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Becoming Whole
Relationships and sexuality are areas of life that can be beautiful or confusing, life-giving, or painful. Becoming Whole is a conversational podcast for men, women, and families seeking to draw nearer to Jesus as they navigate topics like sexual integrity, relational healing, spiritual health, and so much more.
Becoming Whole
Marriage Recovery Part 2 with The Raabsmiths
In this episode of Becoming Whole, we sit down with Matthew and Joanna RaabSmith to discuss their personal journey of recovering from marital betrayal and the work they do with other couples to rebuild intimacy. They share their unique story of whirlwind romance, struggles with sexual addiction, and the steps they took towards healing and recovery. The conversation delves into their development of the 'intimacy pyramid,' a framework to guide couples through honesty, safety, trust, vulnerability, and ultimately, intimacy. Matthew and Joanna provide insights on navigating recovery, sexual reintegration, and building a thriving marriage post-betrayal. This episode is a beacon of hope, courage, and practical guidance for married couples in recovery, as well as singles looking to understand relational dynamics.
Resources discussed in this episode:
Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole
👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)
All right, welcome back everybody. I'm eager to get into the conversation today and we are, admittedly, gonna fly pretty quickly through a lot of content. But I'm talking today with Matthew and Joanna Rapsmith, who, for a couple reasons One, because they have their own story of recovery from marital betrayal and also because they work with a lot of couples who are trying to rebuild intimacy in its many forms, including rebuilding sexual intimacy, which we're going to get into in this podcast. So if you're married, listening and you're in recovery, hang on. If you are single and you're listening, hang on, because all of us are relational and the things that they're going to share with us, the things we're going to talk about today, do have implications for all of us as we're walking this road of recovery.
Speaker 1:So glad you're listening in and, joanna and Matthew, I'm so glad to be speaking with you. Thanks for bringing your expertise and your story. And maybe we just start there. Let's just share with our listeners a little bit about how. I'm assuming you didn't go to college to work on marital recovery stuff. So how did you guys?
Speaker 1:start into this.
Speaker 2:I did our career path in high school. That's not what the counselors, you know, laid out for me. Um, yeah, it's really interesting because I was thinking about that. We, um we had a kind of whirlwind romance, I'd say, or maybe relationship we, joanna and I.
Speaker 1:Actually we went on four dates before we got engaged um yeah, yep, and then we're married but they were, but they were like week-long dates at a time.
Speaker 2:Well, they were like they were. It was crazy. It was a little bit like the bachelor, like we would go on these crazy dates, like we won our very first date. We entered a couple's golf tournament and we won um, and, and so it was like you just knew it was a good sign.
Speaker 2:Our third, day was on field of dreams in iowa and we were like throwing you know the baseball and hitting the baseball on the Field of Dreams, I mean it was. It really kind of felt like this is not a, not real life. So we we got started really quickly and one of the things that drew us to each other is I think we had a heart for ministry and we really wanted to see the church and and kind of God's mission really impact marriages and we wanted a great marriage. We wanted something that was really really special. We noticed there was a lot of negativity around marriage or even in the church.
Speaker 2:It felt like there were a lot of people that kind of would use those old tropes like ball and chain and it just kind of it goes downhill once you get married. And so we were just kind of diss, use those old tropes like ball and chain and it just kind of it goes downhill once you get married and and so we were just kind of dissatisfied with that and so we were super passionate about it but had no idea how to have a good marriage like it was like let's have this great thing and we have no idea how to do it, and so that really I think the the beginning stages of our relationship were we're kind of figuring out what it looked like. What does it look like to actually have a good marriage when you don't quite know how to do it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we ended up going to seminary together, thinking we were going to be all in on doing ministry together.
