Part 1-2 | How Desiring to Understand My Husband’s Struggle Led to Healthy Dialogue and Healing and Discovering My Own Sexuality
Leanne is a wife of 31 years. She has 2 children who are both married. She is the grandmother of one. She is a retired preschool teacher of 17 years. She is enjoying her season of time with her husband as an empty nester.
**Note from Leanne, please read prior to listening: I think there might be some confusion in our story for some people. Some people I think believe that we started to view pornography together as a couple. That is not what happened at all. That day that I sat down with him and opened my heart to understand what was driving him to look was the last day that he viewed it. So I just want to clarify that.
When my husband and I started the journey of turning towards each other in all of the aspects of our lives and began to create a truly intimate marriage, the “need” for my husband to turn to porn left him. And my “need” to constantly check up on him left me. And I was healed from being stuck in betrayal trauma. The connection that we made in turning towards one another to proactively create what we really wanted for our marriage was the answer to porn not being an issue for either of us from that point forward. Turning towards each other healed both of us.**
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00:02 Voice Over: Welcome to Improving Intimacy, a podcast to help single and married Latter-Day Saints strengthen their family connections and marriages. Daniel A. Burgess is the host of Improving Intimacy. Daniel's a marriage and family therapist, father, husband, and author. Here's Daniel in this episode of Improving Intimacy.
00:21 Daniel A Burgess: Welcome to another episode of Improving Intimacy. Today we have Leanne on the line. I'm excited to talk with her. I came across her in our Improving Intimacy group on Facebook and I was excited to read the things that she had presented and I would love to explore that with her today. But before we get going, Leanne, tell us a little about yourself.
00:40 Leanne: Okay. First off, thanks for having me on your show. I've been married for 31 years. I have two daughters who are both married. I am a recent grandma of about a year, and I am an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and I serve in my Stake Relief Society presidency, so that's been a fun calling for me, for about the past year. And I'm a retired pre-school teacher, had my own preschool business for 17 years and retired about two years ago.
01:12 DB: Oh my goodness. What's it like being in retirement now?
01:15 Leanne: It's nice. I like it. [chuckle]
01:17 DB: Do you get to do whatever you want?
01:19 Leanne: Yep. [chuckle]
01:20 DB: Good, good.
01:22 Leanne: Yep.
01:22 DB: Well, one of the reasons why I'm having you on is you're an example of what I was hoping would happen in the Improving Intimacy Facebook group. You're coming in, you're sharing your personal journey, your vulnerableness, you're sharing the difficulties that you went through in your relationship, and you're doing it in a way that's, at least to me, it seems like it's improving yourself and other people are listening. And the posts that you've made over the last few months that you've been in the group have meant a lot to me as you're one of these individuals who clearly have been through a lot in your marriage, in your life, and you're presenting this information from a self-reflective perspective. I think a lot of us get in this habit of, "What do we wish our spouse would do?"
02:09 DB: And one of the things I found really valuable from you was, "Here was my journey from my perspective, and what I did to address these difficult topics." And I would love to explore that a little bit more with you. Do you mind telling us all what your journey was like? Where were you 10-15 years ago in your relationship, what did it look like, and what brought you to this point? I know that's a big question, but what do you feel is important for us to know about that journey?
02:37 Leanne: Okay. So I'm gonna go back a little bit further in 10 or 15 years ago just so that people can get an understanding of me. I had a really traumatic childhood and teenage years. And as a child and as a teenager, I was very, very timid, pretty much afraid of my own shadow type of child; was very, very timid. But there was a lot of trauma that happened in my childhood. And so, when I came out of that and became an adult, I came away from that with the determination that I was never gonna allow anyone to ever hurt me again. As a child and as a teenager, I felt like I didn't have a lot of control over the things that happened in my life. And as an adult, I felt like I was gonna take control of what happened in my life. And so, I became, in my marriage, very early on, extremely defensive. I kind of came into it with my claws out as a way to protect myself.
