Part 2-2 | How Desiring to Understand My Husband’s Struggle Led to Healthy Dialogue and Healing and Discovering My Own Sexuality

Part 2-2: How Desiring to Understand My Husband’s Struggle Led to Healthy Dialogue and Healing and Discovering My Own Sexuality

Leanne is a wife of 31 years. She has 2 children who are both married. She is the grandmother of one. She is a retired preschool teacher of 17 years. She is enjoying her season of time with her husband as an empty nester.

 **Note from Leanne, please read prior to listening: I think there might be some confusion in our story for some people. Some people I think believe that we started to view pornography together as a couple. That is not what happened at all. That day that I sat down with him and opened my heart to understand what was driving him to look was the last day that he viewed it. So I just want to clarify that.

When my husband and I started the journey of turning towards each other in all of the aspects of our lives and began to create a truly intimate marriage, the “need” for my husband to turn to porn left him. And my “need” to constantly check up on him left me. And I was healed from being stuck in betrayal trauma. The connection that we made in turning towards one another to proactively create what we really wanted for our marriage was the answer to porn not being an issue for either of us from that point forward. Turning towards each other healed both of us.**

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0:00:04 VO: Welcome to Improving Intimacy, a podcast to help single and married Latter-Day Saints strengthen their family connections and marriages. Daniel A. Burgess is the host of Improving Intimacy. Daniel's a marriage and family therapist, father, husband, and author. Here's Daniel in this episode of Improving Intimacy.

0:00:23 Daniel: Welcome to another episode of Improving Intimacy. I'm really excited today. We get to have Leanne back on with us. We get to explore some of the topic set we addressed in the previous podcast in a little bit more depth and I'm excited and thankful that you Leanne are willing to come back on and explore these topics further with us. There is a lot of excitement with people who listen to your podcast and we're just craving more and this is a very private and very vulnerable experience for you, so I really appreciate you coming on and being willing to explore some of these topics in depth. There's clearly a need and it's moved a lot of people to hear your story. So, let's turn it over to you. Where do you wanna start? What do you feel from the people who've listened to your podcast and the comments that have been made? Where do you feel it's important to start?

0:01:19 Leanne: Well, first off, thank you for having me back. I'm excited to be back on here and like you say, to go over more in-depth of my journey and how I got to where I am today, but basically I just wanna start off with my struggles, like what my struggles were with my sexuality and what was holding me back for years and years. I struggled for probably... We were married for 31 years and I probably struggled for 25 of those years, overcoming some hurdles and issues that I had in order to be able to step into my sexuality. So, basically, that's just what I wanna share with everyone today is how I overcame. What those struggles were and how I worked through them, how I overcame them, how I was able to think differently. I think so often when we try to improve our sexuality, like we come to it from... Sex, like we try to... What sex acts can improve my sexuality, what things can I be doing in the bedroom to make me like it more. And I think too often we're just chasing after sex acts when really, especially for women, our biggest sex organ truly is our brain.

0:02:42 Leanne: And one of the things I learned... Just what I've heard about, I haven't read any of her books, Emily Nagoski. I've never read any of her books but I've heard people explain about her brakes and accelerators and I realized that for years and years as... 'Cause I wanted to want sex, I wanted to like sex. I did have that desire, all through the years of my marriage, I just could not figure out how to get there. And so, I would try different things over the years but what I realized with brakes and accelerators was even though I was trying to push on the gas and go forward and figure it out, I was standing on the brakes. I had so many issues piled up that I just didn't have my foot on the brake, I was standing hard on the brake. And so that was preventing me to make any forward movement at all in the area of intimacy, does that make sense?

0:03:38 Daniel: It does and for those who aren't familiar with Emily's book it's "Come as You Are", great book, very very insightful, gets into exactly what you're talking about, the science and the process our brains go through in experiencing sexual arousal. Tell us a little bit more though. What do you mean you're standing on the brake? What did that look like for you? What were you doing or not doing?

0:04:01 Leanne: For me, standing on the brakes, I guess, meant for me just any time I would try to make any forward progress in my marriage. One of the issues that I want... I'll talk. Some of these issues that were holding me back, they would just come forward to the surface and then I would be slamming on that brake again. And so, yeah, I guess going forward, talking here, we'll just start talking about some of those things that kept me with my foot on the brake.

0:04:27 Daniel: Yeah, let's start by that.

0:04:29 Leanne: Okay, so first off, when I finally decided that I really wanted to start working on my sexuality, one day I came across a little meme on Facebook and it broke down the word intimacy and I'm sure people have seen this before, but it broke it down to me saying, "Into me see". And I break it down to "into me you see." And what that means to me is, for me, the goal in marriage is to have a desire to know your partner on a very deep level and then to also allow your partner to know you on that very deep level. And for me that means knowing your partner's heart, their mind, their spirit, their body, and then letting them also know your heart, your mind, your spirit, your body. And so I really wanted that, that was the goal of me being able to work on my sexuality, was I wanted all of that, I wanted all that intimacy had to offer, and so that was the driving force that moved me forward to really working on my sexuality. But first, the first thing I think that I had to figure out was in order to be intimate on a sexual level, and to have true intimacy in a marriage, you really need to work on all the levels of intimacy in your marriage, and that means working on the psychological intimacy in your marriage which means honesty, loyalty, trust and commitment. I feel like that is the foundation to your marriage, is those four things; honesty, loyalty, trust and commitment.

0:06:09 Leanne: And then the other areas are verbal, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, physical, and then I've also added recreational. But in order to really be able to work on that physical level, the other levels had to also be being worked on. It's not just enough to say, "I want a wonderful intimate life, intimate sexual life." I feel like it was important in my marriage to work on all the levels. And once my husband and I started to work on all those levels of intimacy within our marriage, then it was easier to work on the physical intimacy part. I think so often we hear that women are more emotional and for me that's definitely true. And so I had to feel like things were being worked on outside of the bedroom in order for me to also be working on things inside of the bedroom.

0:06:57 Daniel: Before we get there and maybe you're gonna address this, but what did you have to do yourself? In the previous podcast and online you've talked a lot about how you have to face your own trauma, you have to face your own hold-ups around this before you can engage and improve your relationship together. That's a very difficult place for people who especially have experienced trauma and mental health issues around intimacy. How did you get there? What did you do to... We already discovered in the previous podcast that you do have a level of insight that I think is a little higher than most people, but regardless, what did you do to recognize, "Okay, I need to address this, this is my issue that I need to overcome." And what steps did you take?

0:07:50 Leanne: I honestly think the thing that really hit me the hardest when I started to really face myself was one day I was... It was the very, very first podcast that I listened to from Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, and I can't even remember where... I know it was some LDS site, like LDS Living or something and I've tried to find it and I haven't been able to just find it since, but she talks in that podcast about... We really need to bring our very best self to our partners every day. Like, we need to take a good long look at ourselves and ask ourselves, would we wanna be married to ourselves? "Would I wanna be married to someone like me?" And when I really started to look hard at myself and answer that question, the answer was no. I would not wanna be married to me, I was not nice because of some of the anxieties that I faced, I gave myself permission to act badly towards my husband either in coming from a place of I'm trying to protect myself or then also coming through a place of excusing my anxieties and saying, "I can't help it. This is just how I soothe myself, it's how I soothe my anxieties, is to control everything that's around me."

0:09:09 Leanne: And so, it really hit me hard when I listened to that podcast when she said, "We, we need to bring our best self to our spouse, every day." And I feel like my husband, for the most part, did bring his best self to me every day. He is so kind and very caring and very patient. And I realized that I wasn't giving the same.

0:09:32 Daniel: Was there a point, and maybe I'm making some assumptions here, that you viewed him as the broken one with the issues around pornography and maybe his behavior in the bedroom? Did you view him as the broken one and then have this epiphany like, "Oh, my goodness. I'm the one who's struggling here."

0:09:49 Leanne: It doesn't really played a role, it played a role in the bedroom, it played a role just because I had my foot so hard on the brakes that I... "He's just using my body because of what he's seen."

0:10:03 Daniel: Yes, exactly, thank you for clarifying. And that's what I was alluding to.

0:10:07 Leanne: Yeah, so some of the struggles within the actual sexual realm of things, I could blame some of them on him but I also knew what was going on in my own head, surrounding some of the struggles that I had, and so then I just realized I needed to work on 'em.

0:10:32 Daniel: Yeah, again, so you had that level of insight where you were able to acknowledge, and I think for the most part, most people are like that. Specifically women. I think there is that level, "Okay, I know there's an issue here with me too, but the pain and the difficulties in the relationship make it difficult to focus on that inward self because you see other problems in the relationship that you want to address or think are bigger and contributing to that, in this case maybe the pornography, it's tempting to say, "My husband's behavior is what's triggering me and until he fixes it, I can't fix myself." But you're seeing that or at least at this point you're saying, "No, I gotta address myself too."

0:11:17 Leanne: Mm-hmm. 'Cause I knew it was part of it, but I knew it was definitely not all of it, so I finally had to just face myself, "I need to figure this out." So then some of the things that I struggled with, like the first one being "the good girl syndrome" and I talked about that the other day. I think it's so hard, and not in just LDS relationships, but also I've heard lately more just in Christian relationships, in religions that really stifle sexuality or have such a strong belief around waiting 'til you're married. So, we get this message growing up that it's a bad thing like, "We don't do this, it's bad." And then all of a sudden when you're married, it's okay, it's fine now. It's really, really hard to change gears for a lot of women, and not just women, but for some men too, it's really hard to all of a sudden think it's okay. So, I had to get over that good girl syndrome and just really come to embrace the fact that I was created to be a sexual being as well as a emotional, and intellectual, and spiritual being, I was also created to be a sexual being.

