transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] We often think culturally that a good marriage is one where there's no conflict. And I've worked with people that like never ever fought, but it was so brittle, so fragile, because they hadn't forged anything real. And so even though they look like the perfect marriage couple, they were falling apart internally, and they hadn't had any real conversations. Conflict can be very valuable. I mean, not hostility or contempt, but conflict, honest, like how do we work this out? Hey, everyone, I'm going to be in Boston this Thursday, April 23rd, for a conversation with Zach Davis about the soulfulness of sex. We'll be meeting in Cambridge at 6 p.m. on Thursday the 23rd, and we'd love to have you join us. I'll be talking about the integration of sexuality and how it's related to sex being more meaningful and intimate. I will also be bringing signed copies of my book. If you're in the New England area or know anyone who is and would be interested, we would love to see you there. Click the link on the show notes to learn more.

Speaker 2:
[01:09] Welcome back, Jennifer. We're so excited to have you back on the podcast.

Speaker 1:
[01:12] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[01:12] We don't take these conversations for granted. I've been thinking this week about how much I've learned from you over the last five years. I just have a really full heart. I'm so excited to get to talk about your book, and we've been waiting for this for a long time. Welcome back.

Speaker 1:
[01:27] Thank you.

Speaker 2:
[01:28] I think maybe a place where we could start is something that feels common now, because I've heard you teach this so skillfully that it's in my bones now. But I think maybe a good entry point is if you could just talk about embodiment and our theology because I think there's something there that our tradition has to offer about the integration of spirituality and sexuality. Maybe we can just frame the conversation with that point first.

Speaker 1:
[01:53] Yeah. Well, I think we understand that as a theological understanding of ours that we receive a body in this Earth life. But I think we still have culturally a very ambivalent relationship to the body because we see it linked to pleasure and sensuality. It scares us and we borrow other Christian traditions around the sense that the body is Satan's pathway to our soul and so on. And yet, I think we understand we receive a body to become more like our parents in heaven. But the way I talk about it a lot in the book is that it's actually absolutely essential to our moral and spiritual development, that the body is an instrument of perception to quote Socrates, and that it actually helps us experience and understand the spiritual. It's not antithetical to the spiritual. And so we know through the body, and we know spiritual realities through the body, and we know one another through the body. It's not just verbal linear ways of knowing, but we're actually mapping and experiencing one another through our bodies. And so it's just essential, not just to our agency and acting and choosing, which is fundamental to our growth, but actually knowing and being known, knowing what's true, feeling what's true. And so I think our tradition really allows us the possibility to really understand the spirituality of the body, the spirituality of pleasure even, the spirituality of intimate love, because they're very, very connected to our souls. I mean, I think in the book, I start with our kind of cultural division that we have sexuality on one side and spirituality on the other. And we see them as challenging one another. And in many respects, they can, of course. But the more we grow, the more we understand that there are two sides of the same coin, that one of affects the other deeply. And so, yeah, yeah, thank you.

Speaker 3:
[03:53] I'm curious, I guess, what I feel like has appeared in the Latter-day Saints, I guess, over the past five to 10 years, is that our sexuality shouldn't impede our spirituality and that they're not, they're not contradictory. But I don't think we've pushed into territory of seeing them as truly integrated. Like if you were to read an article in The Ensign or whatever, I think the territory they would cover would be like, these things don't oppose each other or whatever.

Speaker 1:
[04:17] Right, that we really value this or that it's a good part of a marriage, yes.

Speaker 3:
[04:21] Yes. But could you take us a step further and talk a little bit more about how they're truly integrated, like two sides of the same coin, as you said?

Speaker 1:
[04:28] Yeah. I was saying earlier to Aubrey, this is like some of the hardest questions I've had in an interview because they're just such like knowing where to start, but let me do my best with it. So one of the concepts I talk about a lot in the book is eros and eros love. And we think of erotic, eros being the root of erotic as porn, as like the kind of salacious kind of relationship to sexuality that we see in sort of popular culture. But the true meaning of eros love or erotic is the human souls longing for communion, for connection beyond ourselves. And it's deeply related to our spirituality. We desire to commune with God, we desire to commune with others, to connect deeply, to know and be known, even to commune with the world outside of us, to pursue a topic deeply. And it's what really enlarges our souls. It really is what helps us move out of our insular kind of narrow worlds. And so humans are kind of pulled in two directions, I think, often, and one is this longing to reach beyond ourselves, to take risks, to step out into the unknown, and to, in a sense, find a more truthful understanding of ourselves, like our souls need that growth and that connection. But then there's another pull in the human psyche, which is for order and control and to not take risks and to not be hurt. And that's kind of the ego or natural man. And so we're often in that tension. But this reaching beyond ourselves is like the antidepressant of life. It's where hope resides, it's where faith resides, it's where intimacy is, but it's risky and it's scary for us. And so a lot of us get married in the hope for that communion, but then we do it from the ego. We do our marriage from the place of safety and self-protection. And we understandably, but to our detriment, interfere with what the marriage needs most, something soulful and real, something that's really about a kind of connection that allows us to touch not just one another's souls, but the divine. And so often couples are in this, like they want something, but they don't want the risk of it. I want to be loved, but do I want to love? I want to be desired, but do I want to actually desire and choose another soul? But it's really where joy resides in a marriage, and that's really where we become a couple, is when we dare to love at that level of exposure.

