Episode 160: Is Porn Use Infidelity? With Andrea Giles

You are listening to the Overcome Pornography for Good podcast episode 160, Is Porn Use Infidelity? With Andrea Giles

Welcome to the Overcome Pornography For Good podcast where we take a research-based, trauma informed and results focused approach to quitting porn. This approach has been revolutionary and changed thousands and thousands of lives. I’m your host, Sara Brewer.  

Hey, everyone. I’m so excited to share this interview I did with Andrea. Andrea is a really good friend of mine. We connected through the coaching industry and have similar circles, so we found each other that way. And she is an amazing coach and has a really incredible life story. I could just listen to her talk forever. She coaches on infidelity and she helps women move past infidelity in their marriages. 

Now, this conversation is not black and white. You’re going to find that this conversation is very generous towards both sides of the party. And we talk about a lot of the nuances. How do we even define infidelity? You’re not going to get a pure yes or no answer. It’s not going to be that way. We talk about a lot of different things. 

And so our goal here is to, of course, always be a safe space for people who might be struggling with unwanted porn use, to be a safe space for them, to not ostracize people who use pornography, to not be a voice of shame or unreasoning. We do that often in the podcast, you guys know that we dispel a lot of myths around porn and what it means to view porn. 

But we also want to be a safe space for people who are really, really struggling, like spouses specifically, who might be really struggling with their partner’s porn use. And so we try, and I think we do a great job because Andrea does a great job really holding space for both sides and talking through the complexities and the nuances. And it’ll just be such a fabulous episode. 

I’m so excited for you to listen to it. I’m so excited for me to be able to send people to this episode over and over again. Please enjoy this interview with Andrea Giles. 

Sara: Hey, everyone. Welcome to today’s podcast episode. We have an awesome guest here. We have Andrea Giles, who is one of my good friends who I just love. She is a coach on infidelity and helps women who are struggling after infidelity. 

She is brilliant. She is wise. She has 12 freaking kids and so safe and wise and brilliant. I just adore her. I’m so excited to introduce you guys to her. Andrea, do you want to say hey? 

Andrea: Hello, hello. Thank you, Sara, I’m so glad to be here. I’ve been looking forward to it. 

Sara: Thank you. Yeah, me too. Okay, do you want to add anything? Like introduce yourself a little bit, tell us what you do. 

Andrea: Sure. Yeah, so Andrea Giles. I live in Montana. As Sara mentioned, those 12 freaking kids, I can amen to that. There’s so many. But I’m an infidelity coach, as Sara said. I am in a massive blended family. We have a ton of kids. So six from a previous marriage for me, five from my husband, and then we had a very, very big surprise little girl who is almost two, hence the 12 kids. 

But yeah, I work primarily with women who are trying to heal after infidelity. I also have a handful of clients who are, for lack of a better word here, the betrayer in the situation. The one who violated the trust in the marriage. I work with a handful of men as well. Anyway, that’s a little bit about me. 

Sara: Yeah, she’s got a great program. We’ll link to it and I’ll have you, at the end, tell us where people can find you. But it’s a really great program for anyone who is struggling with that. 

Andrea: Thank you. 

Sara: Let’s start talking infidelity, and maybe give us the definition. And then let’s talk about porn. 

Andrea: Okay. Yeah. So basically, there’s two pieces that need to be present for something to be labeled as infidelity. That said, there’s always nuance in every situation. But the two big pieces are one, a transgression of the agreement. Like a violation of the marital agreement of what you both committed to, some kind of violation of that. 

And two, a violation of trust. Usually what this means is willfully deceiving the other person. Knowing that there’s something that you know that your spouse would want to know and willfully, knowingly keeping it from them. Those two pieces together constitute infidelity. 

Sara: Yeah, and so I would assume most of your clients, it’s infidelity with cheating or emotional affairs, other kinds of affairs. But you had mentioned last time we were together, there’s lots of types of infidelity. There’s financial, is that right? 

Andrea: Yes. Yeah, financial infidelity. There is such a broad range of lots of different kinds. There’s some that involve a third party in a pretty minor way. There’s some that very much involve a third party. 

Basically, anywhere in relationships where there are things that are either said verbally, verbally committed to and then violated or some of the unwritten rules that we generally have. Like being monogamous, things like that, that we just go into marriage thinking this is what it is, this is what we are agreeing to. Or we’re going to be honest with each other about finances and then find out that that has not been the case, things like that. 