Speaker 3:And while we were in seminary we actually went to. They had a group program there for the students, the students who were married. It was at the time called Strong Marriages, successful Ministries, and the idea was, as a ministry couple, the health of your marriage was going to deeply impact the ministry, the health of the ministry, and so it was based on a modality called restoration therapy and as we went through this eight-week program and learned about our cycles and learned how to change those cycles, it dramatically changed our marriage and the way we relate to one another and just, we finally felt like we had a path, we had tools to create the relationship we wanted, and so we got really passionate, I think, about serving others and sharing that with others. I think about serving others and sharing that with others. And so I went back and I did the MFT program so we could really dive into that, and so that kind of started. That started changing the direction just a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think the so we had this kind of idea and we felt like we had the tools, but we kept getting stuck. And what Joanna didn't know was that one of the big pieces that was keeping us stuck was this kind of sexual addiction, this kind of broken, problematic sexuality that I had really brought in to our marriage because I had been struggling with it my whole life, really, since the time I could kind of remember being exposed to pornography young, being engaged to kind of highly sexualized cultures. I grew up in the 80s where, you know, we were watching R-rated movies when I was six or seven years old, you know, and you know kind of hanging on my face, you know, but knew exactly what was going on, and so I had brought this in and so, even though we had this really wonderful connection, it kept getting eroded by this addiction and I just noticed it kind of pulling us further and further apart. And Joanna had no idea what was going on. She just knew that there was that disconnection. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I could feel I could sense like, okay, wait, we finally have the tools, we can finally move into this healthy intimacy that we've wanted. Why are we still getting stuck? It was very confusing for me and I started giving up. I think a lot of hope, any hope. I just kind of said, ok, I guess this is just what relationship is, or our relationship is Actually.
Speaker 3:Until I started the MFT program, my very first class was called Shame and Guilt. It was a two-week intensive great class to take first class out of the gate intensive great class to take first first class out of the gate. But they had an anonymous pastor came and gave his testimony of overcoming sexual addiction and healing betrayal in his marriage and as he was talking like so I could just sense it in my gut. I was like this is it, this is the thing, this is why we're stuck, and so I furiously wrote down every resource he mentioned using. I went home that afternoon, I shared what we had talked about in class and I finally just asked I asked a point blank is this something you're struggling with?
Speaker 2:And for the first time in three years of our marriage, three and a half years of our marriage I was finally honest and it was really that story of hope and kind of a path. I think those are the things I was like okay, I could see the destination, but I could also see the path. Up until that point I had been kind of crying out to God a lot on my own. I had been having these kind of really deep internal struggles because I knew what I was doing. It wasn't what I wanted, it wasn't who I was, it wasn't what God wanted for me, but I just I felt like I couldn't stop and so I was like kind of crying out like God, just if you will show me the way, I will follow it. And so when Joanna kind of came home, it was kind of like God be what we would end up doing in our life. And I think that a lot of parts of that early journey I was hoping this would not be our future.
Speaker 2:But I think as we started to heal, as we started to, as I started to heal personally, as we started to heal as a couple, we still had that hunger for like what's?
Speaker 2:What's the really, really great marriage that's out there for us and how do we get it? And we didn't know there wasn't a lot of resources for that at the time. There was kind of like here's how to not have your marriage die, but there wasn't a lot of here's how your marriage thrives and survives, and so we just got so passionate about that personally that as we started doing work professionally in this field, we just realized like no, this is the area we want to work in, because we know so many couples who want a great great marriage and probably have a really good connection. They actually really like their spouse, they like who they're married to, but they're struggling to get to the kind of connection that is so life-giving that God intended and so so, yeah, so we've just kind of poured ourselves into that and now we get to do it day in and day out.
Speaker 2:It's a weird job to have. I don't know that. My parents still understand quite what we do, you know. But it's, but it's fun. We, we, we really love it and it's and it's really been through that journey that's allowed us to do this work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome, thank you for that. All right, I have to rewind just a little bit because, um, it's uh, it's obvious that there's. You guys had a shared passion even even early on, for, like, we want to help people have vibrant marriages. Um, this is important to us. It's important that this is an area of ministry we want to go into um and that there there was some element of, even with this um, with the, with his discovery of your sexual acting out, matthew, that that's that string that continued on. I mean, that was still something that propelled you forward.
Speaker 1:Um, but I think what I want to go back to because I know people listening to me like, wait, wait, we had dreams, we had shared passions. Like we, um, I can think of a couple I know, like they, they wanted to be in ministry together and then when, when crap hit the fan, um, the, the, almost the assumption was all that doesn't, we don't get to play anymore like that's over, absolutely like what happened for you guys, that you actually, like that ball continued to go down the field. Um, I mean, because the way you shared it, it's almost like we just had this little interruption.
