Heart to Heart: Q&A on Strengthening Intimacy and Your Relationship Skills (Episode #20)

On behalf of me and Marianne Michaelis, I'd like to thank you for being a listener of our Human Intimacy Podcast this year. It's always a privilege to spend time with you and I want to express my deep gratitude. If you are ready to take your healing and recovery to the next level, you're ready to deepen your healing and strengthen your connection and gain real tools for meaningful change. I invite you to join us and other Experts at the 2nd Annual Human Intimacy Conference where myself, Marianne and many other leading experts will come together for powerful teaching, live question and answer sessions and provide insightful pre conference conversations to help you get the most out of your conference experience. And right now you can save 50% when you register before December 31st. Please don't miss this opportunity. Visit human intimacy.com and reserve your spot today. Something about you that I can't help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh. Something's around you. Welcome to the Human intimacy podcast. I'm Dr. Kevin Skinner. Today I'm flying solo, but I want to have a heart to heart with you today. I'm going to be focusing on your questions. So I want you to imagine that you're sitting with me, we're having a conversation and in this conversation I'm going to be asking you questions. I'm going to be addressing some of the most common questions that I've received over almost 29 year career. And I'm excited to share this time with you. I'm excited that you've joined me and if you're ready to have an intimate conversation about real life issues, stay tuned and we're going to have a lot of fun talking about how to strengthen your intimacy and your relationship. How to create deeper bonds integrity in all of your relationships. I'm glad you're with me. Hey now before we get started, I want to introduce you to the Human Intimacy webinar series. This is a free series where you can join us either live or on replay. If you go to humanintimacy.com and under the free courses you can find the Human Intimacy webinar series. We have webinars on rebuild you'd relationship after sexual betrayal. We also have the webinar the relationship dilemma with Dr. Dave Robinson and myself. Also Marianne Michaelis. She did a great one on boundaries, understanding and using no. We also have Amy Andress Dating after Divorce. Am I ready? In addition, we have new webinars each week. I hope you will join us for these free webinars. Look forward to seeing you there. Alright, the theme of today is common barriers that we have in our intimate relationships. These are the people that we care the most about, whether that's our partner, our spouse, our children, our parents. The question I want to first address, and this is a common one that I receive, is what do I do when my partner. When the people I care the most about, what do I do when they won't open up and talk to me? So I've got a few ideas for you. The first thing I would invite you to consider is the dynamic or the patterns that you have in your interaction with the people closest to you. Think about the things that you talk about, the things that you don't talk about, or. Or maybe the things that you wish you would talk about, but that's not happening. Have you ever considered what the barrier is for your partner to open up? Many times we get frustrated. We feel like our partner doesn't care, they don't want to talk with us. Or maybe we just think they're not capable of having a deep and meaningful conversation. Well, I want to counter that today by inviting you to think about what we can do to get the people closest to us to open up. And here's why this matters. In all of our relationships, getting our partner to open up and talk with us is absolutely essential. But more often than not, I talk with people and they. I don't know what to say. And when I do, we just get into a fight because they feel like I'm always complaining and that we're arguing. So what can I do to get my partner to open up? Now, if we want our partner to open up, some of the things that we can do is think about the environment that we have created in our interaction. Your body language matters, your tone of voice matters. Even the way you ask questions can either open your partner up or it can shut them down. Just recently, I was doing a group with women who had experienced sexual betrayal. And in our conversation, we started role playing. A situation that they wanted to talk with their partner about their feelings and their emotions, but they expressed some hesitancy. And their hesitancy was, every time I bring up my concerns, my partner gets upset. They feel like I'm attacking them. They feel ashamed. And I don't want to make them feel ashamed, but I want to talk with my partner. What can I do to get them to open up? And so as we were role playing, there was one core concept that seemed to really ring true for them, and that was this. If you want your partner to open up, you have to show that you want to understand how they are experiencing whatever it is that they are experiencing. An example of that when we're talking about something difficult, let's say sexual intimacy in a relationship, and we have barriers, we have conflict, we have sexual desire discrepancies, and we don't know how to talk about it. So what would happen in your conversation if you asked more questions? If you genuinely wanted to understand your partner and how they were experiencing that difference in your relationship, how would you get them to open up? And so as we were role playing this, I said, first, show that