Marriage and Intimacy Tips for Christian Couples: Secrets of Happily Ever After

Moving From Approval to True Intimacy in Marriage with Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife

• Monica Tanner and Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife • Season 4 • Episode 339

Share episode

Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife explores how moving beyond validation-seeking creates deeper, more authentic intimate connections in marriage, explaining that true intimacy requires embracing differences rather than demanding constant agreement.

• Distinguishing between validation and true intimacy in relationships
• Understanding the three unhealthy relationship patterns: pressuring our partner, yielding to avoid conflict, or creating parallel lives
• Recognizing that we marry people for their differences but then often resent those same differences
• Learning to weather invalidation without falling apart or becoming defensive
• Developing the capacity to truly listen to our partner's perspective without immediately defending ourselves
• Identifying our "losing strategy" – our default response under pressure that undermines connection
• Approaching conflict with curiosity about our partner's experience rather than taking it personally
• Beginning difficult conversations by acknowledging where our partner is right about us
• Understanding marriage as a spiritual journey that expands our capacity to love and be known

Get your copy of Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife's new book "That We Might Have Joy: Sexuality as a Path to Spirituality for Latter-day Saints" available September 30th on Amazon or through her website at finlayson-fife.com.


Send us a text

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever After podcast. I'm your host, monica Tanner, and I am super, super, super giddy about our guest today. I'm thrilled to be joined by Dr Jennifer Finlayson-Fyfe, a therapist, coach and author of the new book that we Might have Joy Sexuality as a Path to Spirituality for Latter-day Saints. She's helped thousands of individuals and couples create deeper, more meaningful marriages. Today we're going to discuss one of the most thought-provoking chapters, chapter five, which is called Intimacy Beyond Validation. So I'm sure you don't have a favorite, but if you did have to name a favorite, what do you think would be your favorite chapter?

Speaker 2:

Oh gosh, my favorite chapter is probably chapter nine, which is toward an embodied sensual faith. So it's a little provocative that title, but that's probably my favorite. But chapter five is a really good one.

Speaker 1:

I think it's a good one because I think it applies to literally everyone. Yeah it does it's hard to not. I think it's hard to skip this step.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is really. I mean, I lay out in the first half of the book a lot of the inherited messages that have interfered with our capacity to be at peace with our sexuality, our capacity for intimacy in a marriage, even just peace with ourselves as embodied beings. So I kind of lay out what some of these false traditions are, how they've hindered us, how we get stuck in our desire for approval. And then chapter five is kind of when it shifts to how do we actually develop our ability to love another person, to know another person, and it's involves a lot of invalidation.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think everyone's gonna love this conversation because it speaks to one of the deepest desires that we all have as humans, which is to feel known and deeply connected.

Speaker 2:

Yes, that's right. Yeah, we're just born with that desire right Belonging to be in connection with each other. Yeah, yes.

Speaker 1:

And I think it's. It's very telling too, because we want to feel connected to ourselves and we want to feel individual, but we also want our spouse to be connected to us, and we want to feel individual, but we also want our spouse to be connected to us and accept us as an individual, and so it's like that tug and pull that we all that's always going to be there.

Speaker 2:

That's right.

Speaker 2:

It's a fundamental tension to relationships and especially fundamental to marriage, because how your spouse feels about you deeply matters, but also to feel free while being married also deeply matters to our happiness, and so the challenge of how do I be true to you and true to myself is fundamental.

Speaker 2:

It's a fundamental question of marriage, and the happiest people, the people that are most happily married, grapple with that question in a way where they make room for each other to be individuals but also stay true to the relationship. And that's a creative, courageous process, but one that's easy to just resent, because it involves a lot of invalidation. That is, I'm not just going to get you to reinforce me at every step. You're not going to just agree with everything I want, and so the challenge of that can be easy to just be upset about. I married the wrong person. If I married the right one, they would want the right things, but if we can understand it as fundamental to the project of marriage and intimate relationships, then we can utilize it more to grow spiritually, to grow in our capacity to be at peace within our own skin and with another person.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's so what this chapter is about. You talk about intimacy beyond validation, so can you explain what that means and why? Validation, which is something that we all want, like we all want acceptance and love, and somebody who just love us for who we are, right, can actually get in the way of intimacy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So one thing I would start with is that in our culture we often confuse intimacy with validation. That is, if a relationship's intimate, then it's like I accept everything that you think and feel and I'm here to reinforce you and validate why that is a perspective that makes sense, and then you'll do the same for me and that's an indicator that we are a good couple or that we have an intimate relationship. And, of course, there is nothing wrong with validation. It feels amazing, it's great to get it when it's honest. But when we make intimacy I'm sorry, when we make validation the measure of the relationship or what it is we're trying to extract from our partner, it forces the marriage to either be dishonest or it drives resentment into it, because nobody walks around just validating their spouse 24-7. Nobody feels good about everything their spouse wants.