Speaker 2:
[07:06] Yeah. That's what blew my mind over and over, like that very particular concept about the intimacy is being fully known, that it's choosing to be fully known. And what has revealed itself over and over are the ways that feel innocuous that I will protect myself. Just to not protect myself from anything, it's just protect being known. And in my mind, I think that the justification is that it's not useful. Like there's nothing useful here about being known. And so especially if we're in territory where I'm like processing negative emotions, if I'm mad or sad or just in a terrible mood, I want to conceal that, which is protective because it feels like there's nothing productive about about spreading it, like letting those feelings be contagious. And you have wildly disrupted that in my life in a really healthy way. So I say more about just like that choice to like, why is that actually better? Because I think my, the natural man, and that's another huge idea that what if natural man is ego and not these like sensual desires? What if it's that impulse to protect our pride? So say something about that. Like when you're in the moment and it feels like, I just don't see how this would be a good thing. I would rather conceal, like why is it better when, in the moment, it very often feels like this is gonna cause more conflict.

Speaker 1:
[08:31] Well, I would say, first of all, sometimes it is. I don't know if concealing is the right word, but self-regulating and recognizing, I'm in a, you know, I think what you're saying is your challenge is that you overprotect and some people underprotect. So some people are overboundaried and some people are underboundaried. So there's certain situations where what the way you can bless people most is to stop talking.

Speaker 2:
[08:56] There's a soundbite for social media.

Speaker 1:
[08:58] So I don't mean like the vomit bag version of intimacy by any stretch. So that is to say, there's times when you are trying to manage your own dysregulation through spilling out onto everyone else. And that's a problem. But then also there's times when we're trying to manage our dysregulation by not letting anyone know us, not saying maybe what needs to be said. And so there's an important process that I think is a part of intimate connection is that you are pushing yourself on that question. Like, am I protecting to protect how people feel about me, to protect something that's specific to my ego and my fear of losing control of something? Or am I not speaking it because it's not necessary and not valuable? And so that's an important question. But I think what you're saying, Aubrey, is that you tend to find a way to say, oh, yeah, this is the loving thing is to not say this. When in fact, it might interfere with something that actually needs for the sake of the relationship to be revealed or even for the sake of you being truer to yourself that it needs to be revealed because I work with a lot of couples where people kind of accommodate their way into a sense of disappearing in their own marriage or feeling like they aren't really known. And they've unwittingly participated in that, not really being a full partner. Often out of their fear, often out of lessons that they've learned that that's the way they should be a partner. That's the way you create pieces by erasing yourself. And so that never works. So those are the marriages that, you know, where, you know, I remember a couple coming in and he's like, I'm very, very happy. It's a very happy marriage. The only problem is she's miserable. I mean, he didn't, you know, he's just being accommodated way more than he realizes. And so it's all working for him. And thinks she just has a depression problem where in fact, it wasn't a shared marriage. It's like where he was taking up too much of the oxygen. She was more complicit in it than she even realized. But it's about re-calibrating about how can you make room for two people? To be true to themselves and each other. That's the challenge. And often people struggle in different places on that question.

Speaker 3:
[11:19] I'm wondering if that story that you just shared is a common pattern for Latter-day Saints in particular. And maybe if not, like what are like if we were to take it out of the theory and into the practical for a moment, like you see a Latter-day Saint couple walk into your office. What's going to happen 60% of the time? There must be some pattern that expresses itself over and over.

