From Betrayal to Building True Intimacy with Matthew & Joanna Raabsmith

Do you guys had some sort of situation this morning? Some kind of family thing, maybe. Everything okay?

Yeah. No. Everything's good. Our kids started a new school, and it's across town, and. And we had scheduled this.

Before they started the new school, and so, like, oh, it's going to be a little bit tight. I think we can make it, but just in case, like. Yeah, traffic is crazy. We wanted you to have a heads up. You know what was going on?

Yeah. Yeah.

This is the first time in, like, 50 years. 45 years that I'm not going back to school. Like, I, I just literally yesterday, I put my youngest on a plane. Crazy. Gabby, I know it's crazy. Have you always, like back to school energy? And I have. Yeah. I don't.

Like you're like. I'm so chill.

When did school start? What is that about?

I'm,

It is. It's a little. It's a little jarring, to be honest. So, where where do you guys live?

You get used to this.

We're in Memphis, Tennessee. Okay. And so, Yeah. And we've got A9A and six year old. And so.

So we're just getting used to the, like, kids school rhythms in some way. Yeah. It's, we'll we'll be there for a while.

Yeah.

What'd you say? 986986.

So fourth, third and first. Green.

I have this theory that, fourth grade is the beginning of consciousness. Like. Well, think about it. If I ask you guys right now to tell me about your childhood. I think you would locate yourself at about fourth grade. I do, you know, and you sort of go, oh this is what it was like for me to be a kid. Yeah. You sort of begin to figure out who you are. You sort of begin to figure out what what independence is about you. So I kind of, I don't know. So you're coming right into it. Your kids are starting to ask for this figure.

Or in years.

So what you're telling us is they haven't remembered anything before that. So now. Now you know.

Well, it's not the beginning of memory. It's the beginning of consciousness. Right?

So.

Well, listen, thanks for coming on to marriage therapy radio. I'm delighted to get to talk to you. You. Seems like you have a pretty cool angle on whatever you guys have been through. Can you just tell me for a second? Like, what's your stick? Like, what's the elevator speech when it comes to getting to know the Smiths.

Yeah. I mean, I think for us, it's always been about, We wanted a really great marriage. We like each other. We didn't always like each other. We didn't like each other when we first started. But we liked each other a lot now. Sex addiction, pornography, betrayal, really wreck that. And we were pretty sure we were going to lose it. I think our what we realized was, is we didn't lose it. We we went through some really, really challenging seasons and some hard times. And it was a long journey back. But what we have now on the other side actually better than what we had before. And part of it was, is I think we wanted a great marriage.

We just didn't know how to do it. We had nobody got us. Nobody showed us. What we what I saw wasn't great. And so there was a lot of learning to do. But I think our, our hope is always that, like, you can actually have something really special. Like, you can like your marriage, you can like your relationship. Especially if you're willing to work at it. And so, yeah, that's interesting.

When you say, I didn't see anything, do you mean like your family of origin? Like you? Is that what you're talking about when you said it?

Yeah, I mean, my my family was just super chaotic. I mean, it's interesting. My parents are still married. They've been married for close to 50 years. But, I mean, just, like, toxic and, you know, really chaotic verbally. Just, like, screaming and yelling and just, you know, all of the things that we know don't work. They do. Somehow they survived. I think they have they joke that they basically said they'd never get divorced. And that's what kind of keeps them together. And it like that, it just didn't help a lot when we got married and I had I had already been divorced once. And, and now I'm going into a second marriage, and I'm like, I don't want this one to die, but I'm killing it all over again.

And I, I don't want to kill it. Like I didn't wake up knowing like I had like my marriage to suck. It was, it was floundering. And so I think that realization that like if I don't, if I and we don't figure out how to do this, we're going to lose the thing we care about everything we dreamed of will be gone. And so.

Yeah, you're an interesting case study in this way, which is when clients come into my office and they have, you know, something, they have an addiction, they have an affair, they have sex, whatever it is, they're caught up in the pain of it or whatever. And then they start to imagine, like, can we find our way? I go, well, can you imagine becoming like motivational speakers or teachers on the other side of this thing, people who actually leverage this pain? Yeah. And the recovery in order to help other people. And that seems like that's you kind of cracked the code somehow. Do you know how you did that? Like, did you have a moment where you said, hey.

I think we're.

Going to and I don't imagine, I don't imagine it was the first thought you had. But I guess I want to hear a little bit about. Yeah. I mean, how you found yourself, here.