03:43 Leanne: And so, early on in our marriage, whenever I felt like I got my feelings hurt or whatever, I immediately would lash out, sometimes very brutally. And just not lash out physically but lash out with my words, and my anger, and it all stemmed from a place of protection. I really was trying to protect myself. And there was one incident... So now, we'll fast-forward several years into my marriage, probably 15 years into my marriage, just to kind of explain this. I asked my husband if he would help me make dinner. And he came in, and I asked if he would drain the spaghetti noodles, and so he did. And I do it with a strainer, and he did it by putting a lid on the pot and draining it that way, and I completely freaked out. And I said, "That is not the way we drain spaghetti noodles, that's not even right." And I like completely, completely freaked out. And so he just quietly set the pot down and left the kitchen.
04:51 Leanne: And as I watched him walk away, I was like, "What in the world am I doing? It's spaghetti. Who cares? It doesn't matter. There's not a right or a wrong way to drain spaghetti." And it was in that moment that I realized I needed help. I had become so controlling in our marriage that even to the point that I controlled how he was gonna drain spaghetti noodles, and I realized in that moment how ridiculous that was.
05:24 DB: So you had childhood trauma, and that was brought into your relationship as trauma does, but the insight that you're having, I'm curious about that. Because usually, couples or individuals who struggle with this type of lashing out, may be vaguely aware of it, but not... It sounds like you had, was it maybe an epiphany or were you aware that this was a problem before the spaghetti noodle incident or was that kind of the moment of discovery for you? What was your insight like with your struggles?
05:58 Leanne: I definitely realized it over time, and I think I just gave myself the excuse of, "I was protecting myself." But in that moment with the spaghetti noodles, I think that's what made me realize, because honestly, spaghetti noodles is so insignificant. But because I made such a big deal out of it, I realized just how serious my issues were, because I wouldn't freak out so much if it weren't serious over such a small thing and I realized that in that moment. And so, that's when I started to go to counseling. And when I went to counseling, that's where I learned that I had anxiety. I didn't realize that I had anxiety before, like a true anxiety disorder. I had episodes where I would have panic attacks before and I got help for the panic attacks, but I didn't realize up until that point that I truly had an anxiety disorder.
07:00 Leanne: And so, the therapist explained to me that with anxiety, in order to keep myself safe and level, I was very controlling. Because with the anxiety, I tried to put everything into a box because if I could control everything and keep it in a box, then I felt safe. And so, she explained to me that that's what I was doing, that's why I was controlling; trying to control my husband, trying to control my kids, is so that I could keep my world safe and to feel like my world could stay sane.
07:34 DB: Was that a scary realization for you or was it one of those discoveries like, "Oh, this makes sense. Now, I know what to do going forward."?
07:43 Leanne: It made sense. It made a lot of sense to me. But still, after explaining that to me and after truly learning that I had an anxiety disorder, I still continued to control, somewhat. I mean, I tried to get better, but I still also controlled.
08:03 DB: Oh, of course.
08:03 Leanne: And this time, though, I gave myself a different excuse. I gave the excuse of, "I have a mental disorder, and so I'm still okay." I still justify it, I can't help it. It's my anxiety. I can't help that I'm controlling. It's to soothe my anxiety.
08:23 DB: So whereas, before, it was you were controlling things without really an understanding of your anxiety. But now, it was comforting to know what was happening and it made sense, but you're now blaming or excusing it, because of that.
08:38 Leanne: Yeah. Yeah. And then one night, there was an incident that happened between my husband and I, and this incident, I don't wanna go into detail with. Some of the other ones, I will later on, but there was an incident that happened one evening that really shook both of us to the core. And when it happened, all of a sudden, I looked at him and realized how deeply I truly did love him, and the thought that came into my mind very strongly was, "He is not the enemy." And in that moment, I realized that because of all the hurt and the trauma that happened as a child, I was trying to protect myself from him even. And I realized in that moment, he was not the one that hurt me. He was not the one that did all that damage to me as a child and as a teenager. He was not the enemy, and in that moment, I realized that I didn't wanna treat him like that ever again. I don't want to ever feel like I needed to protect myself from him. And so, that was a huge moment in our marriage, and it shook him, too.