you want to understand your partner. Far too often we express our side of it. We don't really listen. We don't seek to understand our partner on a deeper level, but we do give our opinion. So if you want to improve and get your partner to open up, you have to create an environment where you first of all show them that you want to understand what they're experiencing. Human intimacy really is about understanding people. And when we take it from that angle, human intimacy is, I want to understand you, I want to be open with you. I want a connection with you. Now, often when we want to understand someone, that means we're going to show genuine interest. Help me understand what you are thinking. I can't tell you over the years how many people say, I just wish I knew what my partner was thinking. Well, try to create an environment that is safe for them so they can open up. And that means that there may be times where they're negative, they're critical. They may be even blaming you for some of their challenges and some of their frustrations. But when you ask the question from a curious place where you want to understand them, it's what we have referred to as deep listening, they begin to open up. So answer to this question is really to spend some time, slow down, ask your partner some questions from a genuine place of I want to understand. And so as I go back to this group, as we were role playing, I said, why don't we just take a situation and talk about what your partner's feeling? Now, for some of them, it's very difficult because they had been betrayed and they didn't really care what their partner was feeling or what they were thinking. And yet, as we started the role play, we started to see the differences in how we can ask questions, how you can get your partner to open up. And this was one of the specific examples. I could ask the question, why did you cheat on me? Now, the answer to that will always be complex and there'll be Lots of reasons. Or you might hear, I don't know. But what if we change the question? I'm trying to understand what was going through your mind when you decided to have an affair. I'd like to just understand some of the thought processes because part of me, my healing is I need to understand what happened so we can prevent it from happening again. If we're going to work this out, I need more information. So help me understand just some of your thought processes. And even in this process, asking the questions, you might get information that feels like they're attacking you or that they're blaming you, but that's the story that they created in their minds to justify their behavior. Now, if you are the person who has acted out, as you start to hear yourself answering these types of questions, you begin to realize that your story was a justification for your behavior. And if you're going to work on your relationship, you have to overcome the justifying thoughts that you gave or told yourself about why you did what you did. So even in this type of questioning, we start to get our partner to open up because we're genuinely curious. Now, I can shut you down, you can shut me down. But our goal in effective communication is to create an environment where we can open up and stay in this conversation. And that's the benefit of really getting someone to open up. Now, this is just a small sample of the process that we talk about in our intensives and what we do in our groups. Because I want people to learn how to communicate effectively. And so we have to learn to role play. And when we role play with proper principles or effective principles, we can have much better outcomes in our communication. I am absolutely convinced as a marriage and family therapist over the last 29 years that most people, they really struggle in their most important relationships because they don't know how to effectively communicate. And the reason why they don't is we haven't been taught. So in our intensives, in our groups that we do both online and in person, I role play and role play and role play to help the people who are coming to me to understand how to effectively communicate. Because if you can't communicate effectively, you're really going to have a hard time, regardless of the issue that you're dealing with, if you can't step back, if you can't understand and then make the transition of how you've understood them into the place of what you are experiencing. That transition is absolutely critical. And what I found in my career is most people really struggle in that transition. So, yeah, now I've listened to you, but I'm feeling defensive, I'm feeling angry, and you haven't even heard what I want to say. And now I feel blamed and I'm getting angry. And if I can walk you through that process, then we learn to have really effective communication. So that process is something, it's a skill that we have to learn. And if you haven't learned it, then typically what you're going to do is you're going to repeat the same patterns from the past because old patterns don't just go away. Alright, so those are some ideas on getting our partner to open up. General concept seek to understand. Before you go into your perspective, make sure that your partner feels understood. It's just one of those general first principles of healthy communication. Now then there's the transition. And once they feel understood, the transition is to expressing yourself without blame, without accusation. It may be, it may come into question like, I don't know what to do or here are some of my thoughts. And in reality these feelings aren't going away, so I need to be able to talk with you about them because I don't know what to do