Brett and Shendi Share Life Lessons | The Impact of Pornography on Marriage.

 

 

Full Transcript:

 

0:00:00.7 Narrator: 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 on this episode of Improving Intimacy.

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0:00:27.0 Daniel A. Burgess: Welcome to another episode of Improving Intimacy. And today we're gonna be continuing the discussion about how to navigate and discuss pornography within the family, between your spouse and your children. On today's episode we have Brett and Shendi, and I look forward to exploring their adventure with this topic. And so, let's turn it over to you guys. Introduce yourself, let us know about some details of your family. What's your status in the church and what your goal is.

0:01:00.9 Brett: I'm Brett Pingel, me and Shendi have been married, twelve years?

0:01:06.5 Shendi: Yeah.

0:01:07.0 Brett: Twelve years now. Just hit 12 years in April. We have four kids, ages from almost 11 to just turned a year.

0:01:18.9 Shendi: Both mostly from Utah, and we're active in church.

0:01:22.6 DB: Good. How old are your children?

0:01:27.8 Brett: Ten, nine, seven, one.

0:01:31.7 DB: Ooh, got them tight together and then you've got the... How many boys, how many girls?

0:01:39.1 Brett: Two and two.

0:01:39.8 DB: Two and two. Two older, two younger?

0:01:42.9 Brett: Boy... Girl, boy, boy, girl.

0:01:46.6 DB: Oh, got it. Alright, great. So they're getting ready to get into their teenage years, are you excited about that?

0:01:52.3 Shendi: Don't remind me.

[laughter]

0:01:57.2 Brett: Not sure I'm ready for a teenager.

0:02:00.5 DB: Yeah, it's, I don't think we could prepare for that. Perfectly, at least. I put out on our Facebook group, Improving Intimacy, a request to find couples who are willing to talk about their journey in discussing pornography and and a few other related topics. You reached out and said that you've had this discussion between each other and you're learning how to navigate that with your children.

0:02:28.0 DB: You've been married for 12 years, and... Tell us a little about that journey. What was it like for you guys? Was it a difficult topic? Did it come naturally? What was your experience?

0:02:41.3 Brett: I think for us it came out pretty early, 'cause I've had my own issues and I guess you could say addiction to pornography that I've dealt with for many years since I was a teenager. I don't know or remember at what point it came out. I'm pretty sure it came out even in the dating process before we ever got married. I think Shendi was aware of it.

0:03:07.6 Shendi: I don't think I realized how much he was into it, not that he was viewing it every day.

0:03:15.7 DB: You're talking about during the dating phase, Shendi?

0:03:18.7 Shendi: Yeah, yeah. When we were dating, I know that he said that he wasn't viewing every day, but I knew that had some addiction to looking at it. And then we just never really discussed it while dating, just that we knew that it was there and that it wasn't... Other than that, it wasn't really discussed until I really, I think I really realized until after we were married. I think within our first year was when is when I'd noticed that he was looking at things.

0:03:49.0 DB: So you're aware of it during the dating. What kept... Shendi, what kept you from exploring it more with him? Was it not a concern to you, or did you feel like it was resolved? What kept you from pursuing that concern or potential concern there?

0:04:07.0 Shendi: There's a lot of addiction in my family. And so, for us, I think it was just kinda I know it's there, but I don't think my family ever really deals with their addiction, on my side. And