Speaker 1:
[11:36] There are. It's interesting because I kept bringing stories into the book and I was like, I feel like I keep telling the same story. I gotta come up with a different story. But these are just drawing on the couples that I've seen over and over again. So it's interesting. Things may also be changing a little bit, but I would say when I first started practicing, it did feel like kind of the same couple over and over again, which was the woman who was sort of self betraying in marriage for the sake of being a good partner and hated sex was quite unhappy in the marriage because building her intimacy with her children and her friends, he's resentful about the lack of sex. Maybe there's a porn problem, right? That was a very typical thing. And then it would get like a knot that would get tighter and tighter the more that they were, you know, he's pressuring for sex because he feels lonely, but he's not talking about it so much in terms of loneliness and feeling rejected. It's more like, you know, I have needs and what's your problem? And then she's like, oh, I got to deal with his needs again. And so she'd like have sex, but there was nothing soulful going on. And so, you know, one of the things I say in the book is like, you know, this person comes in and he wanted me to help him have more of the bad sex they were having. That was a typical presenting concern, right? And so it was, you know, I'm teaching a course right now, Sex Worth Wanting, which is like, how do you actually create what two people want that actually speaks to their souls? And this is not about frequency per se, although when it's something that you both want, you end up having much more of it. But it's like, you know, that often it's framed in frequency and accommodation as opposed to creating something that's actually about desire, that's actually about desiring and being desired, which is what couples are often yearning for. And because it's a vulnerable space, they're often doing it in this more check the box way. So there's that very typical couple. I would say there's another pattern that I've seen maybe more of more recently. Well, I probably did see this in the beginning, too, but it's like kind of the nice guy that has a lot of apology for his sexuality. He doesn't want to be like those bad men that are too hedonistic, want sex too much. So they kind of enter in from this, if I'm nice enough and I keep you happy enough and I never make you cry, then you will want to have sex with me. And so I'm just going to like, in some say, not say what I think, not say what I desire and resentfully do what you want, hoping that will earn my love ability and make you want me. And it never works. I mean, maybe it's worked somewhere and they didn't come see me, but I would say that in my experiences, often actually she, it's giving the feminine in that version too much control because the marriage is too dishonest. For marriages to stay alive and passionate, you have to be honest. We often think culturally that a good marriage is one where there's no conflict. And I've worked with people that like never ever fought, but it was so brittle, so fragile because they hadn't forged anything real. And so even though they look like the perfect marriage couple, they were falling apart internally and they hadn't had any real conversations. Conflict can be very valuable. I mean, not hostility or contempt, but conflict, honest, like how do we work this out? Because when you get married, you choose the one that's different than you, the one that represents mystery, the one that pulls the erotic in you, the one that I want to know what I don't yet know. I want to understand the mystery in this other soul. And that's amazing at first. It's just like fireworks and excitement. And this person that's so different than me is excited by who I am. And it feels amazing. But then when you move in and share a life together, it's like, what is the matter with you? Like, why are you doing life the wrong way? Let me help you out. And so often the very struggle and bliss are a part of any good marriage, as they are a part of good sex. That there is this tension of living with someone that is by design different than you, and is pulling for how to actually love and accommodate another soul. And how do I be true to me and be true to you when you make it so difficult? And that's the tension of marriage and nothing's going wrong. And if we can grow our souls into it, we find what our souls need. We need that tension for passion. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[16:07] One of the things that I've heard you talk about a lot that I see is so true is that we have this superpower of being able to track the people around us. You can tell when someone is speaking words that don't match what's actually happening. It does seem like this animal sense that we have. I think the lie that is easy to subscribe to is just that we can actually speak what we wish was true or speak what we think will help and be feeling something else and that our partner will buy it. It's been a gift to just be like, this is really about leaning into an honesty that creates the connection. Just that gift of believing that your spouse can actually track you. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[16:51] I often say this, there are no actual secrets in marriage. Now, I understand that people deceive each other all the time and they're saying things while doing other things and all that's true. But that reality is living in the marriage, even if you don't have conscious awareness of it. So you're living the truth of it, that you don't trust your spouse, that you know that there's another reality that you don't have access to or that you're afraid to acknowledge. When I'm working with couples, especially in the beginning, I would want to participate in the deception with them in the sense because I was afraid that if I name what I can track, they're gonna fall apart and I'm a marriage there but I'm supposed to keep them together. Like it would scare me too to name what they both were already feeling. And I've really learned that the way I best help a couple is to help them bring to conscious awareness what they already know and what they're already bearing. They're already bearing the truth of it. If they can get it up above the ground, then they can make choices that their soul can back up. I can't change what's true, and it's on them to deal with what's true. And so I've found that's how I most help people, is to speak what I can see that they need to deal with.

Speaker 2:
[18:02] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[18:02] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[18:03] Yeah. I've heard that happen over and over on your Room for Two podcast. And you can feel it as a listener, not in the room. You can feel how the energy of the couple even changes. Just like that moment of where truth is sort of distilled and they're both witnessing it together. There's something that feels healing just about getting there.

Speaker 1:
[18:23] Yes, exactly. Horrifying and calming at the same time. There's often that duality where people are like, oh, you know. But then there's also relief, like maybe now we can actually deal with something we've always known on some level.

Speaker 2:
[18:38] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[18:39] Let me ask. I'm curious. I'm imagining a couple walking into your office and I imagine that obviously a lot of people have some kind of struggle in their marriage and often there's a struggle in the physical relationship and the sex as well. I would imagine that a lot of people come in hoping to fix a mismatched desire and that's going to fix the relationship.

Speaker 1:
[18:59] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[19:00] I'm wondering, does that ever happen? Which way does the causal arrow point? Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[19:04] It goes both ways.

Speaker 3:
[19:05] It goes both ways?

Speaker 1:
[19:05] Yes, it does. Okay.

Speaker 3:
[19:06] I'll let you just elaborate.

Speaker 1:
[19:06] Because they're all connected. So you can use the sexual relationship as a window into the marriage. One of the things I talk about in my courses is that, we are communicating all the time, and we're communicating without words all the time. I'll say, reach over and touch your spouse just in the course or whatever. Then what happens? Who touches whom? Do they make sure it's not sexual? Do they make it sexual? Is it designed to be silly? Is it actually a communication of care and respect? What just happened? It's just like a moment to show people, you can unpack all kinds of reality out of that moment. Wow. Right? Or who initiates sex? How do you make sure it doesn't happen? It's like you start talking about headaches or that you've been had a hard day. And so then what does each person do in the face of the disappointment? Or what does each person do in the face of negotiating this? You can see tremendous amounts about how the couple regulates themselves in these moments. And so you can certainly use that to better understand how the couple deals with being a self in the marriage. Often we do it by pressuring or yielding or distancing, just keeping ourselves separate. And so when people can start seeing how they're dealing with their fear, they get better at being more intimate in the day to day of life. Like they're more honest. And this translates very readily into sex. You know, it's like, it's really kind of amazing to watch. Because when, you know, probably my most favorite, although I understand it's a privileged place to be, but my most favorite way of working with people is when we do these 10 day events. And the reason is because even though I'm don't realize I'm teaching and I'm interacting, but then you see them go and do new things together and have conversations and then they come back for some more. And then they go and they process and so on. And you watch couples getting more honest with each other and you see them having new experiences, both as kind of clearer friends and out doing new things together. And you see them start touching each other more as the time goes on, you see them like leaning on each other more like they are figuring out how to have a space where I can be true to myself and you. Because we can deal with what's true in that truth, we can learn to actually love and choose each other in a different way. And so you see a transformation unfolding because they're just growing into people that can handle more truth together. And they like each other more. And they're still different. They're still one's an introvert, one's an extrovert, one... But there's just deeper acceptance and there's deeper appreciation of the gift of the other person in their life. And it's just the most amazing thing to watch it.

