Marriage and Intimacy Tips for Christian Couples: Secrets of Happily Ever After
Have you ever wondered what makes the difference between those couples who absolutely LOVE to be together and the ones who merely tolorate each other in their old age? I always want to run up to the cute old couples who still hold hands while walking down the street and ask them all their secrets to relationship success. This podcast gives me the opportunity to do just that!
I'm Monica Tanner, wife to a super hunky man, mom to 4 kids, weekly podcaster and relationship and intimacy expert/enthusiast. I help couples ditch the resentment and roommate syndrome and increase communication, connection and commitment, so they can write and live out their happily ever after love story. If that sounds like something you want, this podcast is absolutely for YOU!
Each week, I'm teasing out the principles that keep couples hopelessly devoted and intoxicatingly in love with each other for a lifetime and beyond. I'm searching high and low for the secrets of happily ever after and sharing those secrets with you right here. Sound marriage advice for couples who want to live happily ever after and achieve a truly intimate friendship, because an awesome marriage makes life so much sweeter. Let's get to it!
Marriage and Intimacy Tips for Christian Couples: Secrets of Happily Ever After
How to Express Disappointment in a Way Your Partner Can Understand
This episode addresses how to navigate feelings of disappointment in a relationship, particularly following Valentine's Day. We explore effective communication strategies, the importance of honesty, and techniques to foster understanding and empathy during tough conversations.
• Discussing the common aftermath of unmet expectations
• Importance of maintaining open and honest communication
• Techniques to express feelings without emotional dumping
• Establishing ground rules for productive conversations
• The WAIT method: understanding the purpose of dialogue
• Acknowledging and responding to each other's emotions with empathy
• Strategies for creating a safe space for honest discussions
• Importance of preemptively addressing feelings to prevent resentment
• The value of mutual understanding in resolving conflicts
• Building intimacy through vulnerability and active listening
For help in having these discussions, please book a 30 minute complimentary call using this link: https://tidycal.com/onthebrightersideoflife/call
Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever After podcast. I'm your host, monica Tanner, with my co-host, nate Bagley, and we are so excited to record today. It is the day after Valentine's Day and we want to address a topic because I have gotten a ton of DMs.
Speaker 1:I don't know about you, nate, but I don't check my DMs, so Wives who had maybe a bigger expectation for Valentine's Day, or they were hoping for something, or maybe even they asked for something and they feel like their spouse did not come through for them and so they're disappointed and trying to figure out, like, how do I bring it up? Do I even bring it up? Do I just swallow it down? Like, how do I bring up that uncomfortable topic of I'm disappointed? I wish this had happened differently. And how do we? How do we get through that? How do we bring that up in a really um, like an effective way that our spouse won't shut down or just be like, oh, there's such a nag or nothing I ever do is good enough. I feel like this is a very timely topic.
Speaker 2:I agree. I agree there's a lot of resources and skills that you can develop to help you accomplish this.
Speaker 1:Totally, totally, and I think you're like the king of having the tough conversations, right.
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't think that that's necessarily true. I think in theory maybe, but in practice it's a lot harder than all of this stuff is harder in practice than it is in theory.
Speaker 2:Because, you're dealing with emotions and you're dealing with people's histories and their emotional triggers, and you're dealing with people's histories and their emotional triggers and you're dealing with, like something as simple as their tone of voice or the mood that they're in, or whether or not they're feeling sick or healthy, or that there's so many things that can make having hard conversations harder than if the conditions were perfect. The conditions are rarely perfect, let's be honest.
Speaker 1:I agree if the conditions were perfect and the conditions are rarely perfect, let's be honest, I agree and I think. Just because I think, just because we have the skills or we study the skills or we teach other people the skills, that doesn't necessarily even mean when it's time for us to use the skills that they are readily available to us, there's always, you know, something unexpected or we feel triggered or we really have to dig deep. So you know, we struggle, just like everybody else.
Speaker 1:But yes, there are skills that you can tap into to be able to have these conversations effectively, even when you're feeling really disappointed, and especially when you're feeling very disappointed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the and I think the work starts before you enter the arena, expressing negative emotions whether it's anger, frustration, disappointment, betrayal there's so many negative emotions that can come up in your relationship and expressing those is always going to go better If you have made an honor agreements about how you're going to engage in these conversations beforehand, you lay some ground rules.
