to three month time delay, depending on when you're listening to this, and we would love to answer those questions and we'd love to get back to you there. You can submit those at pbscpodcastcom.

Speaker 2: 35:23

All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for being with us and we will catch you next time on PBSE. Take care, guys.