Yeah, it was a little bit of. We we knew what we wanted from the beginning, but like Maddie said, we didn't have the tools. We didn't know how to do it. And then we tried some things that did help but didn't get us all the way there. And then we realized why. Because there is something hiding in the corners that I didn't know about betrayal. And we dove into betrayal recovery. And we got stable. And for a while, I think we thought stable was the best we could ever hope for. But that was pretty depressing. Like, we weren't really happy about that. And we actually went we did start helping other couples, even in that place. And we went to a training by a very well known organization in this field on healing couples.

And they showed us this is the couple's roadmap. And it was a mess. It was like this island with this, like you're looking for the treasure and the addict feels this way, and the partner goes this way. And the couple. And I was like, where are you ending up? This is really depressing, right? But it kind of mirrors our journey. And it was kind of in that moment. We're like, no, this is not it. This is not me, not settling. And so we kept trying to fighting to figure out like, what is on the other side. And it better be something good if we're going to put all this work into it. And so, just piecing together the resources that we needed, is really what happened. And then when I was working with a colleague, Dan Drake, he drew this visual up. So I'm kind of comparing it to this crazy chaotic map we saw before.

I know what I'm thinking about like getting to intimacy after betrayal. This pyramid kind of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Yeah. Honesty safety trust vulnerability intimacy. And like I was like that's it. That's exactly what it is. And so we started fleshing that out and it really was a reflection of our journey. And all the couples we'd work with like what actually works, what gets you there. And in that intimacy stage, we talk a lot about purpose, passion, the play. And that's 100% right. Like that purpose that we use. Yeah, in our story and using it to help other people has been such a big part of our thriving intimacy that we experience now.

And I think the cracking the code was, was accepting our reality. I think for a long time, what we imagined, like healing would be, is like I stopped doing what I was doing, right? Like I stopped all this crazy stuff, I stopped lying, I stopped hiding, I stopped my addiction, right? I started showing up in the relationship more reliable, and that would be it. And we did that, like I said, and that kind of allowed us to survive and heal and kind of move forward. I wanted no way, shape or form for our story to be known. I did not want corn Guy. I didn't want to be the sex addict. Like, I didn't want to be the pervert that I thought everybody would see me as, or the betrayer.

Like it was all about. Like I didn't want our story to be our story. I wanted our story to be something different. And I think for us, what shifted everything is when I realized, like, now this is our story. Yeah, it's but it's also our story that's still being written. And so I think I started to realize, like as I, as I started to accept our story, I think as we started to accept like this is our story and this is the only story we get to tell. And I remember the first time we kind of shared publicly with a group of like, friends and colleagues, and they were like, you got to tell this story to everybody. And we were like, no, that's the opposite of what we want to do. But it was funny.

Never speak of it again.

I was like, the more we talked, the more we shared, the more open we were with people, the more the more openly were with our story, the more we actually got to that purpose. We found that purpose. And so I think that was the the biggest tipping point was that kind of not just acceptance of like, oh, this happened, but like now this is our story and that's okay. Because we, we have a great marriage beyond that. And, and it doesn't mean anything about us that's like that speaks negative. It just it is what it is. And knowing it and telling it is really what has helped us move forward.

This always happens. I get ready for these interviews and I have like a series of questions that I want to ask and kind of tee it up, and then you guys start talking. I'm like, wait, but now I want to know about that. Why don't I think about that?

And so I'm.

Looking at my looking at my little sheet and I'm like, forget it. I don't I don't need the answer to this one. But and then. So Matthew, what, what's it like being the porn guy? Like the thing you didn't want to be, and you have, like, you you rejected, and you said, I don't want to be this guy. Like, know how. What have you found? What have you learned? What is, what have you come to terms with that feels, I don't know, is like, it's like, this is what I want to know. Like, you use the phrase. And so now that you become the thing you didn't want to become, what is that like for you?

Yeah. It's this weird. Is this weird paradox where I. I'm still afraid. I still fear sometimes what people think of me, right? What they what they imagine, what goes on in their head. I mean, I'm a dad now, right? So I think about, like, what do other what, what other parents that we hang out with think of me right when I if they knew about me and they don't have to look very hard, they can Google our name and find us or find that out. And so there's, there's still a fear. I think that's a very natural human thing. But I think part of it is, is like knowing it doesn't have control over me anymore. I think when I found freedom from my addiction, like I, I was engaged with, with sex addiction and pornography to various forms for over two decades of my life, the majority of my life, I never imagined a life where I wouldn't like, obsessively think about it.

