Episode 26: Rebuilding Love At Home - LMFT Andrew Engstrom Interview

In this heartfelt episode, licensed marriage and family therapist Andrew Engstrom addresses vital questions provided by a supportive recovery community, focusing on rebuilding love, trust, and intimacy in marriages affected by addiction.

The conversation begins with a prayer, asking for blessings on marriages and encouraging hearts to open to recovery and freedom. With Andrew's extensive experience in therapy and addiction recovery, the episode provides insightful guidance for spouses and partners walking alongside addicts in their recovery journey.

The questions addressed in this episode are split into three core themes: sensitivities around discovery and disclosure, managing the fear of relapse (including PTSD), and rebuilding love and trust. Topics discussed include:

• How much should I share? When should I share?
• Am I policing or monitoring my spouse enough?
• Why is trust so scary?
• How do I rebuild trust and love after betrayal?
• Is my progress enough to save my marriage?

Andrew dives deep into these questions, emphasizing the importance of honesty, transparency, and the painful yet necessary journey of healing. He reflects on the power of sharing difficult truths, saying, “If you do truce, you will rejoice.”  “Intimacy is probably the scariest thing on the planet.” But he also encourages listeners with the idea that when a marriage survives hardship, it demonstrates a deep, resilient kind of love: “When the house is still there after the tornado, then you find out there is real love.”

One of the central themes of Andrew’s therapeutic approach is “tension holding,” where couples are encouraged to engage in difficult conversations rather than avoid them. He stresses that the depth of a marriage is reflected in the ability to share struggles, with statements like, “The limit to which you can speak about something is the limit to which you are married.”  Andrew highlights the beauty in how deeply a person can be hurt by betrayal, acknowledging that it is a testament to the heart’s capacity for commitment.

Andrew warns against “staggered disclosures." “Staggered disclosure is death for the mind,” he notes, advocating for open, transparent conversations guided by a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT).

Andrew emphasizes that, while relapses are a painful reality in recovery, there must be hope. “Suffering builds character, and character builds hope,” he reminds listeners, encouraging them to face their fears together. 

Throughout the episode, Andrew reminds spouses and partners that even though recovery can feel uncertain and painful, the ability to listen and understand each other's hearts is a powerful tool in healing. “Let me hear your heart,” he says, “You want to hear their heart. It hurts, but you are winning.”

Find Andrew:
https://seattlechristiancounseling.com/counselors/andrew-engstrom
sign up for his upcoming book via https://bit.ly/Corinthians_13