Listen for free

Episode 231

papis airpods: Hi everybody and welcome to Thrive Beyond Pornography. I'm your host, Zach Spafford. Today I want to talk about something that comes up a lot. Accountability partners and, and having someone that you can call to just help you solve when your brain is offering you porn.

Accountability partners is a pretty common idea. And a lot of us think that we have to use our spouse as our accountability partner or a trusted friend as our accountability partner. And what I want you to start to think about is How many times have you utilized an accountability partner and it has solved the problem completely?

And I think for me now, this is just my experience. This is my struggle with pornography But I think for me I would Call up my accountability partner, be like, Hey, here's what's going on for me. And let me tell you why it is, what is going on and how it is that I want to move down this path. I just want to connect with a human and nothing is wrong with that.

I don't think there's anything non valuable about that. But what happened for me is that I never really solved the problem. I would reach out and I would talk to them and I would tell them what was going on. And then I was kind of expecting them to be able to save me, rescue me in some way.

You know, if I called my wife and I was like, "Hey, this is the problem." And she'd be like, "okay, well, can I, can I fix that for you?" Or my friends that I had as accountability partners through 12 step programs that I went to, they would say, "Oh yeah, well, um, thanks for letting me know, you know, thanks for connecting, are you good now?" And I'd be like, "yeah, sure. I'm good now, I think." And, cause I, I think part of it was I didn't really want to feel weak, but then I'd get off the phone and I wouldn't have really resolved what it was that my brain was offering me, why my brain was offering me porn. So, I would just keep fighting.

I would keep white knuckling it, as I would have called it then and what I would call it now. And I was just trying to hold on with all my might not to choose porn. And I would fail. I would just keep failing. And I think that this is a pretty common experience for a lot of people who have used this tool, whether it's some sort of church leader that you're reaching out to, or someone that you know who's also struggling with pornography.

One of the things that I think every single one of us needs to understand is that there is only one tool that can keep you from choosing pornography. And it's the one that lives between your ears. It's the one that lives in the gray and understanding that. Means that when I'm reaching out to someone to connect with them or to use them as, or to engage them as an accountability partner, I cannot rely on them to keep me from making choices that I'm still fighting with in my brain.

So we've talked a lot, I've talked a lot about this on my Instagram recently, but there are essentially five steps to choosing pornography. Step number one is I have a thought or a story or something that is going on in my life that I, and maybe a circumstance that, is a negative, creates a negative emotion, and then step number two is feeling a negative emotion.

Steps number three, four and five is something I've talked about on the podcast before, which is the truth, the justification of lies. So the truth is like your brain's like, "Oh, hey, let's go and take a break or let's relax, or let's just go move on to something that's more fun."

And that is this trip down and trip towards pornography. The truth is, " I deserve a break." And then the justification is "I'll just scroll on Instagram" and then the lie, is "I've come this far. I might as well keep going." We are trying with our accountability partner.

We are very much trying to stop choosing porn somewhere between the truth and the lie. I think for most of us, I think that's what we're doing because that's when we know, Oh, I'm on this path for most of us who are looking at the truth, the justification, the lie, or even these five steps. And we're saying, Oh, I got to call somebody.

We are already somewhere on that path where we know," Oh, this leads to porn." And for most of us the path starts two steps before or three steps before we realize Oh, I'm on this path. So one of the things that you have to start to recognize is your accountability partner is not very helpful unless they're helping you deal with the story.

And most of us are not really even aware of what that story is. And even if we are asking them to help us with the story, if we are relying on them to solve that problem, or if we are relying on them to assuage our feelings or change our feelings, we're very unlikely to resolve that unless we can dig in deep enough.

And actually go," well, what is this story? Why do I have this story? And can I get better at dealing with this story?" By either questioning its validity, dealing with it more directly or simply solving it in another way, and that's not usually, I don't think that's certainly not what I thought I should do with my accountability partner.

I thought, Oh, I'm just going to call this person and they're going to be there for me somehow. And then I'm just not going to want to view porn. And that was not my experience. It might be your experience, but that was really not my experience because in the interim, there was no tools to deal with the story, the feeling that came before the truth, the justification, the lie.

So if you think about it, one of the things that this traditional accountability partner role is. Not really solving for you is that story. and if we don't learn how to deal with the story before we feel bad, then our brain's going to keep offering us porn. And what I want you to recognize is that.

You're relying on someone else to help manage your behavior. You're relying on an externality to be in charge of how you operate.

How many of you have your wife or someone else in charge of a password on your phone that limits your access to the internet? How many of you have someone checking your browser or getting some sort of report from say Covenant Eyes on what you've been engaging with on your phone?

And the more we rely on these externalities, the less likely it is that we're actually dealing with the underlying problem. And the more likely it is that our brain will keep offering us porn.

I can't tell you how many times we've had someone like a spouse. Who's been asked to be in charge of their partner's internet browsing.

And they're like, I don't, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be that person for you. I don't want to police you. I don't want to manage you. I want you to be able to manage yourself.

This accountability partner model is really a symptom of, of the same problem that we're dealing with around our pornography struggle, which is I want someone to make me feel better.

I want someone to manage me. When people are choosing porn, they're doing it because they want to feel better. If I'm. I'm putting my accountability onto somebody else. I'm doing it because I want them to help me make sure that I stay feeling good or to help make sure that I'm staying on the path that takes me towards my values.

And I'm putting out onto someone else. Oh, I feel what's going on for me, management of my behaviors. And all of that is a reduction of our responsibility. It's a reduction of our agency. It's a reduction of our capacity to solve problems. And this is one of the things that you really have to explore, this difference between accountability to someone else and self accountability.