It wouldn't kind of control me 15 or 15 years in, you know, a recovery in this journey. Like, I don't think about it anymore. It doesn't control me. And so I'm more comfortable talking about it because it doesn't control me. I think if it was like still this animal in the room that was like ever present, it'd be really hard to talk about. I'd be really scared. But knowing that, like, it's there, I know that that those habits and even that neural pathway in my brain is still there. But I know what it's like to be free of it. It it's totally different. So this is weird paradox of like, terrified. What people will think but also like comfortable just in my own skin.

It is my story and, and, and I think I've also understood more as I, as I started to tell my story, I understood how I got there, for a long time, what I understood my story to be was I was a bad person because I was doing these things. I as I learn more about my story, more about trauma, more about development, I realized I was a kid who had no way of knowing how to deal with the huge emotions and realities he was going through, and I found an outlet. It was a destructive outlet. It was a dangerous outlet. It was a, you know, addiction inducing outlet. But I found an outlet for that. And I went to it, and I went to it over and over and over until it was all I knew. What to do. And I even know I knew I hated it, I still did it.

What the blessing that I got to receive is I had good people in my life that showed me there were other ways of dealing with that. There are other ways of my pain. There was other ways of dealing with my story. And and I'm really lucky, because I know there's people out there that don't have that in their life. They don't have another vision. But as I've begun to understand that part of my past, it's easier to talk about. It's easier to own, it's easier to name. And the probably the hardest thing for me to name wasn't just the addiction, but truly the hardest thing for me was naming what it did to Joanna. That part that probably took me the longest.

I really didn't want to, what it did to our marriage, what it did to her. And and that was the other thing that I think kind of kept us locked up for so long, was I wanted to be the guy who got over Warren. Right? I wanted the guy who was, you know, like, beyond that, I didn't I didn't want to accept, like, oh, and what I did really hurt this person and really hurt our chances at a better relationship. And it wasn't until even I accepted that like that I was the betraying spouse, right? That I was that we there's a term that they use. It's called the infidel. Right. Without the full right like that that I didn't want I didn't want to imagine that that was a role I played in our relationship. But it wasn't until I kind of accepted, yeah, I actually was like, I was the infidel.

I was the person who didn't show up with fidelity and commitment to our relationship. But once I did like, it was okay. Like the cool part was Joanna knew this. It wasn't like this was new information to Joanna and she accepted me. She said, like, I know this about you. I know this is what you've done. I still want a future with you. That was, I think a part of the big second piece was not just my own addiction, but really what I did meant for us.

Yeah, I'm glad you said that. Because I'm sitting here, and I. And I almost want to have a debate with you about, you know, 15 years ago, pornography was really different than it is now, like in terms of its, sort of its acceptability and the like, it's almost mainstream these days. And I think I'm in recovery from alcoholism. And, you know, every time I talk about my recovery, most people I talk to, you go, oh, yeah, oh, my God, you're so lucky. I'm so grateful. This thing has so much energy over me. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I don't really want to have that debate. I am interested in the thing that you're describing because, you know, the thing that matters about pornography or alcohol or anything isn't the thing.

It's what it does to the relationship. And as you go, because some people are like, oh, I use porn all the time, doesn't matter. Who cares? Like it's not a thing. It doesn't affect my relationship. It's just a whatever. That's not you. And that's not a lot of people who are listening. But so here we are, and you have this issue in your life and it's taking over and it's making it hard for you to, relate. And, Joanna, you have this impact on you. And I'm less concerned, perhaps, about pornography than the relational part of it, but, like, how do you understand it for yourself? How does how did you make sense of it as you guys started to work through the the process of recovery as that what if the if you're the infidel or if the infidel is on the one side of the equation, is there a label for the other side?

If there is the betrayed partner? Yeah.

And it's not.

Quite as clever, but I.

Well, it's not that. Yeah. It's really as, as you know, there is not a lot of resources at the time when we went through recovery, as there are now. And so I but I knew I needed some level of healing because of the pain I was experiencing. And it took me a while to figure out what exactly was going on for me. But I finally found the label. It's, betrayal trauma and so many partners who experience this in relationship. The the hardest part, like, kind of like you said, right? That I guess pawns there. It's a thing. But the hardest part relationally is the betrayal, the hiding, the lying, the deception. I had no idea what was going on and the level and the extent of what was going on and our relationship.

