Prodependence vs. Codependency | Porn Addiction, Betrayal Trauma & Relationship Recovery with Dr. Rob Weiss
When a man begins recovering from porn addiction, it can feel like the entire problem should come down to one thing: stop the behavior.
Stop looking. Stop hiding. Stop crossing boundaries. Get sober.
And obviously, sobriety matters. If the destructive behavior continues, healing has very little room to take root. But one of the things I have learned through my own recovery and through working with men is that stopping the behavior is only the beginning. Eventually, recovery begins exposing something much larger: how we respond to pain, how we relate to other people, whether we know how to ask for help, how we handle shame, and whether we can remain emotionally present when a relationship becomes uncomfortable.
That is why my conversation with Dr. Rob Weiss about prodependence vs. codependency was so interesting to me.
Dr. Rob has spent decades working with sex addiction, compulsive sexual behavior, infidelity, betrayed partners, couples, and families. In our conversation, he challenged some common assumptions about codependency and offered another way of thinking about addiction and relationships: prodependence. His basic argument is that healthy dependency is not something we need to eliminate. Human beings are meant to lean on one another. The problem is not dependence itself, but the destructive ways addiction can distort attachment, trust, responsibility, and connection.
For men working through porn addiction and betrayal trauma, this creates an important question. What if recovery is not ultimately about becoming more independent, self-contained, and capable of handling everything alone? What if part of relationship recovery after porn addiction is learning how to become appropriately dependent again—to tell the truth, receive accountability, tolerate another person's emotions, accept responsibility, and move toward connection instead of escape?
That changes the way we think about recovery.
Porn Addiction Is Often About More Than Sex
Early in our conversation, Rob described many of the men he works with as having used sexual behavior for years to stabilize themselves, distract themselves, or soothe themselves. Eventually the pattern becomes compulsive and begins damaging the relationships around them.
That distinction matters.
When I work with men, I often encourage them to move beyond the question, “Why am I so sexually tempted?” and begin asking a deeper question: What have I trained sexual behavior to do for me?
Maybe I feel lonely and sexual content gives me momentary stimulation and pseudo-connection. Maybe I feel anxious and it gives my nervous system an intense distraction. Maybe I feel inadequate and fantasy temporarily allows me to disappear from myself. Maybe I am exhausted, bored, angry, rejected, ashamed, or disconnected from my purpose.
The sexual behavior may be the routine, but there is often an entire internal process happening before the routine begins.
That is why lasting porn addiction recovery requires more than building stronger resistance. I need to learn to recognize what is happening inside of me before I reach the point of acting out. What am I feeling? What story am I telling myself? What is happening in my body? What am I actually hungry for underneath this craving?
The deeper I understand that process, the more options I have. I can learn emotional regulation. I can change my environment, get more sleep, exercise, pray, call someone, have the difficult conversation, or allow sadness to simply be sadness instead of immediately turning it into sexual craving.
Recovery becomes less about endlessly fighting myself and more about learning how to lead myself.
Addiction Tells Us to Escape. Recovery Teaches Us to Come Home
One of my favorite moments in my conversation with Rob was his description of the word home. He talked about home as the place we return to after facing the difficulty of the world—a place where we are supported, known, and able to lean into relationship.
Then he pointed out something profound: many people struggling with addiction continually run away from home when what they most need is to learn how to run toward it.
That is such a powerful picture of pornography addiction.
Porn teaches us to disappear. When something hurts, I isolate. When something scares me, I hide. When I feel inadequate, I enter fantasy. When I feel relational tension, I retreat into a world where nobody asks anything of me. Over time, the pattern can become automatic: discomfort begins to equal escape.
Recovery slowly teaches a different response: discomfort can become an invitation into connection.
That might mean calling another man from your recovery community when you feel the urge to isolate. It may mean telling your wife, “I'm having a difficult day and I'm noticing myself wanting to shut down.” It may mean sitting quietly with God instead of filling every uncomfortable moment with stimulation. It may mean going to a meeting, talking with a coach, walking with a friend, or simply allowing yourself to be seen.
I believe this is part of why isolation is so dangerous in recovery. The man who believes he should be able to handle everything alone is trying to recover while maintaining one of the very conditions in which addiction thrives.
Prodependence vs. Codependency: Do We Need People Less—or Better?
This is where Rob's concept of prodependence vs. codependency becomes especially interesting.
Rob's concern with the traditional codependency framework is that it can sometimes make dependency itself appear pathological. In his model, a spouse trying desperately to save a marriage affected by addiction is not automatically evidence of something fundamentally wrong with that spouse. A person may be angry, terrified, hypervigilant, exhausted, or doing things they would never normally do because their world has become deeply unstable.
Prodependence starts from a different posture. Rather than immediately asking, “What is wrong with you for being so attached to this person?” it asks us to recognize that love, attachment, and dependency are normal parts of close relationships. Rob described healthy dependency as the ability to lean on one another through both good and difficult seasons.
Of course, dependency can become unhealthy. People can become controlling, emotionally enmeshed, abusive, manipulative, or unable to function without regulating themselves through another person. Rob acknowledges this too. His point is not that every dependent pattern is healthy. His point is that dependency itself is not the enemy.
For men recovering from porn addiction, I think this matters tremendously because many of us have absorbed an ideal of masculinity that says strength means needing nothing. We are taught to handle things ourselves, keep struggles private, avoid burdening other people, and fix our problems before anyone discovers that we are struggling.
That mentality can look strong from the outside while creating perfect conditions for secrecy.
Healthy masculinity, in my view, requires something different. It takes strength to say, “I need help.” It takes courage to allow another man to know where you are vulnerable. It takes humility to accept accountability. And it takes maturity to realize that God did not design us to recover in isolation.
Your Wife Did Not Cause Your Porn Addiction
This is one of the strongest points Rob made in our entire conversation, and I believe men in recovery need to hear it clearly.
Your marriage may be painful. Your spouse may be angry, distant, critical, or difficult to understand. You may feel sexually rejected, emotionally lonely, controlled, resentful, or deeply discouraged by the state of the relationship.
Those experiences matter, but they did not cause you to return to porn.
Near the end of our conversation, Rob emphasized that the choice to return to an addictive behavior belongs to the person making that choice. A spouse may influence how I feel, but there are countless ways I can respond to relational pain. Acting out is still my responsibility.
I think one of the most important shifts in recovery happens when we stop saying, “My wife did this, and then I relapsed,” and learn to say something more honest: “This happened between us. I felt rejected, angry, powerless, or lonely. I did not know how to tolerate what I was feeling, and I chose my old escape.”
That second statement may be harder to admit, but it is infinitely more hopeful because ownership gives me something I can actually change.
If my wife causes my addiction, then my recovery depends on controlling my wife. If I am responsible for how I respond to pain, then I can grow.
That does not mean accepting unhealthy behavior from another person. Boundaries may be necessary, and relationships sometimes contain patterns that need serious attention. But my responsibility remains my responsibility.
Understanding Your Story Should Produce Compassion, Not an Excuse
Rob and I also talked about childhood wounds, abuse, neglect, enmeshment, and painful family experiences. He acknowledged that these experiences can profoundly shape the ways a person learns to survive, while also pointing out that not every person with trauma becomes addicted.
I love this distinction because it allows room for both compassion and responsibility.
Your story matters. Maybe you discovered sexual content during a season when you felt profoundly alone. Maybe your home was emotionally chaotic. Maybe nobody taught you what to do with anxiety, sadness, anger, sexuality, rejection, or shame. Maybe porn became one of the few predictable ways you knew how to change what you felt.
Understanding that can help you stop treating yourself like some uniquely defective human being, but understanding how the pattern began is different from giving the pattern permission to continue.
The healthy reframe is something like this: Of course I learned to survive this way. And now I am responsible for learning another way.
That is the balance I want men to find—not shame and not excuse, but ownership with compassion.
Compassion Alone Is Not Enough for Porn Addiction Recovery
This was another place where Rob was particularly direct. Therapists are often trained to be compassionate, empathetic, supportive, and curious about the pain underneath destructive behavior. Rob believes those things matter, but he argues that a person actively struggling with addiction often needs something more: structure, accountability, challenge, behavioral change, and people willing to confront denial.
I strongly resonate with that.
I can understand every childhood experience that contributed to my pornography use and still continue using pornography. Insight matters tremendously, but insight by itself is not transformation.
Eventually, recovery has to enter my actual lifestyle. I have to ask what boundaries exist around my devices, what I do when a craving hits, who knows when I'm struggling, whether I am sleeping enough to regulate my nervous system, and whether I am caring for my body through movement, nutrition, and rest. I also have to consider whether I am spending meaningful time with people, living toward a purpose, strengthening my relationship with God, and continuing the work when motivation is low.
Compassion says, “It makes sense that this is difficult.” Responsibility adds, “And I am still going to practice a different way of living.”
We need both.