So there’s lots of ways in there that we can be sneaky, that we can deceive, and being able to understand what those things are and the impact, really seeing how keeping information from your partner that they would want to know so they could make a decision around, right? So that they can know it and then use their own mind, their own thinking process to decide what they want to do with it. That’s a piece of why it is infidelity. 

Sara: Okay, awesome. Okay, so let’s talk about porn and porn use because that is a question that comes up. Is it cheating? Am I cheating on my spouse? 

Andrea: Such a good question. Such a good question. You know, I will say, oh my goodness, okay, I think it’s a little bit of a loaded question because there is so much nuance. There is so much nuance based on the couple, based on their agreements. 

I will say for sure, for most people, there is a violation of trust for most people. Because for most people, they aren’t coming out and saying it, right? They’re not coming out and saying, hey, this is what I’m doing, and giving the other partner the information so they can then decide what to do with that information, right? 

I think it depends a lot on the person and more the impact that it has on how it feels to the person. Something that I have heard before is, okay, he didn’t full-on have an affair. He didn’t go be with another person, but I still feel cheated on, right? 

I mean, I think for the people listening, with those two components around infidelity, I think it really is something to internally go, okay, what was it for me, right? Was there a breach of the marital agreement, and did I willfully deceive? 

Or for the people who are on the other end of that, asking the same questions and you determine the truth in that for you. But more important than that is going, how has this impacted me? And dealing with the meaning of it more than is it infidelity or is it cheating or not? 

Sara: Yeah. Well, and so with porn specifically I’m thinking sometimes we hear, well, my spouse thinks it’s cheating and I don’t. This is something that I’m trying to quit, but I’m kind of having a hard time. 

Andrea: Sure. 

Sara: And so maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe the answer is it doesn’t really quite matter, but who gets to define that if it is infidelity? Because if the spouse is feeling betrayed. 

Andrea: Yeah. Yeah, I think they both get to define it for themselves because at the end of the day, we have to live with ourselves. We have to live with the impact we have on other people. And we know ourselves, we know our own minds. We know sometimes eventually we can do the work of learning why we do the things that we do. 

Sometimes in the moment, we don’t really understand, right? We’re just kind of going along with what feels good in the moment. That happens all the time, right? But hopefully there’s a point, at the point that you’re bringing up where both spouses are aware and know that this is happening, where each person can take a hard look at themselves and go, okay – And I’ll speak to both pieces here. 

For the person who’s viewing porn going, is this cheating? It depends on how they determine that, will likely determine what follows, perhaps, right? Like what they do with that information. I think it’s more about accountability on both sides. Like really owning what it is that you’re making it mean. Owning what it is that, you know, all the pieces of it, telling the truth to yourself. 

So for the person who is viewing porn, if there has been a violation of the agreement, if there has been deceit, like willfully keeping your partner in the dark, in my opinion, there is an element of infidelity to that. It’s in that spectrum. And it is a spectrum, like there really is. It’s a very wide spectrum. And I think what meaning are you attaching to that, I think is the more important question. 

Sara: Okay, really good. So tell me a little bit, what do you mean by that? 

Andrea: So I think that all of us want to see the best in ourselves, right? We want to see ourselves as good and as trustworthy and somebody worth being with and all of that. And if we have this idea in our head, oh my gosh, I cheated or I was unfaithful, there can be so much more shame piled onto that story that is unnecessary. 

Okay, what if the label itself doesn’t matter nearly as much as the meaning behind it of like, why did I feel like I needed to hide this? That’s actually what matters. The label itself, you and your spouse might come to a different definition. You might come to a different label of what it is. But what is more important to look at is, and what does that mean? 

Sara: Why do you think we get so hyper-focused with pornography with that label of infidelity? Like was it cheating or was it not? Because it can be something people really hyper-focus on and want the answer to. 

Andrea: Yeah, I think basically we’re looking at it from two different perspectives. Let’s look, first, at the person who is viewing porn. As you well know, this is what you do. So much shame, so much guilt, so much of the programming that we received about what it means to be somebody who views porn, right? 

And then you pile on a label like infidelity. And that can just double down on any shame and guilt and feelings of disgust or those kinds of things towards ourself. And so, of course, we’re going to resist that. Of course we’re not going to want to be like, yep, I was unfaithful or it’s infidelity or whatever we’re labeling it. We don’t want that. We don’t want to slap that onto it because then comes more things to process, more shame possibly, right, if we are making it mean that. 

