Episode 151: Who Are You When Marriage Gets Hard?
The Power of One: How Personal Change Can Transform a Marriage
Integrity, Identity, and the Courage to Stay True to Yourself
What happens when just one person decides to show up differently in a marriage?
Can one person’s choice to communicate more gently, reach out again, become more affectionate, or simply try something new actually change the relationship?
During a recent trip to Rwanda, we were reminded just how powerful one person’s willingness to change can be.
We traveled to Kigali and several surrounding communities to teach courses on marriage, family, emotional intelligence, leadership, and personal growth. What made this trip especially meaningful was returning to people we had worked with the previous year and hearing how their lives had changed.
And some of the stories were remarkable.
What Does Integrity Have to Do With Marriage?
The Therapy Brothers describe integrity as understanding who you are and being able to “hold your shape under pressure.”
That pressure can come from almost anywhere: financial stress, fear of rejection, conflict, family expectations, social pressure, or the desire to keep someone happy.
Sometimes, losing our integrity doesn't look dramatic. It can look like constantly saying, “Whatever you want,” when you actually have an opinion. It can mean avoiding difficult conversations, hiding what you really think, or changing yourself so someone else won't become disappointed in you.
Over time, these small acts can become a pattern.
Tyler shared a simple example from his own marriage. His wife asked where he wanted to go for dinner. Instead of honestly saying where he would prefer to eat, he told her he was fine with anything-even though there was one restaurant he really disliked. When she chose that restaurant, he went along with it.
On the surface, it seems insignificant. But the deeper issue was fear. If he couldn't comfortably express a simple preference, he was giving away a small piece of himself to avoid potential conflict or rejection.
And ironically, that kind of people-pleasing can actually make a relationship feel less secure.
When Being “Nice” Becomes Self-Betrayal
Many people learn to keep the peace at almost any cost.
They don't want to disappoint their spouse. They don't want an argument. They don't want to be judged. So they become agreeable, accommodating, and easygoing.
But there is a difference between being considerate and abandoning yourself.
A healthy relationship requires two whole people-not one person disappearing into the other.
The Therapy Brothers describe this as differentiation: knowing who you are while allowing your partner to know and be fully themselves too.
That doesn't mean becoming stubborn or creating conflict for the sake of conflict. It means being able to say, “This is what I think,” or “This doesn't work for me,” while still remaining connected and respectful.
Sometimes, healthy connection actually requires a little tension.
Like ballroom dancing, the relationship can become stronger when two people maintain their own shape while still moving together.
The Identity Beneath the Behavior
Tyler and Brannon use the analogy of a tree to explain how people can become disconnected from their identity.
The fruit represents the outcomes we see in our lives. The branches and leaves represent the protective behaviors and masks we develop. The trunk represents the beliefs we carry about ourselves, while the roots represent the experiences that helped create those beliefs.
Someone may walk into therapy saying, “My marriage is falling apart,” or “I can't stop this behavior.”
But the problem may be deeper than the behavior itself.
Underneath it might be beliefs such as:
“I'm not enough.”
“I'm unlovable.”
“People will always hurt me.”
“I have to keep everyone happy.”
“If people really knew me, they would reject me.”
Healing, then, isn't simply about removing the “bad fruit.” It's about understanding the roots and rebuilding a healthier relationship with yourself.
Stress Can Make Us Lose Ourselves
Fear is one of the strongest forces behind self-betrayal.
When people feel threatened-whether financially, emotionally, socially, or relationally-they may abandon their own values in an attempt to feel safe.
Relationships can be particularly powerful in this regard.
We may think we're protecting our marriage by agreeing with everything our partner says, avoiding difficult subjects, or suppressing our needs. But when one person continually gives up who they are, resentment and disconnection can eventually follow.
True intimacy requires honesty.
Your partner cannot genuinely know you if you're constantly editing yourself to keep them happy.
You Are Allowed to Change
Another important part of identity is recognizing that who you are today may not be exactly who you were five or ten years ago.
People change. Relationships change. Circumstances change. Our understanding of ourselves changes.
That means discovering your identity isn't something you do once and finish.
It requires regularly slowing down and asking:
Who am I now?
What do I value?
What kind of person do I want to become?
Am I living according to those values, or am I simply operating on autopilot?
Mindfulness, quiet reflection, meditation, time in nature, and honest conversations with ourselves can create space for those questions.
Without that intentional pause, it's easy to wake up one day and realize we've been living according to everyone else's expectations.
Integrity Creates a Stronger Foundation for Intimacy
At the heart of this conversation is a powerful idea: intimacy isn't built by losing yourself in another person.
It's built when two people know themselves well enough to bring their authentic selves into the relationship.
Integrity doesn't mean perfection. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone experiences fear. Everyone sometimes avoids a difficult truth.
The goal is to notice when we've stepped away from ourselves-and find the courage to return.
As Tyler put it, there may be no better feeling than going to bed with a clear conscience. And sometimes getting there requires facing uncomfortable truths, having difficult conversations, and choosing honesty over temporary comfort.
