Here is PART TWO of our marriage counseling session with Natasha Helfer Parker.
We share some of our pitfalls since discussing openly about pornography use.
Natasha Helfer Parker, a licensed marriage and family therapist
and certified sex therapist coaches Sean and I through sexual shame and trauma.
Natasha has 20 years experiencecounseling individuals, couples, and families. Her areas of expertise includes working within
the intersections of faith, life transitions and sexuality.
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Check out this episode!
A note from Sean
“Of all the challenging things this Mormon faith transition experience has unearthed for us, this sex stuff has been the most confusing and painful. Painful in and out of the church truthfully. We share very private details of our process with you in hopes that it can help. We ask for your grace should you listen. Not everyone will see things the way we do. No need to judge as you have the right to do what works for you and your marriage. We respect that. The mutual arrangements we are making in our marriage may not work for another. Each marriage can and probably will be a little different. Our hope is that you can perceive our sincere desire to help others who are confused sexually as we have been. Should lack of education, false beliefs and secrecy prevail, marriages probably will suffer. That is our opinion anyways.
We have had to face the reality that sexual things are complicated and we have had to seek professional help, in this case Natasha Helfer Parker has been counseling us. She has been a great help to us and we love her.
Sometimes we have to face the reality that in order for our relationship to transcend, we must be vulnerable/transparent/authentic. It is so scary! Will you still love me when you know the real me? Crystal knows everything now, everything there is and ever was, I’ve held nothing back as you will see in the session. Radical honesty. Does she still love me? 🥺 I feel more love from her than I have ever in my life. How could that be!? I can’t believe it. I want to pinch myself. She seems giddy to be with me and to spend time together. I don’t think you can fake that. We can’t anyways. Both of us have always worn our emotions on our sleeves. 😆 if something ain’t right, no matter how small, you are gonna know about it and it has got to be addressed before we can even be cordial to one another. 🤪 Sometimes I think we are so childish, both of us! Embarrassed 😩 We are both so damn emotional. It’s hilarious. We have now been married 15 years. I am so in love with you Crystal Escobar!!!!! 💕 My love for you has grown beyond what I thought was even possible. Funny how I always felt jealous when people would say they married their “best friend.” I never truly felt that. I was kind of jealous of those people. I can truly say now that my best friend in the world is also my wife. We have never played so hard, laughed so much, cried so much, been so brutally open and honest, it has all worked together to cause this new found friendship. You know how you can love your kids and not like them sometimes. 😂 I think the same with marriage. You can love someone and not like them a lot of the time. 🤷♂️ Now I have both. Oh and sometimes we still want to kill each other, just keepin it real. I love her, always have, but now I just enjoy the hell out of her as a friend too which has been so much fun! She is my favorite person. We have become 1. Mushy stuff but I just need to impress upon you that this openness and investment has been critical! Thank you to my dear friend Adam M Adam M Archer who suggested counseling. He said, “don’t be too proud. If the foundation of your home had a big crack in it, you wouldn’t hesitate to drop 20k to fix it would you? What is your relationship worth?”
Well we love you all so much. Look what you made us do. 😳”
Sean
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