People Pleaser or Conflict Avoider? | Date Your Wife | EP 063

Hey, everybody, this is your boy, Garrett J. White, the founder, wake up warrior, and, well, CEO of DKW Styling. And welcome to the date your wife podcast. Sitting here with the queen in the shotgun. Currently riding the lambo to top off, heading to date night by request, mind you. By request from the pregnant one, my wife, the queen of this show and ultimately the reason why you actually tune in. I'm simply the one who people like to say, why did you cut her off so much when they're talking? Although I have to say that I've gotten extremely better at not cutting off. And today we've got a topic, and the topic is pregnant sex. Nope, that is not the topic.

I'm just seeing if she was awake.

So we're going to hand it over to Danielle. Danielle's going to give us a rundown on why the show as if it's not too loud. We literally have to top off, but we got like another 20 minutes or so until we get to Nobu and Newport. So we're going to do this show. We're going to talk to you guys while we go. So Danielle has the topic for us today. Here it comes.

I'm sorry that it is not pregnant sex.

As a girl, you know how that goes down. Like, if you're going to get some.

It better be before 9pm Otherwise, like, our pillow looks amazing. Like, and I'll tell you, like, when you're pregnant, your hormones are actually like, more like, oh, man. But, like, you missed your win window.

That's on you, buddy.

Do you really get hornier?

I mean, like, just random times, but, like, at night you're definitely, like, all asleep. But the funny thing is that you don't even sleep that well. Like, you're kind of like in and out of sleep. And maybe that's just to prepare you for the actual newborn that's coming, like, because then it's even less sleep. So anyway, we. I, you know, threw the big glasses on, put the heels on that I currently could not even buckle up because, like, finally it's gone to that point where I'm like, oh, yep, there's no hiding it. And I'm pregnant. So anyways, we got some time. I think it's too loud.

Yeah, it's not too loud.

It's not too loud. Keep going. My topic that I. You don't even need to cover it up. I think it's going to ask him if they can hear us.

Yeah, can you guys hear us?

Can you hear me? Okay, Are you there now? Perfect. So my topic And I actually thought.

About this at a convention that we just recently did for Hairstylist. And no, it wasn't a convention. It was my quarterly event with my Mastermind students. And right now we have about 150 students inside of our Mastermind. We do quarterly events. But the topic came up where one of my platform artists said, are you a people pleaser? Raise your hands if you're a people pleaser. And I sat there and listened to that. I think this may be applicable to Garrett, and it may not, but I'm.

Sure you'll find a way to chime in.

I sat there and I don't know if men, Men say, hey, dude, stop being a people pleaser. It's more like, hey, dude, stop being a pussy. As I'm sitting there letting this sit in and marinate, I'm thinking, like, people have always said, like, I'm a people pleaser. And I'm like, I just. I don't know if I'm that nice to consider myself a people pleaser. Like, I'm friendly, but I definitely am not, like, going out of my way to, like, please people. As I started to think about it, I was like, you know what? Women are not people pleasers. They're conflict avoiders. And so as I worded it and reframed it like that, I thought that that, to me, makes more sense. I think that we're so afraid of confrontation, and whether you're working or not, we're so afraid of confrontation that we always try to make peace. But ultimately it's not because we're trying to please anyone. It's because we're trying to avoid conflict, which later on could just actually cause us more harm. So I just. I don't know. I don't know where we could go with this topic. But as I'm thinking about it, I'm like, you know, we have to learn to have better communication. And sometimes I think we think it's going to be confrontational. But really, if you even think of the word confrontational confrontation and flip it and reframe it into better communication, then I think that if you work on that, then you're not necessarily, like, you're a people pleaser or that you're trying to avoid or you're a conflict avoider. It's literally like, hey, I'm going to up my communication game so that I can exactly want what I want out of any situation in this slice of business. Parenting, being married, and all that good stuff. So I'm going to let Garrett chime In on his thoughts.

Why can't you hand me the phone? Normal?

I am trying to.