Speaker 2:

Because we are drawn to difference and we go and, you know, marry someone. In fact, the reason we find them compelling is because they represent mystery and difference. And so when we marry into that, well then it's like wait, why aren't you going to bed at the right time? Why aren't you, you know, cleaning the house in the right way? Those differences start to emerge and they're difficult and so when we are children, when we are toddlers, if we are loved, well, we're just accepted for our existence. Like you're precious because you exist. You're precious because you're a divine being on this planet and you can throw food and your parents swoon. Okay, like, everything you are is amazing and it's very important stage because you are given, you're reflected back, your divine worth. Right that you're just precious because you exist. But of course, as we mature, then people start to expect more and you have to keep your clothes on and you can't put your hands down your pants and there's just more and more expectation.

Speaker 1:

There's more expected for you to be cute.

Speaker 2:

So absolutely, you have to do a lot more to be cute. And then we hit puberty and our bodies are changing and we feel awkward and self conscious and we long for this feeling of just pure acceptance. And so when we fall in love, we get it again. It's like you walk into the room and the one that you are in love, with lights up. They're so happy you're there and they and you know you reinforce in each other the most, the deepest sense of acceptance and valuing of the other person, and it feels amazing because it's like I get to belong to myself and you find it delightful, and I get to be with you and it's a wonderful part of a relationship.

Speaker 2:

It's the inspiration of a marriage. It gives you the picture of what the marriage can be. But then, of course, as you move in together and start creating a life together and that proverbial honeymoon ends, you're up against those annoying differences, Like wait a minute, like why aren't you just reinforcing me? And that's when the marriage is. You've gone from the inspiration into the disillusionment, and that's when the marriage is. You've gone from the inspiration into the disillusionment, and it's a valuable disillusionment.

Speaker 1:

We talk a lot about Terry Reel's stages on this.

Speaker 2:

Yes, exactly. So you go from the love without knowledge phase to the knowledge without love phase, and it hurts. And so how we handle that invalidation has everything to do with whether or not we grow into the love with knowledge stage, whether or not we grow into the capacity for intimacy and validation. Okay now, I don't mean to say you get validated all the time, but that I can know who you are, I can know how you're different than me, I can know that you want things that don't immediately validate me, but love you anyway. And in order to get into that kind of an intimate marriage where I really can know you differences and all, we have to grow out of our need and desire for validation to grow into the ability to love and be loved, to know and be known, and these are capacities we develop through the revelation of what is true in the marriage, like that okay, how am I going to deal with the fact that you believe something in a different way than I do and in a way that stresses me out? Or how am I going to deal with the fact that you approach sexual intimacy in a different way than I do and it's not what I want? And so how do we build an honest bridge across these differences? And that requires, in a sense, holding your own while still being flexible.

Speaker 2:

So that is, I'm not going to betray myself, because when we need validation too much, we'll do one of three things. We either pressure our partner to do what we want If you love me, you wouldn't make a big deal about this. You do what I want. Or we yield Okay, I'm just not going to. I'm just going to do what we want. If you love me, you wouldn't make a big deal about this. You do what I want. Or we yield Okay, I'm just going to do whatever they want. I just don't want them to be mad at me, I'll just do it, even though I resent, okay.

Speaker 2:

Or we just live parallel lives, we don't push ourselves into real contact with one another, and all three of those are very human, very understandable responses, but we don't have enough friction to then forge an honest relationship, an intimate marriage, and so that friction is valuable because it allows you to refine who you are. I mean, it really is like many of the places where my husband has not validated. I don't mean that he's being mean, he's just saying no, that's not fair, or I don't agree with that, or this really matters to me and I never liked those moments. It's just saying, no, that's not fair, or I don't agree with that, or this really matters to me, and you know I never liked those moments. It's not like oh. Thank you for your honesty.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for telling me how I'm ruining your life.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. I mean, my usual instinct is the first round to kind of try to convince him why he's wrong. But you know, but when a marriage stays honest, well then you have to grapple with. Okay, I don't think I'm being fair here. I think that he has a point right, or sometimes it may mean like no, I think that I'm yielding too much on this and I really need to speak to this piece.

