Therapy Brothers

Q1: "How do I show my spouse my change of heart if we are living separated at the moment? How do I stop thinking about worse case scenario that she will leave me before she is able to see real change?"

Q2: "Is there a difference between being triggered and just being reminded of past events? For example, driving down a road or near a place where I know my husband acted out will remind me of the situation I'm in, but is that a trigger that needs to be managed or just a thought that can be dismissed? I usually just dismiss the thought and try to think of something else, but the thought comes EVERY time I'm on that road."

We would love to have you as a guest on the podcast. Go to realtalkrecovery.com to submit your question and sign up!

Join us at our 3 Day "Rising Son" Men's Conference, September 23-25 2021 in Logan, Utah. This conference is for men who are ready to step into higher-level recovery. Sign up on our website: https://risingsonconference.com

Brannon Patrick | "The Expert": Follow Brannon on instagram @brannon_patrick. For more info, find him at brannonpatrick.com. Check out Brannon's Boundary Bootcamp on his website.

Tyler Patrick | "The Wandering Therapist": Tyler is a co-founder Love Strong (lovestrong.com). Check out the Love Strong YouTube Channel for more therapy tips and skills and videos about WHOLEHEARTED living and Christian Based Recovery. Instagram: @love.strong.organization

How do you discern truth from confirmation bias? What are self-checks that one can rely on to hopefully see truth instead of just seeing things that go along with your personal narrative?

We would love to have you as a guest on the podcast. Go to realtalkrecovery.com to submit your question and sign up!

Join us at our 3 Day "Rising Son" Men's Conference, September 23-25 2021 in Logan, Utah. This conference is for men who are ready to step into higher-level recovery. Sign up on our website: https://risingsonconference.com

Brannon Patrick | "The Expert": Follow Brannon on instagram @brannon_patrick. For more info, find him at brannonpatrick.com. Check out Brannon's Boundary Bootcamp on his website.

Tyler Patrick | "The Wandering Therapist": Tyler is a co-founder Love Strong (lovestrong.com). Check out the Love Strong YouTube Channel for more therapy tips and skills and videos about WHOLEHEARTED living and Christian Based Recovery. Instagram: @love.strong.organization

Brannon is flying solo this episode while he waits for his comrade to heal up from a bout with COVID. Brannon digs into the nature of trust and why it is so hard to rebuild, but more importantly, how to do it the right way. 

We would love to have you as a guest on the podcast. Go to realtalkrecovery.com to submit your question and sign up!

Join us at our 3 Day "Rising Son" Men's Conference, September 23-25 2021 in Logan, Utah. This conference is for men who are ready to step into higher-level recovery. Sign up on our website: https://risingsonconference.com

Brannon Patrick | "The Expert": Follow Brannon on instagram @brannon_patrick. For more info, find him at brannonpatrick.com. Check out Brannon's Boundary Bootcamp on his website.

Tyler Patrick | "The Wandering Therapist": Tyler is a co-founder Love Strong (lovestrong.com). Check out the Love Strong YouTube Channel for more therapy tips and skills and videos about WHOLEHEARTED living and Christian Based Recovery. Instagram: @love.strong.organization

This podcast episode was actually recorded on Brannon's other podcast ("The Betrayed The Addicted The Expert"). It was a profound conversation and we wanted to highlight it again here to focus on masculinity, combatting shame, and what it means to be WHOLEHEARTED as well as the power of group therapy. 

We would love to have you as a guest on the podcast. Go to realtalkrecovery.com to submit your question and sign up!

Join us at our 3 Day "Rising Son" Men's Conference, September 23-25 2021 in Logan, Utah. This conference is for men who are ready to step into higher-level recovery. Sign up on our website: https://risingsonconference.com

Brannon Patrick | "The Expert": Follow Brannon on instagram @brannon_patrick. For more info, find him at brannonpatrick.com. Check out Brannon's Boundary Bootcamp on his website.

Tyler Patrick | "The Wandering Therapist": Tyler is a co-founder Love Strong (lovestrong.com). Check out the Love Strong YouTube Channel for more therapy tips and skills and videos about WHOLEHEARTED living and Christian Based Recovery. Instagram: @love.strong.organization