Because staying true to yourself doesn't have to pull you away from your spouse.
Done with love, honesty, vulnerability, and empathy, it can actually bring you closer.
And sometimes the path toward deeper intimacy begins with something surprisingly simple:
Stop abandoning yourself. Start getting honest about who you are.
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0:00
Speaker 1
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0:21
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0:33
Speaker 2
Welcome to Marriage IQ, the podcast helping you become an intelligent spouse.
0:39
Speaker 1
I'm Heidi Hastings.
0:41
Speaker 2
And I'm Scott Hastings.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to another exciting episode of Marriage IQ.
0:49
Speaker 1
Hey, Scott.
0:51
Speaker 2
Yes.
0:51
Speaker 1
Do you know what a ghost pepper has to do with integrity?
0:55
Speaker 2
I don't off the top of my head.
Maybe you can help me out here.
0:59
Speaker 1
Well, apparently Tyler Patrick, who's a guest of ours today on Marriage IQ, was willing to eat one in order to just get on our podcast.
1:08
Speaker 2
Well, hot flippity dog.
1:13
Speaker 1
Fortunately for him, and probably for all of us, we decided that his more than 20 years experience helping couples heal from addiction and betrayal broken trust was qualification enough.
1:24
Speaker 2
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah.
1:25
Speaker 1
So today we're joined by Tyler, and he brought his brother Bran and Patrick with him.
And they're Irish twins.
They can tell us what that is.
They're known as therapy brothers.
So they're actual brothers, licensed therapists and hosts of a column podcast that has more than 500 episodes and million streams.
1:43
They're known for taking on subjects that most people would rather avoid, and they talk about things with honesty and compassion.
And I've noticed in listening to some episodes, very little therapy talk.
It's more real life stuff.
So I think we're going to be really excited to hear from them today, I think.
1:59
Speaker 2
We're going to get along.
2:00
Speaker 1
I think so too.
Today we're going to explore with the therapy brothers what integrity really is.
Pressure and secrecy can cause us to lose our identity, which is one of our 4 cornerstones, and have becoming a more whole and honest person creates the foundation for trust and deeper intimacy.
2:18
Welcome guys.
We're happy to have you on Marriage IQ.
2:20
Speaker 3
It's good to be here.
2:22
Speaker 1
Was looking at the e-mail from Tyler.
We get a lot of emails of people wanting to be on marriage IQ and I usually glance really quickly and then move on, glance quickly and but the ghost pepper thing really truly caught my eye.
And then I actually read the rest of the e-mail and I'm like, ah, this is right down our track.
2:39
Speaker 3
Yeah, well, we've been doing marriage therapy and working with addiction and betrayal, both of us.
We kind of live, I'd say, in the trenches, some of the hardest stuff that couples go through.
We help people with that.
2:54
And we have our own practices.
Tyler has his about two hours away from mine.
And yet we specialize in the same thing.
And so we run a lot of groups, do a lot of individual and couples work, and yeah, we're doing it for a while.
3:08
Speaker 1
Well, really cool that as brothers you like each other enough still that you have chosen very similar pathways and that you still like each other after doing all these podcast episodes.
3:20
Speaker 4
Yeah, Brennan and I actually do love working with each other.
We spend most of our Mondays together doing all of the projects that we share.
That's the best work day of the week because in a lot of ways he's my best friend.
And so it's really fun to be engaged in something that feels really meaningful at the same time that you get to do it with somebody that you care about and love.
3:36
And I know you guys get to experience the same thing.
It's pretty awesome.
3:40
Speaker 2
It's very unique for sure.
3:41
Speaker 1
It's really, really cool that we get to have a project that helps us hopefully make a difference in the world.
Well, we're here today to talk about integrity.
Our listeners know very well our four cornerstones are identity, intentionality, insight, and intimate.
3:59
See with a bedrock foundation of integrity.
So you describe integrity as understanding who you are and being able to hold on to your shape under pressure.
Tell me more about what that means.
4:13
Speaker 4
One of the things that we've run into in the work that we do a lot is, is that people come in and they've usually come in after there's been some kind of a big disclosure, discovery, mistake that's been made or bad habit or an addiction, something that's going on.
And they believe that they are the things that they've been doing.
4:32
And so part of what we try to help them do is walk back not just the behaviors they've been doing, but understand where it broke down in their identity.
And they've started to believe something that's not actually true and to find the actual truth again of who they are and to start accepting that and manifesting that back in their life again.
4:49
And so whoever my higher power says that I am, whatever my values are that I actually cling to, I want to align my life more and more fully with staying in those spaces, even when the world or my partner or my best friends or anybody else is telling me to act otherwise.
5:08
Because that act of self betrayal is what leads us all the way back down the path that we're trying to climb out of.
5:12
Speaker 2
Self betrayal, so betraying who you really are.
5:16
Speaker 4
Right, That's exactly right.