Speaker 3:I'm sure it wasn't just a little interruption.
Speaker 1:No, no, not at all when, so where'd the hope come from?
Speaker 3:for that first two, three, four years into recovery, I would say I had very little hope that we would be doing something together, very little hope that we'd be doing ministry together or in the way that, right, it was really this giant question mark for many years which was really really painful, because a big part of when I think I mean I was I had a very different path.
Speaker 3:When we met, I was headed to law school nine hours away from Matthew, right Like very different trajectory, and a lot of what pulled us together so quickly was a sense that God was calling us to do something together. And so, all of a sudden, the whole purpose of us even being together felt like it was shattered because it was impossible anymore. And so there was kind of a both, a personal identity crisis, a relational identity crisis, right, like who are we? Why are we even together? What is going to happen? And so there's many, many years of that, and that was really hard and really painful and we couldn't, honestly, like I couldn't imagine what that would look like. I knew I still wanted it, but I had no idea what, how it could happen, what it would look like, and it was a very organic process that God used to kind of pull us back together and start to create this vision again.
Speaker 2:And I think one of the keys for us. People have asked us like what, what is some of the things that like really mattered and I think early on we didn't worry as much about the vision, we just worried about the healing side of it and we knew we each needed to heal individually. You know I knew I needed to heal for whatever was driving this just manifestation that was just so far from me in terms of sexually acting out and what we had learned previously in our work around relationships and kind of self understanding and awareness. That was so helpful because I kind of took that template and went OK, well, if this worked with anger and with defensivism and kind of wanting to shut down in conversations, I bet it's going to work as well.
Speaker 2:Whenism and kind of wanting to shut down in conversations, I bet it's going to work as well when it comes to me wanting to numb out and to run away and to kind of stuff my problems and so, and so it's really what I had to do early on was just dive into that personal recovery, I think, with a sense of we will figure out the relationship stuff when we're ready, and Joanna kind of did the same.
Speaker 2:Joanna really dove in to understanding betrayal, understanding betrayal, trauma and kind of what was happening to her and why she was kind of responding the way she was. And so those kind of willingness to kind of be in our own spaces in some ways, kind of trusting that God would figure out the kind of messy middle. It helped us a lot because those two, you know, a couple of years later, when we started to make some progress, when we started to feel that kind of sense of like, okay, I think we're out of the woods, I think we're doing pretty well, then we were able to kind of reenter that conversation about what that's going to be, and it's true when you're in those individual silos a little bit more, because it can kind of be like are we going to be here forever?
Speaker 3:What's next? Or how do we start putting the pieces together? And that's honestly, a big part of, I think, why we're doing what we're doing is because we didn't have a very clear roadmap of what recovery as a couple looks like through this journey, right? What's the next step? What's the next step? What's the end goal? What's possible? Right, we didn't have any of those answers.
Speaker 3:And so, as we went through our own journey, as we did professional training, as we started collaborating with our good friend and colleague, dan Drake on this model that we now use with our clients the intimacy pyramid. It's because it really describes our experience in our journey as well, and we knew, if we would have had this at the beginning, it would have felt a lot more, a lot easier, right, a lot more doable. And so we actually have a framework we now use with couples to help them understand what this journey is going to be like. Right, that there's going to be more individual work in the beginning, that they don't need to worry about that purpose as a couple quite yet that comes in the last stage. As they get to that intimacy place. That's when they start visioning purpose together again. But that can sometimes take years to get to, and that's okay, but it doesn't mean that it's lost forever, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really good. I love that Because I think that there's there is an element of what, what remains of us and and what needs to be let go, that we, that we, you know, quote unquote were the ways that we lived before and it sounds like you guys really it's kind of a hard fought journey and thank you for that, cause I didn't want to give the impression of like, yeah, and then we, you know, on a Tuesday we made the trail and on Wednesday we were back to ministry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we figured it out. I wanted, I wanted, matthew, I heard you say in another podcast and I want to dig into this just and this is just kind of I'm actually thinking of of people, as I asked this specifically but one of the things you talked about was how important it was for you in recovery to be all in and, um, what is what did that mean for you to be to be all in, like, um, I think about so many guys, married guys, who would say stuff like you know, I just want things to go back the way they were. Um, why won't you forgive me things to go back the way they were? Why won't she forgive me? Blah, blah, blah. Like you know, fair, fair questions, understandable, very common questions. But but for you, like, where did you?