Speaker 2:
[22:01] Yeah. One of the really powerful ideas that you talk about is this. It's really about self, just being honest with yourself, not even in partnership yet, but just really confronting what's genuinely true about whatever is happening for you. And you introduced this concept of validation and really challenge, you've challenged me to examine when I'm coming to the table. I mean, it's subtle and it's internal, but my express purpose is to receive validation. And so you show up in weird ways, you show up with some pressure or totally accommodating or totally disengaging. And I think I realized as soon as you put language around that, I realized I can see when I've done all of those things. And it's a gift to understand that that's because the intention there was not honesty, it was validation. It was like, I'm telling you this so that you will reaffirm what I want you to hear. And so I guess for somebody who knows that feeling, who knows that feeling being in conversation where it feels like you're arguing, but you're not, but there's the feeling of it is like, I need something from you. How do you get out of that trap, especially if what you really do want is connection. Like validation feels like a gentle word when it's just like you want support. There's like insecurity here and you want support from your spouse. So how do you do that in a way that means you can show up without like the calculus?

Speaker 1:
[23:23] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So one thing I would say is like in the book, I talk about stages of development to help us understand that validation is a perfectly normal thing to want. It's a part of our soul development to be able to look to others, to know something about who we are, to know something about what's true. We need that dependency. The problem is because validation feels good and the ego loves it, we can easily get stuck there. I think even culturally, we're good at lying to each other and calling it goodness. We really are. Sometimes I'll sit in a Sunday school class or something and I'm like, we collude in a narrative that makes us more comfortable, and we avoid uncomfortable dissent or uncomfortable truths. That's just a very human thing that's not specific to our group. We collude in, let's tell the stories we like rather than the ones that are true. To your question, Aubrey, how do you grow out of it? Well, I think it's helping people to understand how much it's costing them to keep prioritizing the pursuit of validation over the truth. It's actually costing their relationships, their trust in themselves, their map of reality, and their capacity for intimacy. Even though it's totally understandable, some people think I'm a validation hater. I personally love validation. There's nothing wrong with any good intimate marriage has plenty of validation in it. It's just honest validation. It's the order. If we go for validation, you're going to get less of it. If you make validation your God, you're going to get less honest validation. But when you prioritize integrity, honesty, doing what's loving, doing what's fair, validation comes, but it's based in what's real and true. And so it actually can connect to your soul. Because those of us who are trying to always look like the right part is like the Instagram thing. You might get tons of validation, but if it's not based on what's real, it doesn't actually have a landing place. And so it actually entraps you more than it actually makes you feel good.

Speaker 2:
[25:38] What does that kind of inner work look like? Is this just a matter of mining your own mind to figure out what's true? Is this a journaling issue? How do you get to it alone?

Speaker 1:
[25:47] I think self-awareness is really key. So in the Art of Desire course, I'm often helping women who have learned to think of sort of self-denial or suppressing what they think and desire and feel as Christ-like. And I'm challenging, is it actually virtuous? Is it actually building better relationships? Is it actually making your children stronger? Is it making your marriage better? Because oftentimes it's like, well, I don't want to be the mean one, so I'm not going to do that thing. And a lot of times we hear it as you're either selfless or selfish. Which one do you want to be? And it's like, okay, well, of those options, I guess I better be selfless. But you know, but that's not the only option, right? That's a more immature way of thinking about our relationship to desire and what's true. So helping people actually understand, you know, one of my mentors was Dr. David Schnarch. And I remember when I was first working with him, I would go and do these where you bring a couple that you're working with, you don't bring the actual couple, you talk about the case. And he would say, well, what do you think this couple needs? And I would say, I think that this person needs this. He needs to understand this and she needs to understand that. And he's like, okay, good, let's do it. And then I would, I would, you know, I'm just role playing. I had it like two people that were pretending to be that couple. And I would completely shrink. I would not say to the guy what I needed to say.

Speaker 2:
[27:04] Really?

Speaker 1:
[27:05] Yeah. And he was like, what just happened? And I was like, I don't know. He's like, okay, let's try it again. So then I'd be like, let's talk to the female, you know? Like, and he was like, he's like, three times you have caved. And I'm like, I know, because I'm, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of the invalidation. I'm also culturally had learned that you defer to men.

Speaker 3:
[27:25] As the therapist in this situation, you needed validation, you're saying, from your clients?