You got to hand it over here with the speaker to the bottom. All right, so listen, here's the deal. My wife is a conflict avoider at the highest level. So most women are. Yeah, well, it's not even about most women. Like, my wife literally avoids conflict. If we go back in the history of the last, let's see, We've been together 17 years coming up this year. And if you go through what has happened with us, like, Danielle was never a conflict person ever. Like, the only way that we could ever have a real conversation or was if I brought the collision to her and then inside of it actually would hunt her down and force her to have a serious conversation with me. So I'm going to bring the question back to you. Why in the first 10 years did you avoid now you are way better at it now. Now you'll have a conversation. You'll do it. I think this podcast, a lot of podcast work over the last couple years has done a lot of good to help out with that for you. But, like, you legitimately avoided conflict with me and wouldn't have a real conversation about hard shit. And even then you would run away from it and. Or just ignore me. I'm not having this conversation with you. So I'm going to ask you a question. How, as a woman, being a natural conflict avoider, how did you actually get to a point where you were willing to have a conversation? Because for the first 10 years, if I didn't bring the heat to start a fight with you, you wouldn't actually have a real conversation with me about hardship.

So then it comes back to you. I'm going to flip this on you. You ready?

Of course. You always want that.

All right, so sometimes, speaking from my perspective, I think that, I think that men tend to be a little more hot headed. Now, I'm not going to generalize, but I am going to generalize because I think that men, I don't know, does that make sense? Men are more hot headed. So say you get in an argument and from my perspective, you're like, I'm not trying to avoid this conflict. I'm not trying to avoid this argument. However, I am not going to have this conversation with you or this communication with you right now because we're not like both in a logical frame right now. And this, this argument is going to go nowhere and we're just going to continue to circle around at the same thing. So if you're Trying to avoid conflict. It's also, like, I can be easy have communication with your spouse at certain times, and I still do that. Like, there's times when Eric gets a little. Like, we always say, like, flip your lid. Or like, he gets to this place where I feel like I can't reason with him, and he. He's one to flip his list quicker than I am. And so also be in this kind of, like, logical space, and I'll see. And I, like, will refuse to argue. And my daughter does the same thing. Like, my kids do the same thing. And I'm like, I'm sorry. Like, it's not in a healthy place for me to continue, because then I'm gonna flip my lid, and then nothing's gonna happen. We're not gonna solve any kind of problem. And in that situation, it's not that I'm trying to avoid confrontation, but I just know, like, we're not gonna get anywhere. And then you might say things that you can't unsay, and it could turn into, like, more of a hurtful conversation. And again, I've done it. Even with my kids, I guess. My daughter gets older. She's 12. She's like that preteen mode. And usually when she goes into psychopath mode, I know her emotions are running high. And I'm like, go up to your room. Get out of my face. Because I don't want to flip my lid. I have to remind myself, like, you're the adult. And sometimes I do flip my lid, and I say, can I yell at her? And I say, because, oh, God, I'm.

The parent, you know?

And I think that that can happen in a relationship with your spouse where you're like, oh, my God, like, why did he say that?

How did that happen?

And for years, I think that that.

Happened with Garrett and I, and it.

Doesn'T happen very often anymore. But if it does happen, I'm not.

Going to say it doesn't.

Like, we're not perfect in this whole.

Marriage game, But I think if it does happen, we get to this place where we both can come with a.

Logical way, even if it's the next day, and be like, how did. Why did we have that conversation? Whereas before we blow up, and we would talk for, like, you know, a couple days, and then it would just keep distancing us and distancing us. So we just have, like, another blow up. Because we're like, we can't continue to operate in this space, like, everything's okay, and not talk about what happened. So there's there's confrontation avoiding, but there's also, like, knowing when to have clear communication and knowing when, like, hey, let's put this conversation on pause. And then even if it's five minutes, like, seriously, like, sometimes I'll be like, I'll walk away. Garrett will go for a walk, like, whatever it is, and we'll try to revisit a conversation. And sometimes we can be like, okay, all right. Like, here's where we're at. And sometimes we can. I'm like, well, I'm gonna go to bed, and we'll see if we can retalk this out in the morning. So.

So you saw an answer to the question.

What was your question?

