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Episode 33

[00:00:00] Zach Spafford: Welcome to another beautiful Mastery Monday here on the Self Mastery Podcast.

[00:00:05] So this week I want to talk about why would my husband lie to me and other questions wives ask when their spouses use pornography. I'm going to talk about this from the perspective of men, but this occurs with women as well.

[00:00:17] So you're going to hear me say he in reference to the person who's using pornography, but recognizing that women also use pornography. Women are also sometimes the spouse that is using, and men are the one that is not using. And this week, I have invited to hang out with me to answer some of these questions, my beautiful wife, Darcy.

[00:00:38] Darcy: Hello. This could also pertain to why would your kids lie to you if you're, one of your children are using pornography.

[00:00:46] Zach Spafford: Because we do know that children use pornography.

[00:00:48] Over the last couple of weeks, my wife and I have been having a conversation, in fact, a number of conversations, with a new client and his wife.

[00:00:55] They enrolled in my 13 week course, and after one session, She called and she was really frustrated and she felt like he hadn't really made any progress. She wasn't seeing changes that she expected to see.

[00:01:08] This was really hard for her because she was dealing with so much pain, so much frustration, and so much heartache, that his recovery from pornography was really eating away at her.

[00:01:17] She described him as unemotional, uncaring, and disconnected. And their story is so similar to so many of the stories of the people that I work with, that I decided to share with you some of what each of them are asking for themselves and for each other. So let me just give you a little bit of background here.

[00:01:34] I've known this couple for almost 20 years. About two weeks ago, she reached out to me on Facebook and asked me to call her about her husband and my business. They decided to enroll in my course because they felt it would give him the best chance to change and become pornography free. And as we spoke on the phone she told me of the difficulties that he was having.

[00:01:55] He had been laid off due to COVID 19, he was using pornography, and he was hiding extra cell phones around the house. To her, the biggest issue had been that he had lied. He'd lied to her, he'd lied to the children. She loves him and really wants him to get better, and for his part, he's an amazing man who has done so many amazing things in his life.

[00:02:15] He has always been there for his kids and for his wife, and he works really hard. He doesn't want pornography to be what he does to feel better, but He also doesn't want to feel so bad all the time. And right now he feels like he has a lot to feel bad about.

[00:02:30] And their story is really not unlike my story, or the story of so many people who struggle with an addictive behavior.

[00:02:36] Let me share with you some of the questions that she is asking, some of the questions that he is asking, and some of the essential information that I shared with them, and that Darcy shared with them, and would recommend for anyone dealing with something like this.

[00:02:51] Darcy, I want you to answer this first question, why would he lie to me?

[00:02:56] Which I think is probably one of the foremost questions on the mind of almost every wife out there, every spouse out there who's dealing with a spouse who's using pornography and hiding it. Why would he lie to me?

[00:03:09] Darcy: In order to answer this question, I had to put myself back to when we were really dealing with Zach's pornography use on a regular basis.

[00:03:17] And if I'm being truthful and I'm trying to really analyze why Zach would lie to me, A few things came to my mind, and one of them is, I think he would lie to me, because I did not act in a very loving manner when he was honest. if he were to tell me the truth, it would often end with anger, crying, calling names, you know, I'd threaten to leave, I'd just say horrible things.

[00:03:40] It's kind of funny because back then I didn't really understand why he would lie to me. I kept being like, " why is he not just telling me the truth? I don't understand." But being removed from the situation now and really understanding what was going on, it's very obvious to me why he would lie to me.

[00:03:56] With that in mind, Why he would lie to me was his lower brain has three purposes and it's, we've talked about this before, it's seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy. When he was honest with me, It would cause a lot of pain for both me and for him.

[00:04:13] Why he would lie to me was I truly believe he was trying to avoid hurting my feelings and making me feel bad. And then also protecting his feelings and his emotions. When he was going through all of his behaviors he already had enough pain that he was dealing with with how he interpreted his behavior himself.

[00:04:32] Zach Spafford: Yeah, and it's not as though this is your responsibility that I lied to you. that's not an excuse, but it's one of those factors that you Understand in hindsight.

[00:04:43] Darcy: Yeah, if you think of it from your kids perspective, right? Your kids lie to you all the time.

[00:04:48] They always get caught always figure it out But they're not lying to me to hurt my feelings, right? they're lying because they're trying to avoid the consequence of getting in trouble and also they're just trying to protect their own interest. They don't want to deal with the external consequences that being truthful has.