when I feel triggered, when I feel upset, when I feel angry. And I need to be able to communicate effectively. But it seems like it shuts you down. I don't want to shut you down. I do want to have a meaningful conversation and we need to do this if we're going to have a better relationship. Alright, so those are some general strategies to get your partner to open up and how to do it more effectively. Now, I want to turn our attention to a quote. This comes from the book Human Intimacy and The author is Dr. Victor L. Brown and he says achieving intimacy is a demanding activity. He said continuing intimacy is one of the highest ideals of the human heart and as such deserves the most exceptional effort. Now my question to you is, how much effort are you putting into creating a more intimate relationship? Now that's a really humbling question. When we really spend time. Now I understand that many times we say, well, but my partner's hurt me or my partner is angry at me. But my question in my invitation to you, and I know you're listening to this podcast because you want more information, but when he says that it requires the most exceptional effort, I really, what I think what he's saying is it's not easy, it requires effort, it's a learned skill. If we want to be better in our relationships, then we really need to consider how much time and effort we are putting into Learning how to be intimate human beings. We've done a podcast on deep listening, We've done a podcast on attachment and close relationships. And one of the common themes that I found when we strive for human intimacy is that we all have our own barriers. So now I want to jump into another common barrier. And this is the question of what do I do when I have a fear of intimacy, when I'm afraid of getting hurt, when I'm afraid of getting rejected. And this often happens both in committed and non committed relationships, when we're afraid to open up to people because we don't want to be hurt. Usually when I talk with people about that concept, I ask a question about their history. And if you want to do some personal work here, look back in time, look at your own history, look at your relationship history, and do what we call a relationship history timeline. And really what it is is looking at your first relationships from childhood and looking at what you learned in the most relationships that you have had. Usually when I do this, I begin to see stories. We all have our story, but the story often has to do with being rejected, being bullied, being told by somebody close to you that there's something wrong with you, that you did something wrong, or there's just simply they didn't want you. More often than not, when we have a fear of intimacy, it's because we've been hurt in previous relationships. If you want to overcome a fear of intimacy, then one of the core things that has to happen is you have to understand your fears, the voice of your fears, the stories that go with it. I've talked with many people. They don't want to go back in time, they don't want to go through those memories, they don't want to relive the past. And yet it is the past that's preventing human connection and deeper intimacy in their later years as adults. So if you want to overcome that fear of intimacy, which is again, it's very common, then my first invitation is to go back and look at where your fears came from. What are the fears? The best way you could do that is give a voice to the fears, internal voice that you have. I'm afraid of what? Finish the sentence. In a core relationship, if I open up to communicate, I'm afraid of what. I'm afraid that I don't know how to communicate. I'm afraid that I'll say things wrong. I'm afraid that I'll be rejected. And ultimately we begin to recognize our fears. Just today I was talking with an individual who joined me online as we were going through our test your relationship course. And one of the individuals, he just profoundly said, I don't know how to do this. I don't know how I want to, but I don't know how and I don't do it well. Now again, notice the concept or the perception that he has. I don't do it well. I don't know how to communicate well. So we role play. We look at specific ways that you want to say something. What are you trying to say? And what you begin to realize is that when we have a fear of intimacy, it holds us back. And the reason holds us back is because we don't want others to either judge us or others to reject us. And so we are afraid of being hurt. Now, I really believe this is a common thing in our society, especially because we don't really trust each other anymore. We don't feel safe in each other's presence. And so we often hold back in this conversation. As I was role playing with this individual, I said, what did you really want to say? What were some of your core emotions? And as we role play back and forth, you begin to realize, at least I do. Many individuals, they really struggle what to say in the most difficult moments. If you want to really improve your intimacy, it requires that exceptional effort that Victor L. Brown talks about. And that effort means that we practice. It's interesting to me, and this is just an observation, that in our most important conversations, we don't take the time to think through what we're really trying to communicate. I often use this analogy, but if you were going to do a business presentation, if you were going to do a presentation in front of a classroom, you would spend hours working on your keynote presentation, working on your key points, your delivery, how to emphasize certain things. And then in our most important relationships, on the most