For the person who is married to the person who’s viewing porn, I think for them, they often are in a lot of pain, right? They often feel cheated on. 

Sara: And that’s valid. 

Andrea: Yes, it’s so valid. It’s so valid. It’s so, so valid. And so I think for them, they’re looking for that label to justify how much pain they’re in, right? Like, this hurts so bad, so it must be this. Like, if it’s not that, then why does it hurt so bad, right? And so it can just kind of make sense of this very painful experience where I think sometimes we can undermine that side of things by kind of the argument, is it cheating? Is it not cheating? What if it doesn’t matter? And we look at the experience that we’re having with it instead. 

Sara: And we validate every person’s experience with it. 

Andrea: Yes. Yes. 

Sara: We validate that spouse who feels this deep pain of betrayal. 

Andrea: Yes. 

Sara: We validate the person struggling with it where there’s so much unnecessary shame and that maybe this started in childhood just with some purity culture stuff that was really rough or them feeling like they didn’t ever get the right tools to quit. All they’ve been told to do is willpower, willpower, pray more, and it doesn’t work and the hopelessness. 

We can validate both sides of those and both can be right. 

Andrea: Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I think that’s why we get hung up on that. Back to your original question, it’s because at the end of the day we all want to feel validated. We want to feel like we’re not out of our minds, that we’re not bad people, that we’re not broken, right? 

And so sometimes these labels of things that can be useful to define an experience, right, it can be useful to go, okay, that’s what that was. It can be useful, for sure. But I do think that to really move forward from it, we have to slow down and look at the meaning that we are attaching to the label. 100% we have to look at that and what we’re making it all mean. 

Sara: Yeah. Okay. So let’s talk about, let’s say this is the dynamic that we’re experiencing. A lot of pain, some betrayal on one side, the struggles of working through a porn habit on the other side, and working through the shame and the identity stuff, and really being careful not to create identities that are going to keep you stuck, right? This balance that we’re having in this relationship. 

What is possible for a couple in this position? 

Andrea: Oh, everything. Like everything is possible. So much is possible. I think when we have these things in our lives that can feel like a crisis, it can be an opening if we take it, if we allow it, if we walk through that door. I think it could be an opening into much more awareness of ourselves and of our own thoughts about ourselves, our own beliefs about ourselves, the way we view the world, the way we view who we are. And it can be an opportunity to go deeper on that. 

So I’ll give an example. It’s so easy, at first, for both parties, right? Both the person viewing porn and the person who finds out about it, for them both to have a story. An immediate, very painful story of, one, I’m just a loser, I’m a terrible person, I’m not worth loving, right? Those very heavy stories. 

And then on the other side for the person who finds out that her partner’s been viewing porn, it’s so easy, so easy to go to a place of, if I were enough, he would not need to do this. If I were good enough, if I were attractive enough, if I were intimate enough, right? Like it’s so easy to go there. And it can feel really absolute. Well, I guess that’s just it. I just wasn’t enough. And if I were, then this, right? 

And when we can slow down that dialogue, when we can get out of, first and foremost, getting out of crisis mode. Because in crisis mode, those stories are going to be all the way up to a 10. Like really loud, really consuming, hard to really see past, hard to see beyond into something a little more objective. 

But when we can kind of calm our bodies down from the initial overwhelming kind of shock to our systems of new information that we don’t know how to process, or in the case of somebody who’s viewing porn and their spouse now knows, and that kind of, it’s scary, right? To feel exposed, right? 

But when we can move past that, this is the biggest opportunity to really get an objective view of so much that up until this point, we maybe have just buried and tucked away. 

Sara: Yeah, it brings stuff up. Not just the porn or the porn disclosure, but a lot of the relationship dynamics that until now we’ve kind of been able to just kind of skirt by or not really think about. 

Andrea: Yeah. 

Sara: And I want to talk about this because I think – We were saying right before the call, we’re conditioned, especially, well, maybe not especially women, but a lot of women too, were conditioned that porn, oh, that’s going to ruin your marriage. 

Andrea: Yes. 

Sara: There’s no coming back. 

Andrea: Right. So heavy, right? 

Sara: Very. 