[00:05:09] And I think a lot of times, in the short term, immediate sense that your brain wants immediate gratification lying in the moment feels better than being honest in that moment. Even though lying will have more long term consequences, your brain doesn't quite understand that when it's in the moment.

[00:05:27] Zach Spafford: So that's a really good point and I think it's important that Again, we recognize my behavior was not excused by your behavior and vice versa. When I behaved poorly, that was 100 percent on me, and when you behaved poorly, that was 100 percent on you.

[00:05:44] Darcy: Absolutely.

[00:05:44] Zach Spafford: and those things are factors in why we behave, but they are not, they're not the sole reason, and it certainly is our responsibility to behave regardless of what the other person is doing.

[00:05:55] So the question that I would have for you is, what would you tell a wife who's being lied to on how to handle the situation differently than maybe you did or maybe didn't? They might think is the appropriate way to handle it. What are your thoughts?

[00:06:08] Darcy: Oh, sorry. I had one more thought about the previous thing.

[00:06:12] We've all been in that situation where you have a group of friends and maybe one of your friends says something bad about another friend. You don't go to that other friend typically to be like, hey, so so and so said this about you. Not because you're trying to be deceitful.

[00:06:27] But because you're trying to protect that other friend's feelings, right? I think that gives an example of how lying is sometimes to protect someone else's feelings. Removing it from the pornography arena.

[00:06:41] Zach Spafford: Discussion, yeah. so what would you tell a wife who's being lied to on how to handle this situation?

[00:06:47] Darcy: First of all, I would say, do your very best to remove the emotion from the situation, which is really, really hard to do.

[00:06:55] I very much realize that. It takes a lot of practice and conscious decision making . And then, really look at the actual facts. Like, okay, what is going on?

[00:07:06] What are the feelings that he's having and trying to avoid and not wanting To process and deal with. And why is he trying to avoid them. Change your perspective a little bit. When your child is doing this, when your child lies to you, you're not thinking he's doing this to hurt me the same thing's true with your spouse when they're lying to you They're not trying to hurt you.

[00:07:27] Darcy: They're just trying to deal with their own emotions in the current situation Another thing don't accept or believe that you are to blame for this. I think that is really, really, really important.

[00:07:40] Zach Spafford: Yeah. When a spouse comes out with this, more than once I've heard, "well, you just never meet my needs."

[00:07:45] I never used that one, did I?

[00:07:46] Darcy: No.

[00:07:47] Zach Spafford: No, but if that is something that your spouse is saying, if your spouse is trying to put their behavior on you, I don't think that makes any sense. That's a place that you need to step back and say, "no, this is your behavior and feel free to accept responsibility for it."

[00:08:00] You as the spouse don't accept blame at all for what your husband's doing.

[00:08:06] Darcy: Correct. Also, do not try to fix it.

[00:08:09] It's not your problem to fix, it's theirs. Don't become obsessed with," I gotta fix them. How can I make this better? How can I make this go away?" You'll just drive yourself crazy trying to do that.

[00:08:20] If the person who's lying happens to be your child, do your very best to foster an environment of love and understanding and create a dialogue, an open dialogue about what's going on? Why do you feel the need to lie to me? That kind of stuff. And if it's your spouse, do your best to create an environment of equality.

[00:08:42] All right, Zach, this one's for you. How long will it take for him to get better?

[00:08:47] Zach Spafford: Oh, yeah, that is a good one. So this is really different for every person. And I hesitate to say that it depends on how hard he or she works. Because this is a muscle. Feeling your feelings is a muscle and you have to exercise it and people start in very different places.

[00:09:01] Some people are much more emotionally capable than others. For this one, it really depends on where you are. And then it does actually depend on how much energy you can dedicate to this. For some, this is the thing that starts an uninterrupted, successful, permanent change.

[00:09:17] For others, this is the beginning of a clear path to freedom and worthiness that begins here and ends really pretty far into the future. I will say, in some sense, he will probably begin to get better nearly immediately. Beginning to understand that pornography use is probably a habit and not an addiction.

[00:09:34] Seeing that feelings hold the key to our actions and learning that the thoughts we choose to believe are changeable will give a pornography user immense power to stop engaging in this vice. That said, there's not really a timeline. There's not a, well, he'll start this program on Tuesday and by Thursday, three weeks from now, he will have reached this milestone.

[00:09:55] That's not really how this works. It's a lot to do with the individual. It's a lot to do with how they work the program. And it's a lot to do with where they start in terms of their emotional capacity already. Alright, so that question really begs the question from the spouse, which is, what should I do to help him?