10:04 DB: How much was your husband a part of this journey and discovery of yours? You went to the therapist. Was this an individual...
10:12 Leanne: Yes, it was individual.
10:14 DB: And not a couples? And were you sharing with him or was he just seeing these changes? Was this a discovery process with him also?
10:21 Leanne: I definitely shared with him. Everything I was learning in counseling, I would share with him. And so he was definitely kept aware of everything I was going through and he knew all about my childhood, like he knew everything that happened with me. We've always talked and communicated, but in that moment, I felt like it was a moment that we could either allow a wall, a really big wall, to be built between us. And it could be the beginning of us really turning away from each other and kind of ending our marriage or it was a situation where it kinda was staring us in the face, like, "What do you wanna do? You have a decision to make." And we chose to turn towards each other.
11:08 Leanne: So we really started, at that point, moving forward, like really trying to be better communicators and try to be softer with each other and be kinder. And I was able to learn from that point forward. When I felt the urge to control, I felt my anxiety well up, I felt that urge to control, I was then self-aware enough. That situation really caused me to be self-aware. And from that moment forward, I was able to stop myself when I felt the anxiety well up, when I felt the need to control, I could stop myself and say, "No. What is more important in this moment? This thing that you're starting to want to control or Wayne? What is the more important thing to you in this moment?" And every time, I was able to pick my husband. And so, I could calm myself down and be like, "This does not matter." And I was able either to approach it more calmly or drop it all together 'cause it really wasn't important.
12:19 DB: I'm sure there's listeners thinking, "That's a great discovery. How did you do that?" It's one thing to have the insight and another to apply that knowledge. Was there any type of methods that you used to not only be aware of what's happening with your anxiety, but to control your controlling behavior? Was there any kind of meditation or thought exercise? You did mention, "Which one's more important?" Did that alone help reduce the anxiety or was there additional steps?
12:52 Leanne: I feel like, for me, that helped because I'm very much a self-aware person. And even in the years of lashing out, I knew what I was doing. I just gave myself the excuse to do it anyway.
13:09 DB: You're finding reasons to justify it.
13:12 Leanne: Mm-hmm.
13:13 DB: You're asking yourself, "Which one's more important?" now, so you're putting the responsibility on yourself to choose a new path. That's powerful.
13:22 Leanne: Yup, and it is powerful. It is powerful to take control because really, you are the only one that has control of you. And it's powerful when you realize that and really apply that in your life, like really powerful things can happen for you when you realize you have the control and stop justifying.
13:47 DB: Is there an example that you feel comfortable in sharing and how this played out with you and your husband? Maybe something very difficult that you two had to address.
13:55 Leanne: Yes. So this is where I kinda wanted to switch gears anyway, so I was... I'm glad you asked that. So the other hard thing that we faced in our marriage, my mental health, but then, and my childhood trauma. But the other thing we faced was I had a huge struggle with physical intimacy in my marriage. Because of some things that happened during my childhood years, and my teenage years, and then also just growing up in the church and learning about intimacy and having young women lessons about the chewed piece of gum and things, I came into a marriage really suffering hard with the good girl syndrome. I really had a hard time with intimacy.
14:42 Leanne: I felt very naughty soon after we were married. I felt like it was dirty and icky, and I just really didn't want any part of it. And so, six months into our marriage, I shut it all down, and I would not allow any physical intimacy for the next six months. So here's this newly-wed couple thinking they were excited to be married and excited to be... Have a physical relationship, and then I discover I hated it, and I shut it down six months in, and that was devastating to my husband. That was really hard for him to go through. And then over the course of time, we picked back up. We were physically having sex again, but I still struggled for years and years and years, I struggled. It took me 10 years to learn... To finally have an orgasm. But even after learning that, how to finally be able to do that, I still did not enjoy physical intimacy at all.