The question was, why did you avoid conflict? So you give me one reason, which is you said, because you wanted to not have to go down the path. Me. But that was also, like, that's one piece. Okay, I'm gonna give it to you. I was a little more. I'm way more emotional than you, for sure. I definitely want to fight and get into collision, for sure. But you were never an initiator of any type of, like, if shit was. If there was a hard conversation to have about sex communication or about a disagreement about things, your. Your mode was to just swallow it, ignore it, reframe it in your mind, let it go and move on and pretend like it never happened. And this was, like, the only way that we were like, if you think about the big, serious conversations about sex that led us to therapy, if we talk about, like, things, like serious topics for you and I inside of a relationship, you would ignore. Ignore them until I blew up on them.

That was my point in saying, like, we try so hard to avoid confrontation that inevitably, like, if it happens over and over and over with, like, your spouse, it's gonna come back up. So sometimes it's hard to have those tough conversations sometimes.

But why wouldn't you?

Why wouldn't I?

Yeah, why wouldn't you?

I think because I was avoiding confrontation. I literally was like, oh, it'll go away. Oh, you know, it'll quiet down. And it gets to a point where, okay, sometimes it would, though, to be honest, and, like, I can't think of a specific situation, but sometimes it would kind of, like, calm down and go away. And then there was other situations in our relationship where it didn't go away. Like, we kept running into the same problem, and avoiding it wasn't the answer anymore. So. And it even goes, like, when I was saying this to my mastermind students, we were just talking about, you know, clients and situations that we get ourselves into. And they would always say, oh, I'm working until, you know, 9pm And I'm like, and they don't want to tell a client no. And I'm, they're people pleasers. And I'm like, no, you think that that client won't come to you anymore if you tell them you're not going to take it them at the appointment or whatever it is. And so instead of having a direct conversation because you in your mind think you're risking like losing a client. So instead of having a direct conversation, like, you're so emotionally charged by it that even if you did tell them, hey, I'm no longer taking this, it's like, they probably are offended because you're so emotionally charged. So that was like kind of the big point I was trying to get across in my mastermind. But I still think, I think that it goes in relationships as well. And like I said, like, sometimes, like, conversations will continue to loop and you're like, okay, this is, isn't necessarily like, we gotta, we gotta have a real conversation here. And then there's times honestly, like, I feel like, okay, we were both heated in the moment. And like, yeah, that was silly.

So the answer was because you avoid conflict.

The answer was what?

We thought that was the answer. I said, why did you avoid conflict in having a serious conversation? And then all you said was, I would avoid conference. No, but stop talking about me being heated. You love to do this. You're like turning it on me about me being heated. I'm talking about you being withdrawn. So we are very clear that I'm heated. But you're, I'm talking about you being withdrawn in conversation because you literally were a little turtle that would disappear into your shell and unless I fire blasted your shell, you wouldn't come out and have a talk about things.

I don't think that some, I don't think that some things. Like, like I said, if you were heated, I was like, I know you, I know you're heated. Like, just give you a minute to cool down and you'll be fine. And sometimes you would, you'd come back the next day and be like, hey, I was an asshole. And then sometimes you wouldn't say anything. And like I said, it would create distance and nothing would happen. And then we'd have to force ourselves to have like a conversation. So I never like with you specifically. Like, I never knew. I never knew, like, well, I did. I was like, oh, this is Gary. He's gonna calm down. And then there were situations where I just was like, I don't know how to have this direct conversation. Like, whatever it was.

There were a couple moments that you. You finally had direct conversation. But you seem to always have to get to a place of deep, like, deep emotion before you would ever, like, just have a call. Like, it's fun to watch because, like, listen, you'll have conversations very direct with some clients, but you won't have it with all clients. You'll have some direct conversations with some people, but not with some of your employees. And you force me to go have the hard conversations. You'll avoid effectively play. So, like, how have you. You've gotten to a better place with me, though. And. But, like, a natural push comes to shove, and you have to have a hard conversation with somebody. Like, your natural tendency is just to let it go. You brought up this topic today, by the way. Not me.