0:12:28 Leanne: And, I think, so often growing up and nobody talking to us when we're teenagers of how to embrace our sexuality we try to repress it. And the other thing I struggled with and I talked about this on the last podcast, was I struggled to be sexual and spiritual within the same body, that didn't make sense to me of how to marry the two. And so the danger is in that though was I was completely shutting down my sexuality because I thought that my spiritual self should learn how to control the physical self. And by doing that it's like you're cutting off your arm, like when you shut down, you're shutting down a part of who you are and it's...

0:13:12 Daniel: Let me pause you right there for a second 'cause that's I think an important statement there, and I wanna make sure that the listeners understand what you just said. Tell us a little bit more about what it means, or at least what your paradigm was at the time that you're thinking the spiritual self should, would you say control my sexual behavior or my sexual desire, and you couldn't marry 'em together, what were you... Tell us a little bit more about what that meant to you at the time?

0:13:39 Leanne: I feel like it meant that if I... We hear that about our carnal selves and that we need to learn, control our carnal selves, and the natural man is an enemy to God. And so I think I was equating that my sexual part of myself was carnal, it was dirty, it was naughty, it was wanting things that it shouldn't want, and so...

0:14:06 Daniel: And that's why you were shutting it down, is...

0:14:09 Leanne: Mm-hmm.

0:14:10 Daniel: The experience you're having spiritually, so what was that? Did you feel like it was the spirit telling that this was inappropriate, that this was dirty, this shouldn't be pursued? And if you did, how do you view that insight now? Do you still look at that and say, "Yes, that was a spirit telling me that?" Or how do you reconcile that now?

0:14:31 Leanne: No, I don't believe that was the spirit at all. I think that was fear, I think it was fear, I think it was guilt, it was shame, it was those. It was those feelings. They were very negative and I don't think that's how the spirit works.

0:14:45 Daniel: Yeah, and it's interesting though, because this is not the first time I've heard this. And I've had many, many people come in and say, "This isn't right, the spirit's telling me it isn't." But typically, and who am I? I can't tell somebody that they're not feeling the Spirit, but this is usually what I'm discovering, is it's fear. How would you guide people who are trying to sort that out to distinguish between the Spirit and the fear or guilt that they're feeling around it, and why are they confusing the two? Kind of a bunch of questions there, but I guess, how would somebody distinguish that? What did you do to identify that really wasn't the spirit, that was actually fear and guilt?

0:15:33 Leanne: When I finally decided that I was gonna work on my sexuality and really open up my perceptions, and my thinking around it, and just become more open in my thinking, very quickly when I started to work on things with my husband there was a difference. Our relationship just grew so quickly, whereas before there was just... It was a hindrance to our relationship, progress was not being made. The guilt was there that I should not feel that way towards my husband, it's a beautiful thing and if there's guilt for even trying to become closer, I mean that's not right. That's not what our heavenly father wants for us, He wants us to be close, very, very close in that relationship. And so, once I just decided, "I'm not gonna feel these feelings of guilt anymore. I'm not gonna allow them into my mind," and started to work on things with my husband, very, very quickly things moved along at a really beautiful pace, really beautiful, wonderful things were happening within my marriage.

0:16:51 Daniel: Are you willing or comfortable with sharing any details, experiences around that?

0:16:58 Leanne: Well one thing, and I kinda have details interwoven when I talk about some of my struggles. So there's the one struggle that I had of giving and receiving. Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife talks about this a lot. Truly being able to receive from your partner and you truly being able to give to your partner. I think, so often as women, we have a hard time receiving because we're always on the giving and the serving end of the doing and the taking care of kids, we have a really hard time receiving sometimes. And so the very first time that I had really learned how to calm my anxieties down in the bedroom, and there was one particular time when we were being intimate, and I for the first time ever I felt on a very deep level of how much my husband was giving to me, like giving his whole self to me, his heart, his spirit, his mind, his body, and I just had tears just streaming down my face because I felt like his goodness was pouring into me, and afterwards I was like, "I felt that. I felt your generosity towards me. I felt your love and your goodness," and he said, "I've been trying to love you that way for 27 years but you shut me down."

0:18:25 Leanne: I was just stuck in a place of, my mind was just so closed because of the guilt that I couldn't even open up to begin to accept what he was trying to offer me through his sexuality.

0:18:36 Daniel: What an amazing experience. He was able to tell you that in those words is, "You're were shutting me down?"

0:18:42 Leanne: Mm-hmm. Yup.

0:18:43 Daniel: It sounds like maybe you were ready and a place to hear that. I don't know, if I recommend every husband say that to their to their spouse, but...

0:18:52 Leanne: I definitely, yes, I definitely was in a place to hear that.

0:18:55 Daniel: That's wonderful, and you were recognizing how much love he was giving to you. So it sounds like you were ready to hear that. What a wonderful experience.

0:19:02 Leanne: And the other thing on that other end, so then the giving part, I think, that something that can become problematic and it was for me, is we...

0:19:13 Leanne: Dr. Jennifer, she talks about this and she got this idea from David Schnarch. And it's where we want to belong to ourselves, like the desire to belong to ourselves is even stronger than the desire to receive sexual pleasure. And so, if we as women or anybody if you don't step into your sexuality and really embrace it and own it and want to share it with another person, then you're constantly gonna be feeling like your partner is taking it from you, 'cause you're not freely giving it and so you're gonna... Over time, I became very resentful because I felt like my husband was constantly taking from me and when I really stepped into my sexuality and had the strong desire to share it with my husband, it made all the difference in the world for me, I never feel like he's taking from me anymore 'cause I've owned it, I've owned that sexuality, it is mine, and it's mine to share. So those feelings completely went away. And so the resentful feelings went away, all that went away because my sexuality now belongs to me.

0:20:17 Daniel: If you don't mind, I wanna emphasize that point that is so, so critical in the process. And I love how you describe it when you're rejecting your spouse, you're setting him up for failure and you're gonna always feel like he's taking something away from you or burdening you. And I see that dynamic over and over and over again, where the spouse, the wife in this case, will set certain expectations, until those expectations are met there's no physical intimacy, whatever those expectations may be, and it sets the partner up for failure because you can't ever really live up to those expectations. Whatever they be, you may be able to do it, but then it becomes a checklist and it's anything but intimate. And that creates that cycle downward that spiral downward because, so well said, because it feels like now it becomes this exchange of tasks and a burden, it does not create the intimacy. So that is so hard to break, but then what's reinforcing it is we're thinking, "Well, we're having this negative experience in our sexual dynamic relationship because he isn't doing his part." It becomes very deflective, and so being able to look at this and say, "Open up to it." And then it's connecting, it's beautiful.

0:21:39 Daniel: And then you have these experiences. Now, not everybody's gonna have this, there's... In fact, I'm very curious, I would love to know at least your perspective what your husband was going through? He's been... He was giving and giving and giving for 27 years. That's endurance in... I would have to say, I know very few men who are able to maintain that level of giving for so long without becoming resentful, lost in their own sexuality. What do you think, if your husband wouldn't mind you sharing, what he was able to do to embrace that and continue patiently giving? And I'm not assuming he never had an issue of maybe resentment or hurt feelings. We're human beings, right? What do you think allowed him to continue to be loving and patient over almost three decades?

0:22:33 Leanne: It makes me a little weepy. He just had a very, very strong love for me. So it sounds like cheesy in a way to be like, "It's because he loves me, that's why he was able to endure it all." But that really was it, he was so in love with me, and that's not to say that there weren't hard times, there were times when things were rough and he would weep and he would say, "You hurt me deeply, you're not nice, and you hurt me deeply." But it was because he loved me so immensely that he endured it, and then also when he prayed to know whether he should marry me or not the answer that he got was yes and take care of her. And he understood how broken I was from the trauma that I received as a child and a teenager. He understood that he knew how broken I was and I think also he knew I was trying. I did want to want it and I expressed that often. It's not that I was the type of person that I was like, "I hate it, don't talk to me about it. I don't want anything to do with it." I wasn't that type of a person, I was the type of person that I would longing to want it, I just didn't know how to get there. And so he was very patient with me all those years and he just loved me through it and felt like he made that promise to my father that he would take care of me.

0:24:07 Daniel: What would you say to men who... I think there's a lot of men who have the level of love that your husband has for you, but the years have taken such a toll on them in their relationship and they're experiencing this, their wife not wanting you can't even bring up sex anymore, you can't talk about it. It's become very isolating even to suggest therapy or some sort of intervention around sex is just yet another manipulation or selfish desire to have more sex. What are your thoughts around encouraging those husbands to support their wives who are disconnected from this? Who aren't having that level of insight and they're starting experience that bitterness, any thoughts? They're not losing the love but they're they're lost themselves. It's been such a lonely experience that they don't know what to do. Do you recommend how husbands can support their wives and helping them understand their sexuality better?

0:25:06 Leanne: That's a situation that really breaks my heart and I wish I could sit down with those wives and have a conversation with them because I feel like in a marriage where the wives have completely set down is a very difficult place to be for men. And my heart really aches for them.