Speaker 2:

Right, but that's all a part of creating a solid, reliable, trustworthy relationship, because it's based in honesty, it's based in truth. It's an uncomfortable process, but it's essential to developing real, open-hearted relationships and peace with ourselves and a spouse, which is the greatest thing we can forge in our lives, because it's to have a home and in sex, it's to have a home, in sex too, that I can be myself here and I can find acceptance not in the two-year-old way, although it's reminiscent of it, because there really is acceptance in a good marriage, but it's based in wisdom, it's based in true love, not in just a reflexive need to get approval whether or not it's real.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's so much I feel like in this chapter hinges around the ability to share or have a voice in the marriage. Yeah, it's the three things that you talked about, like the three, the, either the control or the not having a voice. Yes, it's all about, like, how do I make my voice heard but also make room for your voice? That's right. That's right that you're both have a voice.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're increasing the intelligence of the marriage by bringing in a true perspective. And it doesn't mean like, oh, I know I got it all right. Like I just had a conversation with someone that I really care about yesterday who was having a negative response to me and she was like I may be wrong, so I just I just need to tell you how I'm feeling. And she felt apologetic for saying it, but I was like I am so glad that you said that because you're right, like I was missing that. I feel genuinely bad about missing that. And she was like I still feel kind of bad that I brought it up and I'm like I am so grateful you brought it up.

Speaker 2:

Like I want to see myself, I want to see my impact, I want to be fair, and that's made us both better by having that real information between us, where, if you were just trying to manage it like that would be bad for you but also bad for me, because I'm not then privy to my impact, and so that's how you create. It's never comfortable. You know, gosh, like I never like saying things. I know somebody doesn't want to hear, even if I think they need to be said, and I never like hearing them either.

Speaker 2:

I mean, there's nothing comfortable about it, but it's valuable, and if you can understand how powerful it is in forging real peace, well, we can lean into it more. We can understand it. It's the tension we need to step towards to actually get stronger. And if you think about all things, we get stronger. Intention, we get stronger Like you go to the gym and you do exactly the thing where you're weak. That's how you build capacity In our relationships. It's like seeing things that we haven't yet seen, understanding our blind spots speaking up when we'd rather just shove something down, but what actually happens is real strength grows in its place, and so that is the process of spiritual development. In my opinion. It's the process of relational development, and it's what makes us have more capacity for intimacy in our lives, not just in a marriage, but with our children, like to know them, to understand their experience, to have more open hearted relationships with friends, with family, and so you know it's uncomfortable but highly valuable.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you're right that our spouses often see our blind spots more clearly than we do, so why do you think it's so hard for us to receive that feedback without getting defensive, taking it personally falling apart, I mean?

Speaker 2:

first of all, let's just start. It's hard Invalidating conversations. They're hard. Our ego does not like them. I mean because change is hard and self-awareness is disorienting and none of us likes to feel like, oh, I made a big mistake. I mean, nobody likes that feeling.

Speaker 2:

And because we connect our value sometimes so much with not getting things wrong, and so for all those reasons, the ego's there to kind of fend off the message or just crumple into a ball of shame and just shrink from it, and so, even if that message is given in the best possible way, it's just uncomfortable. We don't like it. So there's that. But then often our spouse is focused on something that is in fact true, but they're using it to hide from a part of themselves, right, so we focus on what they're getting wrong about us to not deal with what they're getting right about us right, and so they're often filtering it through their own lens, through their own self-justification, and so it becomes really really easy to then be like oh yeah, but you think that because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and you might be dead on, okay, but you're also using that to not get at what is actually true in what they're saying, the fact that it's not perfectly true or that it's filtered through an indulgence in them, makes it very easy to just reject it, not deal with it.