No, no. And sometimes it. Honestly, sometimes it does. Sometimes I'm like, okay. Like, it does go away. Sometimes it just has a way of, like, okay, that wasn't. I'm, like, avoiding conflict. I process it in my head, and I'm like, all right, everybody was heated in the moment, or it might even. I have to think of it as a specific situation. The only thing I can think of is, like, with clients, like, usually I have to go in more of a, like, logical frame of mind and be like, hey, I'm no longer, like, taking you on at this time, or whatever. And either they're like, oh, really? You can't. I'm like, no, sorry, I can't. Usually they'll respect that and be like, okay, make this work, you. And then I realized I was telling myself so many stories by, like, oh, my God. I built it up. Like, she was gonna hate me, and she was, like, never gonna come to me again. And then I was feeling, like, guilty that I didn't want to book anymore, and I was like, so many stories were, like, running through my head, and I was like, all I had to do was say, hey, no, and stick to my boundaries and say, no, I'm not gonna do this. So give me. Give me a specific situation with a relationship.

Well, we thought about this same thing over and over and over again, which was sex. And that finally led us to a place where we got into a huge fight in the kitchen. And you said to some one last comment to me, which was, well, when I get a house, like, there was a full checklist of things for years and years and years when you do this, then. I will when you do this.

I don't think it was necessarily about the sex, though. Like, I think it was.

Sex was part of it. It was a deep part of it. And then that. But that was what the connection.

I think it. I don't think it was specifically the sex. Like, we've gotten in a place in our marriage where, like, sex was very much like the to do list. Like, all right, let's just get this done so that he doesn't bug me anymore. And any girl who's been married for a while who doesn't say they get to a place in their marriage is a liar. So I'll just tell you that right now. We had been in that place, and I kept thinking, I think what you wanted was like, hey, why don't we have this chemistry? Why don't we have this attraction? Why don't you want to have sex with me? And I was like, whatever. We're like, we're having sex with. And I don't know necessarily if, like, I mean, right now I'm pregnant, so it's rough to say, but I don't know if the sex actually increased that much or if there was more of a desire on both parts to not just have sexes because we wanted to have sex with each other. You know what I'm saying? And so that was, like, the conversation that we'd argue about is, I think that you wanted me to be, like, more into the relationship. And I was having a hard time because I just felt like that chemistry and that trust and everything else was not there. So even though I was putting it in the checklist X, like, I didn't know how to be more. I didn't know, like, where our marriage was going. And it, for me, it was very much based on trust. And I didn't know how to communicate that to you. I didn't know how to be like, hey, still working on this trusting. Like, I want to be married, but I'm not sure 100% if I want to be married. So I think that we had to build that back up. And with doing that, like, knowing, like, hey, we're going to get fights, we're going to get disagreements. Like, knowing that I felt like, hey, if we're going to get in a disagreement, we're not both like, hey, I'm out. Because we were, like, dancing on thin ice for so many years. So this conversation effect kept coming up. But it was because, like, I think we were just in a weird place energetically with that marriage. Like, it Was. It was like it was happening, but there was just no, I don't want to say spark or chemistry, but it was just very much that checklist to do with sex.

I don't think it really changed, like, until we went to therapy, I guess. I think it took. I took, like, if you look at almost every major fight that we had on a date night, and there was some pretty explosive ones. I remember quite a few of them, like, explosive ones. And all of this led to you and I having. But we were having conflict over the same thing over and over again. We had conflict over money, and then we had conflict over sex. I don't remember hardly having conflict over anything else except for those two things.

I think my big thing, my big conflict and my big thing was literally trust. And I think for women, that's a big thing. We want to have that safety and security. Even if, like, I mean, I'm a pretty good producer for myself. I work hard and I know I can produce myself and I have a successful business. However, at that level, I think that women still want to be in a relationship where they feel that they're taken care of and they want to feel that they have that trust there. If they don't have that, it's like a scary place to be. And like, and either like, sex is like non emotional, you're in the beginning stage of your relationship where it's just sex and sex, or you're in a place where you're like, I don't really care, like, I'll just jump on you and jump off. Like, that's just what it is. And it's because the only thing I can tell you for women and from my perspective is I was like, still kind of working on that trustee. So I think the cost, like, you can say therapy, but it was almost like I finally, if I'm being real honest on the show right now, it was finally like, Garrett was like, hey, I'm in. And I felt something shift where I felt a little bit safer. And he didn't do that once, but he just kept showing up. And slowly, over time, I kept feeling safer and safer, which led me to feel more open and let me feel more vulnerable, which made me want to actually, like, be like, oh, he's cute. And all of a sudden I was attracted to him again. And that's kind of how we like, rebuilt back that like, spark of chemistry in our marriages. Because all of a sudden I was like, oh, yeah, I like him again. You kept, you kept showing up. And I think when I Saw you start to show up, I started to show up, and we both started to show up in a relationship in which we both wanted to be in again.