Your Wife Is Not Your Recovery Coach
One of the most difficult experiences for a recovering man can happen after he begins making real progress. Maybe you have been sober for three months, six months, or a year, and for the first time in a long time you feel hopeful about who you are becoming.
Then your wife barely acknowledges it. She may even respond with something like, “That's great, but you lied to me for years.”
The recovering man can feel crushed. He may think, I am doing everything I can. Why can't she see how much I've changed?
Rob's response in our conversation was important: a recovering man needs people who can celebrate his recovery, but his betrayed spouse may not be the person capable of providing that validation right now. Your coach can encourage you. Recovery brothers can celebrate milestones. A therapist, mentor, group, or trusted friend can recognize the work you are doing. Your wife may still be trying to process what happened to her.
That is why your recovery system needs to be larger than your marriage.
Your wife should not have to carry responsibility for your sobriety, your motivation, your self-worth, your accountability, and her own healing simultaneously. You need brotherhood, people who understand the work, and enough emotional grounding that your wife's pain does not become another reason to escape.
Why Sobriety Does Not Immediately Rebuild Trust After Porn Addiction
This is crucial for relationship recovery after porn addiction.
Sobriety and trust are related, but they are not the same thing.
You may experience six months of sobriety as six months of enormous progress. Your wife may experience those same six months as only six months of safety after years of uncertainty. Both experiences can be real at the same time.
Rob described betrayed partners as often living with hypervigilance. Something small—being late, behaving differently, guarding a phone, or simply acting in a way that resembles a past pattern—can activate fear that the betrayal is happening again.
Your first impulse may be defensiveness: “I wasn't doing anything!”
That may be factually true while still missing the emotional reality of what is happening. Rob offered a different kind of response: tell the truth while also understanding why the fear exists. A response such as, “I wasn't acting out, but I understand why being late scared you after what you have experienced,” communicates something defensiveness cannot.
It communicates empathy.
One of the greatest changes I believe a man can make after betrayal is learning that he does not have to defend himself from every painful emotion his wife experiences. He can allow her fear to exist without immediately turning it into an accusation against his character. That is part of emotional maturity and part of rebuilding trust after porn addiction.
Empathy After Betrayal Is Part of Recovery
Rob went even further. He argued that understanding the pain our behavior has caused matters because, once we genuinely see the cost, we can no longer pretend the behavior happens in a vacuum.
Porn addiction trains us to compartmentalize. We can begin thinking of “my behavior” as one isolated part of life and “my family” as another, as though the two worlds never really touch.
Recovery begins dismantling those compartments.
My choices affect my ability to be present. My secrecy affects emotional safety. My defensiveness affects trust. My withdrawal affects connection. Even when the behavior happens privately, the consequences often move outward into the relationships around me.
This is not about weaponizing shame. Shame says, “Look what a terrible man you are.” Empathy asks something much more useful: “Can you look carefully at what happened here, allow yourself to understand its impact, and then become the kind of man who responds differently?”
That is a completely different posture.
Remorse Is Different From Shame
I shared with Rob that part of my own recovery involved eventually seeing the ways I had hurt people and then feeling an enormous weight of shame around what I had done.
Rob made a distinction I found helpful: destructive behavior matters, but destructive behavior does not necessarily represent the totality of who a person is. He also described remorse as a normal part of grief and healing.
I think many men eventually arrive at this crossroads. At first, we may minimize the behavior because facing it honestly feels too painful. As recovery progresses, however, we begin seeing more clearly what happened and what it cost. At that point, it can become very easy to swing from minimization into self-hatred.
Neither extreme produces mature recovery.
The goal is to be able to say, “What I did violated my values. I hurt people. I wish I had lived differently. And today I am responsible for becoming a different kind of man.”
Remorse can create movement because it acknowledges reality while leaving room for change. Shame becomes dangerous when it freezes identity and tells me, “This is simply who you are.”
I would rather ask a better question: Who am I practicing becoming now?
Boundaries Are Not the Opposite of Love
Prodependence does not mean tolerating everything.
Rob explicitly clarified that he is not telling partners to remain exposed to violence, victimization, or ongoing harm. He described boundaries as a way of protecting oneself rather than punishing someone else.
This matters because recovering men sometimes experience boundaries as rejection. A spouse may say, “If this happens again, I cannot continue living this way,” and the man may immediately hear, “You are abandoning me,” or “You are trying to control me.”
But a boundary may simply mean, “I need safety.”
There is an important lesson here for both sides of relationship recovery. Healthy dependence does not mean abandoning yourself for another person. It means I can love you, remain emotionally connected to you, and still maintain boundaries around what I can participate in. Love and limits can coexist without canceling one another out.
Recovery Is Learning How to Need People in Healthy Ways
Ultimately, I think this is where prodependence vs. codependency intersects most powerfully with pornography recovery.
Pornography can become a counterfeit form of relationship because it offers stimulation without the demands of real intimacy. It does not require you to negotiate another person's needs, tolerate disagreement, repair conflict, reveal your insecurity, or risk being misunderstood. You can engage with it while remaining fundamentally hidden.
Real relationship asks much more of us.
The people we love will sometimes disappoint us, misunderstand us, place boundaries around us, or bring emotions into the relationship that we would rather not face. They have their own needs, stories, limitations, and wounds. Staying present with real people therefore requires patience, honesty, sacrifice, humility, courage, forgiveness, and a willingness to tolerate discomfort. That difficulty is not a flaw in human intimacy; in many ways, it is part of what makes intimacy capable of transforming us.
I do not believe the end goal of recovery is becoming a man who needs nobody. I want to become a man who knows how to need people well—someone who can lean into God, build strong relationships with other men, hear difficult truth without disappearing, and allow another person's emotions to exist without immediately trying to control them.
I also want to become a man who can remain present when relationship becomes uncomfortable. That means learning to ask for support before I am in crisis, allowing myself to be known before secrecy takes root, and accepting that mature connection will sometimes ask me to stay in conversations I would once have escaped.
That is a relational kind of sobriety.
Relationship Recovery Requires More Than Fixing the Marriage
Another important point from our conversation is that not every problem in a relationship should be addressed at the same time.
Rob talked about situations in which both spouses are struggling with addiction, severe dysregulation, or other destructive patterns. In those situations, he cautioned against rushing immediately into couples work before either person has established enough individual stability.
That makes sense to me.
If two people are deeply dysregulated, they may simply keep triggering one another while trying to solve the relationship. Sometimes the first stage of healing is learning how to stabilize individually so that the relationship eventually has healthier people entering it.
For the man recovering from pornography addiction, this might mean establishing sobriety, strengthening accountability, regulating his nervous system, rebuilding spiritual rhythms, learning emotional awareness, and reducing secrecy before expecting the marriage itself to feel repaired.
The order matters.
Stabilize first. Integrate later.
That does not mean ignoring the marriage. It means recognizing that sometimes the greatest gift you can give the relationship is to become more stable inside yourself before trying to fix everything between the two of you.
What Kind of Man Are You Becoming?
Near the end of our conversation, Rob said something that brought the entire discussion into perspective for me. When he works with addicted men and troubled couples, he often thinks about their children. He wants healthier parents because children are watching and learning what relationship, honesty, conflict, connection, and family look like.
That expands the purpose of recovery.
The question is no longer simply, How do I stop watching porn? It becomes, What kind of man am I becoming, and what are the people closest to me learning from the way I live?
When life hurts, am I becoming a man who disappears, or a man who connects? When someone confronts me, do I immediately defend myself, or am I learning how to listen? When shame rises, do I collapse into self-hatred, or can I take ownership and keep moving? When someone I love needs something from me, do I resent the demand, or am I learning how to love with greater maturity? And when I need help myself, am I still hiding—or am I finally becoming willing to reach out?
That is the deeper work of recovery.
Porn addiction may have trained your mind and body to respond to discomfort through escape, secrecy, fantasy, and isolation. Recovery gives you the opportunity to retrain that pattern through truth, responsibility, emotional regulation, healthy dependence, connection, and repeated practice.
You do not need to become a man who never needs anyone.
You need to become a man capable of coming home.
Want to learn more about Rob? Visit https://seekingintegrity.com/
If you want to join other men who are doing this storywork in-depth right now, I invite you to start your 2-week free trial of the No More Desire Academy. You’ll get access to every course I have, with structured lessons and exercises to help you build every skill you need to overcome porn addiction, and you’ll gain access to weekly group coaching meetings where you get to connect with me and other men who are walking this journey alongside you. Click here to learn more about the NMD Academy.
And if you want more personalized help, you can check out 1-on-1 coaching with me. I have limited availability, but depending on when you’re listening to or reading this I may have an open slot. Click here to learn more about 1-on-1 coaching with Jake Kastleman.
And don’t forget to check out my free workshop, free ebook, or become a part of the free online community. You can find all these resources and more at nomoredesire.com/tools.
God bless, and much love.
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Transcript for Episode 166: Prodependence vs. Codependency | Porn Addiction, Betrayal Trauma & Relationship Recovery with Dr. Rob Weiss
Jake Kastleman (00:00.16)
Welcome to No More Desire, where we build a mindset and lifestyle for lasting recovery from porn. My name's Jake Castleman and I'm excited to dive in with you. Let's get started, my friend.