0:25:26 Leanne: I know that I've listened to a couple of podcasts by Jennifer Finlayson's life. Where she addresses that. And she talks about how a husband needs to sit down with his wife and say, "This is not okay for me, I need to feel loved in this way. And we have created this dynamic within our marriage to where we won't even talk about it and that's just not okay for me anymore. I'm suffering and our marriage is suffering and I believe you're suffering as well. And something needs to change." I'm not an expert to speak on that. But I feel like from things I've heard from Jennifer, she is an expert and has helped in that area. She talks a lot about how we each collude in the kind of marriage that we have. And I think that oftentimes in a marriage if we're not speaking up, in a loving way, and just kind of claiming what our desires are and what our needs are, if we're not speaking up about those then we are colluding in the type of marriage that we are creating.

0:26:28 Daniel: I like that idea in what you're saying there. First of all, I think what you're saying is very helpful. I think a lot of women appreciate hearing that. That you feel sad that they're in those difficult, difficult places, where they don't even... To even think about sex, would just drain them and frustrate them. And somehow getting out of that.

0:26:50 Daniel: But what I also liked is, how to have that discussion. I think there's so much shame for men. There's this, I don't know if it's completely acceptable. But it tends to be more acceptable to not want to have sex and so when the higher desire partner wants to have better sex or more connecting sex, it's viewed as selfish, carnal. And so the man and the relationship is experiencing these feelings of guilt, embarrassment. Yes, I wanna have more sex, I wanna have this type of sex. And so they're shutting themselves down, before they even have that conversation with their wife. But I like how you said that when you can frame it, put all other frustrations aside.

0:27:32 Daniel: A lot of times this conversation happens in connection to so many things kids, busy life, stresses and then we throw in, "Well we're not even having sex anymore." or "That's all you want." But to be able to have that dedicated conversation and say, "Sweetheart, I love you and I want this area of our life to be better." and I keep it within that context, I think, can set each other up for success and to be able to address those issues better. I really like that insight there.

0:28:01 Leanne: And the reason why I wish I could sit down and talk to the wives is, I think we as wives, really don't understand how that oftentimes, not in every marriage, but statistically are more regularly that a husband, the way he gives love and receives love is through physical intimacy. He feels it on a very deep level. And we as wives do not understand that. I think society has conditioned us to believe that men are just sex pots and that's all they want is sex. They just wanna use women's bodies to get their own physical pleasure and I don't think that's true at all. I mean, it can be true for some people, that they're selfish and they use their sexuality in selfish ways. But I really believe for the most part that men, that's how they are wired, is to love deeply and give love deeply, to feel love deeply and give love deeply through their sexuality.

0:29:01 Leanne: And when I grew to really understand that, that's what changed for me. A big thing in the bedroom like that night when I felt the goodness coming from him, it's because I wasn't just being like yes my husband is having sex with me. I felt on a deep level what he was offering to me from every fiber of his being. When you can receive that as a woman, it is amazing and beautiful. And so I wish women could understand it and calm down their anxiety surrounding their husband sexuality and stop putting a label on what it is that they're wanting from... And open up their heart to the fact that your husband just wants to really love you deeply. That helped for me a lot.

0:29:45 Daniel: I love this so much because one of my mentors in this field has often said, "Who is your sexual role model?" And I think that's one of the biggest obstacles that we face both men and women in relationships is, you're doing something tremendous for women right now, you're providing, whether you like it or not, you're providing a healthy role model, and the journey you took to get there. It's one thing to hear you can have an amazing sex life, but what does that really mean when all your definition right now is around sex, your sexual relationship is shame, pain and bearable at times. What is it to even mean when we say a thriving healthy sex life?

0:30:30 Daniel: I think, a lot of people think... Oh, just more sex. They don't understand what you're actually saying here is a beautiful, profound connection. Which is exactly what they're desiring and is being hindered because they can't see that. But the same thing for men, and unfortunately I think a lot of men get into this place that thinking just like women, sex is bad, but yet they have these urges and desires, and they don't know how to manage them. And then they start to view them cells in the way that they've been told to view themselves.

0:31:02 Daniel: It's bad, it's dirty, they take on that definition so they don't even engage in the conversation. And I'll tell you from personal experience because we don't have sexual role models and we don't understand what healthy sex looks like. Which is a variety of experiences, based on couples personalities, cultures and their relationship with the Lord. I didn't know what I wanted. And so it was a frustrating conversation to have, because even though my wife was willing to listen and not just willing, but embracing it. I didn't know what to say because I didn't know what I, I think I knew what I wanted in a relationship, in a sexual relationship. But then I had to come to the understanding to be able to explain, you know what, this is what I'm curious about, I'm wondering if this will work well for me.

0:31:49 Daniel: And for you, let's reevaluate because I think we finally have this big conversation, this vulnerable conversation where you're now in a place to have that conversation and your husband is, "What do I say? I just want better sex. And this is how I think we're gonna get there and then we hold to that." It's like, "You don't want that? Well, you know what? I just discovered what I wanted in the relationship was to be able to explore that with you. It really had little to do with the actual physical act but now I feel safe." I could tell you, I'm really curious about this and I'm wondering if this will help in our relationship and not be shut down or viewed as selfish or promiscuous or dirty. I know in my personal experience that allowed me to at least redefine what a sexual relationship looked like because I really didn't know, I had no idea. And where do you begin with that? Even when your wife is willing to have that discussion, I think it's a daunting and scary experience but allowing yourself to reevaluate, come back and discuss, and I think that's been the most bonding opportunities with my wife is just being able to feel like we can openly discuss it. What's your experience around that? Or does that resonate with you?

0:33:03 Leanne: Yeah, when I was starting to work through all these, all the things that like the breaks that I had on, like the Good Girl Syndrome, marrying of the spiritual and sexual and just all that. When I was really starting to work through those and be able to push each one aside as I work through. We started practicing, we had sex every day, every single day for probably about six weeks and it really was a learning, and a growing, and a discovery time for the two of us. Just like what does this look like? What does this sexual relationship between the two of us? What's it gonna look like? And so, we practiced and try things and for six weeks, every single day, and it was a great learning experience for both of us, where we both felt free to express our desires and discover each other in a sexual way.

0:34:03 Daniel: What made you think of that? I mean was that just something that you randomly thought of says, "Hey, let's do this every day for six weeks and see what happens." Or where did you get that idea from?

0:34:13 Leanne: We just started practicing and it just happened. [chuckle] It is not, but that's okay. And it's funny and I have to say this. So, just recently in general conference the one man gave the talk about reading the Scripture and suddenly he's like, "Every day, every day, every day." And my husband and I left because when we were practicing, when we would start again my husband was like joking he got, "Every day, every day, every day." And so that just made us laugh so much when it came up on general conference and we looked at each other 'cause it's just kind of something cute that you would say to me as we were practicing, but we never like said, "Here's the timeframe, we're gonna do this for six weeks. Is just happened that I think we were just both excited that we were working on it, that we were discovering each other, it was exciting for us.

0:35:05 Daniel: You took away in that strategy, if we called this pursuer and avoider dynamic where he's pursuing and you're avoiding and you created as a both come together, you're treating each other as equals. I think that's crucial, I think there's this... As we engage into this discovery mode, we pay a little bit more tension like you've been cautioning people to do, to put aside your fears, but there's still that fear there that they want to respect and they don't jump in like that. And I think that's really important, I think we're preparing a little too much emotionally to go into sex and instead view it as, "Let's learn, let's try this, let's schedule it, let's at least plan for it in some way and make it a mutual goal." And that eliminates a lack of predictability, right now, at least at that point in your relationship, what I'm hearing is there's so much unpredictability and there's so much harder and discovery that need to happen that you didn't wanna give heed to that ambiguity anymore. You said, "Let's do this every day. Let's create some predictability, let's be a team on this and come together." Am I hearing you right?

0:36:16 Leanne: Mm-hmm. And one thing I wanna say too about that pursuer and... I, a couple of years before that, one thing that we did that helps us transition then 'cause like I said I did want to want sex. I did try different things throughout our marriage to figure things out. But one thing that was helpful for me is Laura Brotherson does talk about how sometimes husbands and wives can create anxiety within each other and by the husband-wife, she calls it the Hungry Dog Syndrome where the husband like it's been a while since he's had sex and he wants it, and he's requesting it and his wife doesn't want it, and so we're creating this hungry dog, she calls it syndrome, where he's chasing after her and looking for any cues that she's throwing him that he might get lucky that night.

0:37:09 Daniel: Oh, yeah.

0:37:10 Leanne: And he gets irritable and cranky because he's not getting his need's man and he's not being able to be close to his wife in the way that he wants, and so he gets cranky but the more he pursues her and chases after her, the more anxiety is created in her and so she is the avoiding wife, she will avoid touch, she will avoid flirting, she'll avoid any flirty looks from him, because she doesn't wanna send him a message in any way, shape, or form that he might get lucky. And so you're creating this anxiety within each other outside of the bedroom where he's chasing it, she's running all the time. And so, I came to my husband one day and I just came up with this on my own, I sat down with him and I said, "Okay, I need to learn to not run from you, any time you go to hug me or touch me." If I'm at the kitchen sink and he comes up and fondles me, I would elbow him like, "Stop, you always have to be touching me." I can't even begin to tell you how many times I said, "Can you not just love me for my brain? Does it always have to be about my body?" I've said that so many times to him.