And those listening right now, I'm going to tell you right now can't. On the wake of, like, six years of fighting. So don't sit and listen and think, oh, somehow we just figured it out. Like, went to a weekend retreat with Tony Robbins, and all of a sudden it turned around. Like, I'm not joking you. We were fighting every week. And if we weren't fighting, it's because I would just shut my mouth and not say anything. And then I would do the opposite, which is instead of colliding with her, because I was so exhausted with colliding, then I would just, like, withdraw. And the problem was when I would draw within. Within five to six days, like, here's exactly what would happen. Like, we wouldn't have sex for, like, three, four days, and I would get, like, super horny. And then I would. Then I wouldn't know how to deal with it because we couldn't talk about it. Because anytime we try to talk about it, Danielle would act weird, I would get angry. Like, it just would become this weird thing. So then, like, by day five and six and seven, I would just get angry and then accept. Day seven, I would just shut down and I'll be like, fuck you. I'm like, I'm done. I'm not. I'm not even. I'm not even gonna have a conversation with you about. I'm not even gonna worry about this. Then by, like, day at 10 or 11, which happened a lot, there was this time where I would be. I would be completely shut off to Danielle, like, just unplugged. And then Danielle would come back. Danielle would. But it was beyond, like, dickhead mode. It was just in complete apathy. And Danielle would come back from that place and that she would wait until that time. So I come back and try to do something about it. But this was what all of our conflict was about. Like, 90% of our fight were about sex and about intimacy and about being able to feel connected and feel wanted. So Danielle's sitting here not feeling trust, but she also wouldn't collide on the subject. So it's not like she was telling me, hey, I don't trust you. She wasn't saying these things. She would just kind of go into her own shell, withdraw, tell me she didn't want to have sex, reject, reject, reject. And then I would you tell there and be like, the. So then I would get angry and that wouldn't work. And then. But I was like, we were literally sitting at an impasse. And I am telling you right now, if we don't go to, like, I saw a window that opened up. Daniel and I got into a big fight in the kitchen and I looked at her and it was about buying our new house away. And I said, listen, I'm not buying. Like, if it takes buying a house for you to trust me, then it. I'm not doing anything. And then I said, I said, you need to go. Either we're going to therapy or, like, we're done. Like, I'm not doing this anymore. And that final push, you agreed to go to therapy. You had rejected going to therapy for a decade. You were like, hell no, I'm never going to therapy. I'm never going to therapy. So what changed in you that had you say, okay, I'll go to therapy? Because I'm telling you right now, two and a half on three months of therapy for us completely altered our communities communication with each other.

But I. And we've shared this on some of our podcasts before, I think I thought of therapy. I don't know, like.

Like, what switch for you in the kitchen that day that you never would.