[00:10:16] So, what do you think, Darce?

[00:10:17] Darcy: Like I kind of mentioned before, don't take on his recovery. It's his journey, and you're there to love and support and connect, and And, and help, but it's not, it's not your problem to fix.

[00:10:33] Zach Spafford: And you really can't fix it.

[00:10:34] Darcy: Yeah.

[00:10:35] Zach Spafford: I mean, how many times did we go down this path of like, you were in charge of my phone, right?

[00:10:42] And, and you, you know, all of those times that you were really watching over me like a mom and really kind of being in charge of it. And what did it do for you?

[00:10:52] Darcy: Well, it was really hard to look at you as a husband. And someone that I admired and looked up to and loved because I was treating you more like a child, so I was viewing you more as a child than as my spouse and my equal partner.

[00:11:08] Another thing, I'd say leave the threats out of the discussion, right? Like, really doesn't help, you know? I, unless you're, you know, really, really gonna leave him tomorrow and get a divorce, I, I think it just makes things a lot harder on everyone involved.

[00:11:27] Zach Spafford: Yeah, I think it puts immense pressure on him, uh, where it's not, I mean, he already hates himself usually for the behavior anyway, so, you know, adding on top of that, my wife's gonna leave me tomorrow if I ever look at porn again.

[00:11:40] It doesn't necessarily help him move past this behavior, in fact, it probably more than anything drives shame and drives the behavior deeper.

[00:11:51] Darcy: And then on those lines, it doesn't mean that you don't have boundaries, right? You still set appropriate boundaries, you still have essentially guidelines of how you're going to deal with pornography use in your marriage, but it's not used as a way to control their behavior, it's a way to make you feel safe in the marriage.

[00:12:08] We, we did an episode, I guess I should say, Zach did an episode on this, um, episode 10, you can revisit. Or Jodi Moore has a great episode 236 on her podcast, Better Than Happy, that you can look at. And then, I think, be fair. Don't make it about you. Just like when your spouse has an eating problem, what they're eating, you don't make it mean anything about you.

[00:12:33] What they're eating has everything to do with how they're trying to feel. How they are trying to avoid their emotions. Really. I also think it's really important to have compassion for your spouse when they're struggling. Just like when you're having a really rough day with the kids and, you know, you tell your spouse, you want them to come and have compassion back.

[00:12:54] Like, I'm so sorry. I, I understand. It's really hard, you know, not like suck it up buttercup. This is your life. You chose it. Right. Um, that, that never feels good and it never makes you happy. Want to do better at, am I allowed to say that to you?

[00:13:10] Zach Spafford: Just suck it up buttercup?

[00:13:12] Darcy: Yeah, good luck.

[00:13:13] Zach Spafford: No, I don't think so.

[00:13:15] Okay.

[00:13:17] Darcy: And lastly, go to zachspafford. com and sign up for an awesome free mini session with Zach because he's pretty much amazing and I'm always so impressed with how far he's come and the changes he's made to be the man that he wants to be and be the husband. That he wants to be and the example to his children.

[00:13:43] It's pretty awesome.

[00:13:44] Zach Spafford: Awesome, thanks for that.

[00:13:46] Darcy: Alright, so Zach, why is he doing this?

[00:13:51] Zach Spafford: Why is he looking at pornography? Which is a really great question. So I'm going to teach you guys a little bit about your brain. And we've kind of talked about it a little bit here. We've talked about the lower brain a little bit.

[00:14:00] Where, you know, your lower brain's job is to do three things. It does them extremely well. It conserves energy, it seeks pleasure, and avoids pain. Bye bye. And you have a higher brain, that's where you make all your major decisions, you know, when you're traveling somewhere and you, you know, turn down the radio so you can see better.

[00:14:15] That's your higher brain working. Well, as soon as your lower brain gets a hold of something that you've done once or even twice that it really likes, it is going to conserve energy as quickly as it possibly can and turn that into a habit as quick as it can. And I want to put that in context with agency, right?

[00:14:36] So we all believe that you have the ability to choose between right and wrong. In fact, you have to have three things to have agency, which is a knowledge of good and evil. You have to have consequences and you have to have that ability to choose. And a lot of times when I get my clients, they come to me and they're like, I can't stop looking at pornography or I should be better and I shouldn't look at pornography.

[00:14:58] Those three phrases in a lot of ways are abdications of our, of our agency. Which is what Satan would want. Satan wants you to think, Oh, you don't actually have control over this, right? I should means that somebody else was in charge of it. I shouldn't means that somebody else has told you that this is how you are supposed to behave.