So if I there's a book called The Anatomy of Peace that talks about this a little bit and they talk about the sense, right.
If I have a sense that I should call my mom today and check on her and then I don't do that.
I have now committed an act of self betrayal and I'm going to be prone to then continue to stay at war with myself and then become at war with everybody else and justify why I didn't call her rather than just follow through on what my impression and thought and feeling was in the 1st place.
5:46
And then I stay aligned.
I stay full of an energy of love and possibility rather than an energy of coercion and like dishonesty.
5:55
Speaker 1
That's one of our favorite books, first of all, But second of all, in the field that you're working in, what might that look like?
Somebody telling themself, I really shouldn't do this, I should, you know, do this instead?
I mean, do you go back that far with them to find out what are some of those thoughts?
6:12
Speaker 3
Well I think if you can find it everywhere.
Every time I lie it's self betrayal.
Like I know something is true and I'm actually saying something different.
I'm betraying truth within myself and so anytime that I think I operate from a place of fear rather than stepping into my truth or operating from a place of love, I'm betraying truth inside of me.
6:38
So I had a question.
Can I ask you guys a question?
You say that integrity is the bedrock of your your 4 foundations.
I'm just curious. 4 cornerstones Why is integrity the bedrock?
6:51
Speaker 1
For cornerstones, all that start with I because what it comes down to is that me, myself, and I am doing each four of those things.
But then we started talking about it more like, wait, something's missing.
Even if you know who you are.
Even if you're really, really intentional about how you show up in your marriage.
7:09
Even if you have the insight and the self-awareness to know what impact you're having on your spouse and on yourself.
Even if you do have an intimate marriage, if integrity is missing in any one of those pieces, it really keeps you from having a stable foundation for your marriage.
7:26
Speaker 2
Yeah, and it kind of goes back to what you're talking about, the betrayal.
Of course, you got to know what you're betraying first, right?
Do you feel like all of us come with a certain set of values that are just set in US?
7:42
What do you think?
7:43
Speaker 3
I think yes, and I think we also gain some values as we grow and learn, but it seems to me like there's something innate within us that we know who we are and what truth is.
7:58
And then I think through our life experiences, our trauma, things like that, we kind of lose sense of that and then we start to self protect and that's why we lie.
Our protective parts kind of go nuts and and disconnect us from people, but then coming back to our self, you feel the sense of peace when you're operating from that place of integrity and truth within yourself.
8:18
So yeah, Scott, I would say yes, that we do have that innately in US.
8:23
Speaker 2
And I'd probably agree with that for religious people that that's an easy one, right?
We come with gifts, traits that we inherit from God.
For those who are not might be more just innate biology because we can definitely go back and look at gender differences between men and women well.
8:40
Speaker 1
So tell me about this identity piece with the clients that you work with.
Do you find that a lot of people struggle with identity?
And is it more men, more women, both?
And how does it show up?
8:53
Speaker 4
Yeah, I'd say that many people that come into our office don't agree with or know that they're struggling with identity issues at first.
They come in because the pain point is there.
You know, my marriage is falling apart or I've got this behavior that I can't stop or I can't get out of my own way, and I keep ruining people's lives.
9:10
And what they don't realize is that looking, we use the analogy of a tree, and we call it the trauma tree.
And we have, you know, the fruit is the outcomes that I'm producing in my life.
So all of the things that I don't like, I'm actually helping to produce without knowing it because I think it would go along with your insight.
9:28
Part of your foundational pieces, the cornerstones.
So then they, we have leaves and branches, which are the masks that we use or the ego pieces that we use to protect ourselves.
And in protecting ourselves, we produce the fruit.
And then we have the trunk, which is the core belief system that we have automatically assumed without realizing that we've agreed to things that aren't true anymore.
9:50
Like I'm not enough, I'm unworthy, I'm bad, I'm unlovable.
People will always hurt you.
It's better to sit on the sidelines, whatever.
And then the roots are the life experiences that we've had that have been formed.
Those false beliefs produce the leaves and branches produce the fruits, right?
10:05
So people come in and they ask for the fruits and Brandon and I have a kind of a convincing process with them to help them understand that we want to go to the roots in the trunk as well as just the fruit and help them understand.
This is an unpeeling of a process of re accepting the truth of who you always were, but that you forgot.
10:26
It's a radical process of self acceptance that they're actually engaged in, even though they think it's just about a bad behavior.
10:33
Speaker 1
So part of that comes from trauma, part of it probably from Aces, adverse childhood experiences or from attachment wounds, different things like that.
10:45
Speaker 4
All of yeah.
And I think funnel to us, the way that we view it is, is that whether it's trauma or whether it's self inflected bad decisions or Aces or attachment wounds, it all kind of funnels to the same place, which is shame.
This belief that something is so broken in me that if people saw it, they wouldn't love me.
11:04
And then we spend our whole life trying to make sure nobody fully sees us, but we stay close enough to people to not get fully rejected.