And so when I found out in a split second and a moment, it felt like my entire world came crashing down around me because what I thought was real, what I thought was true about us, about the life we were building, about our shared goals and values. It was like all of that was gone. All of it's, I had no idea if it could be rebuilt. And so I was reeling. I was trying to figure out. Right. I thought we had this beautiful love story of how we met and got together. It was kind of a whirlwind romance, and I was like, it was special. All of a sudden, it lost its specialness, right? Like that. That's that story of us. It held no meaning anymore for me.

And so there so much pain around that. And like I said, I didn't know if I was going to ever get that back again. And so there was this really weird kind of waiting period, because there's a little bit a lot of it depended on Matthew and what he decided to do. Is he going to become honest? Is he going to take responsibility? Is he going to be safe and are really then begin honoring the commitments he originally made to us. And I just didn't know that. And so, there is a big kind of it felt like this chasm between us right away. And for a long time while we kind of dove into that recovery journey.

And in that healing process, I think what was so special and that I didn't expect is that we got to kind of reclaim those special pieces about us, reclaim the story of, it's my friend. Now that we have like, additional insights and understandings of ourselves and who we are and who we were at that time. But it's it's special in a new way.

Yeah.

I, I want to test that theory with you for a second because, I have this belief in my office, in my counseling practice that when I, when when somebody comes in here, a couple comes in here, and there's been a betrayal. And it's very easy to look at the, the the say the infidel and say, oh my gosh, yeah, you did this. And that's the thing. And you got to repent. You got to recover. And I did, I, I also think that, you know, I've never seen a single couple recover when the betrayed partner, when the harmed partner didn't say, I'm a part of this, I play I have a role here. And including this. Did you do you by that theory? Do you did you have that experience? What is what is that for? You did you did you look at it too and go I'm a I'm, I, I'm a part of this equation that facilitated this thing.

Yeah. Like well here's how we usually describe it. They are a part of the journey forward I think where we we will probably say though, like what's, what's interesting with betrayal, like, Joanna and I used to we used to argue about certain things. And one of the things we would argue was about sex, right? We would argue whether we were going to have sex or like whether bids were being met. But the difficulty was Joanna and arguing that, like we were doing things right, I figured it was a triggered right, getting critical. And so we could look at that and we could say like, yeah, okay, those were some, some shared arguments. The problem was right, Joanna was having that argument and she didn't have all the information like she did.

Oh, that I would come home ashamed of acting out. And we were like newlyweds. And so she would like, come and like, want a kiss on me and hug and, and might be intimate and I'd be like, no, no, no. And she'd be like, what's wrong? Did I do something wrong? And I would be like, I'm stressed out with work. You're pressuring me. You're needy. Right? I would want to kind of blame her. But what was really happening behind the scenes was the shame of what I was doing. And the secret that I was keeping was making me want to kind of pull away from that intimacy. She had no idea. Right. So she so she was a part of our relational experience, but not a part of the betrayal.

And so we look at the power balance. When somebody is hiding information, there's a power imbalance there holding the power in the relationship. So there can never be a fair fight. In a way, when we work with couples and normal couples. Right? Absolutely. When we look at their, we call them pain cycles. When they get into the right cycle of fighting and they both take mutual responsibility. But if there's a power imbalance, you can't take some responsibility until it's been rebalanced. And so that's why that honesty layer is so important. And so especially with a lot of the couples we work with who experienced sex addiction, this addiction, this acting out part of their life. It happened long before they even met their partner. Those were ingrained and they brought that into the relationship without that other person having knowledge.

So they didn't even have full power to say yes to the relationship from the very beginning. And so that can be a little bit different. Then again, when both come in with full knowledge, full information on the other person, what's going on and making decisions from that place.

And will sometimes also see some differences in cases of affairs. So there are there can be situations where someone doesn't bring in like a sexual addiction, right? Kind of a past history where where yes, maybe relationally, over time there are some kind of breakdowns relationally. And then this person chooses to right, move into an affair behavior. Yeah. And those those you would treat a little differently. They you would have different conversations about the relational breakdowns. The thing with sexual addiction and what makes it actually different than typically substance addictions is because it is so private. You have way less of this kind of co addict or codependency because the partner doesn't know that it's going on. So they're not kind of facilitating it and like kind of activated in it.