[00:15:17] I can't means I don't have the capacity, right? And so, when you think about, you know, the behavior of pornography use within that context, what's happening, number one, is your lower brain is like, No, this is perfect. It's low energy. It costs us very little to use pornography. It is very pleasurable. And whenever you have this pleasure center going off in your head, you're avoiding all the pain of your loneliness or your sadness, or your upset wife, or all the things that you deal with on a regular basis as a, as a person, right?

[00:15:52] And then when we feel like, Oh, my, it's too much of a habit. And now I'm an addict. We begin to abdicate our agency and say, I'm not in charge of this. Just like as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, if somebody came to me and said, Hey, you're a Mormon, you can't drink coffee, I would say, I can, but I choose not to.

[00:16:10] Which is a retention of our agency while still choosing the right thing. And one of the things that I do to help my clients get to a place of not using pornography is teach them that, yeah, they actually can look at pornography. Even though that might seem like a really crazy idea for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints to do.

[00:16:32] Like, yeah, you have the capacity. Now the question is, what are you choosing? And once we put it back in the context of choice, then it becomes much more clear how to move forward. And that's, you know, he's using pornography because his lower brain likes it. And he's also abdicating his agency a little bit because he thinks I can't stop or I shouldn't do this or I should get better or be better than I am, right?

[00:16:59] And because of those, this, you know, small tricks that our brain plays on us, Our lower brain is taking over in that moment, and our higher brain is saying, Oh, I don't, I don't really have capacity to change this. So, as the person, so Darcy, as the person trying to stop using pornography, so if I'm that guy who's talking to his wife for the first time, what do I say to my spouse about my pornography use?

[00:17:26] What are the things that you would suggest that they say to their spouse?

[00:17:30] Darcy: I would suggest you tell your spouse that this has nothing to do with her, that you take 100 percent ownership for your pornography use. And that you're willing to commit to figuring out why it is you're turning to pornography, what is going on in your brain, and And that you're committed to figuring out how to, to deal with it in an appropriate manner.

[00:17:58] Zach Spafford: Yeah. And along those lines, I would not expect your wife or your spouse, whoever it is that you're talking to, to, to respond any better because you've said all the right things. I think it's important to recognize that they get to respond however they want to respond. So even though you might say all of the exact right things, they still might be mad and that's totally within their.

[00:18:20] Within their, you know, ability to do. Like, you can't feel like you said it all right, and they should then treat you in a certain way. They get to choose how they get to feel.

[00:18:30] Darcy: 100 percent. And I would also not expect your wife to necessarily respond with the most loving response, at least in the beginning.

[00:18:40] Zach Spafford: Yeah, because I think it's going to be a journey for her too.

[00:18:42] Darcy: Yeah. And then, just be as truthful as you possibly can, right? You know, most of the women I talk to are like, I just want him to tell the truth. It's not the pornography that hurts as much as the lying that hurts. Another thing is respect her boundaries.

[00:18:58] Whatever those are, whatever boundaries she sets or you guys set in your marriage. Respect them and honor them.

[00:19:05] Zach Spafford: Yeah, for sure.

[00:19:07] Darcy: Do your darndest to, to do what you say you're gonna do. So, you know, I think when you are working on building trust, if you say you're gonna be home by 5 30 from work, then be home by 5 30.

[00:19:19] And if you can't, call and say, hey honey, I know I said I was going to be home by 5 30, but I'm going to be late today. And here's why.

[00:19:26] Zach Spafford: I think that just is good communication.

[00:19:28] Darcy: Yeah, for sure. So Zach, what happens when my spouse messes up again?

[00:19:35] Zach Spafford: Yeah, that's a really great question. And I think the reason that's a great question is because I think so many people come into this, so many wives come into this and husbands come into this, uh, on both sides of this equation.

[00:19:46] And I think now that I've confessed and now that I've changed my, you know, browser patterns or whatever, I've done all that I can now, this is never going to crop up again. And the truth is, is that almost everyone has a relapse of some sort. Almost everyone goes back to using their addictive behavior at some point for some reason.

[00:20:11] So, it's important to recognize that that's a possibility. While it may not be, I mean, it may never happen again, but it is a possibility. And so, what we do in the, the coaching that I do is, I have a protocol within my 13 week program, and it's called Write It Down and Move On. And what you really want to do is be aware that this is a process.

