#57: Is It Okay To Be Attracted To More Than Just Your Spouse?

00:00Is it okay to be attracted to more people than just your spouse? What's up, you guys? Welcome to the Therapy Brothers podcast. I'm Brennan. I'm Tyler. We're brothers. We're therapists. We're not afraid of your questions, so bring it.00:18It all right, Brandon. This is going to be a really fun one to talk about today. This is kind of a lightning Rod topic. And both of us have kind of experienced a lot of different responses to questions like this. So we're going to get into it. Just a second. We're going to go with our review.00:45It says, I would love more things like this, things, you know, as experts to help us figure things out on our end, with ourselves and our relationships. And then it's got a thumbs up. Awesome. Thank you. This is great. We appreciate your feedback. We appreciate your responses and your reviews. It helps us to be able to reach the people we're trying to help. Yeah. Okay, Tyler, let's dig right in here. Let me set the stage as to why we're doing this one today.01:14All right. This is something that comes up frequently with both of us quite a bit, I think. Well, if you've never listened, which most people have, they're listening to this. Tyler and I treat betrayal, trauma, meaning we work with sex addicts. So we work with infidelity a lot couples issues and people who have been betrayed. Right? Yeah. This has come up kind of the backdrop story to this.01:44Is that about I don't even know how long it's been. Two or three years ago, I did a series of videos. And one of those videos I referenced something where I told a story about an interaction that I had with a New York Times reporter. And he had basically said that sometimes he was looking at doing a story on us and what we do because you were doing some online therapy. Remember him? Yeah, he was great. And he actually was getting ready to fly out and actually sit in on a panel of men that I was working with that were trying to overcome sex addiction.02:17And he wanted to do one final call. And he did a call. He did a call with somebody, one of the guys that was willing to talk to him. And afterwards he called me back and said, are you telling me that are you telling me that that guy is just trying to stop looking at pornography and you're treating that like a sex addiction? And I said, yeah, he's trying to stop. And he's actually been really successful with it. And he said, no way. He said, I look at porn almost every day so that when I go home, I don't have to chase my wife around the house and I do her a favor and I do me a favor.02:50And then I said to him, I said, okay, well, I guess we have a difference of opinion on that. It's my belief that you don't need to go respond sexually to anyone other than inside your marriage in terms of what would be healthy. And I said, give me a call later when your marriage falls apart. He hasn'tcalled me since. So I said that video. I said that in that video. I told that story in that video.03:15And then just recently here in a therapy session, somebody who had seen that video referenced that video and said that's what I'm here for is that I want to be in a relationship with somebody who has nothing but their sexual expression going into our relationship and coming towards me. And there's this hang up now because he's over here trying to work his recovery, and he's being honest about it. And he's saying, you know what, if I'm being honest, I notice beautiful women.03:47I'm not lusting after them. I'm trying to change my thoughts. I'm trying to move the way that I see them. I'm trying to grow into seeing them as whole people. But if I'm being honest, I do see people who are pretty. Right. And then I said, that sounds fair. That sounds like you're doing the work, because that is the work. Right. We're moving more and more systematically into a place where we see people as people.04:10Then I thought to myself, you know, I'm 15 years into my own process, and we just got back from a trip to Hawaii a week ago, a couple of weeks ago, and there were lots of people, including lots of women, in lots of different kinds of bathing suits all over the beaches in Hawaii. Right. And I think I had several discussions with my wife, and both of us acknowledged that there were lots of women, some who I would maybe consider more attractive than others on the beach.04:41And the fact that I can say that and then do my work to say I'm going to do the 32nd rule, which is something we've talked about in the past and we can describe here, I'm going to try to move my mind on other things. I'm going to try to see these people as whole people. That is the work that just naturally happens day in and day out. I see that as the work. I don't know that I necessarily want to get rid of not seeing people or trying to kill off this idea that there's something beautiful, even though we don't want to turn people into just the object.05:12Right? Yes. Tyler, I could go on and on about this, because there's consequences to being disingenuous and not authentic in your relationship. And there's disconnection, there's broken trust. There's all of those things. And the fact of the matter is that we as human beings are designed to be sexually attracted to people, not to a person.05:42Women are attracted to more than one person. Men are attracted to more than one person. I was listening to a podcast and the guy was talking about taboo topics. And he said one of the biggest taboo things. And what taboo is things that are true. Nobody wants to say. And he said one of the biggest taboo things is that we're sexually attracted to multiple people. Nobody wants to talk about that, although it's totally and completely true.06:12Now, if you're listening to this, you might be