Rob Weiss (00:14.254)
I think one of the great problems of codependency, it gives addicts an excuse to keep acting out and using. Well, if my wife wasn't so dependent codependent, I wouldn't have sex with 300 other people, then I'll say this to every spouse. It's really important. Write it down. There is nothing you have ever done. There is nothing you're doing now, and there is nothing you will ever do to cause that person to act out.
Jake Kastleman (00:41.378)
You may be a man who has betrayed his wife. She caught you watching porn, found out about your affair, discovered the sexual text that you've been sending to those women, or maybe she doesn't know about any of that yet. On the other hand, perhaps you're the spouse that's been betrayed. Perhaps you find yourself hating the man that you wish you loved. Perhaps you feel overwhelmed by the need to watch him, control him, make him stop. You can't trust him.
You don't know what he's been doing behind the scenes, and that makes you feel crazy, angry, and heartbroken. It's not just that he's been watching porn or had an affair. That would be enough. It's that he lied about it. It's that he's still lying. It's that he's not here for you emotionally. He doesn't fully show up. He's gone at work all the time. That he always has an excuse for not spending time with you, that he can't hold space for your emotions.
You ask yourself, how can I trust anything that he says now? How can I see the positive things he's done as anything more than an act? How can I not obsess about what he's doing when I'm not watching? How can I endure this hell of uncertainty? Two-thirds of Christian men and one third of Christian women struggle with porn. If porn addiction functions as an escape, a pseudo comfort, a pseudo connection,
And what does that say about our society and how far we've slid, how lonely we are, how isolated we are, how disconnected we are. If you are a betrayed partner, you're not alone. You may feel angry, filled with rage or vengeance, you may feel like running, you may want out. And all these feelings make sense. Today's episode is with my colleague and developing friend, Dr. Rob Weiss, whose voice
Calls out of the darkness to betrayed spouses who need to feel seen, honored, and loved in their time of anguish. Dr. Robb's concept of pro-dependence rather than codependence is powerful to say the least, and I have reverence for our conversation. If you are a betrayed spouse, I hope this episode brings you the feeling that you're brave for what you're facing. And for the man in recovery, I ask you now to open your heart to this conversation.
Jake Kastleman (03:06.414)
So you may see what your actions have caused for your spouse. Not to shame yourself, my friend, but to love her. You are a good man in your heart. This behavior is not who you are. Your past created hurt inside you, and eventually addiction brought that hurt to others around you. But your future can look different, and you are among brothers who believe in you. Today's conversation is a heavy one, but please don't run. Instead,
Let it empower you to change. Before we dive in, a reminder to join the No More Desire Brotherhood online community, download my ebook or sign up for my workshop. These resources are free, and they are your next step to get sober. You'll find them and more at NomorDesire.com/slash tools. All right, let's get started.
Jake Kastleman (04:01.816)
Doctor Rob Weiss, welcome to the show. It's such a privilege, man. You're doing amazing work. You've been in this field for a long time and I'm inspired to have you on the show. It's just a privilege.
Rob Weiss (04:12.13)
Hey, for me too. I mean the opportunity to help folks who will never meet us and don't know anything about us to me is the greatest gift because we can change their lives. So it's exciting to be here too.
Jake Kastleman (04:21.934)
Yes. Well thank you. Well, I wanna start by people getting to know you. So I'd love for you to introduce yourself, kind of who you are, what you do, what you specialize in, and what this work means to you personally.
Rob Weiss (04:36.108)
I my name is Dr. Rob Weiss. I've spent the last three decades working in intimacy and sexual disorders in couples and with men. really, my profound focus is sex addiction and compulsive sexual behavior, but a lot about how cheating and infidelity affects b partners and the whole nature of betrayal and what that really means to men. actually, we should say what it really means to their partners. But So I've written a lot about that. I've written
Don't go after me. Eleven books, I think, at this point. So, but I'm deeply interested in partners and couples and families finding their way finding their way home after profound infidelity due to, you know, the emotional challenges that the men I work with have.
Jake Kastleman (05:21.184)
Yeah, when you say find your way home, what is kind of the eventual goal that you see for a lot of these guys? Where do you see them end up and their spouses?
Rob Weiss (05:31.022)
Well, I appreciate it if they'd stop sexual acting out, stop with their affairs and strip clubs and hooking up and all the and the porn and all the things they do. and by the way, that's not just for whatever anyone might be listening, that's not, and I don't mean to diminish, having an affair or looking at some porn, or these are men who since early teenage years, if not earlier, have have used sexual behavior to st to stabilize themselves, to distract themselves, to sue themselves.
And it becomes compulsive and is extremely damaging. I'll tell you what, my favorite four letter word in the language is home. more than love, more than any other word, I think it's where we come, you know, when people's dying, they want to go home. You know, when it's a hard day, I want to go home. And I want to go home to a to the support and dependency that keeps me going so I can back out in that back go back out in that brutal world that we have. And many addicts I work with tend to run away from home.
Jake Kastleman (06:02.552)
Yeah, so
Rob Weiss (06:28.226)
And what they really need to do is run toward it. and so my goal is to take disintegrated, non intimate relationships with a lot of damage and try to try to create a sense of empathy, compassion and you know, putting first what's first, which is, you know, the kids and the family.
Jake Kastleman (06:30.366)
Mm.
Jake Kastleman (06:46.146)
Yeah. So that people really have a s a safe space to land is what comes to me. When you say the word home, a safe space to land, right, at the end of the day or place to be for for both parties to really feel like this is a place of trust, right?
Rob Weiss (06:59.982)
Well, a betrayed partner will never have complete trust. You know, trust is like a plate. Once it's broken, there'll always be a crack. You know, for the women I work with, they'll they'll never be able to see their husbands walk out the door and think that man has my back, he would never do anything to hurt me because they know that he has. and I don't expect them to have compassion or even insight into what the men are going through. They've just simply been betrayed and harmed. But the men that I work with and I've worked with hundreds and hundreds, are you know, they're deeply broken.
And they really mostly hate themselves for what they're doing, but they can't stop. and then when they stop, they really have to look at the reality of what they've done to themselves and their family. And like any addiction, it takes a a lifetime of addressing it, focusing on it and making sure that you're aware of it so that you don't don't end up back where you started. Like alcohol is alcoholism, like any of the addiction.
Jake Kastleman (07:49.87)
Yes. Yes. So let's talk about let's really today we're focusing on pro dependence, which is a term that you coined, if I'm not mistaken, correct? I
Rob Weiss (08:01.656)
Think so. I mean I from what I can see, yes. And I I don't know how it is to make up a word, but somehow I managed to make up a word. And if you go online, you can find it, which is really cool.
Jake Kastleman (08:11.81)
Ooh, right? That must be like, ooh, that's nice. Yes. So I really I want to talk about pro dependence. I'm I'm very I'm honestly very excited for this conversation. I feel like it's a a heavy sensitive topic, but such a necessary one and such a good one. Your approach to betrayed partners and what things look like for them and how to perceive themselves. This whole this whole framework for them to be able to see themselves in a much healthier way is very, very powerful.
So I wanna start first before we talk about pro dependence. We need to start with the basics of co what codependence is when it comes to addiction. so what does codependence mean? Let's start there for people who don't know.
Rob Weiss (08:57.806)
Dependency was a theory about addiction and addictive relationships that came around in the late 1970s. And it was this concept that women who were married to an addict must be contributing to the problem of addiction. So when my husband went into treatment for alcoholism, and you know I have sweated and tried to keep the family together and tried to keep them from drinking and dealt with all the nightmare of that, and he finally goes to treatment of some kind.
And then I go into a room as a bunch of wives or family members and I'm expecting to hear, wow, you know, that must have been really hard for you. And what codependency really says is let's look at what's wrong with you. Let's look at your anger, at your reverting to, you know, more ways of acting like a child. Let's look at how your early childhood wombs affected how you are now acting with your husband. And maybe even more importantly, you know, how what are the things you really need to work on?
in order to not contribute and escalate this alcohol or whatever the addiction is. And basically the message was you have h helped push the addiction along. everything you've done is a part of your problem. And if you had just done it differently, the alcoholic or the other person wouldn't drink or it wouldn't escalate. So basically what it did is it put the responsibility or a part of the responsibility on partners and spouses and families because
The way they were acting seemed crazy, seemed nuts. And so we were determined to get in there and fix that partner so that they wouldn't make the addiction worse. the and codependency, I think, looked at and if you don't mind being overly talky because I talk forever. It's great. There were idea, you know, thinking about so part of this is my dissertation. I studied a man named William White who looked at how partners in
Spouses of alcoholics were looked at in the 1950s. And basically the idea was if I was married to her, I would drink too. And codependency rule had followed that because spouses are nagging, they're complaining, they're angry, they're not taking care of themselves. They're, you know, they are doing everything they can to stop the addiction. Doesn't look very pretty when they're in that place, but why wouldn't they be? Because who wouldn't be who's dealing with that kind of thing? My interest is in saying, you know what, there's nothing wrong with these partners at all. They're not contributing the part.