Speaker 2:

And so for all those reasons, and then I think you know, the ego loves control and we seek control by yielding, by pressuring, by distancing. Those are all attempts at a kind of control, and so when we're invited into deeper truth, we're letting go of a certain kind of control and we just don't like that. We're like afraid if I admit this, will they say that I'm unworthy, they don't love me anymore. Does it prove I'm a loser? Am I letting go of some view of myself or that they might have of me? If I acknowledge this, we're trying to control something and thinking it's going to keep us in a better place, but by clinging to it we actually are limiting our strength, we're actually limiting the freedom that we would have in our lives, but it still is very, very tempting, that's for sure. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1:

So I work with a lot of engaged and newlywed couples in my practice and like to help them prepare for marriage right. So do you have any recommendations for how to help them avoid getting into this validation seeking dynamic just right from the start?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I think first of all it's just valuable to understand it as really normal.

Speaker 1:

So Almost necessary. I feel like it's almost developmental. It is. That's like the courting stage is validation.

Speaker 2:

That's right so chapter six is all about our emotional development and how we move through different stages of what we're seeking. And stage two, in the way I write about in the book, is what I call the social stage, and it's where we are highly validation dependent and seeking a validation. And that's a necessary stage of our development, but it's very much limits our capacity for intimacy, as in knowing and being known, because our sense of self is kind of walking around on everybody else. And this is especially true in romance, like, first of all, falling in love is kind of a validation based activity. And then we're sharing our sexuality and all we want is for our spouse to say everything you are is absolute perfection and I 100% adore you, and so we're very, very.

Speaker 2:

It's very painful to face any rejection there because it's so core, we're sharing so much of ourselves, and so this yearning for validation is 100% normal and any good marriage has a lot of honest validation in it. So again, I'm not saying that validation is a bad thing by any stretch. But the problem is, if we prioritize getting validation over moving towards what is true, moving towards what is fair with one another, creating something honest between us and our spouse, then we will get less and less and less validation as time goes on and we will feel more and more lonely. So I think with newlyweds it's important to understand like, first of all, the validation is a great thing, it's legitimate to want that validation, but that invalidation is going to come pretty quickly If the marriage is honest and I don't mean to say it's going to be all invalidation, that's for sure.

Speaker 2:

But if the marriage is honest, you're going to be coming up against differences, and how you handle those differences is really what matters. It's not the fact of them, because very likely you married someone who's quite different than you in a lot of ways, and so if you're creating a space that you can both be at peace in, it's going to mean dealing with the ways that you feel limited or frustrated or that you wish things were different, and it doesn't mean that you are right and they are wrong, but that coming into these collaborative conversations is important. So it's like valuing conflict Now, not contempt, not cruelty, but conflict is about differences, bumping up against each other, and that is a refining process and one to value.

Speaker 1:

I love that because one of the chapters in my book is that if we're fighting, there's something wrong, right or like conflict is bad right, and so it's like so important to realize that conflict is so necessary in order to get where you want to go, to get the intimacy part.

Speaker 2:

Yes, exactly, exactly yeah. And we're designed to be different. We're designed to bring particular gifts and with those gifts come liabilities also. So in a marriage, you often were drawn to them for their gifts, not their liabilities, but their liabilities will come with those gifts, just as yours do.

Speaker 2:

And so it's like, okay, how do I love a whole person? Like it's not really fair to say I only love you for the good parts, okay, and I'm going to resent you for the lesser parts. Well, what about in me? It's the same is true here. And so how do I love a whole person? And in learning to do that, there's also a self-acceptance that comes that I also am not. You know, like learning to love an imperfect other can bring with it the gift of learning to love your imperfect self. And that's not to indulge it or to say that you know that there's nothing to grow there, but that we're in this important project of learning how to love in the face of limitation, humanity, differences, and that marriage is one of the most powerful ways to be in the thick of those lessons.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they say it's a people growing machine, right? Yes exactly so. For those of us who are already married, what are some of the signs that a couple is stuck in validation, seeking rather than pursuing genuine intimacy?

Speaker 2:

Resentment, loneliness, these are all have a lot I could say about all of them. Yeah, that one person is really unhappy and the other is happy these are all ways in which it gets expressed. Like one is giving too much, they feel that they're disappearing in the marriage. The other person is like you know, I had a couple that came in once and he was like we're very, very happy, you know, the only problem is she's miserable Meaning he was saying we're very happily married but she's depressed and unhappy and of course that's a big problem. Happily married, but she's depressed and unhappy, and of course that's a big problem. What I think he wasn't keeping track of was how much he was taking in the marriage. That wasn't all his fault, because she was so much of a yielder and took some safety in yielding and kind of preferred to just march to someone else's drumbeat right, because there's a certain amount of I don't have to self define if I'm just the one that's helping but I think that she felt like she was disappearing in her own life, disappearing in her own marriage and therefore depressed and not happy and feeling like she was being taken for granted. So I think that you know for him, this couple. It was him waking up to the fact that they were in an imbalanced system and he was really taking more than his share and that it was a false happiness in a way, because he hadn't really learned to love and make room for another, just as she hadn't learned to make room for herself. And so that can be one of them.