thinking, oh, my gosh, they're going to feed an attic to go. That's not the goal. To go act out and this and that. That's not the goal at all. The goal is to be able to be honest in your relationship. Here's an example. I had a client who was up on vacation at a swimming pool. And this is a true story.06:40And like, the Hawaiian Tropics bikini team showed up. He was in a resort town. So he's there swimming with his wife and kids, having a good time, and like five or six models in little tiny bikini show up. And he'd beenstruggling with porn addiction for a long time. His wife was in the pool. He jumps in the pool, he swims over to her and he says, I'm not even noticing them. I'm just attracted to you. That's all I see is you. All I see is you.07:10I'm not even noticing them. Blah, blah, blah. And so he hovers by her. He stays really close to her and tells her, it's just you. It's just you. It's just you. It's just you. What do you think happened from this whole experience with them? You mean in the relationship? Yeah. I imagine that she probably also felt pretty amped up and she probably felt a little bit more scared. And she probably saw him in kind of a certain light as being weak or, you know, he went to his twelve step group and his twelve step group backed him up and said, good job.07:42Wait to just fight for your wife and be committed to her. And he came into a therapy session with me and he started complaining. Like, my wife didn't talk to me for three days after this. My wife said she felt completely unsafe, which is fair, too. Well, but I said to him, you know why she doesn't feel safe? Because you're full of it. Because you're lying to her face, right? Because when the Hawaiian Tropics bikini team shows up at the swimming pool, you are noticing them.08:11You did notice them. You were sexually attracted to them. You were. And it would be better for you to go up to your wife and say, I totally noticed them. Like, I'm not lusting, I'm not going to go in the bathroom and masturbate right now. But she's noticing them too. She's noticing their beautiful bodies, and she's noticing that as well. And she's experiencing it differently. She's seeing it as a threat, but at the same time, that's still happening. It's there and it's real.08:41She couldn't not notice. Right he would not notice. And I think where a lot of people go wrong is that they don't allow space in the relationship to acknowledge that that's where some of the work is going to be. Where if you go somewhere and your wife says to you, hey, did you notice her? Did you notice this about whatever she's wearing or whatever? And you go, what? No, I didn't see anything. It's like, okay, you just totally eroded the trust. Because the truth is that both people probably saw her.09:12Exactly. It would be much more effective. And I relate to this. I know what this is like. It would be much more effective to be able to have the space, to be able to have a discussion. I'll tell you a story with this, where I went out to dinner one night with my wife, and we went through the line at the place reading. We're sitting down by the drink machine at the only open table, and a woman comes through the line who's in basically a see through shirt with no bra on. And she's really beautiful.09:41And I sit there and she comes right by the drink machine, and she gets her drink literally sitting like she's standing right next to where me and my wife are trying to eat. And then she gets a drink, she moves on, and my wife looks up at me and she says, did you notice her? And I said, yeah, I did. And she said, that woman was really beautiful. And I said, yes, she was. And then my wife said, thanks so much for staying present with me.10:08And it was a much more productive conversation for us to acknowledge that that's where it was at. I could acknowledge that she had noticed and probably felt some things. She could acknowledge that I was doing my work and we could both sit there and we could enjoy the rest of our dinnertogether. That even though it might be a hard situation, builds trust. Yeah, right. Yes. But I want to take this maybe a step further.10:33So on my other podcast, To Betray the Addict and the Expert, I've given the example where if a man walks down a beach and sees a woman in a string bikini and he notices her and he's sexually attracted to her, that's okay. So I said that on my podcast, and some people loved that. A lot of people didn't. They appreciated like, wow, he's being honest now. It's not okay.11:02I can go to the beach. Not to look for lust hits, but I can go to the beach and see women in bikinis and not need to go cheat on my wife, not need to go act out. I can manage my sexuality, and I can stay faithful to my wife. That's a fact that I can be attracted to women on the beach, and I can be faithful to my wife at the same time. Those things exist together. I think that's a hard thing for people to wrap their heads around.11:32Yes. Yet it's an important thing. The guy who was talking about that taboo thing, he said the reason why it's taboo is because we're all sexually attracted to multiple people, but we also all have this desire to hang on to the mate that we have to protect, the mate that we have. In some relationships, it's more intense than others where you don't want the threat of losing your mate.12:05Exactly. That's scary. It's scary. And so instead of acknowledging that it's true that we're sexually attracted to people, we pretend. We pretend like we're not because we take on the partner's fear. We know that they're going to be freaked out if I'm honest about that, which then causes all kinds of breakdown in the relationship and in real recovery in self acceptance.12:34I had a client who was attracted to a woman at a grocery store, went home