Speaker 2:If you don't have ground rules, it's really easy to play dirty, because that's human nature. Human nature is I want to protect myself, I want to defend myself against the threat. And if you haven't made explicit agreements with your partner about how you're going to engage in these conversations and make sure that you're being respectful and make sure that you're honoring your relationship and being and that you're not going to make things worse in an act of self-preservation than you inevitably will Like, it's hard enough to. It's hard enough to fight clean without or with the rules. That if you don't have rules of engagement beforehand, it makes it almost impossible, I think, for two emotionally charged people to have a productive conversation and to walk away feeling validated and understood and with a with like a a good, cogent plan to move forward.
Speaker 1:So true. So, before we get into those kind of example of those rules, cause I want you to give me some examples and I'll give you some examples of some of our rules of engagement. But like I think kind of the first rule is to be perfectly honest with each other, because I don't think you're gaining anything by not having these conversations. I think people often think like, oh, it's not a big deal, I'll forget about it.
Speaker 1:Or, like you know, like I just need to push it down because I don't want to bring it up, because, you know, I don't want to seem like a nag or something like that, and I think that is really bad, misguided, whether it's advice or just what you saw growing up because your partner can always tell, like, if you're disappointed and something didn't go your way and you're like no, I'm just not going to say anything, I'm just going to it comes out sideways and your partner can tell that something's wrong.
Speaker 2:So we're really good at math. We are human beings, are really good at mapping each other's emotions and thoughts, and you can tell when somebody is not being forthright with you. You can tell when somebody is talking out of the side of their mouth, especially when you live with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's just agree that if you're feeling disappointed about something, that the best course of action is to have the conversation, even if you struggle through it. We're going to give you some really good tips and tools in this episode, but let's just like decide right now that we're we're going to have the conversation, rather than try to stuff it down or try to ignore it.
Speaker 2:I like what you said at the beginning, that we're going to be honest, because I think when we think about being honest, I like to define what words mean lately, because I think it's really easy for somebody to hear a word and what they think of when they hear that word is not the same thing of what we mean when we say the word. And I think that there's parts to honesty. I think some people think, in the spirit of honesty, that they have the right to like emotionally dump on their partner, like they store up all their negative emotions and back up the trailer and they're like here's my honesty. And because we're married, we're in a relationship, you need to, you need to hear this and you're not allowed to be defensive or hurt or anything. Just need to. You need to. Let me bury you in all of my complaints and frustrations and anger and hurt and um, and if you don't take it, then you're a bad partner and um, honesty does not give you a blank check to emotionally unload on somebody. Um, that's one. So that's one technicality. That. So when we say be honest, that's not what we mean, that you do have a free pass to say whatever you want.
Speaker 2:Um, the other thing about honesty that I want to say before we dive into, like what maybe honesty actually looks like, or a good, uh, honesty in its in its best form.
Speaker 2:Um, the other thing that the ingredient that I think we often miss out on, is that, if you want to have a marriage that is filled with honesty, um, there's two parts of it.
Speaker 2:One part is is telling the truth and being honest about your experience and what happened, but the other part of it is being able to, um, receive hard truths, to hear things that might not sit well with you and might threaten your reality and might feel, um, feel hurtful or, uh, you or you might be the villain in somebody's story, and to not lose yourself. If you punish your partner for being honest with you, they will not be honest with you in the future. So, if somebody comes to you and says I need to tell you something, something that is affecting me, that's weighing on me, it's important to me, and you lash out and punish them and berate them or get defensive and angry, they're going to avoid those conversations more and more, and then you're going to be living in a marriage that's full of dishonesty and secrets, because you haven't created a space where your partner can be honest with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so true, so true, so important.
Speaker 2:So those are two things that I would watch out for before we dive into talking about to having these conversations. One, be careful not to emotionally unload. And then two, practice holding onto yourself when bad, when hard news comes your way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and actually what I think about when I think about, like, preparing for a conversation that you want to have with your spouse about being disappointed about something, is the acronym WAIT. Why am I talking? So it's really important. Like, are you talking to punish your partner? Are you talking to change your partner's behavior, or are you talking to make your relationship better and stronger? And that is always. I'm always going to tell you to ask for what you want in an honest and skillful way.