Andrea: So heavy. And I just don’t agree with it. I don’t agree with it. I mean, I work with women whose spouses have had sometimes years long affairs, right? And I’ve seen it with my own eyes of these couples who come out way stronger than they ever were before, way happier, right? Because they know themselves more. They know who they are. They see the areas in themselves, like you said, how easy it is to just kind of tuck things away and sweep things away in relationship patterns and just kind of carry on as usual. 

And the opportunity is there to go, wait a minute, what are the patterns? How have I participated? How have we helped create this pattern? And what do we want to do with it? 

I will say it begins with working with ourselves first, right? There’s personal work that needs to be done so that we can bring both of our strengths into really creating something together that we’re both really proud of. 

Sara: Yeah, independent healing so that we can heal together interdependently. 

Andrea: Yes, exactly. Exactly. 

Sara: Which is why I often say, spouses, if you’re struggling with this, you deserve help and you deserve healing and you 100% deserve the resources put towards your own healing, not just the person who’s struggling with porn. 

Andrea: No. Yeah. 

Sara: It’s very easy to just put all the resources towards them. 

Andrea: Yes. Yes, for sure. And part of my experience in life was in my first marriage, I was married for 16 years and there was porn and then it led to physical encounters and there were all kinds of things. There were addiction issues, there was a lot there. 

And I remember so much focus going on him and on what he needed. And it often felt like I kind of had to fend for myself. Just had to be strong and keep it together for the kids because dad’s struggling. 

And I know that loneliness. I know that burden of what about me? What about me? The church community really rallied around him. And then it did get better. There was some support, but yeah, both parties need support and validation, for sure. Both sides. 

And really, I will say both sides, to really come out and create something amazing, it does take both people being willing to be vulnerable and having to look at themselves. 

Sara: Yeah. And so back to what you were saying, yes, there’s so much that is possible and a beautiful relationship that’s possible here. And we say that too, that you don’t have to stay with them. 

Andrea: Nope. Nope. 

Sara: And there is no expectation that you even have to give them a chance if you don’t want to. 

Andrea: Nope. Not at all. Not at all. I agree completely and I think it’s a very personal decision. I mean, I left my first marriage, right? I left it. And for me, and how I coach people around this is, first of all, we get to just choose. We don’t have to justify it to anybody, right? We can have an inner knowing of what is a safe environment for us. 

I think it’s this inner knowing of, is this a place where I can grow? Growing is very different than pushing ourselves to grow in an environment that is not a safe environment to grow. And I think that there are some things to look for there. 

There are some things to see that can help us to identify, is this a safe environment even for me to, like, I know there’s things that I want to look at, I know there’s areas I want to grow in, but is this a safe, wise move for me to be here? 

Sara: Yeah. What would you look for? I mean, I’m assuming abusive tendencies. 

Andrea: Yeah. 

Sara: Not just physical, but. 

Andrea: No. Yeah, abuse of various forms. A big one is if you’re with somebody who seems unable to feel empathy, like to really feel empathy, that can be a long, long haul. Because empathy, it’s something that really needs to be in any good relationship, the ability to really sit with somebody else’s feelings and not take them on, right? Like, I’m not going to make your feelings my feelings, but I can sit with you and be with you as you experience what you’re experiencing, right? 

And sometimes after we find out these things about our partners, at first it can be pretty traumatizing. It can feel very traumatizing. And if there’s no empathy, if there’s no remorse just for the position we’ve put our partners in of this painful information that they now need to sort through, it can be tricky to really go deep enough to build the kind of relationship that is thriving, right? 

So those are some of the things. Out of the gate I will say when that crisis mode is there, there really does need to be just compassion and empathy and kindness and some remorse of going, yeah, my actions have impacted this person, right, whether I meant to or not. Most of us don’t go out trying to hurt other people, right? 

Most of us don’t do that. But looking at the impact of our choices on somebody else and then just being able to have compassion and empathy is really, really important to the long-term ability for this relationship to be able to be healed in a sustainable way. 

Sara: Yeah, really good. This is something I talked about recently, but I just want to mention again. There’s a difference between we’re shame-free, we’re not working from shame, and it’s healthy to have guilt. And it’s healthy to have some remorse and those things. 

Andrea: Yes, yeah. 

Sara: Just making sure that I’m throwing that in there. 