Agree literally was like, before, I. I don't know, I think I was literally like, I'm really done. I'm really dead this night. Like, I want else do we have those lose. I mean, it's fine. And I think part of me was scared. I was part of. I probably scared to face my own feelings. And what's interesting is when we went to therapy, I actually felt like for the first time we had like a sounding cord. And it's. I think that that still happens to this day, like, because we work together. And like, I was thinking that the other day when we were doing our meeting and Jeff's in there, and Jeff's literally like the most logical person on the planet. And like a robot. And we get heated still, like, when we're talking about work and ideas and things like that. And Jeff was like our sounding board. And I didn't know how to communicate with you without it going to, like, an irrational place. And I think that's why I shut down with my communication, because I was like, I'm just gonna get yelled at, like, if I tell him, like, hey, here's really how I'm feeling, then I tease you, well, fuck you, you're not showing up. And da, da, da, da, da. And I'm sure that happens in relationships. And so it's hard to get anything covered because you just trigger the fuck out of each other. So you sit there and you try to have a conversation, and both these parties end up being like, well, you're doing this. Well, you're doing this. And it's hard to take accountability inside of a conversation when you're super earned. And so I think going to therapy, for us at least, it was like we both had a logical sounding board to hear one another's feelings. And we couldn't get. I couldn't shut down, and Derek couldn't get as triggered. Trust me, he got triggered. There was one point. Therapy literally jumped up, started doing burpees in the middle of a session, and the lady just looked at me, and I was like, I know. And normally that wouldn't be a burpee. That would be him yelling and screaming at me. And I just have this place where I'm like, I fuck it. I'm not going to open up. I'm not going to have communication because I'm. It's not going to go anywhere. And all I hear is, I'm not taking any accountability, but if I share my feelings, it's just going to come back at me in the form of yelling. And so honestly, literally, it helped me open up and actually try to communicate better. And I felt like Garrett, like, was be able to have more, like, get further into the argument or further into this, into the. Further into the story or the conflict or whatever we're having without getting a tipping point and being able to hear what I said, and vice versa.

I think therapy was the first time also where you were. You were being held accountable for what you were doing, what you weren't doing. And so there was both my side of blowing up, but then there was also your side of, like, anytime we would get into a conversation, Danielle would flip it, and it would always be about me. Like, everything was always about how I was fucking up. So we would get into these fights, and she would always, like, I would be, like, trying to talk to her about stuff, and she would never take any responsibility for herself. Never. Like, nothing. It was never, yeah, you're right, I fucked up. Yeah, you're right. I'm not being a wife. That shows up in a great way right now. It was never that. It was always about me. And so I would get in this place where I was like, you're out of your fucking mind right now. Like, I cannot have these conversations anymore. And then we go to therapy, and sitting in therapy is the first time where Danielle was being required to actually ownership. And so I could. And I allowed me to relax a bit more than I'd ever been able to because I knew we could go to therapy, I could say something to therapist. Then Danielle would have to have. Danielle would actually have to stay in the conversation, and she would have to own her own shit. And if she tried to make it about me, the therapist made her make it about herself. And so what's that?

I don't remember her trying to make it about me.

No, she always would. Put it back on you. Every therapist who went through put it back on you. So you had to actually deal with.

Your own feelings conversations before. The reason I felt like they would go anywhere. And you're like, I want you to take accountability. But you come at me like, saying, I want you to do this. And I was like, fuck you. I want you to do a lot of things. And so when you would say, it's me, I would just say, okay, well, I'm not reacting this way because you're doing this and this and that, so you can say that. But I didn't take accountability because I felt very unsafe and threatened in this situation whenever we try to have a conversation.

So we got therapy, and all of a sudden, there was a better chance for Danielle and I to be able.

To pull past the conflict and be.

In conversation in a way that required both of us to own our. Like, Danielle, Danielle. Here's our tendencies as a couple. My tendency is to blow up, and Danielle's tendency is to shield and deflect everything. So if you were to look at us visually, I'm like a blowtorch, and.

Danielle's like a giant, like, deflecting everything.

So nothing is about her. It's always about everyone else and holding up the shield. And all relationships end up having somebody like this. You have one person who's like a fire breather, and the other person who just shuts down or emotionally is not available and deflected, shields everything. And that was Danielle. So we had to. There were two things that had to happen. I had to learn to bring the.

Fire down, and Danielle had to learn to put the shield down and take.

We both had to take responsibility. Danielle, I take responsibility for the fact that she would turtle anytime that we tried to have conflicting conversations hard to have. And every time we would get into conflicting conversations hard to have, I would get triggered in the moment and then blow towards the whole fucking building and burn everyone to the ground. So, like, we were both each other, like, every Time. Danielle would go to shield node and shut down and try to reframe me. I would blow even more fire. And yet if she saw any sense of me going to blow fire, she would immediately go to shield, which would trigger me. And I knew it was back and forth. My fire triggered her bringing in reinforcement shields, her shields and reinforcement shields would trigger me to blow more fires. So we were completely. We were completely.