Speaker 1:
[27:29] Well, and I didn't want the anger that I thought was going to come towards me and often did come towards me when I spoke what I was getting lots of pressure not to speak, right? You know, some people come in and be like, you're just so great. I think you're so great and everything. They're like, they're priming me to be like, okay. He's not going to think I'm great in a few minutes. And so, but that was really helpful for me because he's like, you have a job to do. They're coming here because they need help. They're coming wanting to have an intimate marriage and they're hiring you and you have a job to help them do what they need to do. And I said, that's not, you know, this is like this is because I've learned to be a good Mormon. You know, he knew something about my culture and he's like, that he's like, how about being a Mormon that's good? You know, like go and do your job, do what they need. And it was just helpful reframing for me that I had to kind of let go of this idea that niceness is goodness. Yes. And that truth and love go together. And that if I'm going to help them, I need to help them see what they're avoiding and I can't participate with them in it.

Speaker 3:
[28:34] Yeah. Wow. And this is a total tangent. My only worry, I agree with you completely. My only worry is when I hear something like that, I feel like potentially it's giving me license to take my opinions and just like assume they're the truth and then go impose them.

Speaker 1:
[28:48] I am here to speak the truth.

Speaker 3:
[28:49] Right. Yeah, exactly. So how do you like balance questioning your own sort of like epistemology? Like, do I really know?

Speaker 1:
[28:57] It is a balance. It is a balance. And, you know, I feel like very often the very, everybody hears the wrong message. Like, so one of the things I'm always talking to people about is that you have to self-confront. You have to really look at yourself first. You've got to get the beam out of your own eye before you start going to help somebody with their moat, because a lot of times we're like, let me help you out. I'm just speaking the truth here. Oftentimes, the people that actually where their real struggle is they tend to over-edit, they tend to over-self-doubt. They're the ones that need to not hear that message. It's the ones that tend to comfortably just say whatever they think, they need to start thinking about the beam in their own eye. It's hard to get the message to the right person.

Speaker 3:
[29:39] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[29:40] Yeah, but you need to think about, where am I most vulnerable? Because when we're doing what's actually pressuring growth in the marriage and in ourselves, we are out of our depth. We are uncomfortable. If there's any part of us that feels a tiny bit of glee when we say the truth, we're on the wrong muscle.

Speaker 2:
[29:58] Well, such a word, glee.

Speaker 1:
[30:02] It needs to make you at least as uncomfortable as making your partner. And then that means you're talking, maybe you are revealing truth as the one, but you're talking more about it in a way that's like, I know how much I like to punish you. I know how much I like to feel superior to you. And I can see why that has made you not want to be open to me. Okay, that's truthful. But it's truthful in a way that's different than the person who tends to go one up and likes to have the last word or whatever. So you want to make sure it's a new muscle.

Speaker 2:
[30:34] So yeah, it seems like your defensiveness really relaxes too. When validation isn't the intent. So even if you're expressing with confidence what you feel like is really true, when you don't need that to be reflected back just the way you feel it, then it does feel like there's not a defensiveness to protect. You don't have to protect it anymore. And so it's easier to have a flowing conversation.

Speaker 1:
[30:57] Yes, it's so true. And you see this happen in couples. When they prioritize what's true over another person's approval, and they're truly committed to what's true, and they're committed to taking responsibility for themselves, the ability to solve something, resolve something like goes way, way up. When we have two egos fighting it out, I mean, you don't get anywhere. And so it's really the conversation opens up in a new way because you're willing to understand what your spouse knows about you that you've been fending off because you know that you need to deal with that. If not only the marriage is going to be whole, but if you're going to be whole. And it's not about conceding to your spouse. It's about conceding to what's true.

Speaker 2:
[31:39] Oh, that's a great way to put it.

Speaker 3:
[31:41] So if someone's listening to this and sort of recognizing that pattern that you're describing in themselves and their intimate relationship where I think that was really visceral, like it's like two egos battling it out, you know. If someone hears that and is like, oh, wow, that's me. That's me and my partner. What's step one typically? It's so difficult to like change these patterns, you know, that can be like in such deep ruts. Obviously, you know, going to a therapist counselor could be really helpful. But if somebody's like, I just want to like, what's a tweak I can make so that the next time we're in a conversation, we show up a little bit differently.

Speaker 2:
[32:13] Does it take two?

Speaker 1:
[32:15] It does take two, but even if you want your own soul to get more anchored in the truth, you can do this unilaterally. So to have a good marriage, it takes two. But to be somebody who's less validation dependent and is more solid, it takes one. And that often drives growth in a marriage. But you know, what I would say is the next time you're in that same fight that you've had a million times, start by telling your spouse where they're right about you. Tell them what is actually true that you've been trying to avoid through your arguments. Usually we take where our spouse is wrong to avoid dealing with where they're right.

Speaker 2:
[32:47] Oh, wow. So true.

Speaker 3:
[32:50] Wow. It seems like the ego could come into play there really easily. Oh, yeah. Now I'm going to be the martyr.

Speaker 2:
[32:56] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[32:57] Everything is wrong with me. Yeah. I'm going to elevate myself because I'm the one doing the internal work here.