And that's a hard place to live.
11:12
Speaker 1
So I'm interested to know, how do you help people who have all these layers and layers of things that cause them to betray themselves?
How do you help them start peeling that away?
11:24
Speaker 4
We walk them through a process that we call the healing journey.
There's a lot to it, more than we can probably explain here, but the first thing we do is we try to tool them up with the right things to help them be successful.
Number one is learning how to actually take care of themselves a little bit, regulate their emotions.
11:41
Number 2 is removing some of the things in their lives that are causing them harm #3 is helping them build a team of people that they can use as support and structure, like scaffolding as they're trying to build some new things.
And then we have them go really heavy into mindfulness practice, understanding, developing awareness inside, exercising the muscle.
12:02
Because then after that we step them over what we call the threshold into trying to understand that tree that we were talking about.
What are their life outcomes that aren't working?
What are their leaves and branches?
What is their trunk?
What are their roots?
Become aware of those things and then have what we would call an emotionally corrective experience with some of those things.
12:21
We call it The Cave experience, where we walk them into a place where they're confronting some of the things that they've been living their whole life, now that they're aware of it and have an alternative experience.
And after that, then we try to help them build their life back up with living with purpose, taking risks, stepping into their identity.
12:39
Then it's like a cycle that never ends.
It's just the hero's journey over and over again.
12:42
Speaker 1
I love you've mentioned some of our very favorite words, mindfulness, authenticity, empathy.
I think you said all of those, right?
So what are some of the stresses in life, other than trauma or the other things that we've talked about that might cause someone to betray themselves and lose their integrity?
13:03
Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean anything where we have fear for survival.
So it could be money where I'm going to lie or steal or whatever because of money.
Where I see people sell out the most is the fear of loss of relationship.
13:21
We give ourself up for relationships more than anything else, thinking that we're protecting them, liking us and actually destroying the relationship by doing so.
So relationships, money, any stress can push you to break, right?
13:37
Speaker 1
Yeah, so give me an example of what the relationship one might look like.
13:43
Speaker 3
It happens all the time.
Tyler and I were talking earlier about Mr. Nice Guy.
You guys know Mr. Nice Guy when I say that.
13:51
Speaker 1
Well, I can envision someone in my.
13:52
Speaker 2
Head sort of.
Is this like a Jekyll and Hyde scenario or?
13:57
Speaker 3
It's that guy that like is a chameleon with his wife, never has an opinion, has no backbone, always is keeping the peace.
He's trying to perform and do it, so that guy.
14:10
Speaker 4
And I think you've accused me of all those things before.
14:14
Speaker 3
Yeah, I'm there might be a recovery Mr. Nice Guy here.
I'm just saying.
But like that guy is constantly betraying himself because 1, he doesn't know who he is, so he doesn't understand his true identity because his true identity is too, too connected to his wife's he's looking for to have her tell him what that is.
14:33
And two, he's too afraid to stand in some truth because there might be some conflict.
So he's betraying himself and giving up his integrity, all under the guise of being nice.
So that's just an example of giving yourself up for relationships.
14:50
Speaker 4
This happened just last week with my wife.
She calls me up, hey, do you want to go to dinner?
I'm like, yeah, I want to go to dinner.
And she's like, where do you want to eat?
And I'm like, anywhere you want, I'm good with anything.
And then she picks the one place in town that I hate.
And I'm like, of course she did that.
And I know that she's got to be consciously almost doing that because she wants me to say, hey, can we pick any other place in town than that place?
15:11
And instead I'm just like, sounds great to me.
I love that place.
Let's go eat there, right?
15:15
Speaker 3
Yeah.
15:16
Speaker 4
That's a small act of self betrayal because I'm losing my shape.
Instead of saying hey I'm happy to eat there but that's not my favorite place to eat in town.
Could we pick something different?
But if I'm doing it because I'm afraid of her rejection or her judgement or I need to please her in order to feel good enough about myself, I am now losing my integrity.
15:34
And she'll say things like you don't feel safe to me.
And I'm like, why am I not safe?
I give you everything that you want.
And she's like, that's the problem.
I need something to press against.
You know, in the Bible they called a help meet.
The Hebrew for that is one who pushes against.
15:50
I need someone who I can push against a little bit.
And I don't have that now.
There's no structure, there's no shape.
So now I don't feel safe with you.
I've actually lost trust.
15:58
Speaker 1
So the structure and the shape comes from having someone that helps us check ourselves maybe is that?
16:08
Speaker 4
I think it's the world we live in first.
We live in a world where there's always going to be some form of pressure.
Usually it's a social pressure, an emotional pressure, maybe a physical pressure, right?
But the world we live in is built for pressure.
We're built for pressure.
And so I think having that to push against is what helps us to grow the most.
16:26
And it's also the scariest place for us to live because there's real consequence there.
There is the potential of rejection, of judgment, of conflict.
And yet I have to learn how to hold into that for the sake of continuing to grow.