Speaker 1:And so if you wait before diving into the conversation without thinking about it, I think establish. Why am I talking? So that my partner will understand and know me better, so that I can know and understand my partner better. Because there might be a reason why they didn't do anything for you for Valentine's day, right. And so if you show up with that curiosity, wanting to know your partner better, because there might be a reason why they didn't do anything for you for Valentine's Day, right. And so if you show up with that curiosity, wanting to know your partner better, wanting them to understand you better, that's going to be better.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And remember that you're talking to somebody that you love. So let's, let's talk about these rules to somebody that you love. So let's, let's talk about these rules, cause I love this idea. Um, I think number one before diving into a conversation, attempting a conversation about maybe being disappointed with your partner about something you're always going to want to contract good, healthy relationships, use contracting well. So you don't want to, like Nate said in past episodes, you don't want to catch him right when he comes in from a very busy day at work, or when she is stressed and trying to get dinner on the table and has toddlers hanging on her ankles. You want to go to your partner and say, hey, I would love to talk to you for a few minutes about, you know, valentine's day, how that went. Is now a good time, yeah, or is there a better time?
Speaker 1:So you always want to kind of contract with your partner to make sure it's a good time to have this conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah and and let's be honest, like this is the ideal. There's just going to be times where emotions boil over in the heat of the moment and things come up and it feels like the conversation, it's like a dam, breaks and you can't hold it back anymore. And so if you don't have the luxury of saying like, hey, let's schedule a conversation for later this evening, when the house is quiet, and like that's just unrealistic, and you're driving in the car and your kids have headphones on and you're just like both boiling, boiling over and seething Like, the most important thing I can recommend is number one take some deep breaths in the heat of the moment. Number two remind your partner that you're on the same team, that you love them, and you can tell that they're hurting, that they're upset about something and you would like to hear them out Anything that you can do to diffuse the criticism, defensiveness spiral which is often what these conversations turn into here's why you're wrong, here's why you're bad, here's why you're bad, here's why you hurt me, here's why you're the villain, here's why I'm the hero, here's why? Or the victim, here's why I'm right, here's why I'm good. And anytime a conversation veers in that direction, it's just it's unlikely to go well and the best way to avoid it is to calm your physiology down. And the best way to avoid it is to calm your physiology down, like, keep your heart rate low, take some deep breaths and see if you can acknowledge your partner's pain and let them know that you can, you can be the receptacle, like, you can hold onto yourself, and that you can, you have, you have the capacity to hear and receive their pain without, without making it about you. If you can do that one little thing at the very beginning, oftentimes the the high emotion that your partner might have in that moment will like simmer down real quick and they'll be like, oh okay, they're not going to defend themselves here Like we can we.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite I know I quote Dr Gottman a lot, john Gottman, but one of my favorite quotes from him is he says I'm going to paraphrase but it's the purpose of conflict in a relationship is not to resolve the conflict, it's to create mutual understanding and it's something like 69% of conflict is unresolvable, it's perpetual conflict. It comes up, these conflicts come up again and again and again and they don't ever go away because they're based on personality preferences or they're based on, just like our habits, our desires, just kind of like who we are as people. And that's a lot. That's a high percentage of conflict, and if you try and solve unsolvable problems, you're just going to pull your hair out. It's going to drive you bonkers. So the best thing you can do is realign, reset your goals and just realize that sometimes, when your partner's hurting, all they need is somebody to have empathy and understand where they're coming from, and it can be one of the most challenging things to do in a relationship.
Speaker 1:It's true, it's true. Okay, so best case scenario contract.
Speaker 2:But if you can't make sure that you're taking some breaths and kind of setting yourself, Holding on to yourself, and if you can't do that, then politely ask your partner if you can talk about it later.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, uh, another thing that's really, uh, you you pointed out, making certain that you're on the right, that you're on the same team, but also trying to be making sure that you're concise because, like you said, it is, you know, if you're constantly or consistently dumping on your partner, we call that unbridled self-expression. So if you go to your partner and you're like, hey, I'd love to talk about blank, and they're bracing themselves for like 45 minutes of like a tongue lashing, that's not going to go well. So take a few minutes to try and make your thoughts really concise. Now I teach a tool called the feedback wheel where you can talk about something that's upsetting you. You get eight sentences max, so we won't go into that on this episode, but the more concise you can be, the better. So you want your partner to know that, like, if you need to talk something out, that they're not going to be sitting there, they're not like stuck and just listening to you dump on them and, you know, reassure them. Hey, this is going to be super quick.
Speaker 1:I just I want to talk to you about something that's really bothering me and I think, once I get it off my chest and we can have a short conversation about it, I will feel so much better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as a person who I'm, a, I'm an, I'm an, a dumper.