Rob Weiss (11:19.576)
problem, they're they are being affected by the problem. and so it's a complete one eighty two, let's look at what's wrong with them because they were part of the problem and look how crazy they look too. Of course they're crazy and and feel and say in it or doing all this nutty stuff because their whole lives are falling apart and they can't get the person they're most connected to to heal or get better.
Jake Kastleman (11:41.376)
Yes. And I'm so curious what your view is on that, Dr. Rob, as far as the healing process that a betrayed spouse needs to go through, right? Because they they there is so much pain that they deal with, and there there are so many things that have happened to them psychologically. And so how do you differ from kind of that that other approach that you just talked about with the codependency model versus how you see
What spouse's path is and what they need to do.
Rob Weiss (12:14.046)
so when a spouse of an addict walks into a therapist's office and there's always an assumption that they must be codependent, which is, by the way, not a diagnosis, it's the idea of something. And there are a hundred books on codependency, but none of them are based in fact. And there's no real research on it, but it is a strong cultural feeling. It's been with us forever. And basically, you know, if a woman were to go into a therapist's office and her husband was alcoholic, they would say, you know, my, you know, you you must have a lot of problems and you're deeply
And we really have to look at how you're contributing and you know, let's sit sit down and look what you're how you're, you know, how you're acting is a real problem. And so immediately the partner was pathologized by the whole concept of codependency. And I turned around, I did a 1880 and I said, you know what? If a woman walked into my office and her husband was drinking, using sexing, gambling, I want to say to her, you what, you're a hero. How amazing it is that you stuck in that relationship and you stuck it out and you managed.
To survive such a difficult set of circumstances, how amazing it is to a spouse or a family member that you were able to see the good in that person despite all the problems they were creating. Sometimes people say, Well, why in the world would someone stay with an addict who's completely out of control and they've been lying and they've been cheating and that they've been betraying and they've been gaslighting and, you know, and they've made you crazy. Why in the world would you stay with that person? And, you know, there's only one answer, which is you love them. You know, you love them deeply.
And marriage says, better for better or for worse. And even if someone is violating your sense of self, using you as a way to that to feel entitled to act out sexually or with drugs or alcohol, whatever that is, the love doesn't go away. I've worked with physically abused women who are in shelters and they miss their husbands. And you'd say to them, Well, he beat the crap out of you. Why could you miss him? And the truth is that
Love and healthy dependency doesn't go away because there's some conflict and difficulty. and rather than saying these people have a problem with dependency, I want to say how great it was that they remained dependent. And dependency means leaning on each other. It means a healthy back and forth. You know, when I come home and have a terrible day, I'm depending on you to be there and support me. When you're really struggling, I want you to come to me and be dependent on me, the there this mutual dependency.
Rob Weiss (14:36.94)
is actually a really, really healthy thing. so to in any way imply that that being dependent in a and I know God, the culture does not like that word. So but we depend on each other. We depend on each other. And as this stigma against you, you have to be an individual. You can't, you know, be too dependent on someone else that makes you weak. And actually in more current therapy literature, we say your ability to lean into someone and have a relationship to the good and the bad is healthy.
Jake Kastleman (15:08.034)
What you're making me think of, Dr. Rob, is the things that I've been taught growing up as well. This some people call it a toxic independence, right? That's been taught within our current modern culture and the message of I mean, we're taught it from the time we're little kids, right? you did it on your own, right? I'm so proud of you. You did it on your own. And that's emphasized continuously throughout our
Rob Weiss (15:32.664)
Right. How about you you learned it from a coach or you leaned into your teacher and together you were able to grow and do that? Rather than you did it on your own. Because I yeah.
Jake Kastleman (15:43.746)
I really like that. I think that that's very powerful.
Rob Weiss (15:46.146)
powerful I you know, it really is not just me. It's a whole field of dependency. And by the way, this came out of the the women's movement. Because, you know, there was a real strong focus in the nineteen eighties that women should individuate, they should be on their own. And really they broke through the glass ceiling. I if you look through nine to five and that they've got this stupid idiot boss who won't listen to them and they've got to shove him aside in order to achieve that was the idealization of what a woman was supposed to be. You know, not depending on men. And it worked really well in the workplace. But in family life
You want to be mutually dependent. You want to be supportive. And codependency kind of said, what's wrong with you for being so dependent? You should be more independent. And by the way, anything that goes on to the relationship, you it must be caused by your over dependency. You're screaming, you're yelling, you're nagging, you're gaining twenty pounds because you're involved with this alcoholic. That means you're too dependent on them. And I just I just think that's a problem.
I think we're blaming people who are the victims of difficult circumstances for the way they act and appear at the worst times in their life.
Jake Kastleman (16:50.072)
So let's talk more about that, this pro-dependence model. It's a strengths based way of viewing the loved ones of those who struggle with addiction, right? So what do you believe well you've already really expressed it what
Rob Weiss (17:04.364)
I can talk this forever because I need that my culture needs to change. We need to stop pathologizing. Look, I'll give you an example. And by the way, you can tell I get excited about this. Yes. You know, if I was married to someone and they had cancer and we had two kids, and my partner was resistant to treatment and, you know, wanted to go take ayahuasca in some other country and they didn't want to go and they were just really sick, I would do everything I could. I would read every book. I would
try everything I could to convince them to be different. I would, you know, to to take the medication or whatever that is, I would become kind of crazy. I would nag them. I would complain. I would talk about the desperation in our family in the hopes that they were going to get treatment. And you know what? People would come over and they would bring it casseroles. And they would say, I am so, so sorry that you're going through this and you love her so much. And it's really difficult for anyone to have their partner threatened with illness. What can I do for you?
But if I'm married to someone who is drinking and using and staying in bed, taking drugs all day, and they refuse to get treatment and they want to do it their own way, and I'm doing everything I can. I've read every book. I'm not taking care of myself. I'm complaining, I'm nagging, I do whatever I can to try to get them from stop drinking. then people say, well, they're so codependent. You know, why don't they just kind of step away and distance themselves? What's wrong with them that they're so deeply involved with this troubled person? And I
just think they're the same. Illness is illness. People we love are people we love. And why is it in the addiction world that somehow it's different because you've hung in there no matter how difficult it is. And I just don't like the concept of codependency. I think it it blames the victim.
Jake Kastleman (18:46.796)
Yes. Yeah. It's very good. So
Rob Weiss (18:50.51)
Thank you.
Jake Kastleman (18:52.532)
Yes. Yes. Years and years. So when when it comes to pro dependence, one of the things that I listened to on your webinar is how spouses will sacrifice so much to try to help their spouse and how they should be celebrated in that, in that you tried so hard and you worked so hard, right, to to try to help them. Now, how can a spouse maintain
A healthy separation, I wanna say, between the choices or the destructive behaviors that their their addicted spouse may be involved in. How do they look after themselves while also being supportive? Right? That's such a difficult balance.
Rob Weiss (19:35.2)
Well, they don't do it well. They they yell, they scream, they nag, they gain thirty pounds, they stop taking care of themselves, you know. But who wouldn't if your spouse was sick? So, you know, you mentioned before, how can a spouse come to their own healing? And what does a spouse need to do? And having treated addicts for thirty years, you're on very different paths. The addict needs structure, challenge, confrontation, accountability, a lack look at their lack of empathy, and it is very
push them into on a regular basis looking at themselves and the way they've acted out and the harm that it's caused and how to do it differently. But it's not like that with partners. Partners need nurturing. They need support. They need to spend weekends with friends. They need to find way they need to take that bath. They need to go for that massage if they can because they've been through trauma and they have had to deal with a situation that no one should have to deal with. And Lord knows who wants illness in a family.
And when things start to get better, they need to be taken care of because they haven't been. And so again, the idea that they would in some way start to look at themselves as part of the problem is is antithetical. It's the opposite to me of what they really need. They don't need to self-examine. They need to be held. They need to be nurtured. They need to be validated. And you know what, Jake, I want to tell you this that I've sat at a lot of conferences where I sign books, right? That's what authors do. We sign books.
And I've sat there and I sat there with other authors and we're looking at each other because no one actually comes up and buys a book, but they all I loved your book, and then they walk away, right? But but once in a while, when I gave a lecture on pro dependence, and I've had women walk up to me and said, You know what, Tearful, you're the first person who told me that I wasn't responsible for the death of my son. You're the first person who said, I didn't contribute to my husband's decline.
That I was doing the best I could. And that just takes such a load of bricks off my shoulders. All I did was love them and do the best I could to try to heal them. And yeah, I became a crazy person, but that didn't hurt them. You know, that was the best I could do. and by the way, I don't think many spouses of addicts went to graduate school for addiction. You know, somehow a spouse to know how to do it. Well, you gotta treat them like this and you gotta do it like that and keep your emotions away. And, you know, who who gave you the graduate course in living with an addict?