15:35 DB: It wasn't just feeling guilty, you didn't get pleasure from intimacy.
15:39 Leanne: No, no. And even though, that was so hard for my husband to understand 'cause even after I learned how to have an orgasm, he was so confused because I still hated sex so much. And he's like, "I don't understand how you can hate it so much when you can orgasm. To me, you're receiving physical pleasure, like you're having an orgasm. Why don't you like it? Why don't you enjoy it?" And it's because in my mind, I still felt like it was just dirty, and naughty, and basically, it was duty sex. But yeah, even in the duty sex, it's like, "Okay, I'll have duty sex with you, but I'm still not gonna walk away with it with at least having an organ." I at least want some physical pleasure from it if I'm gonna do it, but I still was not connected at all. Any time we would try anything new, I felt extreme guilt. I felt dirty, I felt if I enjoyed it at all, I was like a prostitute.
16:37 DB: Was this guilt driving you to confess to the bishop or was this something you were privately, and/or maybe with your husband suffering from?
16:46 Leanne: Just private. Just my husband and I. When we would be having sex, I would constantly be telling him to hurry. "Hurry, you're enjoying it too much." I would say that to him, "You're enjoying it too much, hurry." And it was so hurtful to him because he didn't wanna just to have sex with my body. He wanted to connect and I just couldn't get there. And so, a couple years into our marriage, I discovered... And I appreciate my husband for giving me permission to share this part of our story 'cause this isn't easy to be open and vulnerable. I'm way more open and vulnerable a person he is. And so, I asked him if I could share what I was gonna share today and he said yes. He said, "As hard as it is to have this be out there and be public, if our journey can help other couples out there, I'm willing to share this," so I appreciate that he was willing to let me talk about this. But I discovered a couple of years into our marriage that he was viewing pornography. And of course, I freaked out, and went into betrayal trauma and, "Why are you looking at that and why am I not enough?" And, "We're having sex, why do you think you need to go to that?"
18:01 Leanne: So, over the next... Gosh, we were married for 31 years, so 25 years, off and on, I would catch him again. And I would go through the same thing, freak out and cry and, "Why are you doing this?" And, "Why am I not enough?" And, "We're having sex, why isn't that enough for you?" And after the incident... And the other thing, too, that was super, super hard is every time I would catch him and discover it on the computer and all that, I would approach him about it, and he would always lie. Just look me straight in the eye and lie to me about it. "No, I have been really good. You must have discovered something that was old, that... "
18:43 Leanne: And he would lie to me every time and I knew he was lying. And so then I would brood, and punish, and hold sex back from him 'cause I knew he was lying until he would finally come to me and confess. And then, I would say, "The hardest thing about this is when you lie. I feel like I could handle if you came to me and said, 'I've slipped up again, I need help. I need your help in getting through this.' I can handle that more, but you lying to me is what's the hardest." But honestly, looking back on it, I don't know if that's true. I think still, if he would've come to me before I discovered it and confessed or whatever, I still think I would've freaked out just as hard.
19:28 DB: That's huge that you recognized that and I appreciate you stating already that you have this type of insight for yourself, and I hear that a lot where the wives will say the lying is worse, and then we look at how it's been approached before. And even when the spouse comes forward, there's this brooding, there's this punishing, there's this behavior that essentially prevents or makes it increasingly more difficult for the husband to discuss or share, and that's a huge barrier and a struggle that I think a lot of couples have in developing that trust. And this lying has fostered... And I'm not suggesting in any way that it's the wife's fault that the husband lies, but the environment really does create it. And It sounds like your husband didn't wanna hurt you, at all, but something was happening and didn't wanna disappoint. And so he was defaulting to the hidden behaviors that... Is that a fair representation?