[00:20:30] Keep in mind that, you know, this won't happen overnight. The process is one of building a capacity to, one, you're going to decondition the response, the reasons why you use pornography, you're, you're working to decondition those, which means that your brain is actually physically dismantling myelin sheath within the neural transmitters of your, of your, Yeah, you know, cerebral cortex, right?

[00:20:55] Which is all a bunch of fancy things to say that just mean you are going to have to stop using that little mental pathway so that you can, you know, begin to create another one. And that takes time and everybody needs to recognize that there may be one slip up, there may be 10 slip ups, there may be 100 slip ups in the next 5, 10, 15 years, but someone who's earnestly working on this So, is, is going to eventually overcome it, but it's important not to punish someone for progress.

[00:21:30] You know, I did a podcast not that long ago on what does success look like, and I talk about in that podcast how, you know, if you are a major league baseball hitter, and you're hitting fastballs at 100 miles an hour, if you get up to bat, and you're hitting at 33 percent of the time, You're actually succeeding at a very, very high level, and most of the men that I work with, they are not using pornography 98 percent of the time or more.

[00:22:00] And so understanding that most of the time your partner is not using pornography is already a win, and it already makes you a little more successful. Then understand that we're just chipping away at that last 2%. We're not working to, you know, move an entire mountain. We're looking to improve just 2%, which is not a huge amount.

[00:22:21] So when they do mess up, understand that. Yeah, right. You know, maybe we're now at 99% instead of 98%. So keep that in mind and be, be loving, be understanding. Be compassionate. Nobody ever hated themselves skinny is a phrase that I've heard a lot in coaching. Nobody ever hated themselves sober either. And just keep that in mind so that when you are dealing with this as either the user or the person who is married to the user, it's not going to do you any good to be mad about it.

[00:22:55] It's only going to be helpful if you're curious about what happened and use that opportunity to learn how to, you know, overcome this in the next version. So, all of these questions are really great, and I think that they're really important ones to answer, and Darcy said that she wanted to answer this last question, which I think is a really, really important question that really supersedes all of the questions that we talked about tonight.

[00:23:22] Because this one question really should determine how you choose to move forward regardless of all the advice that we've just given you. So Darcy, should I stick by my spouse?

[00:23:35] Darcy: This is kind of my favorite one. So on the internet, you know, there's all these secret Facebook groups where wives post in all the time about You know, anonymously about all sorts of stuff, affairs and pornography use.

[00:23:52] And I mean, you name it, the question's been asked. And so often what these women are asking is. Should I stay with my spouse or should I get a divorce? You know, they just want guidance. And when I think about this question, you know, it's like, is your husband a good husband? Is he a loving husband? Is he a loving father?

[00:24:14] Is all the things that you would want, except for, He struggles with pornography, right? Like, what I'm trying to say is, if you if your husband is a good spouse, like, if you love your husband and they love you and you're happily married, except for they struggle with pornography use, then absolutely you should stick by them.

[00:24:36] Because in the end it will 100 percent be worth it. Because not only will you have the same great marriage that you had before you knew he was using pornography, but you will also Be strengthened and grow closer together through overcoming this trial together,

[00:24:55] Zach Spafford: which that's the reality for so many of the people that I work with, right?

[00:24:58] They, they love each other. They want to be together. They feel as though this isn't, you know, just a trial within their marriage and they understand the reality is. Yeah, we could, we could separate, right? That's a choice we could make, but we choose to stay together because we love each other and we choose to love each other.

[00:25:18] And I think that's a really, really important distinction. You know, when you have people who love each other and want to stay together and want to overcome something together, then the chances of them becoming much better as a couple and as, as just people goes up, right? And that's what coaching is really about.

[00:25:35] It's about helping people become the better version of them. When we talk about self mastery, we're talking about becoming the best version of ourself and being able to make the choices that we believe are the best choices for who we want to be. And that, that's, that's extraordinarily important to me.

[00:25:53] And I think it's extraordinarily important to you. Awesome, guys. Thanks for listening today. And I hope that we've given you some, you know, information, something new, something valuable that you can take into your conversations about pornography use in your own household. Thanks for listening to the Self Mastery Podcast and we will talk to you next week.

[00:26:13] Darcy: And if you have any questions that you would like us to answer, we'd love for you to email us at.

[00:26:19] Zach Spafford: Info at zachspafford.com.

[00:26:22] Darcy: And let us know your questions and we would be happy to answer them on a future podcast.

[00:26:27] Zach Spafford: Awesome. Bye.

[00:26:28] Darcy: Bye.