0:38:12 Leanne: Why does it always have to be about my body? And the sad thing is he just wanted to be affectionate with me, he just wanted to love me, he just wanted to come and connect with me. But I always perceived it as, "This is sexual, so stop." So anyway, I sat down with him and I said, "I need to learn to stop running," and so at that time, what I said was, "Can we please schedule sex? How many days a week would you like to have sex?" And so we negotiated how many days that would be and we said, "Okay," then I said, "Which days are those?" And so we decided upon which two days of the week those were gonna be. And I said, "Okay, I promise you that on those two days I will say yes, we will have sex." But on the other days outside of the bedroom or even inside the bedroom, no matter how much touch we give each other you cannot ask me for sex. But I need to learn to become comfortable kissing you, embracing you, allowing you to touch me in those fondling ways, and I need to learn to be able to calm my anxieties down around those types of touches. And I said, "Even if we full-on make-out on the couch, you cannot ask me for sex if it's a non-sex day," so that I can learn to be comfortable with touch, with your touch, with your wanting to be just intimate with me just through touch that's not sexual in nature.

0:39:34 Daniel: I can't tell you how successful that strategy is. Too many people feel like, "Well that's gonna kill the mood and the desire by scheduling. And I will even depending on the relationship, tell them to schedule specifically when you're gonna do it, 9 o'clock at night, 8 o'clock in the morning, otherwise we find we push it out, but not everybody has to do that. Like your approach generally saying, "Tuesdays and Thursdays, for example, are our sex days and it will happen that day," that allows us to put aside our anxieties. Okay, I'm not gonna engage 'cause as you said, "This sexual dynamic becomes a pursuer and an avoider experience where the man is looking for every clue, looking for all those micro expressions. Is this a flirt or is she just being nice with me? Can I go in for a loving touch? And then it feels like groping, it feels like inappropriate, it feels like objecting, and then it shuts down the loving engagement that the the husband is trying to express. But by setting up a specific time we're able to put those anxieties aside. Okay, I don't have to worry about being grabbed today, randomly, or I don't have to worry about constantly looking at my wife.

0:40:41 Daniel: Is this the right time? Is she giving me a clue? We put all that stress aside, so we've been able to eliminate that stress. We've already got too much stress in our relationship, and then to be able to engage, and follow through with that. And a lot of couples feel like that kills the romance. And so the first question I ask is, "Are you having romance right now? [chuckle] No, no, none. And so being able to create that predictability will then allow for romance to happen. And so you can create, so excellent approach. Absolutely excellent.

0:41:15 Leanne: Because I found that in doing that, being able to calm down that anxiety, then when he did come up, for instance, behind me at the kitchen sink and give me a hug and then maybe even fondled me a little bit. I was able to learn to fold into that touch, to really embrace that and appreciate it, and just know that he just was wanting my attention. He was wanting to be affectionate with me, and I was able to fold into that instead of being angry, "Ahh he wants sex with me tonight," it's like, "Nope, it's not a sex night," I can fold into this, he's just wanting a moment with me at the kitchen sink. So that helped a lot, and that was a couple of years before the whole exercise of every day. And now it's not even a thought, we engage in all kinds of touch and flirting, and it's not even a worry in either one of our minds if it will or will not lead to the bedroom. Our relationship now it's beautiful, it's wonderful. All of it is just embraced and cherished.

0:42:19 Daniel: Do you have any words of advice or cautions that you've learned from your relationship that you feel is important to share that we haven't addressed yet?

0:42:28 Leanne: Any cautions?

0:42:29 Daniel: Yeah, maybe reflecting on your own approach, What words of advice would you give the wives who are maybe willing to, "Okay, this is scary for me, I wanna open up and embrace my husband's sexual touches." Is there any words of caution around that? Do you feel like that can go wrong? Or did it go wrong for you at any point? Or any other aspects of your sexual relationship and self-discovery?

0:42:55 Leanne: I definitely feel like there are still boundaries. And I still give myself permission if there's a certain thing I don't like, I voice it. Just because we're being more open and accepting, you still have your boundaries and it is absolutely okay to voice your boundaries and say, "I don't care for that, or I don't like when you touch me in that certain way it really bothered me because of the," is that what you mean?

0:43:22 Daniel: Yeah, that's a great clarification. 'Cause I don't want the listeners to think, "Okay, I'm going to follow Leanne's example and just give myself completely over to my husband's sexual desires and anything goes. You still get that right to say, "I'm uncomfortable with this, I'm not sure about this, I'm not ready for that." Whatever that boundary looks like. And so how do you go about or how would you recommend going about that? 'cause it could be a fine line at times, right? You're wanting to explore, but you also don't wanna shut your partner down. How do you have that communication or to navigate that, that disinterest or that boundary without shutting down, or regressing in your recovery?

0:44:06 Leanne: Well, for me, we have progressed so far that I do it just because of the personality that I am. I kinda do it in a blunt, but jokey way, I will say to him, "I am not a milk cow. Please don't touch me that way. It makes me feel like a milk cow."

0:44:26 Leanne: Like, stuff like that. Because we've come so far that it's not... We know where we are.

0:44:33 Daniel: It's not rejection.

0:44:33 Leanne: No, it's not rejection at all because he knows that nine times out of 10 the way he touches me I love and I accept, and I revel in. But if there's a certain way I'll be like, "Hey, that doesn't feel good to me," and sometimes I'll make a joke out of it, but sometimes, I'm like... But I would say though in the bedroom, this is like outside of the bedroom, but in the bedroom when you're trying new things I definitely am more tender, or more thoughtful of his feelings, like make sure just, "Why don't you try it this way 'cause that way is hurting me a little bit." Or I'm more careful with how I... So just because that is so vulnerable place to be in the... You're all there, your whole body, all of you is there. And so I feel like more of a sacred space. I'm definitely more careful.

0:45:22 Daniel: And I think husbands need to embrace the idea once you get to at least this level of sexual development and healthy approach. Recognizing it's not a rebuke, it's not a criticism. It's I want you to pleasure me, and if you're willing I could give you ideas on what will help, and right now that's not helping. And being able to embrace that as a learning tool and as a connecting tool as opposed to filling criticized and shut down. Because I think husbands too often will hear it, "Stop doing that," and they stop everything or they give up, or whatever.

0:46:04 Leanne: I think husbands they get such a bad rap. It just makes me so sad. But I think they are very sensitive in this area. They feel like they're, society tells them that they should be these sexual experts who should automatically know how to please a woman or whatever. And it opens them up to, there's a lot of pressure that they feel to try to please their wives. And then I wanna talk about that for a minute, so the learning each other sexually. Too often we think that men just need to automatically know what their wives would want. And recently, I've heard this idea and concept and it's absolutely true, and made so much such in my head. You're the only one that's in charge of your sexual pleasure, you're in charge of it because you're the only one that's in your head and inside your body. Your husband's not, he doesn't know what you're thinking. He doesn't know what you're feeling inside of your body. And so yes he's trying to pleasure you, but if you don't voice if that's pleasurable or not he's not gonna know. And so it takes a lot of communication. And if a wife is not receiving, if she's unhappy with her sex life and basically all they're having his intercourse because she hasn't voiced anything different and she hates it and resents it.

0:47:36 Leanne: Well, my question to them is, "Have you asked for anything different? Because how is he supposed to know that you want anything different? And I think me, I talked about this in my last podcast. But men and women really do need to understand each other sexualities and how we pick, and that women tend to be more emotional. And if my emotional needs were not being meet outside the bedroom, then it is hard for me to then be physical with my husband. If I feel like he was being, that he was mean to me on a certain day, or just really being grumpy and kinda taking it out on me, I'm gonna be less inclined to want to then be physical with him in the bedroom if he asks me for it. It's like, "You were kind of a jerk today, I'm not feeling emotionally connected to you because you hurt my feelings." But sometimes maybe we need to get to the bottom of that."Have you had a rough day? You seem really stressed today. Can I help you with that at all? Can we talk about that?" And maybe it's the end of the day and he answers that conversation, "Yes, he was really stressed and yes he would love to be with us intimately to get some tenderness from us to relieve that stress." And so yes, we can't completely shut him down because they were barking outside the bedroom.

0:48:55 Leanne: But I think men also has a duty to understand that it's important for women to feel connected on emotional level with their husbands in order to be able to be intimate in the bedroom. But then on the other hand, women need to understand that men that's the way they connect with you is through the physical. That's the way they show you that they love you and you need to love and embrace that.

0:49:16 Leanne: And women and men we've talked about it before, we need to figure out what each other likes. We need to have some [0:49:23] ____ focused exercises within our marriage where you're just really discovering each other's bodies, and discovering what each other likes. That needs to be happening. Women need to figure out what they love, so do men. And we need to come together as a couple and figure out and what then together we can do to bring the most pleasure to each other in all aspects, in the four-levels, spiritual, mental, emotional, bring all that together, and figure it out. And it's a journey. I think people think it's gonna happen overnight. It is not, it doesn't happen overnight. It's a journey and you need to embrace it as a journey. This is a journey of discovery that we are on together, and embrace it and be excited about it.

0:50:09 Daniel: And it never ends, because we're constantly changing...

0:50:13 Leanne: No.