Speaker 1:That's a weird thing to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I mean, I'm a verbal processor.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Um, yes, and so sometimes I'm like trying to find my words and it takes a while, and it's why therapy having a good therapist or a good friend who's like an advocate of your marriage and is a really good to kind of it's good for me to sometimes go for a walk and talk things through with them first and get an organized my thoughts before I talk to my partner. But one thing that I have noticed for those of you who might feel like you have a partner who just can't shut up about a problem and they just complain and complain and complain and they're perpetually disappointed this is a conversation we're having in our marriage right now. Actually, we had this long conversation this week about this very thing. My wife expressed the she, she, she said she was having a rough week, um, so she was feeling a little bit emotionally beat down and when, whenever that happens, it kind of skews your perception a little bit. But she mentioned that she felt like I was, um, disappointed in her more often than not, and so she was walking around with this experience of Nate's disappointed in me. I just am a disappointment as a wife, I just am not a good wife and I'm like that is not the experience that I want to give my wife at all, like I don't want her to feel like she's a constant disappointment and so like I've been working really hard on learning to manage my own negative emotions and my own reactions. But one of the things when we talked about this because when she raised that concern I took it very seriously I want to hear what's going on for you, because this is not how I want our marriage to feel for you. So we had a conversation about it and one of the things I realized is that, if I let's use an example, this has actually happened.
Speaker 2:It's like Angeline, one of her jobs that we've agreed on in our house, like I take out the garbage, I do the dishes, she folds, does the laundry, she does the laundry and she really struggles to fold and put away the laundry. And it's been an ongoing conversation we've had about how can I help you? What does this look? You know like we're trying to find a solution that that works. And there was an evening a couple weeks ago where I was putting our kids to bed and our Todd, our four-year-old, was being really difficult. She kept getting out of bed, getting out of bed, so I just sat outside her bedroom and every time she'd open the door I'd pick her up and I'd say, I love you. It I'd open the door, I'd pick her up and I'd say, I love you, it's bedtime, and I'd put her back in bed.
Speaker 2:And I was just trying to win, on strength of will, win that battle. And so I was sitting by her door and my wife came over and picked up a hamper that was full of clean laundry and said hey, I'm going to go fold this laundry. I said, oh my gosh, thank you so much. You're amazing. And I gave her a kiss 25 minutes. I went into our bedroom and the laundry was all over the room and had not been folded or put away. And I went in the bathroom and she was doing something else and I expressed disappointment. I was like she could see it on my face. I was disappointed and her immediate response was to get defensive. She talked to her therapist about it and her therapist called it um, jade. It's uh, let's see.
Speaker 2:Jade is justify, um, justify, argue, defend and explain okay so her, her inclination was to justify, argue, defend and explain why she hadn't folded the laundry.
Speaker 2:Yet I was busy doing this, I had to take care of this, and it was unreasonable for me, because she'd already done so much folding and putting away the laundry, it was unreasonable for me to even be upset that the laundry she said she was going to fold and put away hadn't been done and anything to avoid taking responsibility and owning up to the fact that she'd done it.
Speaker 2:And so and I know, as we broke this process down, in hindsight we came to the realization that, like when she did the Jade thing justify, defend, argue, explain, not in that order I would I immediately felt like my disappointment was invalid, like, oh so my disappointment is I have no reason to be disappointed. Like, is it not okay for me to be disappointed that you said you were going to do this and then you didn't do it? And then I start to question my reality and then I think, no, no, this is like a normal. It's okay for me to be disappointed that my partner didn't follow through. And so then I have to explain to her in very specific detail why I am justified in being disappointed that the laundry wasn't put away.
Speaker 1:And then you're off to the races.
Speaker 2:And then it's off to the races. And so after having this conversation, I said something that would really help me. I understand now why you feel like I'm always disappointed, because if every time I feel disappointed and I can't express that emotion without being met with defensiveness and and like pushback by you, then I feel like I have to explain myself, and that explaining myself makes you feel like this is all I'm thinking about. My whole world is revolving around this and I'm like that's not the case. Like I just walked in and saw clothes everywhere and I was like, oh man, I thought this was going to be done. And I walked in the bathroom and you hadn't done it. And she's like well, what was I supposed to say? And I was like, well, it would have been great if you would have just said like, hey, can you help me finish it right now? And I'd have been like, okay, and it would have been done. So that all that is to say like, as somebody who probably already said, Nate here's.