Andrea: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think, yeah, shame, I think shame, the problem with shame is that I think it’s kind of an empathy killer because we’re very much focused on ourselves when we are in a shame spiral, right? We’re very much just feeling our own intense emotions. And so it’s pretty hard to sit with somebody else in theirs if we’re really in it, right? 

Guilt, I think, can be a pretty useful emotion when used well, right? We can certainly use any emotion against ourselves, but I think guilt is one that can be useful to just be an indicator of who do I want to be and are my actions in alignment with that? 

And I think guilt can be an emotion that can be just a question that we can – An emotion that can signal, maybe there’s something just to look at here. Sometimes our answer will be, I actually am completely fine with what I’m doing, but I needed to slow down and check in to make sure. That sometimes is the answer. And sometimes it’s a, no, not who I want to be. 

Sara: Yeah, so good. Okay, so tell us, what are the steps? How do we create this really deep, beautiful, loving relationship with someone after infidelity? 

Andrea: Yeah. So step one is all about getting through that crisis, right? Something I teach my clients inside my program is just a very simple little method, the three C’s. The first one is to calm the crisis. We’re not going to get anywhere when we are in crisis mode. Our brain, I’m sure you’ve taught this a ton, right? Our brain is not able to really go to a place of thinking objectively, to really open up to the big picture, right? We’re just in crisis mode. 

An analogy of this is like hanging out in a dark, dingy basement. Everything’s dark. Everything’s kind of cold, cement floor. It’s all scary. The walls are, like it feels like the walls are caving in, right? 

Sara: Like from the scary murder shows. 

Andrea: Yes. Yes, totally. Yes, exactly. Exactly. That is step one, where a lot of people are, right? When they first find out or when it’s first revealed both people can feel very highly triggered, not just the person who found out about the porn use. 

There’s this thing that happens when it is revealed, where it’s like, oh my gosh, this piece is now integrated into this other part of my life. And we’re looking at that. We’re looking at the impact and it can be very heavy and very hard, right? 

It can be very hard to see ourselves. And so both partners might be hanging out in the basement, okay? In that highly triggered kind of crisis mode, this is not a good place. 

To start to move forward from that, the second C is to get clear on what happened and get clear on what’s happening now, okay? And what that means is that we need to actually get our brain to a place where we feel safe enough that we can start to see things a little more objectively. 

Being able to see the data. Being able to even ask questions like understanding who we are, who we’ve been, who our spouses are, who they’ve been and going, why does it make perfect sense being in this frame of mind, that this would be the actions one would take, right? 

And there are always answers to that. There always are. 

Sara: That’s a good question. 

Andrea: To go, oh, this is not just like this bad person doing this bad thing. It’s like, oh, this is the headspace that this person was in and it made perfect sense in that moment to go look at porn, right, from that headspace. 

And also to do that same work with ourselves. To go, yeah, this is how I responded. And knowing what I was thinking and how I was feeling, it makes perfect sense that that’s how I responded. But who do I want to be now? And we’re really getting a picture of what is currently happening, getting a broader view of areas that we – 

Like, this is the piece where we’re really pulling apart our patterns and any kind of enmeshment that we have. Any kind of, you know, over-functioning, under-functioning, taking on too much of somebody else’s stuff that’s not ours. Just really looking at how we have co-created the relationship that we’re in. Not ever to take responsibility for somebody else’s porn use, but just to look at the whole picture. 

This is one piece of it, right? The porn use is just one piece of it, one piece of the whole. And so as this couple starts going to this upstairs, first of all, there’s windows and you can see. There’s more of a landscape that you can see, there’s more light, right? And there’s these different rooms. And if we grow our capacity to stay in that space, we get to go to each room and really look at what’s there. 

How have we both contributed to shutting down when things feel hot and when there’s conflict? What’s my pattern? What’s your pattern? What’s our belief about really telling each other the truth about things? Like, what does that bring up? And being able to open each of those doors and go in and look around. 

And for your listeners, Sara, who might not want to stay, this is the space too, to look at that and to go to these rooms and go, is there enough here that makes me want to stay? It’s not going to be from that basement brain. I mean, sometimes we make that decision from that space and that’s okay. Sometimes we do. 

But really the decisions that we can really get behind are when we’re in that upstairs space and we can really look at the whole picture and go, is this where I want to be? Is this the relationship? I know that I’ve got opportunities here for my own growth, but is this the person, right? Is this the person that I want to do this with? 