0:50:13 Daniel: As human beings biologically, emotionally, stress, whatever. And so if we think, "Oh that's a mistake," we finally feel like we've had some breakthroughs we enjoy sex this way, and I think that's why a lot of couples get stuck in a rut and repeating certain routine sexual behaviors is 'cause we knew it worked then, but it still needs to be discovered. Is this still working and explore that and also a thought, going back to what you're saying about if he's grumpy, I actually recommend that you first have sex and I think it goes along with this concept of being responsible for your own sexual arousal, not making somebody else a partner or excuse me, relying on somebody else for your arousal. There is definitely a need for your partner to be loving and kind to you to help that along, but I've often suggested have sex and then have that conversation of, you appeared grumpy today, and it was kind of hard to be around that. Can we talk about that? And you'll find in almost every situation, after you have sex it's much easier to have that conversation. Much, much easier and to recover and reduce that type of behavior.

0:51:33 Leanne: Sex really is or can be kind of a bomb, like a healing bomb for couples. It's a beautiful thing, it really is. It's such a beautiful gift that God has given to couples, and it breaks my heart to see all the struggle that surrounds it. Because when the barriers can be broken down and the husbands and wives can really work on this part of their relationship, it really is a healing bomb for the rest of their relationship. It's like the crowning jewel and it breaks my heart when so many couples just struggle with it, and so many women just shut it down. Not understanding it at all, not understanding what it can be. It just, it really makes me sad.

0:52:39 Daniel: I think we focus a lot on how the adversary can corrupt the sexual experience, and we generally view that in the context of perverting it in physical acts. But the one aspect that the adversary tries to destroy sexuality is by avoiding it. If he can't corrupt it, then avoid it. I refer to that as sexual silence, and that can take on many, many forms. Whether it's just not talking about, or avoiding it, or saying a certain behavior is bad, it shuts it down and it creates that divisiveness. But if we're able to use sex in a way to communicate we could bring each other together. And that's the beauty that I hear you saying over and over today.

0:53:31 Leanne: I fully believe, my husband I have talked about this very thing quite often. The adversary, before we're married he will tempt us with trying to get us to have sex outside of marriage because after we're married he will try to get us to stop having sex. It is so true because he knows that will reek havoc within a marriage, and he doesn't care how he destroys a person. He doesn't care if he's having you have sex outside of marriage, or get you to stop having sex inside a marriage. He'll try to destroy people in any way he can, and he knows how powerful a marriage is when they can be deeply connected sexually. A marriage that is truly intimate in all levels of their marriage, that is a powerful marriage, and satan knows that, and he will try to get at it in any way you can. And the biggest way he does it is by shutting down sexuality. I firmly believe that.

0:54:28 Daniel: Absolutely. Leanne, you've been so insightful. Is there any other things that you would like to address before we end today's podcast?

0:54:37 Leanne: Okay, one more thing really, really fast.

0:54:39 Daniel: Absolutely, take your time.

0:54:40 Leanne: Can I just say that having kids is really tiring. And my husband and I weren't able to have children, but we adopted two children. And sex and being able to work on your life, sex life, it gets easier, and easier as the kids get older and older. And so I would just say give yourself grace in this area. Both husbands and wives need to realize that kids can be exhausting, and there's seasons of our lives that are harder for us to work on our sex lives just because of exhaustion. There are two things that kill desire the most, one is exhaustion, and the other one is being pressured. If you feel pressured to have sex or if you are exhausted those are the two main killers of desire. And so I just wanna say, just know that and work through that. It's gonna be tricky to work through when your kids are small, especially, but just try to keep working on that as much as you can. And just keep looking forward to that day, it's gonna get easier, it's gonna get easier. And now that we're empty nesters it's amazing because we work on it whenever we want. But we had something to work on it on the other side of our kids being gone, like we started working on this a couple of years ago. And so we weren't staring at each other when both of our kids are gone saying, "We don't know who we are anymore. Like who are you?

0:56:17 Leanne: I haven't been creating this relationship with you all these years. I don't even know you." And husbands, I didn't realize how hard kids were until I had my little grand baby for two weeks, a couple of weeks ago, and he kicked my butt. I had him for two weeks and I was exhausted, and it really made me appreciate again young mothers. And so husbands just step in where you can to help her, especially if it's a night that you know you're gonna have sex. Help her get the kids to bed, help her with dinner, help her relieve some of that exhaustion, so she has some energy left for you at the end, 'cause honestly kids can be exhausting.

0:57:04 Daniel: Yes, they can be.

0:57:05 Leanne: I discovered that. [chuckle]

0:57:07 Daniel: Absolutely.

0:57:07 Leanne: I discovered that a couple of weeks ago. I was like, "Oh my God."

0:57:09 Daniel: In with those, to borrow this idea that we talked about earlier. Even in my opinion, I find that with kids scheduling is even more important 'cause you can do it during nap time time, and create some sort of expectation around that, positive expectation with your spouse, so that you don't feel like you're being demanded from constantly. Thank you Leanne. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing more of your story, thank you.

0:57:38 Leanne: Can I say one more thing really, really fast.

0:57:40 Daniel: Of course. Go for it.

0:57:41 Leanne: Okay, one thing that helped me the most and then I'll be done. It's been bugging me 'cause I knew I wanted to say it and I couldn't remember what it was. Because men and women's desire is so different, there's responsive desire versus, what's the other one? I'm sure you know it, responsive versus spontaneous. So a husband is more spontaneous desire, when he thinks about sex he's ready to go right then, and a woman is more responsive, she kinda has to kinda start being intimate and then the desire comes. And so the biggest thing that helped for me was to always have a pilot light lit with inside of me. And what the pilot light says to me is that, "I am so connected to you, and I want to be known by you, and I want you to know me, and I wanna connect on a deep level, we are already connected on that deep level." And so that pilot light is always lit and whenever my husband wants to be intimate or whatever, and I initiate just as much as he does now. But whenever he does want to initiate the answer is always yes because that pilot light is like, "Yup," and I know it will take me a little bit to get in the mood, like right now I'm not sexually feeling it in this moment. I'm not turned on in this moment, but I know once we get started it will come.

0:58:56 Leanne: And I think so often women are like, "I just don't have a sex drive, I just don't think about it. I don't have a sex drive." Well it's 'cause we're created differently. We're responsive, we have to be talked into sex, or feel start to engage and then the response comes. And so, I think, we as women we need to remember that. You might not feel like you're in the mood right now, but start being intimate and you'll find that not too long into it you're in the mood. And so keeping that pilot light always lit for me is very helpful.

0:59:45 Daniel: I think that was a wonderful way to end us. Thank you, I appreciate your time.

0:59:52 Leanne: Yup, yup. Thank you.

0:59:53 Daniel: Alright.

[music]

Part 1-2 | How Desiring to Understand My Husband’s Struggle Led to Healthy Dialogue and Healing and Discovering My Own Sexuality

Part 1-2 | How Desiring to Understand My Husband’s Struggle Led to Healthy Dialogue and Healing and Discovering My Own Sexuality

Leanne is a wife of 31 years. She has 2 children who are both married. She is the grandmother of one. She is a retired preschool teacher of 17 years. She is enjoying her season of time with her husband as an empty nester.

 **Note from Leanne, please read prior to listening: I think there might be some confusion in our story for some people. Some people I think believe that we started to view pornography together as a couple. That is not what happened at all. That day that I sat down with him and opened my heart to understand what was driving him to look was the last day that he viewed it. So I just want to clarify that.

When my husband and I started the journey of turning towards each other in all of the aspects of our lives and began to create a truly intimate marriage, the “need” for my husband to turn to porn left him. And my “need” to constantly check up on him left me. And I was healed from being stuck in betrayal trauma. The connection that we made in turning towards one another to proactively create what we really wanted for our marriage was the answer to porn not being an issue for either of us from that point forward. Turning towards each other healed both of us.**

[music]

00:02 Voice Over: Welcome to Improving Intimacy, a podcast to help single and married Latter-Day Saints strengthen their family connections and marriages. Daniel A. Burgess is the host of Improving Intimacy. Daniel's a marriage and family therapist, father, husband, and author. Here's Daniel in this episode of Improving Intimacy.

00:21 Daniel A Burgess: Welcome to another episode of Improving Intimacy. Today we have Leanne on the line. I'm excited to talk with her. I came across her in our Improving Intimacy group on Facebook and I was excited to read the things that she had presented and I would love to explore that with her today. But before we get going, Leanne, tell us a little about yourself.

00:40 Leanne: Okay. First off, thanks for having me on your show. I've been married for 31 years. I have two daughters who are both married. I am a recent grandma of about a year, and I am an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and I serve in my Stake Relief Society presidency, so that's been a fun calling for me, for about the past year. And I'm a retired pre-school teacher, had my own preschool business for 17 years and retired about two years ago.

01:12 DB: Oh my goodness. What's it like being in retirement now?

01:15 Leanne: It's nice. I like it. [chuckle]

01:17 DB: Do you get to do whatever you want?

01:19 Leanne: Yep. [chuckle]

01:20 DB: Good, good.

01:22 Leanne: Yep.

01:22 DB: Well, one of the reasons why I'm having you on is you're an example of what I was hoping would happen in the Improving Intimacy Facebook group. You're coming in, you're sharing your personal journey, your vulnerableness, you're sharing the difficulties that you went through in your relationship, and you're doing it in a way that's, at least to me, it seems like it's improving yourself and other people are listening. And the posts that you've made over the last few months that you've been in the group have meant a lot to me as you're one of these individuals who clearly have been through a lot in your marriage, in your life, and you're presenting this information from a self-reflective perspective. I think a lot of us get in this habit of, "What do we wish our spouse would do?"