Speaker 2:where did that come from for you and what did it mean to be all in? Yeah, I mean, I think in some ways what helped me was was was taking a really sober and I use that that word specifically kind of look at the spectrum and kind of the weight of what my kind of sexual history and life had really kind of done in terms of its impact on me and its negative impact specifically. That's called a full disclosure and 12 steps. They call it a first step and the idea is that I really want to uncover and lay out everything that's happened and been affected by these choices, because until I do that I really don't understand what I'm working with. And one of the things that helped me was to see how far I had kind of moved from my core values to the way I was living, both before Joanna in our relationship, right towards her, towards our marriage, like it was just night and day. The things that I thought of myself as a person kind of kind, considerate, loving, you know, pornography, lying, this destructive sexuality was as far from those as I could get. And it was that vision of how far I was that I think really motivated me to just be like I've got is I have to be done and I have to be done with this for me.
Speaker 2:And, like I said, I think that one of the mistakes that I see a lot of guys make and I coach a lot of guys and it makes sense but they think, okay, I've got to fix everything. I did that. They think that's what recovery is, that it's kind of like recovery is penance. I'm going to pay for everything I did where I think I was blessed to realize that recovery is salvation. Right, it is God's way of saving me from the kind of the hell that I'm living, and it's for me first. And that's okay, because once I can realign with those core values, I'm going to naturally care for the people and relationships in my life. And that's what I see. I mean I've worked with so many guys who are good guys. They have a heart for people, they care, they're actually naturally empathetic and loving. They just have moved away from their true self that God made them to be, and so if recovery can bring them back to that, then they get to kind of be that, and so when that was laid out in front of me, it was an easy choice.
Speaker 2:There was no kind of like, well, I guess I'll keep this. And maybe you know I don't want to give up my phone or I don't want to. I was like, whatever it takes, right, if I have to, if I have to live in a, in a black bubble the rest of my life, but I get everything I get to be who I'm going to be, then that's great, you know, and recovery taught me I didn't have to. But I think it was that willingness. But I think that willingness is hard to manifest when you don't know what you're dealing with. A lot of people with with broken sexual past, they don't want to talk about it, right, we don't want to think about it, we don't want to look at it, we want to stay. Our shame wants to keep us from it, but that's actually what keeps us stuck. And so, um, for me that was just such a key.
Speaker 1:Man, I love that. That's what? Yeah, you had enough nuggets in there, gold nuggets that like would be worth unpacking more. I'll leave that to another one, but I'm so glad I asked the question though, because I I love the distinction between recovery for you versus recovery for, um, even even for us, you know.
Speaker 1:And then and then the distinction between like this is to get back to the who I really am, who God's wired me to be, what's really important to me, versus the kind of penance I'm. I'm doing for God or for my wife or for you, know, whatever, like um, what I mean. You guys just kind of exude, I think, like a hope for the future, like a vision for like where we can go, and I think that's um. Yeah, I think that's a strength that you bring to this whole realm of of ministry and recovery, because it is so easy to kind of go like. I don't know, it feels like we're looking at like a, a bombed out city, and I guess we're just got to make do, as opposed to like let's, let's think about what we're going to build Um yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so thank you for that. Okay, I look forward to hearing more. Okay, so, um, joanna, you mentioned the, the intimacy pyramid, and I'm going to just entrust you guys to kind of bring as much or as little of that as you can in the time we've got. But, um and and so this is a completely unfair question, but I've prepped you for it. So, because I know that so many, so many couples husbands and wives alike wonder about, like, how, how do we?
Speaker 1:There's been betrayal in our marriage, there's been broken trust I don't feel safe to give myself, or I feel too ashamed to feel like I'm a good gift to give to my spouse, for, for either of the spouses, of the spouses, uh, how are we ever going to get to marital intimacy?