"My husband and I are not sure how to handle a family situation. My in-laws are good parents and grandparents. Physically, they are wonderful--they always have our backs and are there to lend a helping hand, they enjoy spending time with us, they are great with teaching our kids new skills, etc.  Emotional connection is a different story. First, there is the fact that they cannot go deep and have meaningful, connecting, listening and sharing conversations. It's often about food, other people, sports, etc. There's no vulnerability, no talk about feelings, etc.  An even bigger concern is the communication. My in-laws fight with each other a lot (in front of my husband, my children, myself). They use a lot of aggressive communication--yelling, blaming, attacking, gas lighting, etc. It's borderline abusive, and very uncomfortable to be around.  Throughout my husbands recovery, he has learned how significantly these issues impacted him. He would turn to pornography as a way to escape the fighting and numb the pain of it.  Both my husband and I have tried to address these issues. First, we expressed our intentions, and shared that we'd love to create deeper emotional connections with them.  Also, without placing blame, we have shared with them how these things impacted the addiction. We have been honest and direct, no mincing words, but done in a loving, respectful way.  We explained how uncomfortable it makes all of us feel being around their fighting. We even shared how our children are even voicing that they don't want to spend time with them because "they fight all the time" and they're really uncomfortable. We have set boundaries and stated that if the fighting happens in front of us, we will ask them to stop, if it continues then we will remove ourselves or ask them to leave (which we have followed through with). We have even mentioned that we may need to start spending less time with them if need be.  My question is, where do we go from here? We love my in-laws, and value all of the good parts of them. And really, we want to maintain a relationship with them. BUT, I know this behavior is far from harmless. It hurt my husband. It makes me uncomfortable. Now it's hurting my children...my 7 year old literally lays on the floor, crying, saying she doesn't want to be around their fighting and feels really uncomfortable.  Part of us feels that we shouldn't keep our kids (or ourselves) in a bubble, and we need to build up our resiliency and keep setting inner and outer boundaries (and sticking to them)...but another part of us wonders that, if they are unwilling to respect our verbal and even physical boundaries, if maybe it's healthier to limit our time spent with them, and eliminate unsupervised time with our kids since we aren't there to put the boundaries in place.  We wanted to get the experts opinion on the subject. Thanks!"

Follow Brannon on instagram @brannon_patrick. If you liked this content then you will also like his other podcast The Betrayed, The Addicted, and the Expert.  For more info, find him at brannonpatrick.com.

Tyler is a co-founder lovestrong.com. Check out the Love Strong YouTube Channel for more therapy tips and skills and videos about WHOLEHEARTED living. Instagram: @love.strong.organization or @the.wandering.therapist

In this episode we break apart some of the most common tips and advice given to couples before marriage. Some of them are down right foolish but many are actually more harmful than good.. Have you heard any of these before, or better yet, have you ever tried to live by them!?

We would love to have you as a guest on the podcast. Go to realtalkrecovery.com to submit your question and sign up!

Join us at our 3 Day "Rising Son" Men's Conference, September 23-25 2021 in Logan, Utah. This conference is for men who are ready to step into higher-level recovery. Sign up on our website: https://risingsonconference.com

Brannon Patrick | "The Expert": Follow Brannon on instagram @brannon_patrick. For more info, find him at brannonpatrick.com. Check out Brannon's Boundary Bootcamp on his website.

Tyler Patrick | "The Wandering Therapist": Tyler is a co-founder Love Strong (lovestrong.com). Check out the Love Strong YouTube Channel for more therapy tips and skills and videos about WHOLEHEARTED living and Christian Based Recovery. Instagram: @love.strong.organization

"Hi, I started seeing this guy at the end of July and was seeing him for a month, nearly every week. The last time I saw him was on the 6th September, and we had so much fun. The last time I spoke to him was on the 9th September. I asked him out on a date, and he said he was busy on that day. I replied back but he read it and never replied. Haven’t heard from him since. I don’t know if I should let it be, or check up on him to see if he is okay? However, I’m nervous that I will embarrass myself if he is trying to pull away and is not interested. But, it upsets me that he has decided to ghost me, and not say anything to me. Even if he doesn’t want to progress anything with me, I would still like to know. I feel like I’m in some sort of limbo."

We would love to have you as a guest on the podcast. Go to realtalkrecovery.com to submit your question and sign up!

Join us at our 3 Day "Rising Son" Men's Conference, September 23-25 2021 in Logan, Utah. This conference is for men who are ready to step into higher-level recovery. Sign up on our website: https://risingsonconference.com

Brannon Patrick | "The Expert": Follow Brannon on instagram @brannon_patrick. For more info, find him at brannonpatrick.com. Check out Brannon's Boundary Bootcamp on his website.

Tyler Patrick | "The Wandering Therapist": Tyler is a co-founder Love Strong (lovestrong.com). Check out the Love Strong YouTube Channel for more therapy tips and skills and videos about WHOLEHEARTED living and Christian Based Recovery. Instagram: @love.strong.organization

"How can I heal wounds inflicted by my father? When I was around 11 years old, I caught my dad looking at pornography. At the same time I was in the beginning stages of pornography use. In my young mind I looked at this as an opportunity to come clean to him about my struggles because I now knew that he struggled too. When I confronted him about it he denied everything. When I kept pressing he eventually admitted to me that he had been looking at it and that it was wrong and that he wouldn't do it again. He also told me not to tell my mom. he said that there are some things that we need to just take care of ourselves so we don't hurt her. Over the course of many years, I just kept diving deeper and deeper into my pornography addiction. I'm finally in recovery and I'm working my way through all the shame and bad habits. One of which is immediately looking for ways to hide things from my wife which i believe was taught to me by my dad. I recognize that there are some things that are not my fault but are still my responsibility. I feel like it's my responsibility to forgive my father for putting me in the middle of him and my mom, and to carry his secret for over a decade, but it's very difficult. I actually did an intake with you (Brannon) about a year ago and you advised me to talk to my dad about it and set boundaries. I told him that he needs to talk to my mom or i would because i can't carry the secret anymore. He talked to her and we have begun the process of healing. but I still struggle with opening up to him about anything. I can tell that he's trying and that its hard for him to see me not be so open with him. I know that he just wants to be a good dad. I feel like he is a good dad but I don't know what the next steps are to healing the relationship. It just feels awkward all of the time. If you have any advice or guidance on what I can do (as the child who was wounded) to heal the relationship, I would be very grateful. thank you."

