The Naked Marriage with Dave & Ashley Willis
Sep 18, 2026 · 3 min · 5 segments
Childhood trauma can silently shut down your ability to emotionally connect with your spouse, but restoration begins the moment you choose honesty over self-protection. You can't be healed from…
Uh, I had made inner vows when I was a child that no one will ever hurt me like this again.
So I had repeated those things multiple times.
When you go through emotional pain, like, like I had anyway, that was my response to it.
Now being an adult, and then now I'm in a marriage relationship, I don't understand emotional connection at all.
My emotions and my soul were welded shut.
And so Jill found a therapist that specialized in trauma-
... and betrayal.
It's kind of funny.
I'll never forget it.
It's like the very first session, we're sitting there, and he asks me a personal question about Jill.
So I answer him, and he goes, "Have you ever told her that?" And I'm like, "No." He goes, "Well, why don't you?" And I'm like, okay, thinking, "Well, I'll do that later on." He's like, "No.
Right now, I want you to turn to her-
... and tell her what you just told me." And I literally looked at him, and the first words out of my mouth were, "Is that even safe?"
Because of all the trauma that I had grown up with and dealt with.
And when I turned and began to tell Jill, I just cried.
And it was like one of those first times in a long time-
Uh, I had made inner vows when I was a child that no one will ever hurt me like this again.
So I had repeated those things multiple times.
When you go through emotional pain, like, like I had anyway, that was my response to it.
Now being an adult, and then now I'm in a marriage relationship, I don't understand emotional connection at all.
My emotions and my soul were welded shut.
And so Jill found a therapist that specialized in trauma-
... and betrayal.
It's kind of funny.
I'll never forget it.
It's like the very first session, we're sitting there, and he asks me a personal question about Jill.
So I answer him, and he goes, "Have you ever told her that?" And I'm like, "No." He goes, "Well, why don't you?" And I'm like, okay, thinking, "Well, I'll do that later on." He's like, "No.
Right now, I want you to turn to her-
... and tell her what you just told me." And I literally looked at him, and the first words out of my mouth were, "Is that even safe?"
Because of all the trauma that I had grown up with and dealt with.
And when I turned and began to tell Jill, I just cried.
And it was like one of those first times in a long time-
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