It really is this kind of, you know, oh Marlon Walt calls it the secret sexual basement. That's this. It's this part of my life that no one knows. Joanna asked me point blank when we were dating. Like, I know guys, I know people are used. Do you use pornography? Are you struggling? And I just flat out lied to her. I was like, yeah, no, I'm good guy. That's not my thing. I kind of dabbled in the past, but I know that's not good, right? I just thought I gave her this absolute baloney story. And because of our relationship at the time, she trusted me and she was like, thank you, right? And it really was. When things started to break down, she started asking hard questions.

She started being like, why? Why aren't we having more sex? Right? Why aren't we? Why isn't our relationship better? What's going on? At every time? I would just lie, I would gaslight, I would make it about her. And it wasn't until everything came out that her story started making sense. Like the one of the journeys for Joanna was she had to go back through the years of our marriage that I was in addiction and go, oh, now it makes sense. Now I understand why we could be so happy one minute and so apart the next, and it would and it wouldn't kind of compete for that.

Yeah, that's intriguing to me, I think. I don't know, maybe it's worth hearing a little bit more about the nuances between an affair situation and an addiction situation. I think when it comes to a fair situation, you know, those things never happen in a vacuum. It's kind of like you describe, like the relationship itself might have been falling down and the betrayed partner. The way I talk about it, if you're familiar with John Gottman to work, is that usually when there's a fair, you can always trace it back to the bid and turning system being broken, playing people, making bids. And then there's there's like a failure of turning toward those bids in meaningful ways. And that that's the origin story usually. But it sounds like there's a little bit of a different, perspective when it comes to what you guys are describing.

Yeah, yeah, there's, therapist Dave Carter. He actually described there's different types of affairs as well. And then there's sex addiction, that kind of falls outside of affairs completely. Exactly. Because of what you're saying, right? Yeah. Had a typical affairs. You know, one couple we worked with the husband struggled with depression and basically abandoned the relationship for almost two decades. And then eventually the wife had an affair. Right.

Is it? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So she looks like the bad guy. Yeah.

Exactly. And so going like, wait, we have to look at this full picture. A lot of the couples we work with where it's more of that sexual addiction case and it's been going on the whole time. Their relationship looks amazing. Like from the outside everyone's like they had the relationship we thought everyone else wanted. The wife. We'll even say, like, I thought our relationship was great. Even the husband will say, yeah, it was great. I just had this other thing I couldn't stop, I couldn't control. And so it's very much less of right that relational component than drove it. And more of that. True. Kind of like addicted nature. Yeah. That was already there before the relationship.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think you described, early on in your process when you were trying to kind of make sense of this, what sometimes I'll call the flight to health. So you guys went to like, so there's fight or flight, which is a trauma response, and then some people will flee to hell. So you guys went and you stabilized the ship. You got it stabilized. You found your map, you got it all figured out. But that was just kind of phase one. How do you encourage, invite, solicit the like beyond that? Beyond stability? Like what has to happen next? How do you tee that up? How did you not not how do you tie it up for other people? How did you do that for yourselves?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, after that stage, what we knew was there had to be the restoration of trust because that was what was destroyed. Like Joanna said, like this, this trust that we had with each other, the trust that she had put in me, that we had built through a lot of like, good interactions. It was gone. Because if I was if I could lie about this, if I could do this much hiding. Right. What else was I hiding? You know, one of the the things that Johanna mentioned, she said, you know, one of the things that hurt a lot is, is you lied about things that weren't sex related. I like, we had a TV show. We we watched together, Doctor Who, and I lied to her about watching all the episodes when she was at school, and she was like, that really hurt, right?

That hurt because that was something we shared together. Right? And if you're going to lie about sex and Doctor Who and food you eat, like, how do I trust that anything that you say is real. And so that healing has to come first. And one of the things we see is, is we we wanted to kind of maybe heal the relationship, but we knew we can't do that with where we're at. But once we heal ourselves, once we stabilize, there's still has to be the healing of the rupture. And that really did look like, for me, getting honest about things that I didn't, I wasn't honest about. I mean, I would lie about everything. I would lie about anything that I thought would, said another person. Because I wanted to avoid conflict at all costs.