Starting to look at myself as the person, the man in the gray, the person inside, and I say the man in the gray because my brother in law was like dude, you're super gray today, and I'm like, well, this is what I look like all the time.

But when I say the man in the gray, what's inside the gray matter? The brain, right? The man inside my gray matter. That's the only person I'm really accountable to because even though my spouse may want Me to be accountable to them. And even though I may wanna be accountable to my spouse, they aren't inside my head all the time. So, being accountable to them is not really the same as being accountable to myself. And I want you to recognize that there is a big difference between having an accountability partner, partner and being accountable to yourself. Being someone who says, this is not the the standard that I wanna live to.

These are not the values that I want to espouse. And start instead moving towards what I like to call a vulnerability partner. Moving towards someone who is willing to hear you but that you're not beholden to. That might seem a little silly because you know, there's probably a spouse listening to this, a wife or a husband who's listening to this and saying, "No, you are accountable to me, your behaviors impact me," and I don't want to take anything away from that idea that your behaviors do impact your spouse.

Being known by them and being known to them is really an important part of being intimate. However, it's also important to recognize that your spouse is not your boss. They're not your, they're not in charge of your behavior, so they, you're not really as accountable. You're not accountable to them in the same way that your children are accountable to you, or you're accountable to your boss.

What you really want with your spouse is someone who you can share the person that you are when you are alone with yourself with. And if that sounds a little bit funny, I want you to hear it again, maybe slightly differently, which is, I want you to be able to share the person that you are, the person that lives inside your brain I want you to be able to share that person with your spouse. Without your spouse being in charge of how that person turns out or the behaviors that that person chooses.

So when we are intimate with our partner and they know who we are, they actually get greater agency and we're not taking that agency away from them when we share what goes wrong with us, what we don't like about how we live up to our own standards.

But we do create vulnerability with them. We do create an understanding with them of this is who I am, and this is me trying to be my best version of myself. However, I am going to fail. And that's pretty tough because when we're vulnerable, we have the possibility of being rejected, and nobody likes being rejected.

The greater vulnerability that we can handle, the more likely it is that our spouse can handle who we are.

I want you to hear that again. The more capable we are of being vulnerable, the more we're able to step into this is who I am, this is really what's going on for me, mentally and emotionally, this is the bad stories that my brain tells me, this is how I feel bad most often.

The more capacity we have for that, just like lifting weights, that's a muscle you gotta push on, the greater we have capacity for that, the more likely it is that our spouse will be able to step forward and go, I can handle who you are, even when you're not your best. And I've experienced this personally.

Darcy and I, this is something that I think has really changed our relationship over the last five years, is the more honest and open and real I am with her, the more she has to either decide, okay, I can't be with this person, which is a real possibility. Because she could leave. Or, she has to be able to say, "Can I handle who Zach is, even when he's not living up to his best self? And can I help him see how he can be a better version of himself without being in charge of his behavior?"

That's what a vulnerability partner looks like. Someone who can really step into the breach of knowing you and also still choosing you. That's what I think each of us should be striving for both in our relationships and for ourselves.

So, I want you to recognize that for me and for Darcy and for our clients, becoming more vulnerable eliminates the need for someone to be accountable to. Because I'm accountable to me as much as anybody, in fact more so. I'm accountable to me more than I'm accountable to anyone else. Because I have to ask myself, is this how I want to show up?

Would I be pleased with the person that I'm being if my child's spouse was acting the way that I'm acting? Would I be pleased with that person if I was viewing this through the lens of my child's spouse is acting this way? Would I be pleased with that behavior? And then I can look at myself and start to step into understanding and self confronting over who I'm being and how I'm showing up.

So I want you to recognize a couple of things in this process. Number one, I don't think accountability partners are bad per se. But I want you to see that there's a better way to do it, which is being vulnerable.

What you need is a willingness to exercise the muscle of vulnerability and you'll be accountable to yourself.

Next, I want you to understand that this is not gonna happen overnight. I wish it would. It would be so nice if it happened overnight because then it would just be, it would click and nobody would need me.

Nobody would need us to coach them. So if you need a little bit of help on this, feel free to set up a free strategy session at GetToThrive.comb in that session, you'll be able to start seeing how it is that you can create a new way of being vulnerable with yourself and with your spouse, so that your brain stops offering you porn altogether. Not so that you can fight it better, but so that your brain's like, "I don't need this. I'm good at feeling bad."

I'm good at self confronting. I'm good at being accountable to myself. I'm good at being vulnerable with my spouse and I can handle the possibility that they might reject me. So I don't need porn to escape those realities. So that's really one of the big components here. And I want you to understand that if you're looking externally to solve your problem, if you're looking for someone to be in charge of your behavior or be in charge of your feelings, then that's going to be a losing recipe long run.

And the more you can exercise this personal vulnerability, this capacity to grow and be the person that you want to be, the less likely it is that you'll want someone to be in charge of you and the more likely it is that your spouse will also say, hey, I got to step up and be in charge of myself. So there's a lot of benefits to being a vulnerability partner, to being vulnerable with your partner and to creating a new way of looking at this whole problem of" My spouse is viewing pornography or I'm viewing pornography and I don't know how to quit."

all right my friends I hope you take this idea and you run with it that you put it into practice in your life that you say, okay I'm gonna be vulnerable and I'm gonna ask my spouse not to be my accountability partner but my vulnerability partner someone that I can show who I really am to. Alright my friends, have a great week, and I'll talk to you next week.