20:29 Leanne: Yes, that's exactly... Because when I would ask him, "Why do you lie, why do you lie to me about it? Just tell me." 'Cause he said, "Because I don't wanna hurt you." Because experience taught him time and time again that every time I would discover it, it would just be this huge thing and huge shaming and huge amount of guilt and guilt I would put on him, as well as just the fact that he was already feeling guilty himself for viewing it. Fast forward to after we had the big moment where I had a epiphany of, "He is not the enemy." And we were starting to really connect in a different way in our marriage, even though I was still struggling with the physical intimacy. We were starting to connect on other areas of our marriage, we were starting to be more vulnerable with each other with our feeling, and communication, and we were just really starting to turn towards each other.
21:23 Leanne: And so there was a day where I discovered, on the computer again, that he'd been looking. And immediately, my body welled up into that anxiety, and, "Here we go again." And I started to feel even more hurt because, "Here we're doing so well, we're turning towards each other, we've been making all this progress. Why is he still feeling the need to look at pornography?" And so, I felt those old feelings to well up and I stopped myself, and I said, "No, I will not approach this in the same way that I always have, because we are starting to be different and this needs to be different." And so I approached him and told him, "I noticed that you've been viewing pornography again." And literally, I took him by the hand, and I took him to the computer, and I sat him down and I said, "I want you to show me, I wanna understand what is driving you to pornography. What are you searching for, what are you lacking in our marriage that you feel the need to search? I want you to show me."
22:34 DB: That is huge and requires a lot of courage. It's something that I've shared with clients from the beginning. If we can find this as an opportunity to connect with our partner, I'm not saying we explore the porn with them or view it with them but ask that important question, "What's driving it, what's driving you to it?" And join them in that experience and explore. Enter their mind, enter their desires and thought processes. What gave you that idea? Did you... Was that just a thought you had or were you using the techniques you were implementing to improve your connection, what allowed you to do that?
23:15 Leanne: I think it was because of the connection that we were starting to make in other areas, because of that. Other huge incident that happened: I had completely started to look at my husband differently through different eyes. And the thought just came into my mind just to ask him, "What is it?" And so we sat at the computer for a while and he showed me the person that he watched her videos the most, and he said, "I chose her because she reminds me of you." And then we actually watched one of the videos together and he said, "The other reason I chose her is because she only makes videos with her boyfriend in real-life, it's her real-life boyfriend. And the reason why I choose them is because I can see the connection and that's what I want for us." And I was so grateful in that moment as we viewed that together. Like my heart hurt for him so much, but because of how I had been to him physically all of our lives...
24:31 Leanne: And an other thing, and I don't remember where this letter came in, I stumbled upon a podcast by Jennifer Finlayson-Fife who I adore. She has turned my life around, as far as the physical intimacy part and made me able to work on that but... And to be able to work on my own sexuality. But I came upon a podcast one night where she read a letter or a letter was read from a husband whose wife absolutely hated physical intimacy and she completely shut it down in her marriage. And it was from his perspective, and how heartbroken he was and how much he loved his wife so much. But she wouldn't even discuss sex, with him, she completely shut it down, and she was like, "If you love me, you know I hate it and you wouldn't discuss it with me, anymore. If you were on a good priesthood holder, you would leave me alone about it". And as I listened to that letter, my heart went out to that husband and I just started to cry and my husband was asleep beside me in the bed, and I realized that he could've written that letter. Not to the full extent, 'cause we were having sex but he could've, in some aspect, written that letter.
25:37 Leanne: And so the combination of hearing that letter and sitting down with him, understanding what was driving him to look at pornography was huge for me to then be like, "Okay, I need to discover my own sexuality, I need to embrace it, I need to learn how to be not only okay with it, but love that part of myself. I need to figure it out." So after that, I listened to everything I could find and get my hands on from Jennifer Finlayson. I purchased two of her courses. And then last year, where I had come a long, long, long way in like two years, I actually went physically to Utah to her Art of Desire class, for the biggest reason was I wanted to meet her in person because she had changed my life and I wanted to thank her in person. So, I went to that last year and it was wonderful, and I even learned even more about myself when I went to that.