important topics, we get into the situation, we don't think through what we're trying to say, and yet somehow we think we're going to do it effectively. Our most important relationships, it would really benefit us if we would take the time to consider what we're really trying to communicate. And to me, that's such an important part. Take the time, slow down, think about what I'm really trying to say. Because if we don't, then our emotions are easily hijacked and we begin to say and do things that are hurtful, that damage the relationship because we're not slowing down to really think about what we're really trying to communicate. If you want to be more Effective in how you communicate. If you want to deal with your fears of intimacy, then practice, put in the effort. And by the way, I know you're showing up for this podcast. You're listening to this podcast. My hope is that you're doing a lot of things in addition to this to improve your relationship skills. I just hope you'll remember that it's a skill and that it's learned. Alright, now let me turn our attention to the next question. This question comes from an individual that's in one of my men's groups who's striving to overcome unwanted sexual behaviors. And the question is, how do I overcome the cravings when I feel hopeless, when I feel overwhelmed, what can I do when I feel stuck and trapped in my own behaviors? And I know it's going to hurt my wife, I know it's going to hurt my family, but I still give in. What is going on? How do I learn to overcome this? Because I've tried so many things. I've been to 12 step groups. I've been in therapy for years. Why can't I make progress? First and foremost, I wanted to say thank you for the question, but now let me address it in a more, hopefully more intimate and personal way. I want you to imagine that you're in my office and that you and I are having a conversation. I would ask you a couple of questions. How much structure do you have in your recovery process? In other words, who's on your team? Who will you turn to in difficult moments? And when you're stressed, what do you do? If you don't have answers to these questions, then I'm going to encourage you to get the answers to these questions. The reason this is important is something that I learned many years ago from Dr. Patrick Carnes. He said most people relapse because they have secrets and they don't have enough structure. In my book, Treating Sexual Addiction A Compassionate Approach to Recovery, one of the core things that I found is that we need structure. There's what we call recovery capital. Recovery capital is when you add two things, such as, I have a support group, I have someone to talk to. I have a good community. I'm learning how to deal with difficult emotions. I have good habits and good patterns. That's what we refer to as recovery capital. If you don't have enough recovery capital, it's more difficult in the recovery process. Now, more often than not, as I talk with individuals, they don't have a specific plan of what they're going to do in their most difficult Moments. So if I could just give you a starting point, begin there, but then I want to take it a little bit further. Recovery and stopping the unwanted behaviors is not just about, say, stopping the behavior. It's about learning how to have better relationships. If you really want to succeed, you have to learn how to have better relationships. My suggestion then is that you take the time to study about healthy relationships, how to communicate more effectively, how to listen to people in relationships. When you learn the skills of empathy and compassion, deep listening, you're going to feel more confident in your recovery process. In addition, you need to reduce the shame. Shame is one of the most common barriers to human connection. So we have to learn to reduce the shame. Now these are all suggestions that I offer to individuals who struggle with overcoming unwanted sexual behaviors. Now, learning how to do that, reading books, attending groups, getting information, is one of the best things that you can do to accelerate your healing and your recovery. So thank you so much for your question. And this is a good time for me to introduce my 100 day course titled Treating Sexual Addiction that's on human intimacy. In that course, I have a video for every day. We cover topics to help you understand your past, to understand your triggers, to help you develop more emotional regulation, how to connect, how to make amends, how to communicate more effectively. And really it's designed to help you understand more about yourself. It's a hundred day course on human intimacy.com Again, it's titled Treating Sexual Addiction. Alright, now in my final question, I want to address a situation that is very common in my work as a clinician with betrayed partners. Far too often I find that they're holding back from people with whom they used to be close. And they don't dare open up because they're afraid of being judged. They're afraid that their family will turn on their partner or they'll tell them just to get out of the relationship. And so they're concerned about how family members will respond or how their friends will respond. And so they hold back and they keep it inside. I was talking with the lady who had really kept it to herself for more than 20 years. She hadn't told anybody. And what I observed in her as she started coming and talking with me, and then she started participating in one of our groups. What I began to see is a light came on. She began to feel connected with other people. She didn't feel so isolated and alone. And what I discover over and over again is that