Speaker 1:Sexual intimacy, that is, uh, specifically sexual intimacy, that is, um, it's actually not just um, it's not carrying some of the brokenness or shame that that would seem to be a natural fallout from this, and that doesn't go back to the secrecy or whatever it was that we had before. Um, I know couples who, uh, as we're walking together through their recovery, they continue to be have sex and it almost feels like gosh, it sounds like it feels like that's like a little too quickly. Like like, how are you having sex when there are all these other issues still going on and other couples who sex has been off the table for years? So yeah, I just love to kind of toss, toss up that easy, easy question your way and ask for your wisdom and what you have to say about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I think you know when. Oftentimes, when we're teaching, talking about sexual intimacy, we use the same framework, the intimacy pyramid, which is really about building a healthy, holistic intimacy in our relationship. And what's beautiful is this is the framework we use for all couples, whether they've been through betrayal or not, because it was built from what we've learned by working through the couples who had the worst thing you can imagine happen in their relationship going from that place to a thriving intimacy and so going okay if that works for them.
Speaker 3:this works for every couple, and so starting at the base of that pyramid is honesty. You have to start with being honest, being self-aware, being open and transparent in the relationship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to think about that in terms of kind of sexual approach. One of the things when we're guiding a couple is we'll say, like you need to be honest about your sexual history like and for both partners, and you need to be honest about your sexual history outside of the relationship and inside of the relationship, which usually means you need to be aware of it. A lot of people don't want to talk about sex at all. They don't want to talk about their body, they don't want to talk about their history. But when you don't know that, you can't move forward.
Speaker 2:I recognize that pornography was shaping me sexually around a certain perspective, and one of the main perspectives around pornography is that it is self-focused. It is about my pleasure, my enjoyment right, my orgasm. It is all about what I'm going to get out of it, and that is shaping how I view sex, and so, whether I want it to or not, that's going to inform how I engage our relationship, and so if I'm going to do anything about that, I got to get honest about that first. We've got to talk about that. We've got to talk about our sexual past.
Speaker 2:Maybe there was avoidance right which took place in our relationship. My shame would often keep me from Joanna. It would kind of put a wall up and I would kind of pull away from her when she would try to pursue intimacy which is really painful for her, and so we had to name that and kind of talk about that. Other couples it might look like pressure. Right, did I put pressure on the other person to kind of act sexually in a certain way and so we can't get anywhere if we can't get honest?
Speaker 3:And then, after honesty, once we understand kind of our unhealthy dysfunctional ways patterns emotionally and sexually, we move into the safety level, which is where we really start re-imagining those patterns and thinking about what would a healthy interaction look like, moving forward. That's oftentimes kind of the opposite of maybe those unhealthy interactions. And so again, we don't just do that in our relationship emotionally, but we think about those sexual patterns and think about okay, if sex was a place where selfishness was brought in, how do we express it as a generosity to one another? Right, what does it look like to be selfless in our sexual expression with one another?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for many partners we'll hear that sometimes they'll use sex to try to kind of maybe manage the addiction or the acting out of their spouse, and so that safety level for them is learning to set boundaries that say, hey, I'm not the caretaker, right, I'm not the sexual caretaker of my spouse, right, they are responsible for themselves, I will be responsible for myself. That's what will allow us to work together as a team, and it's from that safety level that we start to kind of re-engage trust. Right, we talk about, okay, what does it look like to begin to be a couple who trusts each other and operates in that fashion, which for us really means like we're kind of on the same level? Right, we both know that we're constructively putting into the relationship. But now we have to figure out how to build that future together. It's not just one of ours to decide. We're not just kind of transactional with each other. Right, we're actually collaborative, we're working together, we're committed to kind of a new future.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so that stage, couples partners might be actually creating almost like a sexual reintegration plan together. What do we want, what are our goals, our values around this area of our relationship, and how do we begin to take steps to live into that?
Speaker 2:And from. All right, let me yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1:Well, let me stop you right there, because I can hear people going, like what are you talking about? Like what a vision for our sexual relationship? Or use the word generosity, like, like how, what does that look like? Because so many of something like whether whether porn's been a part of it or not, like we've grown up in a sexualized culture, that, like where do you see that? Where's it? So can you just give it, can you at the at the risk of derailing the conversation too much like what's an example of, like some things that couples might say, like this is what we want to be a part of our, of our sex relationship, just to give a little vision or concreteness to what people might be asking.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think part of it is is recognizing that that sex is, is something that's that that reflects our connection. It's not a need that I'm trying to get out of the relationship and so no one dies because they don't have sex there. We are still waiting for that case to come across any doctor's office and if anyone, if anyone can find that case, please send it to us. But we know that it's not a need, it's a gift, and it's a gift given that reflects who we are. And so part of building a sexual vision is thinking about well, who are we as a couple? What kind of couple are we? And that's made up of who we are individually.