Speaker 2:

Resentment is an easy one. A lot of times we'll like give things, but then we actually hope that we'll be acknowledged or validated, and then we resent when we're not or we're too afraid to stand up for something. So we just resent instead. Sometimes we're too entitled and then we resent. We expect too much yielding, too much giving, and when our spouse holds their own, we resent. And then I think you know sometimes just the parallel lives, like we're not actually pushing ourselves into contact enough to forge a marriage.

Speaker 2:

And so we may be, enact a marriage, but we don't really know each other.

Speaker 2:

We don't really feel that we can be ourselves Like. This is something I'm kind of shocked me when I first started doing the work I was doing. Is that how much people weren't actually sharing their honest selves, how much they would hide from their partner realities about themselves. You know how much they were kind of lying going to bed at night next to not a friend but somebody that they felt they really that really didn't know them and they didn't really know. Because it was easier to kind of enact a role than to bring an honest, full self and it's hard to tolerate the conflict. But I think it's even harder to share a bed with someone that you don't feel is your friend, that really knows you, and share a life with someone that you don't feel is your friend and knows you, and by friendship I don't mean we're all the same, but that we have a basic honest connection, even in the face of how we do life differently even in the face of how we do life differently.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's really interesting because I think you get that dynamic when you have two conflict avoidant or two kind of walled off people.

Speaker 2:

Yes, that's right and so yes, you know it's like.

Speaker 1:

It's like you want to be lying next to a friend, but you're also not giving enough of yourself for that friendship to, to blossom.

Speaker 2:

That's right. I brought up a couple like that, right in the beginning of the of the book, where they looked in some ways like the pillars of the community because they were, you know, dutiful and didn't ever fight. And yet the marriage was sterile, like it was deeply lonely. There was tremendous amounts of resentment, but they were. It was never articulated, it just came out in kind of formal distance and, yeah, they were both conflict avoidant and so they preferred to just kind of shove down their feelings than to bring them to each other and it looks loving, but it had tremendous costs to the marriage and to them individually. There wasn't any real peace, even though they were trying to enact peace by not bringing up difficult things.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and I see that happen a lot, like a lot of times, couples will come into my office and they're like well, we never fight. And I'm like, well, why don't you fight?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Actually.

Speaker 1:

I'm a little more worried about that statement than anything else.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. And oftentimes we people have learned, like, I'm sure, as you talk about in your book is that, oh, we are going to be the right kind of couple by not ever fighting. And again, I don't mean drag out cruel, you know fighting but honesty is going to invite conflict, tension, and again, truth and love always have to go together. So I'm speaking the truth, not to get back at you, but like to actually forge something sustainable with you. That's a different meaning, Like I'm saying hard things not because I want you to feel bad, but because I want us to do. I's a different meaning, Like I'm saying hard things not because I want you to feel bad, but because I want us to do, I want us to thrive, I want us to be well.

Speaker 2:

And so it's hard for me to say it, but I've got to talk about it, even if I'm wrong. There's times where I've not wanted to say things that make me uncomfortable. What I mean is I'm afraid maybe this will reveal a limited part of me if I say that and of course you need to think about, you know, is there, is this a fair position or not? But even when I haven't been sure, I still have thought it's better to talk about it in a humble way. I don't mean like accusing, but like I'm struggling with this thing because even if it's dead wrong in the saying of it, it gets clarified. Like I can like figure out if I'm being unfair and self-correct, but if it just festers in my mind we always make sense to ourselves, right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:

And so that's I think that's one of the greatest gifts of marriage is because you can put it. If you trust your partner and you trust in the friendship and you trust in the honesty there, you can put it out there and be like I don't know, you know, in my head this makes perfect sense. But if I put it out here on the table and we discuss it. Then what is it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly, and I think it's just again. It takes a lot of humility. I talk about that quite a bit in chapter five Like humility is not one down, but it's like I'm receptive, I'm not going to pride myself on the idea that I've got it all worked out or that I don't make mistakes, like I'm genuinely trying to sort out my own mind here and that we're bringing this into honest contact with each other because that can help you work out something. That's better. And usually these kinds of intimate conversations by intimate I don't mean I love you, I love you, I mean like honest right and and sometimes with conflict in them that usually both people come up away from it stronger right. You know, with the person yesterday I think we were both genuinely better for having had that conversation and so you can sort out humility.