16:41
Speaker 1
So for the example with your wife, you were afraid of conflict.
Is that it?
16:46
Speaker 4
Yeah.
And deep down inside, there's this little part of me that if she disapproves of where I want to eat, that's also a form of rejection.
Potentially.
If I'm not doing my own internal work, I can interpret it that way.
And so, yeah, I don't need to start a fight just to start a fight, but I do need to say, hey, I'd rather go somewhere else, but we can go there if you'd like to.
17:05
I'm I'm OK with that.
17:06
Speaker 2
You know, I find it's very interesting pleasing others as a form of not having integrity.
17:14
Speaker 1
We did an episode on people pleasing not long ago, but I don't know that we tied it to integrity at all, did we?
17:19
Speaker 2
Well, I think first and foremost, I need to be honest and true to myself, and then I need to be honest and true to you.
And then I need to be honest and true to everyone else in the world.
But I think it's true.
I think we need to figure out who we really are and what we want to become because our lives are a constant moving machine.
17:42
And so part of this identity is so important that helps us live.
Our integrity is realizing that we're not the same person that we were five years ago, 10 years ago, a year ago, three months ago.
We're constantly changing and we have to keep up with ourselves and that requires intentionality.
18:01
Sitting down, having this powwow with myself, who am I?
18:06
Speaker 1
So what does that look like for you?
2 How do you do that?
18:08
Speaker 3
Well, I just comment to what Scott's saying.
So Scott, you're saying like doom scrolling on Instagram doesn't help me figure out who I am?
Dang it.
18:20
Speaker 1
Well, maybe who you want to be.
18:21
Speaker 2
Helpful at times.
It's definitely not intentional.
We tend to dissociate when we doom scroll, but you know, it's really hard to sit with ourselves and quiet.
18:30
Speaker 3
I had a group and I challenged them to sit in front of a, a blank wall for 20 minutes and just sit there.
And it was like the hardest assignment I've ever given them.
And it's interesting that one of the biggest punishments in society is solitary confinement.
18:46
Like go sit with yourself only.
We're so terrified to just be with us.
Just be there.
But I agree with you totally, Scott, to just stop and pause and just be with yourself.
And something else you said I think is really important, which is we're always changing, we're always shifting.
19:03
And that's the same with a relationship.
I think as a relationship develops, the older you get, you realize it's not about like completing each other and becoming one and it's actually the opposite.
It's about healthy differentiation and being safe for the other person to totally be them.
19:21
And then I get to totally be me.
And so I want you to be yourself and know yourself and you want me to be myself and know myself.
That creates a healthy relationship versus selling out for a relationship not knowing myself.
19:34
Speaker 2
And the beautiful thing Brandon is at the end, you have a lovely unified relationship.
19:40
Speaker 1
Right.
I think to Tyler's point with his wife, she wants you to be differentiated, right?
That's what that structure is.
She wants you to be different from her, but then come together.
That's part of the excitement is that we're different and we're attracted to things about each other that make us different.
19:58
Speaker 4
My wife said something to me just a couple of days ago.
It's.
Our 26th year of marriage will be this year in November.
And she kind of looked at me.
I was getting ready for work in the morning and she's like, well, how's your day going to go this?
And then she stopped me for a second.
She said, Tyler, could you ever imagined that you'd be who you are and I'd be who I am when we very first got married?
20:18
And I said, no, they're like, this is way different than I ever thought both of us were going to be.
And she said it's crazy that we've made it 26 years with the ground constantly shifting under our feet.
You've changed and I've changed and you've changed and I've changed.
20:33
And somehow I can still look at you and tell you that I love you.
And I thought, oh, that is so awesome.
And the way that it's gotten there is actually by both of us learning to become more and more differentiated, which sounds the opposite, but it actually allows us to lean together and really love and experience each other together.
20:52
I just also add too, to what you were saying about that.
I have a quote hanging on my wall here that says a man without decision of character can never be said to belong to himself.
He belongs to whatever will make captive of him.
And to your point, Scott, I think that is it.
We have to stop and look ourselves in the mirror.
21:08
In my case, it's in the mirror.
And it's also a relationship with a higher power and frequently ask, am I in alignment with what my God-given purpose is here?
And then I I do that in nature a lot, nature, breath work, mindfulness, meditation, all that stuff.
But if we don't pause to actually do that, we get stuck in autopilot.
21:26
And then we look up one day and go, man, where did my life go?
And why am I not living in accordance with who I was designed to be?
21:32
Speaker 1
That's beautiful.
I love it.
21:34
Speaker 2
That's great.
You know, it's a great paradox of life.
And I think this analogy with ballroom dancing, which we have done a lot, we took lessons every week for five years.
We're taking a little break, we'll be back.
But the best ballroom dancing, the smoothest ballroom dancing is when there's tension between the two.
21:53
There is pushing against each other.
But then when you look at it, it's so smooth and beautiful.
21:59
Speaker 3
That's a great analogy.