Speaker 1:
[33:02] Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And so we find lots of ways to avoid self-confronting, to avoid acknowledging where our spouse is, right? And I think Joseph Grany talked about this in a really amazing way on the podcast. You want to get that pool of information to be rich. And so when you're a collaborative couple, it's not that you're denying your perspective, your perspective matters, but your understanding, I've only got part of it. And so the more we can increase our IQ as a couple, that's going to mean that ego's got to take the backseat. And I'm going to have enough faith, this is erotic energy, actually, this is where Eros is, enough faith in what is true and what is good to sacrifice my ego demands for what is actually going to save me, what's actually going to make us more solid and prioritize it. And so if we can push ourselves to value what's true, we become way better listeners. I mean, you think about our trouble with listening. It's not about the difficulty of being quiet, per se. That's actually quite easy to not say anything. It's that we don't want to take in perspectives, information that invalidates our current view. And so we actually make ourselves dumb because we hate invalidation so much. But if we can understand, I don't have to accept anything that my soul doesn't understand is true. So it's not like they're going to win. I'm just willing to actually borrow their perspective on me, on our marriage, on our child, whatever is going on, right? To use it to actually become wiser, to actually become smarter about how we function as a family, how we function as a couple, how we could create a better sexual relationship. I remember talking to somebody once and he was so frustrated. He's like, my wife doesn't like this, but she doesn't like this, and she's just broken. Can you fix it? I asked him something like, what's your understanding of why she doesn't like sex? He's like, I don't know. I said, have you ever asked her what it's like for her to be sexual with you? No, definitely not. The reason, and it's an understandable response, is that it's so scary to find out. We'd rather be in the idea of what's your problem, then tell me about what your problem is with it, and how am I implicated in it. That's scary. We love validation much more than intimacy. We say we want intimacy, but intimacy is terrifying and humbling.

Speaker 2:
[35:36] Yeah, I love that image of just sharing, how does he put it, expanding the pool of meaning. You're just contributing to this pool of shared pool. Yeah. Yeah, and that's a good image for me, because it's not about making a decision. It's not about being right or wrong. It's just like, I'm just going to throw one more thing into the pool, and we're increasing the intelligence of our relationship. That feels like such a disarming way to think about conflict. This is just a true thing I'm going to put into the pool.

Speaker 1:
[36:06] That's right. When it's there, then you've increased the IQ of the couple, and now they can solve their problems in a different level of intelligence. It's so much to our benefit, because it's there that we can collaborate, it's there that we can create something that builds a bridge across two different experiences, two different dispositions.

Speaker 3:
[36:26] I'm curious about, well, you mentioned this in the Nice Guy pattern.

Speaker 1:
[36:30] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[36:31] The act of crying. I think this is an interesting one. It's something I think about, sometimes at least. If a partner in the relationship in a moment of either conflict or like deeply intimate, difficult conversation begins to cry, does that mean that you are going down a path that you should not be going down, that you've steered or like I do, I do resonate a little bit with what you're saying, like trying to avoid saying something that would cause your partner to cry, to express in such a clear way that there's pain.

Speaker 1:
[37:08] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[37:08] You know, and I, you know, this so again, this resonates for me. Like I don't want to be causing pain.

Speaker 1:
[37:12] Sure.

Speaker 3:
[37:14] I think in some ways, that limits the actual intimacy of the conversation.

Speaker 1:
[37:20] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[37:20] In some ways, because we're trying to, we're trying to avoid this really difficult.

Speaker 1:
[37:22] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[37:22] It's really difficult thing.

Speaker 1:
[37:24] Just talk about that. Yeah, exactly. So I would say that pain is a part of growth, which is different than doing damage or wanting to hurt. So I think it's easy for us as humans to deny our desire to hurt each other or to make someone else feel bad, especially if we're feeling bad. It's very easy to lose track of the punitive part of us or the part of us is like is going to say the truth because it needs to be said, but actually there's an indulgence in it. Right. So there's certainly that. And if somebody cries, it's not only just because of the truth, but it's because you're mapping a spouse that is taking some pleasure in being hurtful. Okay. So there's like a double pain in that, right? And it's not productive. Well, I should say like, it's not just the pain of hearing and not recognizing something that is difficult. It's the pain of seeing my spouse actually will do something to hurt me. Right. So that can hurt. Okay. That's still important data. Okay. It's really important data for the person even receiving it to understand that my spouse can do this, will do this or okay. But then let's say that it's not out of the desire to hurt. Okay. It's just, this is true. I feel this, this is high and you've in my strengthening your relationship course. I really push people before you open your mouth, before you go have that difficult conversation, go and really get clear within yourself. You want to make sure it's not coming out of your indulgent, self-righteous mind, that it's really coming out of the desire to create something better. Because when that desire is there, you can feel it. It even makes it scarier when your spouse starts to open their mouth because you know that they're being real with you. And so there's more gravity in what's being said. So you may have to say things that hurt because they're invalidating, but they're necessary. You know, Christ said plenty of things that hurt to hear, but he wasn't trying to hurt people. He was trying to actually give them life, helping them see things that they needed to deal with. And that's a very different thing. Yeah, it's actually respects the dignity of the other person. When you're speaking honestly, it respects the dignity of the marriage when it's coming from the right place.

Speaker 3:
[39:55] Yeah. It doesn't always seem like crying is a response to painful words or painful truths necessarily. It's like sometimes just the intimacy of going somewhere causes it. And I think that in some cases, what I've seen is I avoid the deepest levels of intimacy because I'm just afraid.