Speaker 2:Like we said, that recovery phase is really about relearning to kind of find ourself. Who is it that I am? Who has God made me to be? That's when I get to think about what does it look like for me to give that into our sexual experience, like you said, because the world, the kind of sexual world that's out there, is that the sexual experience is supposed to give something to me, and so I learned to think about myself, and so for me, I'm very service oriented, right, I like to, I like to serve as one of my love languages. I like to be sacrificial, and so that plays out in our sexual experiences and the way we build our kind of life together is thinking about this is the way God has made me. How might that look?
Speaker 3:And it starts to reframe sexual narratives and expectations that maybe haven't been named. And again, hopefully some of that has started in that honesty stage, right as we're gaining awareness of our own story but thinking about our values and our goals around sexuality, a lot of us have embedded the sexual narrative of this is what sex looks like and the goal is perhaps orgasm. Maybe it's mutual orgasm, right by going. Is that really the goal? Or is it mutual connection, intimacy, experiencing satisfaction, right Like, like what is the heart of the goal? And then what does that then mean about what that sexual experience needs to look like, or what it doesn't need to look like for us to reach that goal together?
Speaker 2:And I think this is why this is really important, especially for Christians. So the kind of typical model that people understand sex, which is kind of we engage, we get excited, right, there is climax, right and so, and then the kind of act in that model of sexual engagement was created around the 50s by Masters and Johnson and it was put together by a bunch of scientists, male scientists, who brought in couples, had them, had them have intercourse in front of the scientists while they took notes right, and then they wrote, okay, this is the sexual experience, while they took notes, right, and then they wrote, okay, this is the sexual experience right and so and we know that it's not right and I think so many Christians are thinking like oh okay, I know what the sexual experience is because that's been passed down culturally to me, where that's not scriptural right, that's not biblical, and we also know it's not physical.
Speaker 2:We've learned so much more about the sexual experience but we have these kind of tropes and ideas that are stuck in our kind of psyche and we don't realize we're bringing them into the bedroom and then we don't realize that they are usually the reason that we're not connecting sexually and I think that's the key is so many couples are struggling to connect sexually, not because they're not good fits right.
Speaker 2:God has fit them together, that's what we know. But it's that these bad kind of ideas, and that's, like I said, without even pornography involved in the kind of broken sexuality that people bring in, we're still having a hard time connecting, and so so oftentimes in that plan they're making there's some sexual re-education around his healthy sexuality right and fighting what that is together, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so that's without that. We find people are doing what they did before, which is so many couples they get married and they have sex and they think that having sex will help them figure it out, which we know that's not actually the way it works, right? We need the knowledge. Then we start to engage the practice, right, and then we kind of read and then we go back and we reflect and say, hey, how is that working? And so one of the things we're having couples do in that trust stage is usually just sometimes beginning with simple touch exercises, right, they may really just begin with a touch exercise and reflecting on what did my body feel? What were the thoughts that I had? Were there any insecurities or fears that came up for me? Because those are the kind of things that will keep a couple from truly connecting, which will then kind of hamper their sexual experience really being a full part of their intimacy.
Speaker 1:Wow, so good you guys. Oh, my gosh, like, okay, I'm going to refrain from commenting because I want to hear more from you, but just even what you've shared so far, I hope listeners, if you, if you're not walking away, going like, oh, that was really really great. Like just rewind and listen to some of it again, because I, because I think it is so new for so many of us, and I think, um, uh, I mean the, the masters and Johnson stuff, and there's so much more in the forties, fifties and sixties that came out there that um, that completely neglect the, that personal in the bedroom, heartfelt connection between husband and wife, who really do deeply want to connect, um, and so what a terrible place to kind of um, I mean just like truncate the, the experience that that is actually there, there for us. Okay, so, so we've gotten to safety, um, we begin begun to um or trust.