22:01
Speaker 1
Yeah, you 2 work mostly with men.
22:03
Speaker 3
We've actually worked about equal with the men and women.
So that's an interesting question because we're just shifting.
We're creating a program more geared toward men right now, but we've run groups with women and worked a lot with women as well as men.
22:18
Speaker 1
OK, the reason I ask is because.
OK, so I talked to Tyler a little bit about my research for my doctoral dissertation, which was interviewing women.
Lots of different religions who had had sexual betrayal of some kind.
22:34
And I kept hearing over and over again, I don't know who I am.
I just want to go back to who I was before.
And I also then later asked them about where they got some of their beliefs about the specific thing that they were dealing with.
22:51
And it seemed to me that a large majority of them said I was taught growing up that the man was the head of the household and that my job is to support him and make him shine.
So later on, they did, after healing, come back and say that they liked who they were better and there was a transformation.
23:12
But is that a common theme that you hear that the women that you've worked with maybe don't know who they are?
Whether it's social scripts, whether it's family of origin, example, movies, media, society, whatever, that a lot of them kind of fold themselves into a man and quit speaking up for themselves or differentiating themselves because they feel like the supporting partner.
23:38
Speaker 4
I almost don't want to step on your toes here, Brannon, because I know you have a lot of passion about that question.
Yeah, I think we see that a lot, especially in the realm where we're at, where a lot of our stuff is in the realm of sexual betrayal.
It's really interesting because oftentimes, let's just say it could go both ways.
Well, let's say a betrayed wife is now left in a spot where she's holding all sorts of broken pieces through no fault of her own, including her spiritual beliefs, her social beliefs, a way to cope emotionally.
24:07
It's all in pieces now.
And now she's kind of forced to put it out in front of her.
And look at like, I can't put this back together the way that it was.
I can't.
I have to wrestle with something else in order to somehow find a way to make purpose, meaning something out of this.
24:22
And yeah, we see that a lot, where the work has to be a his, hers and ours in order for the relationship to save itself, number one, but also for both people to have a life of joy, peace, power, freedom and love.
And unfortunately and fortunately, it sometimes leads them to a place where they have to start questioning and looking at how was I raised and what do I actually believe?
24:44
And for us, it's a big one about God.
We have this discussion with people about how many of our clients end up needing to fire their God because they've been worshipping a false God and actually start to develop a relationship with a higher power that can serve them and lead them.
And that's really hard.
24:59
That's really challenging for a lot of our our clients.
25:02
Speaker 1
What do you mean about false God?
Give me it's a little bit more detail.
25:06
Speaker 4
Yeah, but I'll share my own personal story for a second and then I'll kick it over to Brown in here.
But we were raised really active in the religion that's prominent to where we live.
And I was the oldest son.
And I felt a lot of pressure to to make sure that I conformed.
And I developed this idea through all sorts of experiences that God loved me when I performed and he was disappointed in me when I failed.
25:31
And so my whole life I was a disappointment because I could never measure up, which then reinforced all the shameful beliefs.
If you're never enough, you'll never measure up.
You're a failure.
And then those beliefs continue to produce the outcomes of that I was a failure and I never measure up.
And when I started working my own recovery about 7 years into my marriage, I was confronted with this idea that I was inside of a religion.
25:55
And it wasn't the religion's fault.
It was my conceptualization of God that was keeping me stuck.
And I had to reformulate a relationship with God where it had to be something different than God's.
Always disappointed in me.
And what I've come to personally is, is that I have a God who loves me deeply, who wants only my growth and is giving me opportunities to grow all the time.
26:18
And when I worship that God, the world becomes my oyster.
And wouldn't you know what?
I produce better outcomes somehow when I'm driven by love instead of coercion and fear.
And I never knew that.
It was just always planted in me because that's just how I had assumed things and how I was raised.
26:34
Yeah.
26:35
Speaker 2
Yeah, what if you mess up?
What is your loving God do at that conjunction?
26:40
Speaker 4
That's a beautiful question and and for me that loving God provides.
This is my own belief system I'm sharing with you right now.
But being a Christian, that's what the purpose of Christ's atonement is for is a place to surrender the things that I no longer have control over.
26:55
A way to help even the Ledger and then look at my life as an opportunity for repentance and growth in a love based way rather than a fear based kind of a way.
27:05
Speaker 2
Even if that frequency is not decreasing, yeah.
27:09
Speaker 4
You, you asked some good questions there, Scott.
27:14
Speaker 3
Keep going, Adam Scott, I'm enjoying this.
27:18
Speaker 4
Even if I would say, even if to me the God that I worship is love and love.
And so when I'm self betraying, I'm not acting from a place of love, but it doesn't mean that the love isn't already there.
I'm unable to accept it because I'm so focused on the self betrayal rather than the acceptance of the love.
27:35
So again, we're going way down the rabbit hole of my own beliefs.
I don't know if that's where you want to go for your listeners, but that's the wrestle we talk about, a wrestle with life.