and told his wife, she said, I consider that a relapse. And he slept on the basement cement floor for a week to punish himself. See, that's too rigid. You think that's going to lead to more shame? That's going to lead to that's not helping the relations.13:00Let's talk about this, though a little bit, because I don't want to get lost in the weeds of saying that we're not here endorsing that everybody should go out and be like, yeah, I'm a lost away. No. By all means, if you're listening to this podcast and you're using this as justification, don't I have this happen all the time? I teach something called the three second rule that I have to mention. I want to tell you what it is.13:21It's where when I become aware that I'm thinking or noticing or feeling something, let's say I'm in the grocery store and I notice a beautiful woman. The minute that I notice her, I'm going to acknowledge that that's happening. And then I'm going to basically count to three and transition my thoughts to something else that's going to be more productive and more effective than continuing to follow whatever line of thought might be there. Right. That's a three second rule.13:48But what most guys think when they want to justify it as they go, I get 3 seconds to lust after somebody before I have to look away. Right. If they're trying to justify. Right. That's where I think some of this conversation comes up so frequently. Is that a guy I'll teach a three second rule and a guy goes home and he tells his wife about it and says, I got to look through for 3 seconds. That's not what this is about. This is about the heart that says I want to do better at tempering and using my sexual drives for the healthyplaces that they're designed for.14:20At the same time that I also want to start seeing people more and more completely as people instead of as objects. Right. So the three second rule is designed to do that. And it's a way to be a living, moving exercise that I can do as many times a day as I need to to remind myself that I'm not working progress. Right. I don't think we do ourselves a favor if we pretend that that's not the work. That is the work. Right. And it's there and it's real.14:50It's just the way that it is. And it's okay. Actually, on a personal note, me and my wife, I feel really close to her when I can be honest about me and my sexuality. And she's honest with me. We had an electrician come over the other day, and apparently he was a hot guy. And I said to her, I was like, man, he's a good looking man. She spent all day with him alone in the house, telling him where to put lights and things like that.15:20And she's like, yeah, he's a good looking guy. I want to set him up with so and so I trust her. So I trust that she can spend a whole day in a house with him. And I'm actually appreciative that she has sexuality inside of her, and it's okay that she's attracted to him. I'm okay with that because I know that she's faithful with me. Right. And part of the reason, you know that is because she's honest with you. Because she's honest, then I feel safe. If she were faking it, I would not feel safe.15:51Right. And it would break down the trust. So there are some people right now listening to this podcast, Brandon, saying, I'd love to try to break this down a little bit further, saying that even in that experience that you just shared, your wife is still getting a lust hit by noticing that that guy is a hot guy and she's defining him only by his physical attributes. How do you speak to them? I think we get lust totally mixed up.16:22I do not think that lust is what we think. So a lot of times lust is interpreted as this is that I have sexual attraction. I shouldn't have sexual attraction. I'm married, I'm committed to my spouse, so I should only be sexually attracted to my spouse. And so if you lust after another person, then it's like you're having adultery. That's not true. This is how I look at lust.16:50I look at lust as a self indulgent fantasy that separates you from reality. So if I walk into a house and I'm attracted to a woman that's not my wife, the reality is I'm attracted to that woman. So I'm not in fantasy yet I'm sexually attracted to that woman that's just like you. And the story about the woman in the shirt, right? You're not lusting. You didn't lust.17:18Now, if it's a self indulgent fantasy, if I take that sexual attraction and I start to objectify that woman for my own selfish needs. That woman is not there for my selfish need. She is not an object. So it's now a self indulgent fantasy where I'm using that person for my own gratification. I am now lusting, but my sexual attraction alone is not lost.17:47And that's a fine line, because so much of that can happen so quickly to shift from a place of just noticing that there's an attraction into someplace less full. Right. I think what you're getting at here, and this is something that I feel really strongly about, is that one of the ways that we go to work on this is that we actually acknowledge that lust does happen. And I'd add to your definition of lust to say that lust is the pursuit of something that's a non reality for us. Right. And that could be anything.18:16But that word pursuit is important. Yeah, I think that's it. It's the pursuit of something that's a non reality for me, and we're talking about it in a sexual nature, but that could be anything that could be nonsexual money or whatever, doing something even in a non sexual way. That's my non reality. I want people to understand that lust. Obviously, when you hear the word lust, everybody goes, that's one of the seven deadly sins. That's bad. I would say lust is something that every human at some point in their life experiences. Right.18:46And lust isn't bad. Let's move from lust being bad to lust