Speaker 1:
[40:12] Yes, exactly. That's the thing is humans are just afraid of intimacy no matter what walk of life, we find ways to collude in avoiding it. We do, it's scary, it's hard, it pushes our souls. We like to pretend things to just manage our fears. So yes, I mean, first of all, it's part of our LDS tradition to cry. So let's just. I cry a lot. I cry when I'm teaching, I cry when I talk about things that matter. Yes, oftentimes when couples are dealing with hard, real things, there will be tears. I think that it just speaks to the level of meaning there often. Yes, I think it's a fair question. Am I doing something that's harmful, or am I just talking about real things that are hard to deal with? But we are here for it. We're here to deal with it. We can hold on to the fact that we love each other, that we value our marriage, that we want something better here, and emotion is going to be here, 100 percent.

Speaker 3:
[41:16] Thank you.

Speaker 2:
[41:16] I'm glad we're going here because I think one of the most complicated things that this was like, there's a lot of tension in this one particular space around, around shared intimacy, and that's this idea that some portion of every conflict is just about taking responsibility. Maybe it's always you 100 percent taking responsibility for you. But I still feel like it feels like there's a lot of tension around making a request versus trying to get validation or just like being the self-cleaning oven that's just gonna handle your feelings without ever having to talk about it. It feels to me like there's a lot of nuance there. So when this is about a conflict between partners, like where it feels like to one person, the solution is somebody doing something different. How do you talk to couples about making a request versus depending on the request for your regulation?

Speaker 1:
[42:08] Yeah, exactly. You know, we all love agency when it comes to ourselves, but I wasn't as big on it when it came to my kids or my spouse, you know, when they really have a choice to make. In the vulnerability of love and desire, it's so hard that our spouse actually has choices and dealing with who we're going to be when their choices can hurt, and their choices can be indulgent, and to still not let that pain give us license to not sort out who we're going to be in the face of our difficult choices. Talking intimately with somebody, with a spouse, and by intimately, I mean knowing and being known, revealing your mind, revealing your heart, revealing your desires is very different than going over the line, and then like, you need to do this so I can be happy. That's a different goal. It's rather than increasing the pool of information, and what I really liked in Joseph Grinney's podcast with you is he was saying, you just increase that, but you don't hammer out a solution. You don't have to come up with, here's how we're going to do it. As you increase the pool of information, this is where you see people's agency kick in. I see my spouse at a different level. I understand him or her in a different way, and now my agency is actually increased and I actually am going to choose something that actually works for my soul and makes room for who they are. That's where people forge a marriage. They create something that's specific to the two of them. There's a creative element in it. There's agency is deeply within it. It's not about trying to get the response out of the other person that your ego needs.

Speaker 2:
[43:54] Yeah. Okay. That totally makes sense.

Speaker 3:
[43:57] When a couple comes into your office, do you see your goal as to help them strengthen and retain their relationship?

Speaker 1:
[44:06] No. Okay. I mean, my ego likes that goal.

Speaker 3:
[44:09] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Because I'm wondering, is there a situation in which you see two people who end up in a really healthy place and not together?

Speaker 1:
[44:20] I don't know if I've seen two people in a really healthy place and not together. I have seen one person get healthier and the marriage end.

Speaker 3:
[44:27] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[44:29] Because they could no longer stay complicit in the marriage as it was. Like one refuses to grow or self-confront, wants to stay in a dependent position, wants the other person to accommodate the worst in them, and they really have no interest in real change or self-confrontation. Maybe they're coming to see me as proof that they're trying, but they're not actually dealing with themselves and changing, growing into a more solid self. And of course, everybody gets to make their choices, and I'm not even here to judge it. Some people maybe are not able to change in the way that the marriage would need. But I have seen people who have made a decision then at that point to let the marriage go. But my goal, when I'm thinking straight anyway, is to help people see truthfully, and because then they can make choices that their souls can back up. And so usually when you have two people who want to do that, you just are able to make a marriage, because you're bringing the best in yourself to the other. And there was a reason you came together in the first place. Usually when it's difficult is when only one is really willing to do that, and the other just won't pick up their half, then you're in a tough spot for what is the most right thing to do.

Speaker 2:
[45:49] You talk about, we've spent all these years on the podcast talking about faith development and adult development and just this idea that we grow. We grow throughout, we mature in different ways throughout our life. And you teach about sexual development, not in the way that you learned health, but just like this idea that like your relationship and the way you're integrating your sexuality is going to mature and evolve throughout your life. So maybe give us like a snapshot of what that looks like. Could you just paint the picture of what a self-authoring stage could look like in a relationship?

Speaker 1:
[46:22] Yeah. There's a lot of theories of moral development and faith development and ego development out there. And I condensed it to three and borrowed pretty heavily from Robert Keegan's work. So in stage one, sexuality and spirituality are in different realms. You're either good and compliant or you're indulgent and non-compliant. You obey and doing what authority figures want you to do, or you're doing something you shouldn't do. And that's kind of how we see when we're in the stage one mind. And just to be clear, we all can just have somebody cut you off in traffic and you're in stage one.

Speaker 2:
[47:02] So lest we think that.

Speaker 1:
[47:05] Yes, yes, nobody is just hanging out in stage three.

Speaker 3:
[47:08] Okay, so just to be clear.