And so part of it was like I had to learn how to do that. I'd had 30 years of training, of hiding and deceit, manipulation. It was like, okay, I'm, I'm going to tell you that I had two peanut butter cups today. And I wouldn't normally tell you that because I'd be ashamed of what it maybe looks like. Like maybe I'm unhealthy and I'm scared to tell you this, but I'm going to let you know this, right? And I'm going to let it be a conversation. And what was amazing is Joanna's response was usually like, okay, you know, thank you for letting me know. Like this, this whole fear that I have that like, she's going to leave me if she finds out I had the last ice cream, right?

Was like, no, she's not right. She's, you know, and move on. And so that was a huge part of our restoration. Was that kind of learning to be honest in all things, learning to be more transparent, more proactive in the relationship and then ultimately showing that I would I knew how to handle the emotions I had spent a lifetime trying to avoid. And that was really the piece that was most important for Joanna was when things got hard. Is math Matthew going to bolt? Right? Is he going to? And maybe he's not going to run to fawn anymore, right? But maybe he's going to run to something else. Maybe he's going to run to another form of escape. And and I and I had to figure that out too, like, I knew my pattern, which was that when I'm scared, I hide.

And when I hide, I feel ashamed. And when I feel ashamed, I usually try to go numb out. And that was one man or and over and over. And so I had to recognize well, when that shame comes up, am I going to deal with the shame? Am I going to address it myself? Am I going to believe in myself something different? And then that's going to let me show up differently. And that takes time. It takes actually a lot of time. I mean, people want it to be instantaneous. And what was that journey?

Yeah, it's not instantaneous. And it's not, it's not actually what it is like. When I talk about my own recovery, I usually tell people like quitting alcohol was actually pretty easy. Which is not true for everybody. I don't mean to diminish that struggle at all for people, but like, I decided one day to stop drinking and I just stopped. But then I very quickly found out that I had other recovery work to do around anger and resentment. And, and that's been that's been very hard. So. But, but you said something at the top that I'm actually intrigued by, and it's something I try to sell to clients, too, which is this idea of the thing we have now is better than the thing we had before.

Like there was this there's this moment where the two of you stood up in front of a bunch of people and you said to the guy said, do you? And you said, I do. And he said, about you, do you? And you said, I do. And then somewhere along the way you said, I'm not sure I do, or maybe I don't or I don't. I don't know if I do, actually. And then you said, no, wait, I actually really do. And that second one I think is more valuable, more powerful than the first one, particularly if it's in the light of day. So here you are. You're kind of in the second part. You're in the second. I do, period. Now what are you working on?

What what is it? What is what's the work now if it's not I mean, I get that work at of recovery is daily and it's ongoing. And you've got your message and it's outbound and you're trying to help other people, but inside, like, just inside your house, your home, your heart. What do you what's what are you guys doing now?

Yeah, I think we're living into the new us, and it's really fun. We we struggle to figure out who we were in the beginning because there was something there we didn't know about. And so, into the light of day gave us the power to really decide who we want to be. And so we, right. We have kind of we even have little nicknames for a relationship. The Brad Smith team, the Super Bowl. Right. And so we have this understanding of our identity together of like who we are. And so it's living that out every day in a moment to moment daily basis while there were parenting, whether we're seeing clients together, while whether we're working on our own relationship, then we're not always that couple.

Sometimes we slip back into the old couple that we don't need. Those moments happened to. But what what's so exciting is we know that that's not really who we are, and we have the tools because of the work that we've done, the recovery that we've done to get out of that place and back into being who we want to be.

And I think we like one of the things that work looks like now is inviting other people in the journey with us. And like people that challenge us, situations that challenge us. So like, we kind of had a solo practice for a while. We decided to bring on others because we wanted to be able to expand our work. It's hard. It's we feel like it's hard to be a boss. You've got to you have responsibilities and you have people to work for you and they challenge you. Kind of the same thing with parents. I really wanted kids so bad. But I, you know, as soon as I became a parent, it hit me like, oh, crap, I can't do what happened to me.

I've got to do something different. And taking on kids has been a challenge, and we talk a lot about emotions with our kids. We talked a lot about, like, even though we don't talk specifically because of their ages about, like, what we went through, we talk a lot about it and they're picking it up and they push us like when our daughter was like five years old, Joanna and I were having one of those. I think it.

Was like three.