Speaker 2:

Yes, that's exactly right, exactly Like I'm willing to sacrifice my ego for what is in fact true. That's that's spiritual, that's faith. That's what faith is Like. My self protection, my ego, my desire for control is not as important than what is true and fair, what is loving and meet. You know, and therefore I'm going to trust that enough to tolerate whatever puncture might happen in an honest conversation, that something stronger is going to replace it. Something better will replace it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I feel like I spend a lot of time working with individuals in the couple, so I work with them as couples but individually I'm working with them on put on boundaries like really good, healthy boundaries to be, able to understand each other's experience without taking it personally, without going one down.

Speaker 1:

You know, being able to explain your experience without going one up, like all of those things like how important it is and I explain it like my chair see right here. So like when I have walled off individuals like they're're, what they want to do is slam the glass door and so then they're protected but not connected right. Or just open up wide and then they're super connected but not protected, and I'm like what you need is the screen door, just like this. You've got to be able to be able to filter the truth without going up, one up or one down, right, exactly, and, and that's hard, you know, because the ego wants the control of up or down, but yes, it's.

Speaker 2:

That is what our soul development is is we get more and more able to hold our own dignity while knowing another person, while letting them know us. That's my stage three, right, so that we're developing a deeper internal reference, a deeper internal compass. And, paradoxically, that's not like I've got it all worked out. I'm not going to listen to you. It's like the more I can trust myself, the more I can actually be open to you, because I want to know what your experience is, so that I can reference my own integrity, my own conscience, not because I have to prove to you I'm good, but I have to prove to myself that I'm being good. And if I'm not, then I'm going to self-correct, not because you won, or like you won this fight.

Speaker 2:

It's not that it's like, no, I am getting in deeper alignment with my conscience through what you're telling me about who I am and or about your experience of me, and that helps us even trust ourselves more, get stronger within ourselves. So we are both solid. We're not just like, oh, just love me, I'm here, you know, you're not, it's not needy, but I'm open to being knowable to you, to revealing who I am to you, flaws and all, and I'm willing to know you because I trust that I can hold on to the core of who I am in that process. So I'm not going to lose anything. So I don't have to hyper protect, nor do I have to just give everything away or, you know, ask you to be everything for me, because I have a reference point within me that I don't need you to prop me up. So it's our ability to have boundaries are a natural outcome of developing deeper integrity within ourselves of developing deeper integrity within ourselves.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's so beautifully said, and what it looks like in very, very plain terms is I can accept that you're right about me in this thing and also still love myself enough to change or adjust whatever needs to happen. Exactly, exactly, yep, so good. I get goosebumps. So for someone who's who's listening and they realize I do deflect and justify, instead of listening to my spouse or seeing the ways they could be right about me, what's the first step they could take to move towards a more honest connection?

Speaker 2:

So you know, I teach the strengthening your relationship course and I give a conversation paradigm to help people to get better at listening. But one of the things maybe a sort of shorthand way of talking about it is that my job as a listener and I think it helps to put some boundaries on it, like I'm going to listen for five minutes and then I'm going to speak for five minutes and you're going to listen, you know, because we were like I can control myself for five minutes Because it's very hard to listen to somebody going on about you or some negative and you're like yeah, but yeah, but yeah. But you know, like that's every like that's usually the ego trying to get in there and destroy the messenger and destroy the message before you have any space to actually understand it. And so the goal is can I just listen, which is not just being quiet, it's actually calming down enough to thoroughly understand the perspective of the speaker. That's my job is to understand it, even if I think it's crazy and dumb. I need to at least understand why they think what they think and how that intersects with their experience of me and how they came to their point of view, and not with the aim of destroying it, the aim of understanding it, and so what you're simply doing is just seeking to understand, then be understood.