being not effective. So that when I notice, like, okay, I'm out in public somewhere, and I actually feel like the actual physical sensations of lust kick on and go, Whoa, there's something there, right? Is this going to be effective? No. Three second rule. One, two, three. I got to move on to something else that's going to be more effective with my time and my energy. I don't see a problem with that. Yes. It's that awareness.19:14It's when I actually then go and do the pursuit that becomes less effective for me, because it's going to pull me away from connection with the real things in my life, from the reality of what I have, which is I'll tell you the story, this is a non sexual thing. But I remember when we were living in a different house a couple of years ago. I was driving down to work, and I stopped at a stoplight right by the College campus and the shuttle unloaded all these students, and they were all walking to class, and I was sitting in this red light in my head.19:42I started to go, oh, man, what would it be like to be in College again? I could do whatever I wanted. There were less worries, like life had less pressure. It would be so nice to be back in College again. And then the light turned green, and I found this hole in my heart and my gut going, Man, I wish I was back in College. And then as I was driving, I was like, this is lust. The reality is that I'm married to my wife, who I love. I have four daughters. I'm driving down to my workspace, and that's what my day is today.20:11But you didn't sin by having those thoughts and feelings, right? It's the noticing of that. And what I'm saying is that that's why it's less effective, is that it was pulling me out of the reality of my life, which is that I was married to my wife and going to work, and I have four daughters, and that's the life that I'm in right now. So lust pulls us out from reality. And so we shouldn't judge ourselves as much as saying this isn't effective, because it's going to keep me from being connected to the things that actually matter. Yes.20:40The thing about it is, Tyler, is when it comes to who we are as sexual beings, repression and hiding and pretending like things aren't there, that will never be healthy overindulgence and just going to town and having no compulsion, and that won't breed trust or help.21:11So the Gray area in between, and I actually love the way God has designed this, because it creates a need for trust and safety in a relationship. It's not black and white. The Gray area in between is what we call a progressive victory over lust. And what that is, is an acknowledgement that it's. There an acknowledgement that it's going to come up over and over and over again and a way to be able to manage it and be aware of it and to deal with it as a man or as a woman.21:45And in that space, when you work on that progressive victory over lust, you show up authentic in your relationship. You can really create some real connection with your partner because you're showing up as a vulnerable human being. For some with betrayal, trauma. Betrayal, trauma throws a wrench in things big time. Because what I said earlier, you're worried about losing your mate.22:16You're also triggered into a lot of your own shame, a lot of worried about stability. You have gender wounds. You maybe been wounded by the Church leader. There's a lot of different things going on, right? And then on top of that, you're supposed to accept that, hey, my partner is a sexual being who is having a progressive victory over lust. That is a hard reality, yet it is reality.22:49And you can go to therapists, you can go to groups that will feed you a lie but will validate your fear. That will say, no, he can completely turn it off. And it's not that he should have. It not there at all. And if he's telling you that, then he's full of it. And if your group is telling you that, then they're full of it, because the reality is his sexuality is there, and it's better if he can own it and learn how to have that progressive victory.23:19And that's a hard reality to accept when you've experienced betrayal trial, of course, because it goes back into what you were saying. It's truly just a self protective thing. Right. Where it's like, wow. And the truth is that we do want Fidelity inside of a relationship. Absolutely. We absolutely want that to be the case. And we want each other to learn to be reliant on providing safety and security and trust with each other inside that relationship.23:48And so when that gets broken, I think that's where it ends up either end of the spectrum where you have someone saying, well, I'm going to go do whatever I want, because that's just who I am. And I'm like, that's not actually probably accurate. Or, you know what? You can't ever have a single thought again sexually, or else that makes you bad. And that makes our marriage over. And that means you relapsed it's like, no, let's find the middle ground where we get permission to each other to be the work in progress that we were designed to be by God. Yes. Right. We're here to learn. We're here to learn how to.24:17And this is the part that I think another end of the spectrum thing where we can find the middle ground is we start to define ourselves as all or nothing, either all an object and a body, or I have to define myself in some other way or all sexual or non sexual at all. It's like, actually, there are lots of factors that make up who I am. And one of those things includes being a sexual being. And so if I'm trying to starve that piece of me out or starve that out of my partner, I'm actually not promoting good health.24:46What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to foster what good health really means by finding the middle path of acknowledging that it's there