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Conversations with Dr. Jennifer

The Challenge of Pornography in Marriage

Conversations with Dr. Jennifer

Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife

Self-improvement, Education, Mental Health, Sexuality, Health & Fitness

4.4978 Ratings

🗓️ 26 September 2023

⏱️ 74 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this recent Facebook Live, Zach and Darcy Spafford of the Thrive Beyond Pornography podcast joined Dr. Finlayson-Fife to share their personal experience working through unwanted pornography use in their marriage and how after years of feeling stuck and frustrated, they were able to shift gears and make meaningful, lasting progress in their relationship to pornography and their relationship to each other. Listen to the full episode to learn more about: Self-authoring and the importance of claiming your life and choices The problem with compliance/defiance framing Role-based marriage vs choice-based marriage Eroticism in marriage  Approaching difficult conversations with curiosity A recording of this conversation is also available on our YouTube channel. 

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to Conversations with Dr. Jennifer, a collection of interviews on the topics of relationships, sexuality, and more, all featuring Dr. Finlayson Fife.

0:22.0

Tonight we're going to talk to Zach and Darcy Spafford who are a couple that had their own crisis

0:30.6

and challenges around pornography towards the beginning of their marriage.

0:35.0

And they tried some of the traditional approaches that were offered to them,

0:41.0

but felt like they couldn't get unstuck and were I would say you

0:47.7

guys can say better than me but I think increasingly frustrated and feeling like

0:51.5

you weren't moving into a different way of being with each other and in the marriage.

0:57.0

And then they found their way through it and into a better place and it was meaningful enough for them that they have started their own

1:06.3

coaching program and a podcast called Thrive Beyond Pornography that they

1:12.1

used to help inspire couples and to talk through some of these issues.

1:16.0

We get a lot of questions coming into the Facebook group about pornography.

1:20.0

In fact, we have even a pornography thread because it can be such a challenging topic.

1:25.6

It can be an upsetting topic.

1:27.9

Our Facebook group was deteriorating in a lot of these fights around how to think about pornography. I just wanted to approach

1:37.2

tonight's call a little differently just by having Zach and Darcy tell their story a little bit and I'll be asking questions. I don't I haven't ever had a conversation with them about it, but I would love to know from them and for listeners to listen in on what their early experience was, what they

1:56.5

think wasn't working about it, and then what shifted. And I'll be interrupting at times and

2:01.1

asking questions. But why don't you just start with that,

2:04.0

Zach and Dorsey, just tell us a little bit about how you were stuck and what it looked like in your marriage.

2:12.2

Yeah, I think that we were, you know, I was doing all the right things.

2:17.1

I went to the Bishop, I went to the 12 steps, we had therapist after therapist, and some of them were better than others.

2:27.0

In fact, probably the one that was the best of all of them is the one that Darcy got mad at and walked out on,

2:32.3

because that therapist was trying to help Darcy move

...

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