Rob Weiss (21:54.606)
You know, they're just doing the best they can. By the way, you know, what's always interesting to me is if you said to that spouse, Who were you five years ago? You know, they would say, Well, I I wasn't really nagging and I wasn't really angry and I wasn't acting this way. So it isn't actually the person or the relationship, it's the it's the addiction. It's the alcohol or the drugs or the sex.
Jake Kastleman (22:15.214)
Andrew was dedicated. He was a good father, husband, and a high-level professional at a successful firm. He prided himself on quality work, service, and being there for those he loved. But underneath it all, Andrew was carrying a secret. His addiction to porn he'd had for more than 30 years. Andrew had never told anyone about his challenge. He'd kept it hidden, even as he served in significant roles in his church, continuing to appear like he had everything together.
The day his wife found out was traumatic. Andrew felt ruined and his wife felt betrayed. He didn't know what to do and doubted that he could ever overcome the habit he'd carried secretly for so many years. He began trying to will his way into recovery. He'd make it a few days or a little longer between relapses, but he could never get rid of it. When we started working together, Andrew told me I'm not a feelings guy. But after a few months,
He learned that he carried stress, shame, and fear around with him, and he didn't even know it. He also learned that these unconscious emotions were fueling his cravings for porn. I taught him how to become deeply aware of these emotions, how to relate to them and respond to them in a healthy way, bringing peace to his mind and diminishing his cravings. We also developed daily routines, boundaries, mindfulness exercises, and I gave him relationship guidance and a community to support him.
He experienced a total ecosystem for recovery. Andrew is over a year sober today. I'm really happy for him. Here's what he had to say. I had struggled with porn addiction for more than 30 years. Working with Jake has taught me new habits, real processes that I can work into my daily routine. Jake genuinely cares about my well being and success. I feel like I'm now able to be more present and that I can deepen my relationships with those I love. I never thought that I'd.
Live a life free of porn. If you are struggling with porn addiction, head to nomordesire.com slash coaching to learn more and create your own success story. All right, back to the show.
Rob Weiss (24:25.102)
There is this program called Al-Anon, and it is for the spouses and partners of addicts. And it was developed by Lois Wilson, who was the wife of Bill Wilson, who founded AA. And she was a wife of an alcoholic. And she had to look at, you know, my behaviors come crazy and I don't like who I've become, which spouses often say, I don't like who I've become, and I must have a problem and I need to go get help. True. But what it said at the time was what you're angry at, what makes you crazy is not your husband, it's the addiction.
It's the alcohol, it's the drugs, it's the gambling. That is your enemy, not your partner. You're not a you're not crazy because of them. You're crazy of what they're doing. And that when codependency came along, it said, well, no, no, no, your your partner is the problem. You're addicted to them. You know, they're the problem. And that's when I think we went sideways because, you know, I'm addicted to my partner. I can't wait to see them. You know, they're the most important thing in my life. I I
I would love to be well, actually I'll say I never stopped talking. So codependency is about individuation and being different and and I was Arizona not that long ago and I you know it was very hot and I saw this couple coming toward this, you know, restaurant we were eating at we were eating at, and they were both wearing green shirts and they're both wearing tan pants, and they both had on earth shoes or Lord knows what they were wearing. And I saw them walking through Mirage like heat and I thought, that's really beautiful. They have merged in some
beautiful ways. They are walking in the same step. They're wearing the same clothes. How beautiful is that that they have deeply become part of each other in a healthy way. Codependency would say, what do you mean they're dressing alike? And that's so sick. Why why don't they separate? Why don't they give each other some distance? They're so enmeshed. I will say that, you know, not everybody's healthy. And by the way, I'm it's really important to say to spouses, I'm not saying to stay around for violence. I'm not saying to stay around for victimization. You have to protect yourself.
From the d and your family, from the damage that's going on around all around you. But you don't have to stop loving them and you don't have to blame yourself for loving them. You just need to protect yourself and your family.
Jake Kastleman (26:29.686)
Hmm. So how do you see it, Dr. Dr. Rob? Because here are a couple of patterns that I that I will see with spouses.
One, I will often see, and this is not, you know, n news, but I will often see spouses who become bitter, vengeful, insulting, hurtful, distant, right? And they're they're they're angry, right? And all understandably so, right? But they they will become
it it will be very, very painful for the addict. Even when the addict has, you know, let's say gotten a year of sobriety, their spouse is still so bitter and so hurtful towards them and does not think much much of them at all. Right. How can a man in recovery, right, who's feeling like, hey, you know, I've got, I've got three months sober, I've got six months sober, I've got a year sober. I I I'm I'm grateful for I'm at I'm feeling I'm feeling pretty happy about this.
And their spouse is like, and you've said this before, well, good for you. Three months, I mean, what? You spent years lying to me, you know? And so three months is nothing. How can they perceive their spouse? How can they relate to that in a way that is going to foster hopefully healing in that relationship? Both for the I would say for the addict, but then also for the spouse who's maybe engaging in those behaviors, what can they do? So for both sides.
Well, how how do they approach this?
Rob Weiss (28:07.714)
Well, i i I'll give simplistic answers which they can't do this alone. You know, the addict needs a place to go, like a twelve step program and groups in support to see themselves, to learn about themselves, to get constantly reminded of where they could be and what they need to do to stay sober. But the partners do too. And they're afraid, by the way, partners are afraid if I join a group, if I go to Alan, that they're gonna tell me what's wrong with me. That they're gonna tell me that I'm broken and I'm part of the problem and
What they really need is to join groups of other women who say, you know what, I've been through this too, and it's going to be okay. And I I'm further along from you, or I'm just starting out and I need to hear from you. They need hope and support. We use the word cohort. You need to be with your own people. You know, you don't take a bunch of alcoholics and put them with a bunch of gamblers. They're not going to relate. You don't put a bunch of women, for example, who are deeply wounded, hurt, and angry about what's been happening in their family and
Put them in family therapy. You know, they need to be with other women and other people. You said something I thought that was really important, Jake, which is the impatience of an addict to be forgiven. It isn't, by the way, to make their partner feel better. It isn't for them them to have a more peaceful relationship. What it is is I don't want to feel so bad about myself. I don't want to look at what I've done. And so if you would just, you know, I'm going to give you flowers. I never know a man, I've never met a man yet who understands how to heal his relationship when he's betrayed a woman.
You know, men think candy, flowers, you know, moon beams. And if I just take you somewhere or, you know, it's been three months or three, six months, and look how hard I've been working, or I love this. You don't appreciate all the work I've done to get sober. It's like, well, actually, I didn't appreciate the twelve years that we were drinking. So I think in many ways there's a pre not all of them, but there's a premature expectation of the addict. Get over it. Look how hard I'm working, look how much better I am. Surely and by the way, the addicts do need validation.
They are working hard. They are doing better. It's just not a wife's job to do that. Go to their twelve step program. Go to the therapist. Go to you're doing the other guys, you're doing great. You got six months. How fantastic. But yeah, you're gonna home to your spouse and they're gonna say, Well, it's great you asked six months, but you drank for twelve years. So I
Jake Kastleman (30:14.732)
Right. And their their spouse is the the spouse is the opposite of congratulatory, right? They're just they're just and and they're waiting for the other shoe to shoe to drop, right? They're they're they're they're afraid to even hope, I would say, a lot of a lot of times. Right.
Rob Weiss (30:27.692)
Use the word hypervigilance, which is spouses, of course, are always waiting for. I mean, in my world with sex addiction, if you're 10 minutes late, you must be with her again. You must be doing that again. I know you are. And it doesn't matter whether I am or not. And by the way, defending it, no, I wasn't, is a really bad choice. A really bad choice. That's going to make a really, really difficult evening because addicts lack empathy. And if I if I come home and I'm late and you say you're at it again.
What I need to s what I don't need to say is no, I wasn't, you know, I was at the grocery store. I need to say something like, you know, I wasn't doing that, but I completely understand how you would think that. And after what you've gone through, why wouldn't you be standing at the door scared to death? So I need to have gained some empathy and compassion into what I have put you through. And addicts are self-focused. They don't want to be bad guys, they don't want to be in trouble, they want to be forgiven, you know, and they don't want to look how and that's part of my job is helping them look at how much pain they've caused.
Jake Kastleman (31:23.628)
Yeah.
Rob Weiss (31:23.936)
If you don't understand what you've caused, then you can go do it again. And if you understand the pain and the hurt and the violation you've caused to people around you, you may still do it again, but you'll never not know what it's costing. You know, you will now know you're stepping to So anyway, a little bit about the addicts. sorry, I totally lost track.
Jake Kastleman (31:45.324)
We were talking about so that's the addicts need to gain empathy, compassion. Right. Right. And then on the partner's side, if they're engaging some of those behaviors that that are that I would you say it's appropriate to say that are pretty that are fairly destructive behaviors, right? They're v they're hurtful behaviors.