02:09 DB: And one of the things I found really valuable from you was, "Here was my journey from my perspective, and what I did to address these difficult topics." And I would love to explore that a little bit more with you. Do you mind telling us all what your journey was like? Where were you 10-15 years ago in your relationship, what did it look like, and what brought you to this point? I know that's a big question, but what do you feel is important for us to know about that journey?

02:37 Leanne: Okay. So I'm gonna go back a little bit further in 10 or 15 years ago just so that people can get an understanding of me. I had a really traumatic childhood and teenage years. And as a child and as a teenager, I was very, very timid, pretty much afraid of my own shadow type of child; was very, very timid. But there was a lot of trauma that happened in my childhood. And so, when I came out of that and became an adult, I came away from that with the determination that I was never gonna allow anyone to ever hurt me again. As a child and as a teenager, I felt like I didn't have a lot of control over the things that happened in my life. And as an adult, I felt like I was gonna take control of what happened in my life. And so, I became, in my marriage, very early on, extremely defensive. I kind of came into it with my claws out as a way to protect myself.

03:43 Leanne: And so, early on in our marriage, whenever I felt like I got my feelings hurt or whatever, I immediately would lash out, sometimes very brutally. And just not lash out physically but lash out with my words, and my anger, and it all stemmed from a place of protection. I really was trying to protect myself. And there was one incident... So now, we'll fast-forward several years into my marriage, probably 15 years into my marriage, just to kind of explain this. I asked my husband if he would help me make dinner. And he came in, and I asked if he would drain the spaghetti noodles, and so he did. And I do it with a strainer, and he did it by putting a lid on the pot and draining it that way, and I completely freaked out. And I said, "That is not the way we drain spaghetti noodles, that's not even right." And I like completely, completely freaked out. And so he just quietly set the pot down and left the kitchen.

04:51 Leanne: And as I watched him walk away, I was like, "What in the world am I doing? It's spaghetti. Who cares? It doesn't matter. There's not a right or a wrong way to drain spaghetti." And it was in that moment that I realized I needed help. I had become so controlling in our marriage that even to the point that I controlled how he was gonna drain spaghetti noodles, and I realized in that moment how ridiculous that was.

05:24 DB: So you had childhood trauma, and that was brought into your relationship as trauma does, but the insight that you're having, I'm curious about that. Because usually, couples or individuals who struggle with this type of lashing out, may be vaguely aware of it, but not... It sounds like you had, was it maybe an epiphany or were you aware that this was a problem before the spaghetti noodle incident or was that kind of the moment of discovery for you? What was your insight like with your struggles?

05:58 Leanne: I definitely realized it over time, and I think I just gave myself the excuse of, "I was protecting myself." But in that moment with the spaghetti noodles, I think that's what made me realize, because honestly, spaghetti noodles is so insignificant. But because I made such a big deal out of it, I realized just how serious my issues were, because I wouldn't freak out so much if it weren't serious over such a small thing and I realized that in that moment. And so, that's when I started to go to counseling. And when I went to counseling, that's where I learned that I had anxiety. I didn't realize that I had anxiety before, like a true anxiety disorder. I had episodes where I would have panic attacks before and I got help for the panic attacks, but I didn't realize up until that point that I truly had an anxiety disorder.

07:00 Leanne: And so, the therapist explained to me that with anxiety, in order to keep myself safe and level, I was very controlling. Because with the anxiety, I tried to put everything into a box because if I could control everything and keep it in a box, then I felt safe. And so, she explained to me that that's what I was doing, that's why I was controlling; trying to control my husband, trying to control my kids, is so that I could keep my world safe and to feel like my world could stay sane.

07:34 DB: Was that a scary realization for you or was it one of those discoveries like, "Oh, this makes sense. Now, I know what to do going forward."?

07:43 Leanne: It made sense. It made a lot of sense to me. But still, after explaining that to me and after truly learning that I had an anxiety disorder, I still continued to control, somewhat. I mean, I tried to get better, but I still also controlled.

08:03 DB: Oh, of course.

08:03 Leanne: And this time, though, I gave myself a different excuse. I gave the excuse of, "I have a mental disorder, and so I'm still okay." I still justify it, I can't help it. It's my anxiety. I can't help that I'm controlling. It's to soothe my anxiety.

08:23 DB: So whereas, before, it was you were controlling things without really an understanding of your anxiety. But now, it was comforting to know what was happening and it made sense, but you're now blaming or excusing it, because of that.

08:38 Leanne: Yeah. Yeah. And then one night, there was an incident that happened between my husband and I, and this incident, I don't wanna go into detail with. Some of the other ones, I will later on, but there was an incident that happened one evening that really shook both of us to the core. And when it happened, all of a sudden, I looked at him and realized how deeply I truly did love him, and the thought that came into my mind very strongly was, "He is not the enemy." And in that moment, I realized that because of all the hurt and the trauma that happened as a child, I was trying to protect myself from him even. And I realized in that moment, he was not the one that hurt me. He was not the one that did all that damage to me as a child and as a teenager. He was not the enemy, and in that moment, I realized that I didn't wanna treat him like that ever again. I don't want to ever feel like I needed to protect myself from him. And so, that was a huge moment in our marriage, and it shook him, too.

10:04 DB: How much was your husband a part of this journey and discovery of yours? You went to the therapist. Was this an individual...

10:12 Leanne: Yes, it was individual.

10:14 DB: And not a couples? And were you sharing with him or was he just seeing these changes? Was this a discovery process with him also?

10:21 Leanne: I definitely shared with him. Everything I was learning in counseling, I would share with him. And so he was definitely kept aware of everything I was going through and he knew all about my childhood, like he knew everything that happened with me. We've always talked and communicated, but in that moment, I felt like it was a moment that we could either allow a wall, a really big wall, to be built between us. And it could be the beginning of us really turning away from each other and kind of ending our marriage or it was a situation where it kinda was staring us in the face, like, "What do you wanna do? You have a decision to make." And we chose to turn towards each other.

11:08 Leanne: So we really started, at that point, moving forward, like really trying to be better communicators and try to be softer with each other and be kinder. And I was able to learn from that point forward. When I felt the urge to control, I felt my anxiety well up, I felt that urge to control, I was then self-aware enough. That situation really caused me to be self-aware. And from that moment forward, I was able to stop myself when I felt the anxiety well up, when I felt the need to control, I could stop myself and say, "No. What is more important in this moment? This thing that you're starting to want to control or Wayne? What is the more important thing to you in this moment?" And every time, I was able to pick my husband. And so, I could calm myself down and be like, "This does not matter." And I was able either to approach it more calmly or drop it all together 'cause it really wasn't important.

12:19 DB: I'm sure there's listeners thinking, "That's a great discovery. How did you do that?" It's one thing to have the insight and another to apply that knowledge. Was there any type of methods that you used to not only be aware of what's happening with your anxiety, but to control your controlling behavior? Was there any kind of meditation or thought exercise? You did mention, "Which one's more important?" Did that alone help reduce the anxiety or was there additional steps?

12:52 Leanne: I feel like, for me, that helped because I'm very much a self-aware person. And even in the years of lashing out, I knew what I was doing. I just gave myself the excuse to do it anyway.

13:09 DB: You're finding reasons to justify it.

13:12 Leanne: Mm-hmm.

13:13 DB: You're asking yourself, "Which one's more important?" now, so you're putting the responsibility on yourself to choose a new path. That's powerful.

13:22 Leanne: Yup, and it is powerful. It is powerful to take control because really, you are the only one that has control of you. And it's powerful when you realize that and really apply that in your life, like really powerful things can happen for you when you realize you have the control and stop justifying.

13:47 DB: Is there an example that you feel comfortable in sharing and how this played out with you and your husband? Maybe something very difficult that you two had to address.

13:55 Leanne: Yes. So this is where I kinda wanted to switch gears anyway, so I was... I'm glad you asked that. So the other hard thing that we faced in our marriage, my mental health, but then, and my childhood trauma. But the other thing we faced was I had a huge struggle with physical intimacy in my marriage. Because of some things that happened during my childhood years, and my teenage years, and then also just growing up in the church and learning about intimacy and having young women lessons about the chewed piece of gum and things, I came into a marriage really suffering hard with the good girl syndrome. I really had a hard time with intimacy.

14:42 Leanne: I felt very naughty soon after we were married. I felt like it was dirty and icky, and I just really didn't want any part of it. And so, six months into our marriage, I shut it all down, and I would not allow any physical intimacy for the next six months. So here's this newly-wed couple thinking they were excited to be married and excited to be... Have a physical relationship, and then I discover I hated it, and I shut it down six months in, and that was devastating to my husband. That was really hard for him to go through. And then over the course of time, we picked back up. We were physically having sex again, but I still struggled for years and years and years, I struggled. It took me 10 years to learn... To finally have an orgasm. But even after learning that, how to finally be able to do that, I still did not enjoy physical intimacy at all.

15:35 DB: It wasn't just feeling guilty, you didn't get pleasure from intimacy.

15:39 Leanne: No, no. And even though, that was so hard for my husband to understand 'cause even after I learned how to have an orgasm, he was so confused because I still hated sex so much. And he's like, "I don't understand how you can hate it so much when you can orgasm. To me, you're receiving physical pleasure, like you're having an orgasm. Why don't you like it? Why don't you enjoy it?" And it's because in my mind, I still felt like it was just dirty, and naughty, and basically, it was duty sex. But yeah, even in the duty sex, it's like, "Okay, I'll have duty sex with you, but I'm still not gonna walk away with it with at least having an organ." I at least want some physical pleasure from it if I'm gonna do it, but I still was not connected at all. Any time we would try anything new, I felt extreme guilt. I felt dirty, I felt if I enjoyed it at all, I was like a prostitute.