Speaker 1:I think you should talk about trust, yeah, um, next up in your pyramid is, I noticed, vulnerability, which I think most people going like have. That sounds like you already hit that one. Like, so unpack that a little more. Like, what do you mean by vulnerability at this point?
Speaker 3:vulnerability is where you're pushing in even deeper. You're getting to those places that maybe haven't fully healed yet, and especially especially, I think, for partners who have experienced betrayal. This whole process is extremely vulnerable and so right, letting someone back into these areas where I, you know the definition of vulnerability is, I'm opening myself up to attack, right, and so it's like wait.
Speaker 3:I've been hurt, I've been attacked before.
Speaker 3:Why would I ever do that again?
Speaker 3:And so it really is a courageous step for partners to step back in Now in this level of vulnerability. They may notice their body resisting a lot because they know there's a possibility that I'm hurt and so, even physically, their body can resist, can tense up, triggers can happen, intrusive thoughts that maybe they haven't experienced for a while, because a lot of times, as safety and trust are being built, I'm starting to feel healed from some of those things. But as we vulnerably start pushing in physically, some of that can come back, and so we always tell partners Take it slow, trust your gut, and it's okay if it feels like you're going backwards at times, because that is a part of the process, and we really want to prepare couples for how to handle those intimate, vulnerable moments when they're potentially in some awkward positions together and something comes up. How do you handle that? It can feel really discouraging, and so having them know this is a normal part of the process and how you handle those moments can actually build deeper intimacy and connection when you're prepared for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it is, and we recognize there's vulnerability, but there's kind of individual vulnerability. What this stage really represents is is the couple is recognizing we've, we've, we've come to kind of a precipice. We've, we've survived. Now are we going to thrive, and to thrive we're going to have to take some risks. We're going to have to do some things that our fears are going to want to take over Potentially. I know for me my shame wanted to take over.
Speaker 2:One of the big fears that I had was that I would never be able to kind of really fully engage my sexual self again. I thought that I had been lost because of my past, because of everything that I had watched and engaged in, that there was really no future for Joanna and I where I was fully present and fully engaged and kind of fully myself and vulnerability was kind of stepping back into those kind of situations and testing the waters to see where I was in my kind of own personal recovery and journey. I'm so glad that I did, because I think I started to realize like God had really healed so much in my heart, like I felt like I could be myself without this sense of this kind of broken sexuality kind of pouring in. I know that it's there right. I know that the choices and the things that I've encountered they're a part of kind of my brain and my history and there's some habits there. But ultimately God has done such an amazing work. He's really allowed me to be fully myself. But that felt scary. There was a lot of fear that that was not going to be possible, and so we had to kind of take that slow, like I said, and that's at the same time Joanna was having some of those fears about who we were going to be right, what this was going to be like, and without that, couples really keep themselves from what I think what God wants them to have, and we get it. And so there is a huge shift when we get into vulnerability. Good news is that if you're willing to do it, if you have some usually some, some kind of helpful guides, some folks who know you know either can guide you or support. If you've got really really good support, both personally and as a couple, you can.
Speaker 2:You can get through this vulnerability process into intimacy, which is when you hear we talk about intimacy as it's the place. When you're, when your relationship is giving life, we talk about intimacy as it's the place when your relationship is giving life. We talk about intimacy as generative. It generates life, right, that generosity from before is now paying dividends. It's creating the connection and the kind of life that we get in intimate connection with other people. But it's also what we find is intimacy kind of gives life to other people. We all know what it's like to be around a person or a couple who's really thriving. They kind of are infectious. Right, you like? You're like this feels good, right, I want more of this, and so couples who can push through those hard places and invulnerability get to experience some of the joys of intimacy and invulnerability, get to experience some of the joys of intimacy.
Speaker 3:And when we describe intimacy in our book, I love the three words we use which is describing both holistic intimacy but I think it works so well, especially for that sexual connection and intimacy things you want to incorporate passion, purpose and play.