Rob Weiss (32:02.69)
Well, again, I think spouses well, it just says spouses need to find other partners to go and say, I frickin' hate him and I can't believe he did this, he ruined my life and the other partners say, Yeah, he did, and I hate him. And then, you know, they're able to go home and not be the most perfect loving spouse, but they're able to have a place to go to vent. And if you're a partner, you can't base your own stability on whether that addict is using or not, or having sex with other people or not. I know that sounds crazy, but
in the beginning as a partner, if they're doing well, I think, things are great. And if they're doing terrible, I get devastated. And the partner I really believe is on a healing pl path gets to a point where they say, you know what? I'm gonna be okay no matter what you do. I may stay with you, I may not, I'm gonna but I'm not gonna I had one woman say, you know, I sh her husband had acted out after with a woman after years and years of sexual sobriety. And, you know, I was in a group with her and the other women were why didn't you leave and why would you be with him? And I and she said, You know what?
I'm not gonna destroy my life because he's screwed up. I'm not gonna take my house apart, you know, move my kids away, separate money. Let him go get better. And I thought, yeah, because she's not basing her life. And that's part of it. You know, a partner of an addict is so you s lives in so much fear. You know, if you drive my kids to school, how will you have been drinking? You know, do I need to drive that they live for years in fear and hypervigilance and and you know, all of the anxiety and anger.
It doesn't just go away. You know, so if I've been on a track for a very long time, it's really hard for me to move from rage and disappointment and violation to trust and acceptance. That doesn't just happen. I've done a lot of research on forgiveness, which is really cool. And if you want to learn about an interesting subject, learn about forgiveness. The culture says forgive and forget.
Jake Kastleman (33:52.408)
Yes.
Rob Weiss (33:56.098)
The culture says it's the higher person who can grow beyond this and provide forgiveness. You know, you're killing yourself with your own anger, you know, all of that. And forgiveness doesn't just happen. Just like grief, we all kind of know about grief, it comes in stages, and there's, or if you don't know this, you know, there's denial and there's rage and there's shock and there's acceptance and there's all kinds of stages. Someone just doesn't stop grieving. They go through a whole series of emotional states.
And forgiveness is like that too. I don't just forgive you. You know, I have to come to terms with what's happened. I have to look at myself as they often do and say, What what is my part? Did I do something wrong? Then they have to start s you know getting in touch with what's really happened to them. And then they need to come to some kind of peace with it. And and they may never forgive what's been done to them. I don't think the right path for a partner is to learn how to make it all better and forgive. If anything, they need to give it forgive themselves.
For having become someone they never wanted to be. I do agree with you, though, Jake, that there's certainly times when an addict is doing really, really well and working hard, and a spouse's at a certain point, a spouse's anger can become counterproductive. You know, I am doing well. I am the husband you always wanted to be, I am, and you're still so angry and so difficult. And so and I do think that's when the partner needs to take it, look at themselves, and maybe there's more there. You know, maybe there are things from my history. For that is when someone gets stuck like that.
Then it might be a time to say, you know, I need to self-examine and figure out why I can't let go of this. but in the beginning, and by the way, that's longer term stuff. let me tell you a little bit about codependency. In the 80s, people had lots of insurance who had means, you know, or were even working in a factory. They had a good insurance and they could go to I remember people go to therapy three days a week, some of them. And they had a little bit more time to read books and self-examine. That is not the world we live in.
Most people I work with at Partners especially just want things to get better. They don't have time for therapy. They don't want to read all the books. They just want to figure out how to make it better. And and that's possible without all of this self-examination, which can come later. I mean, some can say, wow, based on what I went through, you know, I think I want to go back and look at myself. But they don't have to. They have to come to peace with what's happened to them and peace inside themselves. And that takes time and acceptance and a lot of other people around to support them.
Rob Weiss (36:19.564)
I hate the term, I don't know why she doesn't leave him. Look at what she's going through. She should know better. I hate that. Because it's very easy for a neighbor or a friend to say that, but their marriage isn't falling apart. They're not being asked to leave their partner. And so there are expectations from the culture that say, get away, move away. This is causing you all this pain. Right. That doesn't help.
Jake Kastleman (36:41.758)
Right. Well, and that that is so much of our our culture these days. And I I just had Dr. Chuck DeGroat on the podcast a little bit ago. He talked about, he's writing a book right now, Who You're Becoming, that essentially talks about the narcissistic age that we're in, right? Where we we're very self focused, no kind of Yeah. Right.
Rob Weiss (37:04.318)
My way of the highway, I married, don't criticize me. And by the way, AI is not gonna help. I know I'm interrupting you. But because AI says, Of course I'll help you. Great. You're doing a good job. I'm really impressed with it. Let me help you more. And narcissism is reduced by someone saying, I don't like that. Someone else being real on the other side who doesn't accept, who doesn't and this whole sense of diminishing my ego in order to be more in relationships.
The problem with AI is it it just tells me over and over again how wonderful I am and there's no challenge to the relationship to grow. And so our narcissistic age is not gonna get better. It's going to get worse.
Jake Kastleman (37:41.39)
I know, isn't it? It's yeah. And so it's it's so important that we we're really aware of this and we're working on it. And it makes me think of what you've said multiple times, which is this approach that you'll take with those in addiction, where you will really challenge them and ask them straightforward questions and get them to think. Right. And it's interesting because I think that there's a huge wave of just compassion and acceptance oriented therapy, right? With an addict where it's
You you've dealt with all these problems and this trauma and everything that's led to your addiction and so it's so sad and so hard what's happening and not a whole lot of challenge there, right? But you d you really take an approach of challenge.
Rob Weiss (38:19.764)
I love this question. This is one of my favorite questions. Because therapists are really wonderful and trained to be compassionate, to be empathic, to be nurturing, to understand what the problem is, to put the person in a safe place. And that is what we are taught. But when you're working with addict, that's not the way to be.
For me to nurture and support and look at your trauma, that's great. And I know you deserve that, but you're gonna still gonna drink. You're still gonna have sex with a hundred women. I have to teach you how to live differently, how to be a better person, how to live your I have to confront your distortions, your denial, the way that you gave yourself permission to do this. And it's hard. You know, you have homework to do, you have meetings to go through, you have a lot of work to do. Maybe after, at a certain point, you can say to someone, okay, you've really stabilized.
those problems and let's take a look at what's going on underneath or, you know, but as I've said to many men, I could show you an entire reel of your whole life and all the terrible things that happened to you. And we can weep and we can cry. And then you'll still go act out. Because I have to teach them to stop the behavior. And that is not a a role that most therapists do or are good at. You know, my job is to there's something called a medical model.
Which means, you know, you go to me and I'm a doctor and I say, do this, do that, and here's some ways and take this medication and you know, you're supposed to follow my prescription. That's the that is antithetical to being a therapist. The absolute opposite. We're supposed to listen. We're supposed to let the client guide us. Well, this is a medical model. If your life is falling apart because you are having sex with a hundred people or spending all your money gambling, you do need someone to say, Hold on. you don't know how to make this better and I do. And it's not arrogance, it's not
It's not my saying I know everything. It's just in this situation you are out of control. You are destroying your life. And you need someone to help you give you a prescription for change because you don't know how to do it. And I will hold you accountable. I will sit with you. I will make sure you are paying attention. But nobody likes that. So go ahead.
Jake Kastleman (40:28.96)
And would you say that a lot of times in those situations, in you know, there's various literature on this, but curious what your experience is. I've definitely heard about enmeshment. I read the book Unwanted by Jay Stringer. Wonderful book. he talks about how a lot of male addicts, they had mothers who were what'd I say, passive. they didn't
challenged, they didn't criticize, they were they were kind of enmeshed with their mothers. Do you see just a lack of discipline in the home often? Because obviously you you also have the opposite, right? Where people have been sexually or physically abused and they lived in a you know an authoritarian home that was very, very harsh, right? They s that has fueled kind of trauma in their lives that has eventually led to escape and acting out and, you know, comfort seeking. So what's your experience there with what a lot of
kind of Addict's history is
Rob Weiss (41:30.51)
Sadly, a lot of people are sexually abused. Sadly, a lot of people have violation. They're in mesh with the parent. The parent is neglectful. But they don't all go out and become addicts. You know? They struggle with life. They struggle with relationships. They may have to, whatever it is, may have trouble getting jobs or self-esteem or whatever that is. But they don't all become addicts. So the idea that my trauma and my history drove the addiction. It initiated it. It helped you find ways to survive. And I will say I'm so, so sorry that those things happened to you.
Jake Kastleman (41:39.852)
Right.