We would love to have you as a guest on the podcast. Go to realtalkrecovery.com to submit your question and sign up!

Join us at our 3 Day "Rising Son" Men's Conference, September 23-25 2021 in Logan, Utah. This conference is for men who are ready to step into higher-level recovery. Sign up on our website: https://risingsonconference.com

Brannon Patrick | "The Expert": Follow Brannon on instagram @brannon_patrick. For more info, find him at brannonpatrick.com. Check out Brannon's Boundary Bootcamp on his website.

Tyler Patrick | "The Wandering Therapist": Tyler is a co-founder Love Strong (lovestrong.com). Check out the Love Strong YouTube Channel for more therapy tips and skills and videos about WHOLEHEARTED living and Christian Based Recovery. Instagram: @love.strong.organization

"Chivalrous Shaming!?!? Is it EVER okay to shame someone? Like when Joel Olsteen didn't offer his mega church for Hurricane Katrina victims, he was put on blast and then finally opened it up to them. Are there situations like that where it's acceptable to turn to shaming someone for what they should be doing that they aren't if it is for a greater good?"

Starts at 15:14

"Am I screwed? Sounds rough I know. My wife and I disagree on whether she is having an affair. I say yes, 100% no-brainer. She says I am crazy. Why the differing perspectives? It is because I believe she is having an emotional affair with her best friend who is also female (if this person was a male there would be no ambiguity at all). I relate to the betrayal trauma as it makes sense of my world. We have gone to counseling and the counselor felt that yes, it is an emotional affair coupled with addiction. Again it makes sense of my world, but she vehemently disagrees on all fronts, refuses to go to counseling and continues to spend hours and hours every day with her friend and when apart constantly texting her with lines like "I love you more than life itself". This does not work for me but we have 4 kids, 2 of whom are still in the home and I have been reluctant to leave with the kids still at home. Is it possible to move forward as a couple and re-create connection when we have polar opposite views of the relationship she has with her friend? She has told me if there was an ultimatum given, of course she would chose me but would hate me for it. Does that not really say who she wants to chose? I have come to realize I had a weak boundary system and would constantly put myself in situations I was not comfortable with to avoid "rocking the boat" if you will. Historically I would say yes to everything even if deep down I really wanted to say no. This has changed and now I am viewed as not as nice as I once was. Basically, am I screwed and is it impossible to move forward when you cannot agree on what is going on with an outside relationship?"

We would love to have you as a guest on the podcast. Go to realtalkrecovery.com to submit your question and sign up!

Join us at our 3 Day "Rising Son" Men's Conference, September 23-25 2021 in Logan, Utah. This conference is for men who are ready to step into higher-level recovery. Sign up on our website: https://risingsonconference.com

Brannon Patrick | "The Expert": Follow Brannon on instagram @brannon_patrick. For more info, find him at brannonpatrick.com. Check out Brannon's Boundary Bootcamp on his website.

Tyler Patrick | "The Wandering Therapist": Tyler is a co-founder Love Strong (lovestrong.com). Check out the Love Strong YouTube Channel for more therapy tips and skills and videos about WHOLEHEARTED living and Christian Based Recovery. Instagram: @love.strong.organization

After attending a funeral for a childhood friend, the Therapy Brothers share some poignant thoughts and decisions they've made throughout the years. The conversation gets heavy when they discuss openly a few regrets they've shouldered for years. Get ready to dig deep into your own choices as you consider this topic of life, relationships, regrets, and death alongside the Therapy Brothers. 

We would love to have you as a guest on the podcast. Go to realtalkrecovery.com to submit your question and sign up!

Join us at our 3 Day "Rising Son" Men's Conference, September 23-25 2021 in Logan, Utah. This conference is for men who are ready to step into higher-level recovery. Sign up on our website: https://risingsonconference.com

Brannon Patrick | "The Expert": Follow Brannon on instagram @brannon_patrick. For more info, find him at brannonpatrick.com. Check out Brannon's Boundary Bootcamp on his website.

Tyler Patrick | "The Wandering Therapist": Tyler is a co-founder Love Strong (lovestrong.com). Check out the Love Strong YouTube Channel for more therapy tips and skills and videos about WHOLEHEARTED living and Christian Based Recovery. Instagram: @love.strong.organization