27:44
Speaker 2
This is actually really good for a lot of people because I agree with you, Tyler, all the way.
I do.
I believe in a loving God too, like you do.
I just, I wrestle with this myself.
I know a lot of people do.
Part of that is just me.
Me being a man.
27:59
Like there was biology built in me that I can't change.
What do you do with that, right?
There's biology built in women that they can't change.
What do you do with that?
Right?
28:09
Speaker 3
I think that's a cop out.
It's true, but like.
28:11
Speaker 2
How is it a cop out then, if it's true?
28:13
Speaker 3
Well, like, right, So when we talk about sexuality, it's different, right?
But sexuality is still the same thing where I get to choose, hey, my body would love to have sex with a bunch of beautiful women, so why not go do that?
Well, what life do I want?
What do I want to create and what consequences do I want in my life?
28:30
So I actually have the agency to choose that.
And it's a cop out to just be like, yeah, I'm just going to go run wild and God will love me anyways.
Well, God will love me anyways no matter what.
If I agree with Tyler, like I can go have sex with a bunch of women, God will love me the same.
28:45
But do I want that life?
Do I want those consequences in my life?
And I get to have agency to choose that or not?
And it is a cop out to say like, no, I just do whatever, you know, I feel healthy.
Sexuality lives in that space between full self acceptance of everything about us, our arousal template, everything, and some healthy control and some healthy boundaries that we have.
29:13
And that's where that lives.
And we get to create really good lives when we live in that space.
When we don't, then you create things that Tyler and I see everyday in our office that's it's a wake of destruction.
29:25
Speaker 2
I agree with you.
I think everything that you're saying is something that I fundamentally threw in my heart.
It's just that I do as a physician, you know, I get to see the secular side of things, right?
And try to deal with that and make everything work and fit together like this big puzzle.
29:43
Speaker 3
I don't believe morality and this could lead to I don't believe morality has much to do with integrity.
29:50
Speaker 1
I think.
29:51
Speaker 3
I think it's different.
29:52
Speaker 2
I think great thought.
29:53
Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, morality is kind of a a set of of rules that you follow because that's good or bad, right?
Where integrity is just us being true to ourselves.
So if I choose to go do things that are destructive out of a place of should, like something telling me that I should or shouldn't, that's still a place of coercion and force.
30:16
If I choose to do it because in my integrity, that's who I am, I'll feel peace about it whether it's do it or don't do it.
Not to say that morality is bad, I'm not saying that, but integrity is different than morality and so.
30:30
Speaker 1
There's not as much use of agency.
30:32
Speaker 3
Yeah, well, there's more agency when you're in that wrestle with yourself of what is true to me.
I want to state a form and if I can feel what is true to me, then I'll step into my integrity.
When there's just a moral something just given to you, you don't have to choose.
30:49
It's either you're sinning or you're not sinning versus knowing yourself.
Good point.
30:53
Speaker 1
Yeah, I like that.
Brennan, did you have anything to say when Tyler said you're really passionate about my question about women and and knowing who they are?
31:04
Speaker 3
Well, Heidi, honestly, when you were asking that, I was just more fascinated about your research.
Like I'd love to know.
I mean, that's a really interesting question that you were looking at, especially in the the circles that we, the things that we do.
One thing that I see is when a woman gets betrayed, especially in a a highly religious situation, she experiences 2 things and one is the destabilization obviously of her life.
31:31
Like a reality fragmentation of like what is real, what's not.
But there's also this like this thing about like, wait, I had a story in my head about the way things should be and so.
31:43
Speaker 1
Yeah.
31:44
Speaker 3
So now what at like, what does this mean and why would God allow this to happen?
So just the whole betrayal is this catastrophe.
I think that which it is, of course, but that's interesting, that question that you're asking.
Heidi, I'd like to know more about what you found.
32:01
Speaker 1
Well, and we can talk about that later, but interestingly, I mean, I started out with the interviews and then at the end of the interviews, I'm like, I got to make sense of this and I have to pick theories to do that.
And the only theories that I could think of were two.
32:18
One was identity theories with a lot identity theorists.
The other was feminist hermeneutics, which means I'm going to look at a story that is typically told from the perspective of the man and look at what is the story from the perspective of a woman.
32:36
At the time I did the research, there wasn't very much research on on this topic, but ultimately this is what I've come to believe.
Even things terrible like sexual betrayal, which was part of my first marriage.
Scott and I've been married 30 years this year and we've had a great marriage, but it was a big part of my first marriage.
32:53
And even in circumstances like that, if we get the healing that we need, if we can align with our belief system, which again, for most, for all of the women, a belief in a God or higher power.
33:10
It started out God and for a couple, they moved to higher power.
We become transformed.
And I've tested the model that I created with all kinds of things, not sexual betrayal.
And the model is there.
Whatever struggles, whatever crises, whatever traumatic things that we face, if we can answer questions about who we are and differentiate a little bit, try to have integrity in meeting ourselves at the place that we're at, then we become a way better version of ourselves.