26:34 Leanne: But the other thing, too, I was learning about my sexuality, but I was also learning about his, men's sexuality. I think it's so important that husbands and wives learn not only about how we tick ourselves, how our sexuality works, but we need to learn about our spouse's sexuality. It is so important that men and women understand each other because if you don't, you're gonna butt heads all the time in that realm of your marriage 'cause you're not gonna understand, 'cause we're different. Men and women are different, we're created differently. Our sexual drives and desires and needs are different. And so that we need to discover that about each other.
27:13 Leanne: And one of the things that helped my husband is, in one of the podcasts, Dr. Fife talked about a book, She Comes First. And, some people are put off by that book because it is about oral sex, 'cause some people have a hard brake against oral sex. But for me... I read the book first. For me, the value in the book was... I feel like the first half of the book... It's a male author and I feel like he talks so much about women's sexuality, and I learned things from him even about myself. And so after I read the book, I asked my husband if he was willing to read it and he said, "Yes, I'll read it." That was huge for him and he was a different lover after that because he had an epiphany, and learned females and how females are different than males. And we think differently, and how we receive pleasure is different. And he became completely different after that. So I think it's important too that husbands learn about women's sexuality, both, it needs to go both directions. That was huge for us.
28:21 DB: Yes, what a discovery. And this is what I have often referred to is we give pornography way too much power in how we respond to it, how we interact with it. Fortunately, your husband had some level of awareness and insight also to recognize, "I'm actually craving you, and I miss you, I want you, and this is what I'm pursuing through pornography." I think that's actually a lot more common than we give men credit for. We often look at it, this is this escalating drug that's destroying people. What's it gonna do? You could've came in there and says, "This is exactly why I don't wanna be intimate, it's destroying our relationship." But you took it as an opportunity to not give pornography the power, but you gave yourself the power and him to explore and connect, and say, "What about this is important to you?" And here it set you on this course of discovery. I've seen this over and over and over again. When we give pornography the power, we blame the pornography as opposed to making sense of the human aspect of why we're doing it. We actually enable it as opposed to, like you did, turn it into your relationship. And it sounds like to me, I wanna clarify just so that the audience... I realize we have a variety of listeners here. You weren't trying to become or resemble the porn...
29:51 Leanne: No.
29:51 DB: You were recognizing your husband had desires, he wanted to connect with you in this way, and you opened up yourself so that his expression and desire could come to you, as opposed to the pornography. Is that what you're saying?
30:07 Leanne: Yes. Yes, very much so. And then once I started to work on my sexuality, we then, of course, started working as a couple on improving and truly becoming intimate in our sexual life. And it was an incredible journey, and it still is an incredible journey. But I felt like I couldn't be physical or sexual and spiritual in the same body. I couldn't understand how that worked because we're taught that we need to be virtuous and lovely and of all these things, and I couldn't marry that with then also being sexual. And so for a couple of years, I actually had to turn off my spirituality in a way, and I'm sad that I felt like I needed to do that because I know now, that I didn't need to do that. But...
31:02 DB: But what does that mean, Leanne? Did you stop going to church, or what does it mean to turn off your spirituality?
31:07 Leanne: No, I kept going to church, I kept my callings, I kept serving. I felt like if I allowed myself to feel the spirit, then anything my husband and I were trying in the bedroom, or experimenting with, or anything that we were trying in the bedroom, that I would feel guilt about it. And I did not wanna feel guilt in that part of my journey whatsoever. I wanted my husband and I to be able just to discover each other, and discover our intimate life without feeling any guilt because before any time we would try something new or anything, I felt naughty. And so, I felt like I had to shut my bedroom door, so to speak, on Heavenly Father, even, "You're not allowed in this space right now." And that... It brings me teary to think that I thought that way, that I had to shut the door on Heavenly Father because really, on the other side of it, Heavenly Father was so involved because the beauty that we created between each other, it feels celestial in nature now. And that's why it makes me feel so sad that I felt the need to do that.