16:37 DB: Was this guilt driving you to confess to the bishop or was this something you were privately, and/or maybe with your husband suffering from?

16:46 Leanne: Just private. Just my husband and I. When we would be having sex, I would constantly be telling him to hurry. "Hurry, you're enjoying it too much." I would say that to him, "You're enjoying it too much, hurry." And it was so hurtful to him because he didn't wanna just to have sex with my body. He wanted to connect and I just couldn't get there. And so, a couple years into our marriage, I discovered... And I appreciate my husband for giving me permission to share this part of our story 'cause this isn't easy to be open and vulnerable. I'm way more open and vulnerable a person he is. And so, I asked him if I could share what I was gonna share today and he said yes. He said, "As hard as it is to have this be out there and be public, if our journey can help other couples out there, I'm willing to share this," so I appreciate that he was willing to let me talk about this. But I discovered a couple of years into our marriage that he was viewing pornography. And of course, I freaked out, and went into betrayal trauma and, "Why are you looking at that and why am I not enough?" And, "We're having sex, why do you think you need to go to that?"

18:01 Leanne: So, over the next... Gosh, we were married for 31 years, so 25 years, off and on, I would catch him again. And I would go through the same thing, freak out and cry and, "Why are you doing this?" And, "Why am I not enough?" And, "We're having sex, why isn't that enough for you?" And after the incident... And the other thing, too, that was super, super hard is every time I would catch him and discover it on the computer and all that, I would approach him about it, and he would always lie. Just look me straight in the eye and lie to me about it. "No, I have been really good. You must have discovered something that was old, that... "

18:43 Leanne: And he would lie to me every time and I knew he was lying. And so then I would brood, and punish, and hold sex back from him 'cause I knew he was lying until he would finally come to me and confess. And then, I would say, "The hardest thing about this is when you lie. I feel like I could handle if you came to me and said, 'I've slipped up again, I need help. I need your help in getting through this.' I can handle that more, but you lying to me is what's the hardest." But honestly, looking back on it, I don't know if that's true. I think still, if he would've come to me before I discovered it and confessed or whatever, I still think I would've freaked out just as hard.

19:28 DB: That's huge that you recognized that and I appreciate you stating already that you have this type of insight for yourself, and I hear that a lot where the wives will say the lying is worse, and then we look at how it's been approached before. And even when the spouse comes forward, there's this brooding, there's this punishing, there's this behavior that essentially prevents or makes it increasingly more difficult for the husband to discuss or share, and that's a huge barrier and a struggle that I think a lot of couples have in developing that trust. And this lying has fostered... And I'm not suggesting in any way that it's the wife's fault that the husband lies, but the environment really does create it. And It sounds like your husband didn't wanna hurt you, at all, but something was happening and didn't wanna disappoint. And so he was defaulting to the hidden behaviors that... Is that a fair representation?

20:29 Leanne: Yes, that's exactly... Because when I would ask him, "Why do you lie, why do you lie to me about it? Just tell me." 'Cause he said, "Because I don't wanna hurt you." Because experience taught him time and time again that every time I would discover it, it would just be this huge thing and huge shaming and huge amount of guilt and guilt I would put on him, as well as just the fact that he was already feeling guilty himself for viewing it. Fast forward to after we had the big moment where I had a epiphany of, "He is not the enemy." And we were starting to really connect in a different way in our marriage, even though I was still struggling with the physical intimacy. We were starting to connect on other areas of our marriage, we were starting to be more vulnerable with each other with our feeling, and communication, and we were just really starting to turn towards each other.

21:23 Leanne: And so there was a day where I discovered, on the computer again, that he'd been looking. And immediately, my body welled up into that anxiety, and, "Here we go again." And I started to feel even more hurt because, "Here we're doing so well, we're turning towards each other, we've been making all this progress. Why is he still feeling the need to look at pornography?" And so, I felt those old feelings to well up and I stopped myself, and I said, "No, I will not approach this in the same way that I always have, because we are starting to be different and this needs to be different." And so I approached him and told him, "I noticed that you've been viewing pornography again." And literally, I took him by the hand, and I took him to the computer, and I sat him down and I said, "I want you to show me, I wanna understand what is driving you to pornography. What are you searching for, what are you lacking in our marriage that you feel the need to search? I want you to show me."

22:34 DB: That is huge and requires a lot of courage. It's something that I've shared with clients from the beginning. If we can find this as an opportunity to connect with our partner, I'm not saying we explore the porn with them or view it with them but ask that important question, "What's driving it, what's driving you to it?" And join them in that experience and explore. Enter their mind, enter their desires and thought processes. What gave you that idea? Did you... Was that just a thought you had or were you using the techniques you were implementing to improve your connection, what allowed you to do that?

23:15 Leanne: I think it was because of the connection that we were starting to make in other areas, because of that. Other huge incident that happened: I had completely started to look at my husband differently through different eyes. And the thought just came into my mind just to ask him, "What is it?" And so we sat at the computer for a while and he showed me the person that he watched her videos the most, and he said, "I chose her because she reminds me of you." And then we actually watched one of the videos together and he said, "The other reason I chose her is because she only makes videos with her boyfriend in real-life, it's her real-life boyfriend. And the reason why I choose them is because I can see the connection and that's what I want for us." And I was so grateful in that moment as we viewed that together. Like my heart hurt for him so much, but because of how I had been to him physically all of our lives...

24:31 Leanne: And an other thing, and I don't remember where this letter came in, I stumbled upon a podcast by Jennifer Finlayson-Fife who I adore. She has turned my life around, as far as the physical intimacy part and made me able to work on that but... And to be able to work on my own sexuality. But I came upon a podcast one night where she read a letter or a letter was read from a husband whose wife absolutely hated physical intimacy and she completely shut it down in her marriage. And it was from his perspective, and how heartbroken he was and how much he loved his wife so much. But she wouldn't even discuss sex, with him, she completely shut it down, and she was like, "If you love me, you know I hate it and you wouldn't discuss it with me, anymore. If you were on a good priesthood holder, you would leave me alone about it". And as I listened to that letter, my heart went out to that husband and I just started to cry and my husband was asleep beside me in the bed, and I realized that he could've written that letter. Not to the full extent, 'cause we were having sex but he could've, in some aspect, written that letter.

25:37 Leanne: And so the combination of hearing that letter and sitting down with him, understanding what was driving him to look at pornography was huge for me to then be like, "Okay, I need to discover my own sexuality, I need to embrace it, I need to learn how to be not only okay with it, but love that part of myself. I need to figure it out." So after that, I listened to everything I could find and get my hands on from Jennifer Finlayson. I purchased two of her courses. And then last year, where I had come a long, long, long way in like two years, I actually went physically to Utah to her Art of Desire class, for the biggest reason was I wanted to meet her in person because she had changed my life and I wanted to thank her in person. So, I went to that last year and it was wonderful, and I even learned even more about myself when I went to that.

26:34 Leanne: But the other thing, too, I was learning about my sexuality, but I was also learning about his, men's sexuality. I think it's so important that husbands and wives learn not only about how we tick ourselves, how our sexuality works, but we need to learn about our spouse's sexuality. It is so important that men and women understand each other because if you don't, you're gonna butt heads all the time in that realm of your marriage 'cause you're not gonna understand, 'cause we're different. Men and women are different, we're created differently. Our sexual drives and desires and needs are different. And so that we need to discover that about each other.

27:13 Leanne: And one of the things that helped my husband is, in one of the podcasts, Dr. Fife talked about a book, She Comes First. And, some people are put off by that book because it is about oral sex, 'cause some people have a hard brake against oral sex. But for me... I read the book first. For me, the value in the book was... I feel like the first half of the book... It's a male author and I feel like he talks so much about women's sexuality, and I learned things from him even about myself. And so after I read the book, I asked my husband if he was willing to read it and he said, "Yes, I'll read it." That was huge for him and he was a different lover after that because he had an epiphany, and learned females and how females are different than males. And we think differently, and how we receive pleasure is different. And he became completely different after that. So I think it's important too that husbands learn about women's sexuality, both, it needs to go both directions. That was huge for us.

28:21 DB: Yes, what a discovery. And this is what I have often referred to is we give pornography way too much power in how we respond to it, how we interact with it. Fortunately, your husband had some level of awareness and insight also to recognize, "I'm actually craving you, and I miss you, I want you, and this is what I'm pursuing through pornography." I think that's actually a lot more common than we give men credit for. We often look at it, this is this escalating drug that's destroying people. What's it gonna do? You could've came in there and says, "This is exactly why I don't wanna be intimate, it's destroying our relationship." But you took it as an opportunity to not give pornography the power, but you gave yourself the power and him to explore and connect, and say, "What about this is important to you?" And here it set you on this course of discovery. I've seen this over and over and over again. When we give pornography the power, we blame the pornography as opposed to making sense of the human aspect of why we're doing it. We actually enable it as opposed to, like you did, turn it into your relationship. And it sounds like to me, I wanna clarify just so that the audience... I realize we have a variety of listeners here. You weren't trying to become or resemble the porn...

29:51 Leanne: No.

29:51 DB: You were recognizing your husband had desires, he wanted to connect with you in this way, and you opened up yourself so that his expression and desire could come to you, as opposed to the pornography. Is that what you're saying?