Rob Weiss (42:00.29)
But in the beginning, my goal is, you know, a client comes in and they hate themselves. I can't believe I did this. I can't believe I'm such a horrible person. You know, what's wrong with the animals? Say, look, you know, based on what you grew up with, I can understand wha how this happened. You're broken. You're a very broken person, but you're not a bad person. And, you know, you don't and by the way, bad people mean to hurt someone. They are malicious. They want to cause harm. In addiction, partners and family members are collateral damage. You know, I'm just not thinking about you.
think one of my greatest frustrations is that somehow as therapists or people who do this work, we assume that everyone's going to be able to go to therapy. You know, they're going to be able to work through their problems and work on their issues. Well, people have, you know, three kids and two jobs and they, you know, they don't have time or the money or the resources. Most of the people who struggle with addiction or family, they're never going to have that opportunity. So I think we'd left to look at them in a very different light, other than we can heal them. You know, we need to give directions, support. We do what we can, we write books, we do podcasts.
But as I said to you when we started, Jake, I'm incredibly grateful that we get to do this because we might offer the you know how many people we offer a path to who will never have the gift of therapy and treatment centers and all that? And we offer them information to grow them and help them move forward.
Jake Kastleman (43:14.892)
So when it comes to all this, right, I was asking about enmeshment and I'd love to know your opinion on that, what your experience is.
Rob Weiss (43:23.246)
Well, you know, there is unhealthy dependency. You know, there are ways and people connect and they don't do it a healthy way. They're too close, they're too distant, they don't know how to talk. You know, there are all kinds of issues, unhealthy dependency. But as I said, there's no diagnosis for codependency. There are diagnoses for for over dependence or underdependence, attachment problems. We have research and names and history behind how to help those people. We would call it problems with attachment or problems of dependency.
But don't make up words and say, they're codependent. And by the way, you know, if you want to say, my God, she drove all the way across town to pick that person up, she's so codependent. Okay, that's how the culture looks at it. You know, you gave up yourself to help someone else. You know, I would say how kind and sweet of you to do that. Now, if you do it every day, in front of your life, you know, then you have some issues you need to look at. So I'm not saying healthy there isn't unhealthy enmeshment and unhealthy dependency. I'm just saying that those issues are not primary.
That what's primary is this person has to stop destroying their own lives and the f lives of the family they love.
Jake Kastleman (44:26.466)
Yes. So let's say that somebody is in a situation that is quite toxic and harmful on on on both ends in different ways. How do they navigate? 'Cause we have a whole culture that, as you're saying, promotes do what's best for you. And if you don't like the relationship and you're not happy, leave, head out. You don't need him, right?
How do people navigate this situation of when do I call it quits and I need to I need to leave, this is not good or when do I stick in there and keep going?
Rob Weiss (45:06.296)
Well, I'll I'll give you my sort of broad stroke and by the way I did make up this element, so you can feel me to give me credit for this one as well. if I did, I think I did. The opposite of love is not hate. Hate means you're still in the game. The opposite of love is indifference. You know, okay, do what you want, you know, you're gonna and I really think that's when I can say, you know, I I am really distancing myself from this person, this situation because it's intolerable to me and I need to move forward and
And sometimes people need help getting there. We're not discouraging the relationship, but sometimes things are so intolerable. You know, you said something about self-care and you know, partners do partners need to have boundaries, you know? And a boundary means protecting myself. So it isn't I'm kicking you out of the house because you cheated with 300 people and I'm gonna punish you. Right. It's I have to protect myself from living with someone who's causing me so much pain. And if you do that.
I want you to leave because I can't tolerate it. And so the idea that how do I take care of myself? In what ways do I take care of myself? In what situations do I need to set a boundary or set structure versus try to figure this out together? I mean, that is a learning process. There is no ideal way to get through this. I just want spouses and families to stop being blamed for going through this horrible experience and acting all kinds of crazy ways and then being blamed for being crazy. Of course they're crazy.
Who wouldn't be crazy in a crazy situation? Dependence can run off the rails. It can be a problem. But the basic essence of leaning into each other when the world is a storm and we can come home and do that, and the more we do that, the better it is, I'm all over it.
Jake Kastleman (46:47.554)
Yeah. This is a little bit of a different tangent briefly. We'll see where it goes. But I wanted to ask you, you mentioned forgiveness, right? Now I'm gonna talk about self-forgiveness because I think in in my experience and especially in my own recovery process, forgiving myself for the mistakes of the past and the ways that I that I harmed others, right? That was a difficult process. It was difficult in the first place to
To really recognize and come to grips with what I had done wrong and how I had hurt people. Right. But then once I could start to do that, I began this giant weight of shame came down on me. I must just be a terrible person. Okay. How do we go through that process?
Rob Weiss (47:36.802)
Stupid, foolish and abusive person you can be.
Jake Kastleman (47:40.056)
Mm, right. Right.
Rob Weiss (47:41.964)
And with the addiction you will be. But that's not who you are. That's who you are when you're paired with the addiction.
Jake Kastleman (47:48.278)
Right. So really that separation between the behavior of the addiction versus
Rob Weiss (47:52.234)
People doing bad things. Because they're broken or they don't know where they're, you know, I have empathy for their behavior, but I don't have empathy for the way they've treated other people. and for the partners, you know, I again, I think that you need to find forgiveness for having been and acted like a crazy person in a crazy situation. And all the things you did and the ways you acted and how you became someone you never wanted to be, okay. Have compassion for that. Come to peace with that, but you gotta stop.
You gotta find your own peace with what's happened. I I did wanna briefly say that and nothing's brief when I say it. When we looked at the topic of grief, there is one piece that Elizabet Elizabeth Kubleross missed. And she's the author and the person who really looked at Greece Grief in Stages. And she missed the the issue of remorse. You know, when my dad died, I thought, I wish I'd said this and I wish I'd said that. And
You know, that we're always going to turn on ourselves to some degree and say, what was my part? By the way, codependency plays on that. You know, it says, you know, you're in remorse because you're in grief. Well, actually, you should be in remorse. You know, it blames the person for feeling the way they do. So, you know, remorse is a part of loss and grief. The problem is when people get stuck in it. You know, and that is again the forgiveness thing. I have to begin to figure myself, but first I have to understand that blaming myself is just a part of the healing.
it's only when I get stuck in it that it really becomes a problem.
Jake Kastleman (49:23.8)
Going to ask very challenging and pretty sensitive question, especially for spouses who've been betrayed. but I would love to hear your insights on it and kind of what your your your experience, your views are. some people are of the philosophy or kind of bring up the case that spouses who get in a relationship with an addict, they ha they have a history of or they have
set up certain things within their their life and their environment that have allowed that to occur. Right. What would your view be on that? Or what would your what would you say to that that spouse, maybe that's been told that or kind of how do you see it?
Rob Weiss (50:04.5)
If you've learned to adapt yourself to, let's say, sexual abuse and violation, you may not see it coming because it's how you survive childhood, is what you've learned is. And so you might be the woman who walks into the alley thinking, you know, not even paying attention to what's going on in the in a given part of town. The healthy woman says, I'm never going to go in there. I know what can happen. The woman who's abused the woman who's been abused might miss it entirely. And so her healing has to do with becoming more aware of how
those experiences in the past lead her to making decisions that are not good for her. But she became adapted to that. You know, I get involved with someone who's violent and I can tolerate the person who's violent because I grew up with someone who's violent. You know, people I used to work in mental health treatment centers and my mother was mentally ill. And I used to s people like, how can you work in those places? You know, people throw shit at the walls and they, you know, y y their hair is, you know, matted and they're weeping on the floor. And I said, you know, well, it feels like home to me.
Jake Kastleman (51:02.048)
That's so sad. It's really not funny.
Rob Weiss (51:04.214)
It's okay because everyone needs to show up. There are there are so many people who couldn't do that, couldn't show up for those people. But because of what happened to me, I can. And so I think we can turn it around and say that the things have happened to us can be a gift as long as we become aware of them. so in terms of coupleships, I have a saying twos don't marry sevenths. And so in other words, if you're an emotional two, twos do not marry sevenths. So we're gonna use that
You know, one out of ten, one is a really troubled person, ten is someone who's perfectly h healthy in every dimension, which I've never met one. So if you're an emotional three, if you're an emotional three and you're dating someone who's emotional seven, that person's emotional seven is gonna say, Wow, that three is crazy. I don't want to date them anymore. And if you're an emotional, and if you're a a three, you're gonna look at that person who's seven, seven and say, they're really boring. You know, they're just not exciting. So it is inevitable.
That we're going to find people who are at the same psychological level as we are. What a gift. What a gift. Because people can work through their healing when they are most like each other and they can grow together. I think I can go from a four to a five with a lot of self-revelation, a lot of work on myself. Absolutely, maybe a six. But together we're going to do it faster and through the bonds that we have. But, big but, you have to know your stuff. You know, I am not going to go from a three to a seven in a relationship unless I can see how I'm abusive.
what I do that's problematic, how they drive them away. If I'm and excuse what I said earlier, but if I'm in therapy and you're in therapy, if I'm working on myself and then we can move very quickly forward together. So, you know, I think challenged people are going to find other challenged people. I think that's inevitable. That's who we are. But together we can heal faster. That's that's how I look at it. And I like that because I said it.