Speaker 3:And so as couples get to that place of intimacy at the top of that pyramid, even sexually, it's a place where they get to be fully uninhibited with one another. Right, the shame is gone. We've dealt with that in some of the lower levels, right, and we have a deep sense of both purpose in our sexuality together, our connection as a couple God has brought us together for a reason. Bless this connection, this relationship for a reason, for a purpose, and a part of our sexual experience is expressing that. But we also get to be playful, we get to be joyful, we get to enjoy that experience together. One of the definitions of play is that it's purposeless and so we kind of use that very intentionally around, like it's also just to be in that moment with one another without worrying about producing something or an outcome or anything like that at the same time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Wow, oh, you guys, this is so, so good. I want to hear more. Okay, so, a couple of words come to mind as you're talking. One is hope. I want to hear more. What? Um? Okay, so, um, a couple of words come to mind as you're talking. One is is um hope? I mentioned that before. You guys, the way you talk exudes such hope. There's so much more, there's so much possibility out there. Uh, and I. And the other is courage, because I think there's like I'm struck by, especially as you're talking about re?
Speaker 1:Um, in the vulnerability aspect of we've done all this work and now we are actually beginning to engage sexually with each other, and there we find there's still shame or there's. I'm being triggered and having old thoughts, and so, instead of saying like, well, we're already here, we're going to be courageous to say let's face these things together, let me face these things on my own, let me share them with you, like such courage to say we're going to hold on to hope and not just kind of, you know, stick a flag in this one moment, say it's all going to happen here, um, but we're going to, we're going to continue to do hard work together so that we can um, so we get to that place of of play um naked and unashamed wow exactly so good, okay, and I know that was my, you know, like just my quick reflection as I'm listening to you guys.
Speaker 1:Um, I would love for people to be able to find more about what you're doing. You mentioned your book. Just share, share a bit more for those who want to, who are listening, listening like me, going like well, I got to hear more, so where can they go? What would you recommend?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, the easiest place to find us is rabsmithteamcom. We're the only rabsmiths in the whole world, so we've made it very simple. Um, uh, we even have uh, we love to give away free resources because we just, we want to equip couples. We have a free resource. So if you go to Rabsmith team dot com, slash free, you can sign up for one of our free resources. It's actually just a. It's a daily check in for couples that we created to drive some of the things that you were talking about, to drive a sense of hope, to drive a sense of kind of thankfulness, and so really it's about recognizing who we are together.
Speaker 2:Just on those little spaces, because we've talked about a lot in 40 minutes and I wish the process took 40 minutes and so we recognize that a lot of this happens and continues to happen, because one of the things we realized, when we kind of felt like we got to intimacy we were like, oh crap, what do we do now? But we realized there was just more right. We went back to honesty and we continue to work our way through the process regularly, just kind of building and refining, and so that's a great way to connect with us. One thing we want to share that we're super excited about so we have always wanted to gather recovery couples, especially those who've kind of we would say they're like made it or feel like they're out of the woods and they feel like they've rebuilt something, because we think they are just like living miracles.
Speaker 2:We recognize what God did in our life to get us where we're at, and so we created an event. It's coming up this November and it's called the Renewing Us Retreat and it's that we're going to Colorado, it's going to be beautiful and it's all about gathering couples in recovery who want to celebrate, just kind of be inspired, be encouraged, but also just get away. To be inspired, be encouraged but also just get away, have fun, relax in a safe space. We went to a lot of marriage retreats that didn't necessarily understand sexual addiction and betrayal, and sometimes the content didn't feel like it necessarily spoke to us, and so we wanted to create something that was specifically for recovery couples. So that's something we'd love for folks to check out. Maybe come join us in Colorado.
Speaker 3:And if people are interested in learning more about that framework, the intimacy pyramid. Our book is on Amazon Building True Intimacy, and so that's a great place to find more information about that as well.
Speaker 1:Great, great, and we'll have links to all those in the show notes. Guys, thank you so much for what you're doing for couples. Thank you for um. Your really the the courage of, maybe even especially those first three, four years um to to face this stuff and to dig in, to be all in um. I can see from this distance at least just some of the fruit as you guys are with each other in that space and the um the freedom you seem to have with each other, and the fruit um that you're you're giving to other couples other, and the fruit um that you're you're giving to other couples too. So thank you for your your good work. So, so glad to be in this area of ministry with people like you. So God bless you.
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