32:19 DB: Leanne, this discovery is... I'm almost tempted to say unique. I think it's not as unique as I'm wanting to say, it does happen. But the level of insight that you had, you started to associate... Or not started, but you associated guilt with the Spirit, that's interesting. Was it just around sexual things, or was that a common occurrence within your life in general, just whenever you felt the Spirit, guilt accompanying it?
32:52 Leanne: I feel like it was mostly around my sexuality because... I love to feel the spirit in every other aspect of my life, I love to feel the spirit. And even in the times when I was very self-reflective and knew that I was behaving badly and knew that I was using my anxiety as an excuse or whatever, when I stopped myself in that moment, and changed, then reacted better and differently, I knew it was the Spirit helping me. And so I appreciated that, I love the spirit in my life that was helping me work on myself and helping me to self-reflect. But in the bedroom, I think it wasn't the Spirit making me feel guilty, but I thought it was.
33:42 DB: Mm-hmm. Thank you for that clarification. This is actually what I struggle with teenagers the most with. As I work with them to overcome their usage of pornography and out of control behaviors around sexual behaviors including masturbation, when we get them to a good place, they have clarity, the Lord is communicating to 'em the interventions that we use and us working with that teenager in a sexually healthy way helping them to understand their sexual health, help them understand their desires, they have clarity around it and they know that God is answering their prayers in this process. But inevitably, they will come in and say things like, "I can't do this 'cause it feels weird, I can't do this because I feel guilty." And then, we retrace the steps and we say, "You were feeling confirmation from the Lord, you were making progress. Where is this guilt coming from?" "I shouldn't feel this way, it's telling me the spirit isn't here." And so they start to have this discovery where what they were feeling wasn't entirely the spirit, it's what they thought was the spirit.
35:02 DB: And so this process you went through is so interesting to me because the way you described it is quite literally what I have to see others do is relearn. They have taught themselves so much fear around sexuality, so much guilt around sexuality that the spiritual experiences they have are the ones that are absent of the guilt, and fear, and pain. And so any time that guilt and fear are introduced, they connect that with removal of the Spirit, whereas actually, they've just trained themselves to feel guilty and fearful around this. And if they can get rid of that and invite the spirit back in, they could have this new discovery similar to what you're having in connecting with your husband, connecting with yourself. That is a very interesting thing where I've actually seen people do exactly that, where they've defined it as, "I've had to step away from these spiritual experiences and sometimes that's actually been, 'I can't go to church right now until I figure out exactly where the Lord wants me to go.'" Fortunately, in your case, you didn't have to do that. You were more of just reassessing, "What is the Lord trying to do here and where is he leading me?" That is very, very fascinating, very brave. It's a completely rewriting of your sexual health, of your approach to the gospel of things.
36:24 DB: And maybe I'm asking an obvious question but was that scary to go through that process of separating or did you know this was again, like your other experiences, you had to do it, you had to change it? What was going through your mind at the time regarding whether or not this was a risky process?
36:41 Leanne: It actually was really scary for me. In fact, when I went last year to Dr. Fife's Art of Desire retreat, I raised my hand on the first day and just started weeping. And I said, "I was just called to be in the Stake Relief Society presidency and I feel like such a fraud because in order for me to get to where I am today with my husband, I had to completely shut out the spirituality in my life." So I said, "Now, I'm trying to figure out how to get that back, and I feel like such a fraud to be in this calling, to have people think I'm something that I'm not because I'm still struggling to get that spirituality back." And that's when she explained to me, she said, "What are the fruits of the work that you and your husband have done in your physical life? What does that look like?" And I just said, "It's amazing, and beautiful, and celestial."
37:53 Leanne: And she said, "That is the fruit of the Spirit. Those are the fruits of the Spirit. Heavenly Father has been with you, you have had the spirit all along. And sometimes," she said, "we tend to put Heavenly Father into a box thinking that he can't handle our growth but that's exactly what He wants for us is our growth. He wants us to learn and grow. When we think that he can't handle our learning and growing, we put him into a little box." And that made a lot of sense to me. I feel like I'm gaining more spirituality I'm kind of in a fight with myself, within myself of deciding for myself within the church, like "the church," not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but the church. The church was always so black and white to me, things were either right or wrong, absolutely right, or absolutely wrong. And now, this journey is helping me to discover that Heavenly Father wants me to develop spiritually and wants me to receive my own revelation. And that's where I'm navigating right now, I'm just learning to navigate really embracing that Heavenly Father truly wants me to receive revelation for my life. Does it make sense?