And then the third piece, the third C, is to create. Create the life you want. And if we don’t have something that we are really deeply invested in that we can look forward to, a vision of what we’re creating, it’s so easy to fall back, right? So, so easy. 

Our default, of course, is to go back to what we know. Go back to the comfort of the things that we know. And so for couples who are trying to rebuild, a shared vision is so, so powerful. And sometimes one person can hold that for both for a little while. One person can kind of hold their relationship accountable to this bigger vision and show up with so much strength that it kind of moves the whole thing forward. 

But not having that vision, it becomes really easy to fall back into all of the patterns that existed before the crisis. 

Sara: Yeah, really good. I love, love, love that analogy of the rooms. That’s so good and so helpful. So much goodness that you shared with us today. Is there anything else that you want to add or that we missed or that you would want someone to know who is struggling post infidelity? 

Andrea: Yeah, I think what I’ll say is, first of all, just so much love and compassion for the whole thing. And whatever you are experiencing is real for you, right? It is your lived experience. It’s what you’re experiencing and nobody can diminish that, right? 

What I will say is that in all of the talk, what we were just discussing about going and creating something amazing and beautiful, I just want to be clear in saying that the work here is never, ever about, I need to do this so he won’t view porn again. 

Sara: Wow, so good. Thank you. 

Andrea: Or I need to do this so he won’t cheat on me, right? No, no, no, no. Okay? The only person you’re doing this for is for yourself. And at the end of the day, the greatest gift we can give is the gift of ourselves, of being fully who we are here to be and really knowing ourselves well. 

And the thing about these kinds of crises in our lives is that it can expose ourselves to ourselves. We can go, oh my gosh. It can expose old wounds that we had thought we had dealt with. Like stuff from when we were really little, it can rip those band-aids right off in a painful way and go, I did not know that was still there, right? I didn’t know that I was still carrying around that story or that story. 

And so I think that the opportunity is here to go in this raw, open, vulnerable space and really, instead of just doing a patch-up job and just kind of trying to carry on, right? Come on, let’s just keep moving forward doing the things that we always did. What makes a marriage amazing is looking at the patterns that are not sustainable, that in order to sweep this under the rug and just carry on as usual, how much resentment would I be signing up for? How much bitterness and contempt am I saying yes to? 

And really you choosing you is saying, I don’t want any of that. I don’t want the burden of contempt. I don’t want the burden of resentment. So what do I need to do instead? Oh, I need to learn how to really own what I want, how to be a really strong advocate for myself, how to say what is true for me, even if it’s scary. 

This is what I’m talking about. It’s learning to step more fully into who we are, like who we actually are. And when we do that, when we take this as an opportunity to do that, that is what makes a profoundly beautiful, safe relationship. 

Sara: So good. I want to throw in there, it’s just coming to me. Sometimes I think spouses or wives will maybe, like with the porn discussion, they’ll hesitate to say something or talk about how they don’t want it or they don’t want it to be a normal part of their relationship with their spouse. They’re scared to say that because they think, oh, it’s just normal and every guy needs this. That’s not true. 

Andrea: Not true at all. It’s not true at all. And I think that some of the messaging of the world that we live in, that it’s just like we need to just kind of suck it up and deal with it. And I think it’s all about understanding the meanings, right? Understanding what is it that I’m seeking here? And looking at the impact of the choices that we make and going, is that an impact I’m okay with making? Who’s being impacted by my actions? 

I don’t think at all it needs to be something that we just kind of learn to deal with at all. I think that there are marriages that can be porn-free and that we can own that’s something that we want. 

Sara: Yeah, and we can be okay with owning that. 

Andrea: Yeah. 

Sara: Good. Okay, really good. So like recap is porn cheating, it’s a lot of nuance. 

Andrea: Yes. 

Sara: There are so many parts of this that we would look at. And there’s also so many different levels, right? 

Andrea: Yes. Yes. 

Sara: I’ll have, oh, this person viewed porn and was sexting with other women all day during work and then, like there’s all these different levels, too, of the infidelity or of the lying and the betrayal. And then there is, oh, he’s trying to quit. It’s something he’s kind of struggled with on and off as a buffer. It’s just so different. It can mean different things. It’s not a yes or no, black or white, but giving yourself permission to honor whatever you’re feeling. 

And that if we do come to that, we don’t need to focus so much on the label as we do the, how did you say it before? 