Speaker 2:

Okay, that's fine, you can be understood later, but first increase your intelligence, your intelligence about what's going on. Because, again, our stories always make sense to ourselves and what we want to do is rush in with our version of reality and hope that it will prevail and win the day. But it never will, because if your spouse or your child or friend, or whoever it is, doesn't feel like you actually understand them, they're not going to listen to you. They're going to be like yeah, but, yeah, but. But what I'm trying to say is and they're going to be constantly trying to get their story to prevail, and so you have two speakers and no listeners, to quote Terry Real, and you don't get anywhere because you haven't increased the IQ of the relationship, and so you have to, like, just say okay, my only goal and this is the hardest thing, it's way harder than talking is I'm just going to seek to understand, I'm going to calm myself down, and my only goal is to understand it. Then I can take it up with my conscience.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I can think about if I think there's on my own.

Speaker 2:

I don't have to say yes to anything, I don't have to disagree, I don't have to do anything. I'm just going to understand it and then I can think within myself what does my conscience think about this information? It's not about proving anything to them. This is about getting more aligned within ourselves. So that's one thing. The second thing and it's very related, if you want, if you understand your defensive is start with any conversation. You know, usually when we're, when we're driven by validation this is another thing when you're saying what is it that often couples do? They have the same fight over and over and over again. Now, there's some amount of that, because you're always going to have the same differences, right. And so, you know, my husband and I have our regular points of conflict and and we know how these conversations tend to go because we just we always run into the same difference, you know. But when a couple is getting better, they well. So what I would say is that one idea is that you want to like lead with where your spouse is right.

Speaker 2:

So, one thing Gottman says is that couples have the same fight. But when a couple is developing, they have more humor in it, they're more able, there's more acceptance of each other in it. It's not that they ever like that difference per se. It always might be kind of an annoyance, but there's more goodwill in it, like I know who you are, you know who I am and we love each other. And part of that tension is what drives the passion in the marriage and drives the energy in the couple, right. So we need to embrace our differences a little more, to understand the good that's in them actually. But that aside, if you're having the fight at the same level, you're not bringing more goodwill. There's not more that you need to really be like okay, I need to start with where my spouse is right. No more about what they're getting wrong. Tell them where they're absolutely right about you, okay. And when they are like so dumbfounded they're not sure what to say next yeah, look, you're absolutely right. I am selfish. In this way You've absolutely nailed it.

Speaker 2:

I mean, what tends to happen is that the spouse tends to be more willing to acknowledge where you're right, like, that is to say, it's usually like it's less threatening here to start talking about what's real rather than being in our respective trenches and trying to fight each other on this. And so it takes some courage. But that's again a test of our faith, like how much faith do I have in the truth, how much faith do I have in love and doing what is actually fair or right? What would I want for them to do? I'd want them to acknowledge where they're wrong. So then I need to be able to do what I hope for in the marriage. You know, it's very easy to be upset about all the limitations in your spouse while excusing your own. So how do I come in here with more truth, more strength, more courage? It invites the same. It's not a guarantee, but it is the way a couple grows and there's no other way. It is the way that a couple grows. Is they integrate more truth?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think one thing that we always want, no matter what the conflict is, is to just be heard, is to just feel like we have been heard. Yeah, and I just came up with this when I was talking to my client today. But it was like when I was listening to her talk, I was like it's not like she was talking about how she and her husband they're just they end up just slinging arrows at each other. Yeah, and it's not about the content anymore, it's about this dynamic that they fall into. And I'm like what would happen if you just stopped and you just wanted to know about his experience, about it? You don't take it personally. Like he can say this is all your fault and you're such an idiot and you're making me miserable.

Speaker 1:

Even if he says all of that, you want to know more about what that experience. What is that experience like for you to think I'm an idiot? Like? What does it even feel like for you to feel that way? And so, like, what came to my head which is so funny, is, or just interesting is that I was like I will never, ever skydive, like I'm never, ever going to jump out of a plane. But if you jump out of a plane. I want to know everything about that experience. I want to know what the wind felt like. I want to. I want to know what it felt like to fall. Can you get yourself into a place where, if you you're never going to understand your, you're never going to feel the feelings that your spouse is feeling?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Right. What if you could understand everything about?

Speaker 2:

it.

Speaker 1:

What if you could just put yourself in that space with them and be so curious about the experience that you just feel like. Now you've done that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, and it builds so much more instinctive compassion. You know, my husband was like a middle child. He was quieter, he had an older brother that was much more dominant and louder, and so it's like better understanding what it feels like for him if he doesn't feel that he's listened to or understood because that was too much of his experience. And then when you like understand that, you're like, okay, I will never do that to you. Like I mean, I don't mean to say that I'm perfect in doing that or anything, but like, once you get it, you're like oh, I don't want to be that in your life, because that I can understand. If I were in your experience, I would feel exactly the same way. And so it makes it much easier when we really understand why someone thinks as they think how they came to that conclusion.