Speaker 1:Here's like a.
Speaker 2:This is like a just a fun tip for all of those out here yeah, yeah, give us your fun, relate, cause I would love them.
Speaker 1:They're all relating and they're all like, oh my gosh, just so been there, right yeah? What if Angeline had said you know what, nate? I was just thinking. The kids are in bed now and I hate folding laundry. So what if we took off all of our clothes and finished folding laundry together?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would've been interesting.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's a good pivot.
Speaker 2:And this is not to throw my wife under the bus, because, like in all fairness I have definitely been expressing and this we don't need to talk about my personal issues my, my third things I'm working on in therapy but like I'm working on finding um, I she is. She is fair in her assessment that I've been more disappointed lately and maybe more irritable lately now than I have been previously in our relationship. So her feelings are not unwarranted. I don't want to say that she's completely making it up and causing this problem for herself. Yeah, she's definitely mapping me, but what I wanted to share, I wanted to share this, like I want to take responsibility for my piece in this as well, but I wanted to share this as somebody, as you can all tell, who loves to talk.
Speaker 2:I love to talk, I love to express myself and I can have a tendency to dump on my partner, especially if I feel like I have to defend my experience. What is reality for me? So if you find that you have a partner who, if you feel like you're a perpetual disappointment, or you feel like your partner just dumps on you, yes, they have responsibility to take for that and also get curious about how your reaction to their behavior. Disappointment might be causing them to have to have to go so deep into every every time they feel disappointed yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think the takeaway from that is or maybe this is a uniquely Nate experience, I don't know definitely not unique.
Speaker 1:I think people are listening going oh my gosh, like Nate is saying what I feel all the time, right, right and so maybe my biggest, my biggest takeaway and I think maybe advice to that is be good at or learn, commit to start practicing ways in which you can accept your partner's disappointment without getting jaded. Yeah, Justifying argument, argumenting, argue.
Speaker 2:Arguing Defending. And explaining.
Speaker 1:Or explaining right and so and maybe that's something you say out loud you say, hey, you know, sometimes I'm disappointed, sometimes you're disappointed in me. That's just part of our natural, healthy relationship. And so I'm disappointed, sometimes you're disappointed in me. That's just part of our natural, a healthy relationship. And so I'm committing to you, I'm going to try right now, when you express your disappointment in me, I am going to try and and and this is another episode we can do that, I think, is really important about boundaries but I'm going to try to have my boundary up and I'm going to try to be porous enough to take in your disappointment and then be able to assess you know, validate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, assess what of that is is valid part of you. Know what is actually happening and yeah, and be able to say you know what. I love you and I don't want you to feel disappointed. What can we do right now to help so this isn't a forever practice? Nate, like people are not going to jump off this podcast and be like, okay, I got it, this is great, I can go express disappointment. My partner's going to take it.
Speaker 2:No, it's a lifelong practice.
Speaker 1:Yes, and there's just little things that you can do all the time, little skill sets that you can be practicing. Learning um and getting better at that are going to help you really, um, make your relationship. And this is the passion part of relationships is being able to do this, is being able to like. This is another episode for another time too. I'm, like so excited We've got endless episodes but don't sweat the small stuff. I hate that. Definitely sweat the small stuff. Talk about it when it's small, before it becomes big. Right, you want to talk about, you want to be able to have a practice in your relationship, to be talking about the seeds before they become weeds. Yeah, and so you want to and you want to.
Speaker 2:You don't want to nitpick, right? You're not trying to create like a perfect world no. But when you feel hurt if you're disappointed about something you feel disappointed.
Speaker 2:Try to get an understanding as to why. What is it about this thing that you felt if Valentine's Day didn't work out for you? What is it about Valentine's? Is it because he didn't buy you flowers? Is it because you guys didn't have sex? Like that might be the surface level thing, but the thing underneath it might be. I just didn't feel prioritized. I didn't feel like you thought that I was important enough to you, that you were willing to think ahead about how to make today special and that's the beauty of that Nate, because I actually think we can role play that out really really well.