Andrea: Like the meaning. The meaning that we’re attaching to the label. 

Sara: Yeah. Yeah, the meaning and learning how to sit with each other in their hard emotions. 

Andrea: Yep. 

Sara: Like, okay, my spouse feels really betrayed and feels like there’s been infidelity here. Am I emotionally mature enough to sit with that instead of getting defensive and pushing back? 

Andrea: Yes. I mean that piece right there, the safety created and just letting your spouse feel what they’re going to feel without needing to taint it to make you feel better, right, that requires a lot of emotional maturity. But there’s so much growth in that, right. 

Sara: Yeah. Really good. Awesome. 

Andrea: Can I add one more quick thing? Something to just think about is, it’s something I get asked a lot, well, how do we rebuild trust after it’s broken? How do I know if he’s trustworthy? How do I know this and that? 

And one of the things that I really believe is that sometimes our actions are very – We can point to actions, like viewing porn and being deceitful about it, or when it’s not part of the agreement, or of course, with my clients, like involving a third party, that kind of thing. And those are really obvious things that we can go, yeah, we don’t want that. Okay? 

But I think what we’re really looking for is creating these relationships where energetically, we are all in. Like energetically, we are giving that energy to this beautiful container that we are choosing to be in, this marriage container. And looking at, okay, we all do it, okay? We can poke little holes in that container and leak energy to outside things. 

We all have our own special ways of doing that. Sometimes it’s buffering by being too busy with our children. Like I don’t have time for you because they come first, but it’s really because it’s too scary to really confront the things in our marriage. But this looks good, so I’m going to keep doing this. 

We all have our ways of doing it and some look more noble than others. But really taking a look at, energetically speaking, where are my leaks? Where am I, where am I sending out this signal that I’m not all in? Like if other people are picking up on that, what might they be picking up on? And really just identifying that. 

And where we can build is where we are both taking full responsibility for the commitment to honoring the energy that we’re giving to building that, like a really strong, solid container that we both can thrive in, right? That we’re not worried about holes being poked in and where’s the energy going? Is the focus here? Is it elsewhere? And really determining what that means for you. 

So when these little nuanced questions, well, is it bad if he does this? Is it bad if he goes to lunch with a coworker? The bigger question is, energetically what is that taking from the relationship? What’s it taking from that container to go give it to viewing porn or the energy required to hide it, right? All of these pieces. 

Sara: That’s so good. I love that because, I mean, for people who do feel a lot more nuanced in it and are trying to decide, well, where is porn playing a part in my marriage? And I’m actually not as against it as I thought I was, as long as it’s ethical, right? There are people there. That’s a great way to think. 

Like how is the energy for our relationship? Because I mean the energy, I think in my opinion, it can still be really strong and great there if you have an agreement that each partner, whatever, views porn every so often or whatever. 

Andrea: I agree. 

Sara: That’s a really great question to sit on and think on as you’re trying to make decisions for your own individual relationships. 

Andrea: Thank you. 

Sara: Thank you. 

Andrea: You bet. You bet. 

Sara: Okay, tell us how we can find you. 

Andrea: Okay, so I have a podcast. It’s called Heal From Infidelity, Andrea Giles. You can find me on Instagram at The Infidelity Coach. My website is andreagiles.com, and in there you can find information about what I offer in working with me, my program, things like that. That’s about it. My program is called Get Your Life Back After Infidelity. 

Sara: Oh, it’s so good, you guys. It’s such a good program. 

Andrea: Thank you. 

Sara: If anyone is struggling with this, that program is so valuable and priceless how much that can help you and change your life. And you just deserve all the love and help and support. I just love, love, love, love, love Andrea and everything she does. So thank you for being here. 

Andrea: Thank you. Absolutely, thank you so much for having me. 

Sara: Yeah, thank you. All right, you guys have a great week. We’ll talk to you later, bye bye.

I want to invite you to come and listen to my free class, How To Overcome Pornography For Good Without Using Willpower. We talk about how to stop giving in to urges without pure willpower or relying on phone filters so that you can actually stop wanting pornography. 

We talk about how to stop giving up after a few weeks or months. And spoiler alert, the answer isn’t have more willpower. And then lastly, we talk about how to make a life without porn easily sustainable and permanent. 

If you’re trying to quit porn, this class is a game changer. So you can go and sign up at Sarabrewer.com/masterclass, and it is totally free.