39:23 DB: That sounds very, very spiritual. Yes, it makes absolute sense. And so when you continue to use this phrase, "I'm struggling to be spiritual," what I think I'm hearing you say is this cultural aspect of, what does it look like now, me functioning in this maybe grey area or this personal revelation which is the fruits of your labor here, as Jennifer was pointing out, which wonderful question. You are very spiritual, you are connecting with the Lord, and your husband. So at what point do you know if you are spiritual again based on your definition, what does that look like to you?
40:05 Leanne: Just talking in this moment, I think I've realized that I'm more spiritual than I was before. I think I'm actually living on a higher plane than I was before. I think before, I lived in a space of being so fearful of being right or wrong and wanting someone else, some earthly person to tell me if I'm right or wrong. And I think now, I'm living in a way that I'm seeking to know from Heavenly Father, if I'm right or wrong. And honestly, if I think about that, I think I'm living, like I said, on a higher spiritual plane than I was before.
40:52 DB: That's what I feel, I'm feeling that from you. This is the discovery, I call this the mature spirit. We've gone from how we identify and recognize the spirit as a child, which isn't wrong, this black and white, this feeling like you're being comforted with a blanket sunshine experience, to struggling with life, dealing with the complexities, dealing with the unique approaches that the Lord is directing you in, in your personal life. That's personal revelation, it takes a strong spiritual connection with the Lord to obtain that. The other way is more or less letting other people define our own righteousness. "Have I lived up to this expectation of my leader or of this cultural perception or not?" And that's a definition of our own spirituality, and in this experience, you're recognizing how important it is to have that personal and unique revelation from the Lord. That's what I'm hearing is saving your relationship with your husband.
41:57 Leanne: Mm-hmm. I think one of the reasons why this part of it has been so hard for me is because I was the only active member in my family during my high school years. I went to church by myself, all four years of my high school. And in my high school years, my home life was very, very, very challenging. And so I had young women leaders, and bishops, and seminary teachers, and home teachers who literally took me under their wing and really loved me and protected me during those hard years. And so I had such a appreciation for people in the church because there were people that really did truly come forward and loved me as a savior would. And so I think it was hard for me to feel like I was turning away from the church 'cause of all the good that the church has done for me in a time that was so difficult. But this conversation today has helped me a lot, actually, because I'm not turning away from the church. People in church are still wonderful, and do love others, but we're all just humans. And we just need to know that and we do our best. But ultimately, it comes down to the Savior, and God, and seeking what they would have us do.
43:44 DB: Leanne, your story is beautiful. And please, thank your husband for allowing this message to get out. I know it's gonna help a lot of people, and it's gonna reach a lot of people's hearts. And is it providing this example that we need to hear more of what it looks like in these difficult experiences within our relationships. It's not gonna look the same for everyone. Some are gonna sit next to their husband or their wife and explore and understand the pornography together, some may take a different approach. But the point is opening up, connecting, using this as an opportunity to connect not only with your spouse, but with the Lord. "What does it look like going forward, not letting other people define our relationship, not letting our past trauma define our relationship in an unhealthy way?" It's always gonna change us, our previous experiences are always gonna mold and shape who we are, but finding those as an opportunity to connect deeper and to trust and to bond. Thank you, Leanne, I really appreciate you coming on and I may wanna have you on again some other time. Unfortunately, we have to wrap it up and...
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44:52 Leanne: Yeah.
44:53 DB: And I know this will help a lot of people out there, so thank you.
44:57 Leanne: Yeah, thank you so much for having me, I hope it does. I hope others can gain insight from our journey, so thank you very much for having me.
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