when we keep things to ourselves, really, then what we're doing is just Bouncing these things in our head, back and forth and back and forth. And we don't really see how other people can connect with us, how they can nurture us, and how they can take care of us. Difficult times now, not everybody's able to do that. There are some people that you will open up to that won't be available that can say hurtful things. In fact, in my research that I've gathered, I asked the question, how effective? If you have reached out to others, how effective was the support? And Interestingly enough, about 35% said it was not good at all, it was ineffective, and in some situations, downright hurtful. So that means that 65% of the people, sometimes or more, are supportive, are helpful, and are effective at helping individuals. But there are many who feel like the people they've turned to make matters worse. So I need to put that out there. But there are people who understand, there are people who care. And what we want to do is we want to find our people. One of the best ways that we can do that is attending a group. Now, I can hear some of you saying, but groups are too triggering. I don't dare open up, and I'm afraid that I'm going to meet people there. What I have found is that when individuals attend groups, they realize that they're not alone, they're not isolated. And as they begin to open up and they begin to talk about some of their challenges, so maybe some of the difficult things like nightmares, they realize that they're not alone, and they begin to feel a part of a community. When I run a group, one of the things I do is I actually focus on reducing the post traumatic stress symptoms. The reason this is important is I have found in my research that after sexual betrayal, many people over 70% experience many of the PTSD symptoms. Post traumatic stress symptoms. Now, one of the core things is if we have these symptoms, we need to focus on reducing them. And so that's what we do in our groups, is work to help individuals reduce their PTSD symptoms. The other part of that is how to communicate effectively, how to create boundaries. These are common things that we deal with in groups. Now, when you're doing that with other individuals who've been betrayed, you begin to create a community of connection, which is one of the most powerful things that you can do to accelerate healing. So if you've experienced sexual betrayal, I would strongly encourage you to find group support. We offer that@human intimacy.com, where we have group support for individuals who've been betrayed. We also have links where you can interact with people in your community. Wherever you live, there are support groups. And so again, I would encourage you to find a group so you don't feel so isolated and alone and then make sure that you're dealing with the post traumatic stress symptoms. Now, before I leave this topic, I understand that some individuals who've been to groups have found that the groups are triggering. So I want to address that. If the groups are too triggering, it's going to be important that you find an individual counselor, a professional who you can talk to one on one, so you begin to create at least a place or a safe place where you can talk openly about what you're experiencing. Far too many times I've seen individuals try to deal with the trauma on their own. They try to interact with their partner on their own. And really, couples don't have the skills to communicate effectively after sexual betrayal. And so we try to solve problems in ways that we've previously tried to solve them and it doesn't work very well. And then if we go to family or friends and they don't respond well, well, all of a sudden we get double traumatized. Not only did we get betrayed, but now we don't feel safe with anybody. It is really important in the healing process to find safe people with whom you can communicate effectively, who understand you and help you feel like what I'm experiencing is normal. I'm not going crazy. I don't have to deal with this by myself. So my invitation is don't fly solo. Don't do it on your own. Get help and get support. Thanks everybody for participating with me today into this podcast. Thank you for asking your questions. Thanks for being a part of Human intimacy dot com. If you haven't signed up for our free webinar series, please do so. We have great webinars. We have incredible support material. We have videos that you can use on demand. We have assignments to help you think through your situation and you can ask your questions. Our goal is to provide answers to help you create the deep, intimate relationships that you long for. If you'd like to learn more, please allow our team to help you. You can reach out below in the show notes. I have a link. Or you can call and set up an appointment with one of our team members to talk about your situation. And we will help get you to the right resources either through our human intimacy.com website or or in your area. We have a link to professionals and we have connections with professionals all over the country. So if you have questions, reach out to our team in the show notes below. I'll give you a link to do that and let us help you get the support that you need. All right. Thanks everybody for listening to the podcast today. I genuinely appreciate you for your desire to have deeper connection, and by listening to this podcast, it gives me hope that we as a society are striving for more. My goal is to give you everything I can to help you create a deep, intimate relationship. Thank you so much for being part of the Human Intimacy Podcast. We'll see you soon.