Speaker 2:

Usually there's a real deep sense in it, and then you can be like I don't want to be a part of the problem, I can see my role or I can see what is mine in that, and it just makes it easier to give and come towards them rather than spending all our energy trying to get them to be like us, which is a fool's errand. It will never happen.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, the other thing I think that's really practical in this is just being aware of what your losing strategy is Like. What do I tend towards? My losing strategy is control or retaliation or whatever. Like being able to name it and being like okay, I know, this is my losing strategy, let me try something different here.

Speaker 2:

Yes, exactly Exactly. And you know, I think that's a really important point, because sometimes people hear advice that I or others give and it's actually not the right advice for them because it's already. That is to say, like, let's say they hear you should always get the beam out of your eye first, but they actually tend to do that too much that they get so self-focused on their limitations that they don't speak something important. Or somebody who tends to go one up hears you know you should speak your truth, and they're like, yeah, I'm here to speak it, you know. And so the self-awareness that sometimes can be the most helpful is to understand where's my actual vulnerability in my relationships. What's the thing I tend to do under pressure that actually works against the marriage, the relationship, my well being? Because I need to know what it is and get really clear about not doing it under pressure, because that's what our ego wants us to do. Is our losing strategy under pressure control. That's what we want, yeah so good.

Speaker 1:

So just this like final deep question you connect marital intimacy with spiritual growth in this chapter so much. How do you see the courage to face uncomfortable truths in marriage as part of spiritual development?

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, so first of all, something I do take up in the marriage is to think about what is spirituality, because a lot of us have the idea well, it's checking all the boxes, it's obeying all the commandments, it's compliance, it's not making any mistakes, and you know I take up where that makes sense in our development, why there's some truth in that. But that as we grow and grow more into the Christian message of learning to love one another right to love God, love our neighbor and love ourselves is the core of spirituality. Christianity is a relational theology. It's, at its foundation, about relationship. It's about knowing and being known. It's about loving and being loved, and this is what the soul longs for. We love control. The ego loves control. The soul wants to belong. The soul wants to know we are not alone and that we have each other, and that's what's going to make everything okay, right.

Speaker 2:

In a world, a fallen world, a world with suffering in it and loss, to love one another is the greatest balm that we have, and so we all long for that kind of communion with each other, that sense of belonging. And yet it requires our ability to know each other, to accept each other, to know ourselves, to accept ourselves. And yet it requires our ability to know each other, to accept each other, to know ourselves, to accept ourselves. And so it's this ability to be in deeper, more honest relationship that is at the foundation of our spiritual expansion. It's where we find real peace. And so you know. That's why Christ was saying judge, not like, not, because I'm going to get you on the same grounds that you get someone else, not in that kind of mean way, but know one another, don't judge easily. We're all sinners.

Speaker 2:

Right, it's in knowing another soul that our souls expand. It's in listening to another person that our understanding of the world gets wiser and truer. It's what allows us to make better choices. It's what increases our agency. It's what allows us to make better choices. It's what increases our agency. It's what allows us to let ourselves really have meaningful contact with others. That's what the balm is that we need. That's when we stop feeling so lonely. And so it's unintuitive sometimes because we want control in a fallen world. But love is what we need, and learning to love is what we need, and that is how I think of spiritual development. So beautiful.

Speaker 1:

Okay, tell the listeners where they can get a copy of your book and how they can best support you.

Speaker 2:

Well, if you go to my website, finlayson-feifcom, you'll see a big link there pre order here or, depending on when this is released, order. So it'll be released on Amazon September 30th, but the pre-order link is available. And on my website are all kinds of other resources retreats I'm doing online courses that are all interrelated in terms of helping individuals learn how to be at deeper peace with themselves and deeper capacity for intimate connection.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, I love it. Well, thank you so much for your time today. I'm so excited for intimate connection. So, yeah, I love it. Well, thank you so much for your time today. I'm so excited for your book. I can't get wait to get a copy of my hand so I can highlight and digest it all, and I'm just so grateful for you and your work. You are absolutely an inspiration to me and all that I do, so thank you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, monica, thank you.