We had like 1.0 moments. We were like going at each other. We looked at Joanna and I said, Joanna, you need to grow up all right? Peter looked at me and says, daddy, it sounds like you need to grow up. I was like, why? You know, like, you know. And it wasn't really I mean, this was like in recovery and I'm like giving talks about healthy person and my child is reminding me, you still have a lot to learn. And so but that's part of the fun. I think part of the fun is inviting that honesty and that reflection and that feedback and going, yeah, I do. I still do need to grow up. I still act like a child. I still don't know what healthy relationships take, and I love that there's people in my life that will call that out in me, invite me to a different place, because whatever is next tends to be better if you're doing the work.

And so that's like the work. Like we don't feel like we're in crisis, but we still work a lot on our marriage. And. Right, because it gets better when you do the work.

Yeah. You're speaking my language a little bit earlier. I love alliteration. You talked about purpose, passion and play. I, I just recorded mostly. I'm recording interviews with couples. By the way, thank you for sharing your story with us. A couple episodes ago, I did a episode just all by myself, and I. I just went through a whole list of p words that I wanted to talk about, like, so I talked about parenting, I talked about politics, I talked about polyamory. I talked about a bunch of different stuff. But when it comes to purpose, passion, and play. Yeah. What? Tell me about what you guys are doing. Like, not so much inside your business or your work, but what do you guys play at as a family or as a couple? What's your what's your jam like?

We went to. Yeah. So this summer, we our business went online because of Covid and, in this great blessing because it allowed us to realize we can anywhere in the world. And so, we had this dream to be out of the country for a while. And so we kind of made a not last minute, but I kind of fairly like rash decision to let's just go to Europe for two months. And so as soon as school, the day school got out, we we packed up our kids, right. We got them on the plane. We spent two months in Europe and we worked late hours because of the time change and and but we I mean, every day we went somewhere new with our kids. We were we were, you know, beer gardens and traveling all across, you know, Europe and expanding.

We were hiking and but it was about just like doing things that we didn't think were possible. Like, I grew up never with a vision that like, that's something you can do. And it was hard. But I think part of play is like, you got to push yourself. You got a challenge. Like, play doesn't just happen easily. You usually have to be.

Especially as adults. Right? I think most adults we've worked play out of our life completely. And yeah, but it's so crucial to thriving.

Well, it's right there in the sentence. You just said we worked play and playing.

It's 90%. Exactly. And so going, oh, we're going to have to fight to get play back in. And having kids is a nice wake up call of like, okay, this is what it looks like. This is what it feels like. Can I disconnect from all the responsibilities that today is and just be present in this moment and love creating moments together and as a family where it's easy to be fully present and so being outside, doing activities, new adventures, things that are exciting, those are things that really help us get into that kind of play mode.

Yeah.

Yeah. There's another key word to presence. So yeah. Very cool. So I can imagine people listening and they want to learn more about what you guys are up to and how to maybe work with you. What what are we tell them to go. What do we what do you what do you want people to know about your what? How you can be of support.

Yeah. The easiest way to find this is Rob Smith team.com. We do a lot of different things. We coach, we support, we write a blog every week, on a lot of the kind of things that we encounter with our clients, just concepts and ideas that we've either learned in our own journey. I think what's special about our team is we're all couples who help couples. So everybody on our team are couples, and they've all been through what her couples have been through. So everybody has been affected by betrayal. Everybody has addiction, but they've worked through it both personally and professionally. And so it helps us to, I think, relate to our the people that come in because we kind of get it. And it also helps us to kind of keep the relationship and the individuals in mind at the time.

So, and if you want to learn more about kind of how we understand relationship and do relationship, we wrote a book, Building True Intimacy, where we talk about all the different layers of building up to intimacy and experiencing that passion, that purpose in that play, in your relationship.

That's your pyramid. That's the thing. Yeah. Very cool. Well, I'm sure glad to talk to you. I'm grateful to be able to pick your brains for a little while. I think people will really benefit from getting some new perspective. This thing, this betrayal thing is so scary for people because they feel alone. And, you know, I would imagine part of what you've learned is that this thing, particularly pornography, is much more ubiquitous than you think it is when you're just kind of privately in your own solo journey and you're like, I must be the only one.

But, you know, I think the more you get to tell your story and put it out in front of people, the more maybe the more it normalizes. Not just the the problem, but the pathway. Look at that, people. The pathway back to something like something like health and connection and intimacy. So, thank you again for coming on and for sharing a little bit about that and letting us, pick your brains for a little while.

Thanks so much for so.