and using it for proper purposes. Repression leads to indulgence and control leads to release. And so when me and Tyler are talking about this like this, we're actually having this conversation because we are fighting for Fidelity in your marriages.25:14We're fighting for being completely committed to each other. It's a paradoxical thing. It doesn't make sense from a surface level. No. But when you stop and you really think about it and hopefully you can digest whatwe've been saying, you'll realize that it actually leads to real commitment, real trust, and real love in a marriage. And that's why we're having this conversation.25:44We're in no way trying to support anybody to go crazy with their addiction or anything like that. But I told you this story before we start, but I want to share it because it kind of like rocks people's world a little bit had this client was getting his hair cut by a beautiful woman. He was triggered. She's touching his head, she's cutting his hair.26:11And he sat there kind of did the three second rule, like, really work through his thoughts, got himself to a place where he realized this was just a beautiful woman who's cutting his hair like that. He walked outside of the Barber shop and called a sponsor and surrendered over any triggers. And he came into a therapy session next day with me and told me the story. And I said, Good job. That's awesome way to do the work.26:39And then he actually went and told his wife, like, yeah, he was triggered at the bar where I dealt with it. She spun off into, of course, triggered like crazy. And she got to a place where she was pissed off, she was angry, and she came in and she said, Will he ever be faithful in our relationship? And I said to her, I don't see him as being unfaithful through that experience. Help me understand.27:07And she said, well, he's supposed to just be attracted to me. And then I walked her through, and I said, you're really setting yourself up, because that's not the case. And she said, So you're telling me that Jesus Christ himself would walk down the street and be sexually attracted to women? And it was weird for me because she just mixed Jesus and sexual attraction.27:37How does that work? That's something to think about. Yeah, I've never thought about it that way because I think we oftentimes equate being Christlike as being nonsexual. Being Christlike means you don't even have that part of you, because we never talk about Christ sexuality. Although not to get too preachy.28:03If you read Genesis, it very much in there talks about how wonderful sex is and how we're sexual beings. And the fact of the matter is, I sat back and I thought about it for a while. I think it was the next session, she came in and I said, I thought about your question, and I would say that, yes, Christ is a sexual being. And Christ probably did notice some women sexually in his life. I'm sure that he did. And that was an uncomfortable thing for me to say, oh, big time.28:35There's people listening right now. They're like, that's blasphemous. Exactly. And it's an uncomfortable thing for her to hear. And it's interesting. Why is that so uncomfortable? Because we have this shame or this fear out there that sexuality is dangerous and scary, and it's a sin. It's just a sin. And the reality is, sexuality is one of the greatest things that God created.29:02And it's beautiful and it's good, and it's Christlike in many ways. And I realize it can get out of bounds. It can cause all kinds of destruction and problems. Believe me, I realize that probably more than anybody. And you too, Tyler. Absolutely. But I think to actually bring those things together and accept your sexuality is an important part of regaining who you are.29:31You're masculine if you're a man or you're feminine if you're a woman. Andactually learning how to show up authentically in a relationship. I agree with you 100%, Brandon, and I'm going to kind of run with what you were saying about this story. I mean, that is a pretty powerful story to think about. It's definitely me with some things to chew on for myself.29:51But the thing that's coming up right now is to think from a Christian perspective that if we understand who Christ is, Christ is basically the savior who took upon himself all of the sins of the world, who basically had to feel everything that every human being has ever felt in order to atone for that. Of course he had sexual feelings and he felt the full extreme all the way to the end of the sinful part of that scale because he had to in order to understand and in order to basically perform that atoning sacrifice that he went through so that every person might be saved.30:29And it makes sense that that would be the way that it is because he had to do an all encompassing atonement, right? Yes. Okay. We've gotten preachy. Yeah, we've probably triggered you enough today, I hope, Tyler, that we've at least got people thinking and processing and trying to understand some things today.30:51Yeah, I would say something to those who are listening who might be really wrestling with what we just talked about today to just say to validate that part of why this is hard to hear is because of that trauma that does happen and that trauma takes the rug out from underneath us in terms of safety and security. And so that's why those things are happening. There's a reason that those things are happening, too. So you're not bad on the other side if those things are happening.31:19It's just the process that we find ourselves in inside of the world that we live in with things as they are. Right. All right, you guys, thanks for listening. Hey, if we get some reviews after this one, that'd be great. We'll see how that turns out. All right, you guys will talk to you later.31:39See ya you.