30:07 Leanne: Yes. Yes, very much so. And then once I started to work on my sexuality, we then, of course, started working as a couple on improving and truly becoming intimate in our sexual life. And it was an incredible journey, and it still is an incredible journey. But I felt like I couldn't be physical or sexual and spiritual in the same body. I couldn't understand how that worked because we're taught that we need to be virtuous and lovely and of all these things, and I couldn't marry that with then also being sexual. And so for a couple of years, I actually had to turn off my spirituality in a way, and I'm sad that I felt like I needed to do that because I know now, that I didn't need to do that. But...

31:02 DB: But what does that mean, Leanne? Did you stop going to church, or what does it mean to turn off your spirituality?

31:07 Leanne: No, I kept going to church, I kept my callings, I kept serving. I felt like if I allowed myself to feel the spirit, then anything my husband and I were trying in the bedroom, or experimenting with, or anything that we were trying in the bedroom, that I would feel guilt about it. And I did not wanna feel guilt in that part of my journey whatsoever. I wanted my husband and I to be able just to discover each other, and discover our intimate life without feeling any guilt because before any time we would try something new or anything, I felt naughty. And so, I felt like I had to shut my bedroom door, so to speak, on Heavenly Father, even, "You're not allowed in this space right now." And that... It brings me teary to think that I thought that way, that I had to shut the door on Heavenly Father because really, on the other side of it, Heavenly Father was so involved because the beauty that we created between each other, it feels celestial in nature now. And that's why it makes me feel so sad that I felt the need to do that.

32:19 DB: Leanne, this discovery is... I'm almost tempted to say unique. I think it's not as unique as I'm wanting to say, it does happen. But the level of insight that you had, you started to associate... Or not started, but you associated guilt with the Spirit, that's interesting. Was it just around sexual things, or was that a common occurrence within your life in general, just whenever you felt the Spirit, guilt accompanying it?

32:52 Leanne: I feel like it was mostly around my sexuality because... I love to feel the spirit in every other aspect of my life, I love to feel the spirit. And even in the times when I was very self-reflective and knew that I was behaving badly and knew that I was using my anxiety as an excuse or whatever, when I stopped myself in that moment, and changed, then reacted better and differently, I knew it was the Spirit helping me. And so I appreciated that, I love the spirit in my life that was helping me work on myself and helping me to self-reflect. But in the bedroom, I think it wasn't the Spirit making me feel guilty, but I thought it was.

33:42 DB: Mm-hmm. Thank you for that clarification. This is actually what I struggle with teenagers the most with. As I work with them to overcome their usage of pornography and out of control behaviors around sexual behaviors including masturbation, when we get them to a good place, they have clarity, the Lord is communicating to 'em the interventions that we use and us working with that teenager in a sexually healthy way helping them to understand their sexual health, help them understand their desires, they have clarity around it and they know that God is answering their prayers in this process. But inevitably, they will come in and say things like, "I can't do this 'cause it feels weird, I can't do this because I feel guilty." And then, we retrace the steps and we say, "You were feeling confirmation from the Lord, you were making progress. Where is this guilt coming from?" "I shouldn't feel this way, it's telling me the spirit isn't here." And so they start to have this discovery where what they were feeling wasn't entirely the spirit, it's what they thought was the spirit.

35:02 DB: And so this process you went through is so interesting to me because the way you described it is quite literally what I have to see others do is relearn. They have taught themselves so much fear around sexuality, so much guilt around sexuality that the spiritual experiences they have are the ones that are absent of the guilt, and fear, and pain. And so any time that guilt and fear are introduced, they connect that with removal of the Spirit, whereas actually, they've just trained themselves to feel guilty and fearful around this. And if they can get rid of that and invite the spirit back in, they could have this new discovery similar to what you're having in connecting with your husband, connecting with yourself. That is a very interesting thing where I've actually seen people do exactly that, where they've defined it as, "I've had to step away from these spiritual experiences and sometimes that's actually been, 'I can't go to church right now until I figure out exactly where the Lord wants me to go.'" Fortunately, in your case, you didn't have to do that. You were more of just reassessing, "What is the Lord trying to do here and where is he leading me?" That is very, very fascinating, very brave. It's a completely rewriting of your sexual health, of your approach to the gospel of things.

36:24 DB: And maybe I'm asking an obvious question but was that scary to go through that process of separating or did you know this was again, like your other experiences, you had to do it, you had to change it? What was going through your mind at the time regarding whether or not this was a risky process?

36:41 Leanne: It actually was really scary for me. In fact, when I went last year to Dr. Fife's Art of Desire retreat, I raised my hand on the first day and just started weeping. And I said, "I was just called to be in the Stake Relief Society presidency and I feel like such a fraud because in order for me to get to where I am today with my husband, I had to completely shut out the spirituality in my life." So I said, "Now, I'm trying to figure out how to get that back, and I feel like such a fraud to be in this calling, to have people think I'm something that I'm not because I'm still struggling to get that spirituality back." And that's when she explained to me, she said, "What are the fruits of the work that you and your husband have done in your physical life? What does that look like?" And I just said, "It's amazing, and beautiful, and celestial."

37:53 Leanne: And she said, "That is the fruit of the Spirit. Those are the fruits of the Spirit. Heavenly Father has been with you, you have had the spirit all along. And sometimes," she said, "we tend to put Heavenly Father into a box thinking that he can't handle our growth but that's exactly what He wants for us is our growth. He wants us to learn and grow. When we think that he can't handle our learning and growing, we put him into a little box." And that made a lot of sense to me. I feel like I'm gaining more spirituality I'm kind of in a fight with myself, within myself of deciding for myself within the church, like "the church," not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but the church. The church was always so black and white to me, things were either right or wrong, absolutely right, or absolutely wrong. And now, this journey is helping me to discover that Heavenly Father wants me to develop spiritually and wants me to receive my own revelation. And that's where I'm navigating right now, I'm just learning to navigate really embracing that Heavenly Father truly wants me to receive revelation for my life. Does it make sense?

39:23 DB: That sounds very, very spiritual. Yes, it makes absolute sense. And so when you continue to use this phrase, "I'm struggling to be spiritual," what I think I'm hearing you say is this cultural aspect of, what does it look like now, me functioning in this maybe grey area or this personal revelation which is the fruits of your labor here, as Jennifer was pointing out, which wonderful question. You are very spiritual, you are connecting with the Lord, and your husband. So at what point do you know if you are spiritual again based on your definition, what does that look like to you?

40:05 Leanne: Just talking in this moment, I think I've realized that I'm more spiritual than I was before. I think I'm actually living on a higher plane than I was before. I think before, I lived in a space of being so fearful of being right or wrong and wanting someone else, some earthly person to tell me if I'm right or wrong. And I think now, I'm living in a way that I'm seeking to know from Heavenly Father, if I'm right or wrong. And honestly, if I think about that, I think I'm living, like I said, on a higher spiritual plane than I was before.

40:52 DB: That's what I feel, I'm feeling that from you. This is the discovery, I call this the mature spirit. We've gone from how we identify and recognize the spirit as a child, which isn't wrong, this black and white, this feeling like you're being comforted with a blanket sunshine experience, to struggling with life, dealing with the complexities, dealing with the unique approaches that the Lord is directing you in, in your personal life. That's personal revelation, it takes a strong spiritual connection with the Lord to obtain that. The other way is more or less letting other people define our own righteousness. "Have I lived up to this expectation of my leader or of this cultural perception or not?" And that's a definition of our own spirituality, and in this experience, you're recognizing how important it is to have that personal and unique revelation from the Lord. That's what I'm hearing is saving your relationship with your husband.

41:57 Leanne: Mm-hmm. I think one of the reasons why this part of it has been so hard for me is because I was the only active member in my family during my high school years. I went to church by myself, all four years of my high school. And in my high school years, my home life was very, very, very challenging. And so I had young women leaders, and bishops, and seminary teachers, and home teachers who literally took me under their wing and really loved me and protected me during those hard years. And so I had such a appreciation for people in the church because there were people that really did truly come forward and loved me as a savior would. And so I think it was hard for me to feel like I was turning away from the church 'cause of all the good that the church has done for me in a time that was so difficult. But this conversation today has helped me a lot, actually, because I'm not turning away from the church. People in church are still wonderful, and do love others, but we're all just humans. And we just need to know that and we do our best. But ultimately, it comes down to the Savior, and God, and seeking what they would have us do.

43:44 DB: Leanne, your story is beautiful. And please, thank your husband for allowing this message to get out. I know it's gonna help a lot of people, and it's gonna reach a lot of people's hearts. And is it providing this example that we need to hear more of what it looks like in these difficult experiences within our relationships. It's not gonna look the same for everyone. Some are gonna sit next to their husband or their wife and explore and understand the pornography together, some may take a different approach. But the point is opening up, connecting, using this as an opportunity to connect not only with your spouse, but with the Lord. "What does it look like going forward, not letting other people define our relationship, not letting our past trauma define our relationship in an unhealthy way?" It's always gonna change us, our previous experiences are always gonna mold and shape who we are, but finding those as an opportunity to connect deeper and to trust and to bond. Thank you, Leanne, I really appreciate you coming on and I may wanna have you on again some other time. Unfortunately, we have to wrap it up and...

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44:52 Leanne: Yeah.

44:53 DB: And I know this will help a lot of people out there, so thank you.

44:57 Leanne: Yeah, thank you so much for having me, I hope it does. I hope others can gain insight from our journey, so thank you very much for having me.

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