Speaker 1:
[47:09] A lot of people think they are, but I'm like, no, that's like a stage one response. But anyway, so when we're in that, we have an external sense of authority, we're more fear driven, safety is a primary goal. So then we may even fully repress sexuality in that stage, or we may go between repression and indulgence. Okay. And you may grow in other aspects of your life. I think we can get more stuck in our sexual development because we have more fear around it. So I think some people may be in stage three in some domains of their life, but more in one and two in their sexuality. When we grow into stage two, it's the social stage and just quickly, it's like you learn how to internalize the law of chastity. You learn how to self-inhibit. So the stage one is kind of indulgence, stage two is inhibition. You learn to how to have breaks and you learn to be responsible. And it's a very important stage. The church is very, very good at helping us learn to be social creatures, learning how to have a role, have a job, understand that how we behave will affect other people. So it's very important development. It is based in validation though. I mean, necessarily it is. So that is my sense of self in stage one resides entirely in other people. It still does in stage two. So my sense of self in stage two is walking around on everybody else. So I need them to feel good about me for me to feel good about me. And so you're learning the rules of your society. You're learning to obey the things that you're being taught are important because you want to demonstrate to your group that you are, you are a functioning member of it and that you deserve praise and acknowledgement. That's all very important. Okay. That's how we get the motivation to internalize these rules. The problem, of course, is that, but so we can grow into a self authoring stage. We can move out of the letter of the law to the spirit of the law into stage three at about age 18. That's cognitively when it becomes a possibility. But most adults hang out in stage two because it feels so good. Okay. Because we love validation. We like feeling like we belong. We like the laziness in some ways of thinking like our group thinks. And it feels like it's our own thoughts, but we don't realize how much we're doing what can be validated within our people and find equilibrium there. The self-authoring stage is where you take what you learned in stages one and two to build a deeper inner compass. You've internalized these principles of good and evil, right and wrong. What is it managing the impulses of your sexuality? And you're more in a position where you can really be the self-author. You've learned those rules well so that you're now in a place where you are more capable of creativity and authenticity and understanding what the spirit of the law actually is and how it would shape your choices in your marriage and in your family. So it's a very, very important spiritual development. It shapes. So in the social stage, as long as you're obeying the rules, you can have a sense of the goodness of sexuality and it can feel that it's not in contradiction with your spirituality. It's a little bit the way, Tim, you were talking about that we talk about it, that sex is a good thing, it's a good part of marriage. Stage three is more where you really are more freed up to know another soul, because you've grown out of the dependency on validation. It doesn't mean that we can't regress and that we don't still like it and all that, but that we're freed up to value, to really know who is this person I'm sharing a life with? How are they different than me? Why do they value this or not value it? Why do they want sex or not want it? Who are they? And the more we can regulate our sense of self within ourselves, the paradox is the more we can truly love and value and do the best for another. And because we no longer are relying on them to manage us. And so the sex is more intimate and it feels more connected because you're able to meet soul to soul. There's a kind of sanctification of these moments that are so bonding and transcendent even. And it's not because they're mind blowing experiences per se, but there's this sense of depth of connection, of something real and honest and meaningful that's happening in that body to body, soul to soul connection. And you're freed up to do it and to create it when you don't depend so much on your ego being reinforced through the relationship. Most of us get married from a kind of stage two position, like I have a role, you have a role, you're going to make me feel good as long and I'll make you feel good. And if we keep that going, we're going to be happy. But then reality starts to challenge it. And it's like, wait, why aren't you making me feel good in the way you used to make me feel good and why aren't you doing what makes me happy? And so that inherent challenge in marriage can pressure us to grow into people capable of really knowing and loving and choosing another person in all their differences. And that's when you really become a couple. But it's not the comfortable process we want to believe it is if we're just reading our scriptures or something. There's something much more soulful at stake.

Speaker 2:
[52:26] Yeah. Which I think is inspiring. That feels like such a hopeful goal that the hard part, like the conflicts or the discomfort, that that's part of this process just like every other type of growth. It's not indicative necessarily of a problem or of backsliding or something that needs to be afraid of. It's like this is it. The tension is always growing.

Speaker 1:
[52:47] This is what we're... I remember in the first year of marriage, my husband and I were struggling around things and I was like, well, something's obviously wrong with us. Everybody else has got it worked out. Like nobody will ever know about this. Like we're broken. And it's just like, you know, it just be very helpful to be like, no, like 100% normal and important that you're in that struggle. And if you can value it as important to forging a marriage, then you don't pathologize it. And so, you know, I think that's a very important message to give our kids or newlyweds, you know, that there's something more important at stake and you're working out a life together. And if you can stay open to one another, you know, the one thing I say to my kids is like, the most important thing in finding a marriage partner is you find someone who's that you need to do this, of course, and to find someone who's willing to self-confront and is willing to deal with what's true even if it hurts. Because otherwise the marriage doesn't have a growth mechanism and the marriage will get stuck if you don't have two people willing to go through that process.

Speaker 2:
[53:53] Yeah. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. This is just, I mean, this is the tip of the iceberg. The book feels so important and it just feels like you are genuinely helping mature our entire community and it's such a deeply personal thing, but also it feels like there's a broader work being done and it just feels like you are just exactly in the right place in the right time and you're doing something really important. We really just feel so grateful for you and so excited finally that people will get to read this book and learn more.

Speaker 1:
[54:23] Thank you so much.

Speaker 2:
[54:24] Thanks Jennifer. Thank you so much for listening.

Speaker 1:
[54:28] If you enjoyed today's episode, we ask that you please rate, review, and share the podcast so that more people can find and benefit from Dr. Jennifer's work.