33:44
Speaker 3
Well I can tell you this Heidi, the and Tyler would agree with this.
I know the partners that experience betrayal whose identity isn't over attached to their relationship.
They navigate recovery so much better, like so much better than the partners who are way over attached in the relationship with their identity.
34:04
Speaker 1
And when you say attached, you're talking like enmeshment, that kind of stuff.
34:08
Speaker 3
Well, even just like I am my husband's wife, that's who I am.
I am versus like, no, I know who I am independent of that.
34:17
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
34:19
Speaker 2
I would call it psychological laziness.
34:22
Speaker 1
Yeah, you might call it that, but like, is it not?
34:26
Speaker 2
Psychological.
34:27
Speaker 1
My love, I think it's lack of education.
Most people don't even know.
34:32
Speaker 2
They don't know what they don't.
34:33
Speaker 1
Know they don't know what they don't know.
And I'm still figuring it out.
I'm still carrying a lot of the trauma from my first marriage.
And it pops up still 35 years later.
Yeah.
34:44
Speaker 4
It might tend to.
It might be what I.
34:45
Speaker 2
Want on the back burner?
34:46
Speaker 4
It might be why one of the four cornerstones you guys have is insight.
I agree with you, Heidi, that sometimes we just don't know and we're living, doing the best we can.
And until something or somebody comes along, unfortunately, sometimes it's a crisis.
That's the thing that then pours in inside.
35:02
Oh, wow, how did I not see like getting married alone Is that when my wife comes in and she's like throwing bombs, like grenades into my perfect family system where I think everything is wonderful.
She's like, Hey, you guys do this really weird and that's really off.
And wow, you guys should I'm like, what are you talking?
35:17
Like, oh, there's some insight Now.
I got to wrestle with that.
And and that's kind of how it works for us sometimes.
35:24
Speaker 1
I can tell you're the marriage and family therapist of the two of you, right?
And family.
35:28
Speaker 3
System.
Yes, he is.
35:30
Speaker 1
But yeah, for me, I think I glossed over a whole lot of that stuff from betrayal.
And then when I went to grad school, you know, when our kids were leaving home, all of the sudden I had to come face to face.
I never wanted to do research in this area ever, ever, ever.
35:48
And when I did, it started to open up the bottom of the ocean where I had put everything.
And then over the next seven years, I was in grad school, I started to learn more and doing these interviews and, you know, working with people, yeah, it's made me confront myself and go, I am not differentiated enough.
36:09
I'm not understanding my identity enough.
And it kind of comes in waves for me.
Stages.
36:16
Speaker 2
But when we get together, it's like magic.
Yes, indeed.
36:22
Speaker 1
Well, well, this has been awesome.
36:24
Speaker 2
Phenomenal discussion, I hope I wasn't too hard on.
36:27
Speaker 3
It this has been fun.
36:28
Speaker 4
Scott it's been really fun.
36:30
Speaker 1
What last words of wisdom do each of you have about identity and about integrity that you'd like to leave with our audience?
36:40
Speaker 4
I'll just say that for me, this is constantly being learned the hard way.
But I tell my clients this, and I really believe this.
There's no better feeling in the world than going to bed on a clear conscience at night.
And it takes going to bed on a non clear conscience for a lot of nights before you realize all of the breakdowns that are happening physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially, sexually.
37:01
If anybody's listening to this right now and you're going to bed on a guilty conscience, there's a better way.
It's scary.
There's a lot of fear involved.
But when you walk through the fear, there is a life of beauty and power and passion and peace and and it all starts with integrity.
37:18
Speaker 2
Love it.
37:19
Speaker 3
That's hard to follow.
I just think just going along with it being a foundation for you guys, every issue that you're having in your relationship, you can probably get back to a breakdown of honesty and integrity.
And so if you can learn how to be shame resilient and strong enough to face pain, to face difficult things and stay in your form and stay with integrity, you're going to avoid all kinds of problems and actually create all kinds of connection.
37:48
So choose to not betray yourself, and choose to be as honest and open as you can be.
37:54
Speaker 1
I love it.
This has been so fantastic.
37:56
Speaker 2
I've been edified of wonderful perspectives.
37:58
Speaker 1
Yeah.
So if our listeners want to look into more of the things that you 2 are doing, where can they find you and what cool things do you have coming up?
38:08
Speaker 4
Well, well, we have a our favorite thing of the year is our retreats.
We have our men's retreats, a four day kind of hero's journey experience in nature, but the best place for your listeners to go is probably to therapybrothers.org/marriage IQ and it'll link them directly to you guys and then a couple of other episodes that fit your audience and then they can listen to a few other things.
38:33
Speaker 2
OK, cool.
Well, thank you for joining us again today.
And for all of you out there, please don't forget to like and subscribe channel wherever you're watching or listening.
Remember that the intelligence spouse knows to change from a stinky to a scintillating marriage first requires a change in themselves.
38:51