Speaker 1:Because, if you can, before you go to your partner and express your disappointment, if you can get down to the root of that, like hey, you know, it's not really that you didn't get me flowers, it's not really that we didn't have sex, it's not really. It's really that I didn't feel prioritized.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You want to feel like an afterthought.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on a day that you know it's very commercialized and I'm not expecting you to go spend a bunch of money and I don't need a fancy dinner or whatever. But I want to feel like your Valentine's. I want to feel thought of on that day, right, and then for your partner, like I do, feel like this would be a really great role play to be like oh my gosh, honey, I'm so sorry that you didn't feel prioritized by me. I never want you to feel that way. You are my priority. Is there anything that I can do for you right now, in this moment, that would help you feel prioritized by me, because I don't want you to feel that way.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:And there's no explaining, there's not like oh I tried to do this and I thought about doing this and I just didn't. No, it's listening to their pain, it's being able to address it and say I don't want you to feel that way.
Speaker 2:Not even, yeah, address it and say that you don't want them to feel that way, and I mean, the best thing you can do is just repeat back to them what they said to you, so that they know that you understand what it meant for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like there is nothing more cathartic. I will tell you, in my marriage there's nothing more cathartic than my wife looking at me when I'm having a hard time and saying, like I get it.
Speaker 1:I hear you. Yeah, here let me repeat back for you. I felt that way too. Yeah, it's like.
Speaker 2:it's like here's what I hear you saying. You felt this way when this happened, and then I did this, I said this, and this is this is how it made you feel.
Speaker 1:And I understand how you would feel.
Speaker 2:And that sounds like, yeah, that would really hurt me too. Yeah, that would really hurt me too. I understand why you're hurting and it makes total sense. It's like, oh, I'm not crazy for being hurt, I'm not crazy for feeling disappointed, I'm not crazy, I'm not a complete loony tune that this made me upset. It's like, okay, thank you for validating me. I don't even need you to fix it at that point, just you saying like no, I get it. That's a valid reason to be upset.
Speaker 1:It's like okay, good now we can move on, because sometimes your partner, but knowing that your partner would be willing to fix it to do something to fix. It is the best.
Speaker 2:It's awesome in the world no, also just knowing your partner is willing to say like, hey, your experience matters to me. Yes, like the fact that you're upset, I want to understand what caused that upset and and I want to do my best to get in your shoes and be like if I was in your shoes I would have felt the same way. Totally makes sense. It's like, oh okay, somebody cares about me enough to just get inside my brain and understand why this hurt.
Speaker 1:And here's the cool thing about these skills Even if you do these things badly because you will at the start, like when you first start trying to implement some of these things, you probably will screw it up and not do it with a lot of skill you you'll still get better results than if you don't even try.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's summarize this episode in whoever's listening out there who may have been disappointed by Valentine's day or something that happened over the weekend, or just in general. If you're, if you're feeling any type of disappointment in your marriage, let's one commit to talking about it, like get the conversation going. Do not stuff it down, do not act like it's not bothering you. It's going to come out in passive, aggressive ways. It's going to create resentment. It's going to make you look at your partner in a different way and, let's be honest, they will feel it. They will know that you're disappointed. So stop trying to hide it and just let's confront our partner. Okay, so number one, let's make the commitment to have the tough conversation.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Two let's contract right Before we, before we even get there. Let's, let's, uh, wait set some ground rules.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wait, why am I talking? Remember who you're talking to the person that you love and that you live with. Why am I talking? Because I want our relationship to be better and I want them to understand me and I want to understand them. And then we want to make a contract Like, hey, is this a good time to chat? I promise I'll be brief, I'm not going to dump on you. I promise I'll be brief, I'm not going to dump on you. I just I want to let you know about something that happened this weekend or over Valentine's day or whatever. Just want to make you aware. Okay, so that's the third. We're at three now, right?
Speaker 1:Number four in a concise and loving way, let them know what really was hard for you or what really is causing you pain, disappointment, despair, right? So it's not. It's not that I didn't get flowers, it's not that you didn't take me out to a nice dinner. It's I didn't feel prioritized. If you can get down to like the feeling, part of it, like your experience, and I like I didn't, not you, you didn't prioritize me, not like you're the authority on it, but I didn't feel prioritized, like I realized. You know that could just be coming from me. You know, it might not even have been anything that you did. It's just me telling myself the story that you, that you weren't prioritizing me this this.
Speaker 2:This is going to be play a lot into keeping it short yeah if you can think ahead and work out for yourself.