Jake Kastleman (52:48.204)
Yeah, right. That's that's been my experience as well. And I And that's true. Yeah. And so I have a bit of a complex question for you now as well, which is wait a minute.
Rob Weiss (52:52.15)
In pro depends, right?
Rob Weiss (52:58.914)
Wait, chate, those weren't complex questions? I
Jake Kastleman (53:01.208)
For goodness sakes, you're right. What am I saying?
Rob Weiss (53:04.291)
Those are easy questions and they weren't exactly softballs, I'm just telling you. But anyway, that'll be the tough one.
Jake Kastleman (53:10.22)
I'm right. Yeah, it's it's like that moment when someone says, now let me be honest with you. And it's like, wait, you weren't being honest this whole time. Right, right. My question for you is what about in cases when I get I guess this is a very it's actually initially an easy question, but we can develop from it, which is how often do you see situations where both spouses are addicts? And my
Broader question is maybe one spouse is addicted to porn, let's say, but the other spouse is addicted to social media or gossip or something that's less obvious. I mean or g right. Do you s do you see that a fair amount or not so often where both spouses are types of addicts?
Rob Weiss (53:59.192)
Well, my experience is working with sex addicts. Right. And I work with men who sexually act out and destroy their relationships and whether it's affairs or porn or whatever that is. And most of the spouses in my world will say something like, How could you love me and do this at the same time? How could you love me and do that? And this isn't directly your question, but if you're not an addict, I don't think you're gonna understand how an addict thinks. You know, because I can't do that and I can do that and not think twice about it, and you would never do that. So the the
The the difference between a healthy partner and addict partner is pretty vast because you simply don't understand how I reach those decisions. it's so personal. How could you sleep with 16 people and not love me, not care about me? Actually, I can put you aside and go do that easily. Stop never doing that. But when there's shared addictions, these people have to work on themselves. You know, a lot of the people I work with say, We gotta jump into couples therapy. And I'm like, No, don't do that because you're not ready.
You have to find your own. Look, one addict's drinking, one person's still drinking and the other person is healing. Their opportunity to grow is limited. And that partner is going to have to distance themselves because they are on the right road and their their spouse is not. And what I don't want these people to do is trigger one or the other back into drinking or using. I think when you have two addicts, the healing process is different. They need to be more distant. They need to to look at themselves. They need not look at the coupleship.
They need to focus and then maybe later, when they're both in a stable place, then they can come together and make it healthier for each other. But, you know, in the beginning, I mean, and and you're a dad, you know, and I'm just making this up, you got one who kid who's throwing food at the wall and the other kid who's throwing the food at the wall. You know, you don't say, well well, sorry, I there's gotta be a metaphor in there somewhere.
Okay, I got this. So you're a dad, you know, you have two kids who are tantruming, right, at the same time. You don't say, they can really heal each other. And if you just put these two kids together, they're gonna feel no, you're gonna they're probably gonna be worse. So you each one has to calm down, has to come to a quiet place, has to, you know, be able to bring their higher, more adult self in. And then they can interact and they can play and they become be kids together. But when they're a when you're a five year old and you're a mess, you're not ready.
Rob Weiss (56:14.58)
connect with anybody. And by the way, the recovery process, going to twelve step meetings, going to therapy, I think it is like it's it's holding the person. It's like a tantrum child and you're holding that out and saying it's going to be okay. I'm here for you. You're not doing this alone. because ultimately we do need the support and love. all of us do. I don't mean to be trite, but it is much more difficult to negotiate this world when addiction comes along.
I think one of the great problems of codependency, it gives addicts an excuse to keep acting out and using. Well, if my wife wasn't so dependent codependent, I wouldn't have sex with 300 other people. And I'll say this to every spouse it's really important. Write it down. There is nothing you have ever done. There is nothing you're doing now, and there is nothing you will ever do to cause that person to act out. Sex, gambling, you know.
You talked about remorse spouses saying, What if I just did it differently? If I just what's wrong with me? If that person is miserable with you, they can get a divorce. They can go see a pastor. They can play golf. You know, there are many things that a troubled person in marriage can go do. But the decision to drink, the decision to return to strip club, that's mine alone. My decision, you know, you can be ugly and horrible and treat me bad and never and I the first decision that healthy people don't make is, well, I'm just gonna go have sex with 300 people.
The addict decides to blame the spouse and codependency jumps right in and says, Well, you know, that spouse is really troubled and maybe it has something to do with your drinking and using. No way. That is my decision as an addict. When I go do that, it is my decision and my decision alone to enter my addiction. And no one can make me do that. It is my choice. And I want the spouses to hear that who are blaming themselves and if they just done it differently, he or she wouldn't there's nothing you could have done differently. That was a decision that that addict made.
That was my little piece to throw in there.
Jake Kastleman (58:12.46)
No, I think it's I think that's very, very good. It's very true. You're right. So th of course. Exactly. So, Dr. Rob, if somebody wants to work with you, check out your services, I'm going to obviously put links in the show notes, but where should they go? What's the first thing they should kind of check out?
Rob Weiss (58:17.206)
You said it.
Rob Weiss (58:31.522)
Well, I have a site called seeking integrity dot com. And seeking integrity is about it's a site where a lot of our stuff is free. There are endless videos, endless webinars, endless opportunities to grow. There are all of these groups or there's so many groups that are free. I have therapists who volunteer their time just to sit in and help people. So seeking integrity has a great deal of free stuff. we also teach courses. So if you're a sex addict,
Or a part betrayed partner, there are places you can go to get get that intellectual peace, which you also don't get in therapy. And I run a residential treatment program. There are some men who have hit the wall so badly that they're going to lose everything. Or they've tried and tried and tried and they're still destroying themselves and their families. That's when they come spend time with us. And I will sit with those people as well and my team for a month and really help them straighten out who they've been. So and bottom line is seeking integrity.com is where you're gonna find all of it. We've put it all in one place.
And by all means, buy pro dependence. what is it called? Prodependence beyond the myth of codependency. is what it's called. And by the way, God bless the the people who debat who develop codependency, because they were doing the rest of the time to heal families. And I really admire that. I just think that the way they looked at it is not the most healthy way for couples to heal and families. But yeah, you'll find me in Seeking Integrity, write me a note. I'm Rob at seekingintegrity.com. No one I say this all the time: no one writes, no one calls.
They know how to reach me, go ahead. and I'll give you some direction. I'll find good therapists for you. I know a few things after all of these years. So please drop me a note.
Jake Kastleman (01:00:08.48)
Rob is Rob is saying, You don't write, you don't call. Come on, start writing and calling.
Rob Weiss (01:00:13.242)
Yeah, I'm not gonna necessarily engage in a, you know, lengthy dialogue with you, but what I can do is point you to resources. I can help you find your way. I can help you maybe s take the steps that are needed to heal a family that has been so damaged by betrayal. and I want couples to stay together. I really do. If there is an option for them to do that. and I want kids to have their parents. So I'm gonna one last thing. When I work with a couple, the word troubled addict.
Jake Kastleman (01:00:33.294)
Very good.
Rob Weiss (01:00:41.282)
What they don't know is, you know, I wish them well. I'm glad to help them. I'll do the best I can. But what I really think about is their kids. I don't want their kids to be witnessing and living through they are the future. And I don't want them to be learning these lessons that they will carry with them, you know, for their adult lives. And if I can help those parents be better parents and be healthier people and the family be healthier, that's really what it's about for me.
Jake Kastleman (01:01:05.976)
Very well said. Thank you, Doctor Rob. Yeah. Appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on today and yeah.
Rob Weiss (01:01:13.816)
Thanks letting me go on and on and on.
Jake Kastleman (01:01:15.956)
Well as always, of course.
Rob Weiss (01:01:18.604)
Yeah. All right. Thank you, Jay. Appreciate being invited.
Jake Kastleman (01:01:24.92)
Thanks for listening to No More Desire. It's a genuine blessing for me to do the work that I do, and I wouldn't be able to do it without you, my listeners, so thank you. If you've enjoyed today's episode, do me a favor. Follow this podcast, hit the notification bell, and shoot me a rating. The more people who do this, the more men this podcast will reach. So take a few minutes of your time and hit those buttons. And if you want to take your sobriety to the next level, check out my free workshop, The Eight Keys to Lose Your Desire for Corn.
Or my free ebook, The 10 Tools to Conquer Cravings. These are specialized pieces of content that will give you practical exercises and applied solutions to overcome corn addiction. And you can find them at NomorDesire.com. As a listener of the No More Desire podcast, you are part of a worldwide movement of men who are breaking free of corn to live more impactful, meaningful, and selfless lives. So keep learning, keep growing, and keep building.
That recovery mindset and lifestyle. God bless.
Jake Kastleman (01:02:38.304)
Everything expressed on the No More Desire Podcast are the opinions of the host and participants, and is for informational and educational purposes only. This podcast should not be considered mental health therapy or as a substitute thereof. It is strongly recommended that you seek out the clinical guidance of a qualified mental health professional. If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, self harm, or a desire to harm others,
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