Speaker 2:There's the thing that happened, and then there's the and then there's what it meant for you and what it meant. Where we often get hung up when we're having these conversations is we get hung up around the thing that happened. It's like this thing happened and if we don't, this is maybe where I could improve personally. Um, there's the thing that happened, like the laundry didn't get folded, and you can end up wasting all of your, your social capital and all of your energy arguing about the laundry, when the thing that you're really frustrated about is not the laundry or the Valentine's day or whatever. The thing you're really upset about is. I don't feel like I can trust you, or I'm feeling a little bit lonely. I'm feeling you know, or I'm. I need to. I need to be able to count on you, and you weren't there for me when I needed you.
Speaker 1:Yes. I made that mean I made up that you don't care, you know that I'm working hard and putting into this relationship and you're not really pulling your weight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or I just uh. I felt, I felt, I felt alone, I felt unimportant, I felt yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so important that you can express that right.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:And then you know the listening role is. It's important for the listener to remember that, like you love your partner, you don't want your partner to feel those things, even if that's not what you intended, even that if, even if that's not even really what happened, you don't even have to go into that.
Speaker 2:Your role is not to be the good guy and explain why you weren't the bad guy. Your role is to just seek mutual understanding, empathize, try and put yourself in your partner's shoes, if you can. Just. I used to call it like holding the emotional garbage. Can have you heard this analogy? Have I shared this with you? Like when you're, when your partner's throwing up? My wife had really rough pregnancies with lots of nausea, and whenever she was throwing up there's nothing I could do about it. Like you can't stop it from happening. The only thing I could do is like hold her hair back, rub her shoulders, say that this really sucks. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2:And then maybe afterwards, like get her some tea or you know something to help her settle her, some toast, some crackers to help her settle her tummy, and in that moment like the best thing you can do is kind of just like hold space for that moment to happen. And sometimes all your partner needs is for you to hold the emotional garbage can and let them get all their emotions out and be like yeah, that makes sense, I'm so sorry that happened. Oh, that's really. That sounds really hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And once they get it all out, they're going to go oh, and once they get it all out, they're going to go huh, yeah, yeah, and it will make your relationship stronger, like I promise, like take my word for it you will have a healthier, happier, more intimate and more passionate relationship if you can face these things head on, together, as a team. And it's not going to go right every single time. Sometimes it's going to escalate into an argument, but for the most part, if you just kind of follow these ground rules, these conversations are going to go so much better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like I love the word intimacy that you used. There's something about like you can't have intimacy when you're in, when you're armored up, if you're wearing like a plate mail, you know. You're dressed up like a, like a, a soldier from King the times of King Arthur, like, and you're laying in bed together. There's not going to be much intimacy, it's just going to be clanking and rusty, squeaking, and it's just not going to. It's not going to. If you want to be close with somebody, you got to take that armor off. And the best way to do that like truly these moments where you, your partner or your partner really needs somebody to see them and hear them, like these moments of conflict can be the end of a relationship, they can be really detrimental, but they can also be the gateway to learning. Like, oh, when I was feeling most upset, most hurt my partner. If you can give your partner that gift of being able to take their armor off during these hurtful conversations, when they're most scared of being hurt more.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What a gift that. That is truly the gateway to intimacy.
Speaker 1:That's really cool, cause you could be on either side of the disappointment. So if you're listening to this podcast and you're like I'm disappointed about something, I want you to go try to initiate one of these conversations. But if you are the partner that you're like, I know my partner's upset. I know they're disappointed about Valentine's Day and I feel rotten about it, but they're not going to say anything about it. You could go to your partner and say hey, listen, I feel like you're upset, maybe about Valentine's Day. I would love to hear you out. I would love if you could share with me your disappointment, cause I would love to understand you better and I I I want to make it better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so whenever you engage in this conversation I like the visual think about how can I engage in this conversation in a way that doesn't that doesn't make my partner feel like they need to grab their sword and shield. How can I do this in a way that has them just sit on the couch and just be honest? That's, I think, a good mental visual. I love it. I love it. Good episode, monica.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think this is great and I hope that you guys will send us a note, send us a line on social media or over email at monicatinacom, and let us know how these conversations went for you. If you feel like it went off the rails and it just like you're so sorry you did it, let us know Like we can talk more about it. We can definitely help you through it. So go have these conversations, let us know how it went for you and join us next week, because there's so much to talk about. These things are so important. I can't think of any better use of your time, of your energy, of your financial investment than to really up level your relationship, because there is nothing else in your life that is a better measure of your happiness than the, than the health of your relationship. So these things are worth it. So thanks, nate, for your time and we'll see you guys next week.