How do we do it now? How do we do it now?

You brought it up. Keep going.

I know. Like, how do we do it now?

We're doing it right now.

I'm sure people listening to the show would like, oh, I'm in that same situation. Like, I think as couples, we don't. We don't realize how. How many similar problems we all have. And I think that's probably why there's a lot of marriage divorces, because I think you just keep circling the same fucking problems. And so people will say, well, how did you fix it? So I'm going to turn the question to you, like, what's different now? Like, how do we.

That's a good question. You answer it first and then hand it to me. Otherwise, you're going to make sure you.

Don'T miss the turn. You have to get on this weird, loopy freeway.

I don't think it's this one.

It's not this one. Next one. Sorry, guys. So much suspense on this question. So much.

You're going to answer it first. You're not handing it to me.

Okay. You can't get over there. So.

Okay, you got less than four minutes. You need to answer a question. You don't get it. Turned on me. You get to answer the question, how have you changed? Not how you. You take accountability for yourself, and I'll talk about how I change. You said, how have we changed? So how have you changed?

And how do we deal with our.

Don't stop. We. You. How have you changed? And then I'll talk about how I've changed.

How have I changed? Yes.

Let me play Jeopardy music for you.

Yeah, I'm, like, trying to think what I do because I've noticed, like, we don't. We can diffuse the situation pretty good.

But how do you do it different? No, he's kind of good at avoiding situations. So you diffuse by avoiding. So how have you not. I'm going to take responsibility for what I do. I'm not going to tell you what you do.

Okay. I'm just going to tell you guys what I think. Gary, I know.

Don't say everyone's listening to you right now on this show do exactly the thing you always do. You don't. You don't take accountability for. You talk about you.

I don't know what I do different. I think that I. The only. If I'm.

You brought up this whole topic of.

Conflict, I'm going to be really honest.

No, I want you to lie.

I think for me, I'm less scared to, like, really dive in and share with you how I'm feeling. Like, I'm like, hey, yeah, you'd like.

So what's different than you share more?

I think I share more, but it's. I only share more because I feel safer to share more.

Okay. Which has to do with you, not me. Like, you personally feel safer in the relationship. And so in that you share more.

And so in feeling safer, I feel like I can now face conflict, and it doesn't seem as scary to me. And we can have conversations. And one thing that I work on that I notice for myself, like, even in this podcast, when I can feel. Garrett, like, you just heard it, like, you said. No. Yeah. In the past, I find myself, like, getting, like, I can feel my lid about the blow, and I finally. And then I go, fuck you. And I shove it all under the rug, and I push, and I push that away. I don't allow myself to flip my lid. I'm like, fuck you. And now I'm like, you're okay, Danielle. You're not going to flip your lid. And I talk through it, and I'm always surprised that I can emotionally talk through it, and I didn't flip my lid. So that's what's changed inside of me, is that I'm like, I don't. I don't shut down because I was so scared that I would flip my own lid. And then I realized I'm like, no, you're good. Like, you're good. Like, I talk. I talk through it. I talk through it. There, that's good.

I'm so proud of you. Look at you. You did it. You did it. Yell me or shit.

Does that make sense? I think I would stare down because I'd be like, I'm gonna blow up. I'm gonna blow up.

And then I. I will tell you what I did.

And I was so scared from past times where, like, I would blow up and then Dare would blow up, and it was literally, like, just a yelling match to, like, the extreme. You just, like, imagine the ugliest yelling match, and that's what you got.

So I shifted the following. Which is I started getting. So where Danielle got to the edge and she would not blow the fire. I got to the edge. Sorry about that, guys. I would get to the place where in my. In my game where I just wouldn't blow the fire. Like, I would get. I would get clear about what I wanted, and there was less tendency for me to take it beyond the limit. And more times and more times than not, I would just shove my mouth. Like, I wouldn't even bring it up. I wouldn't even bring up a fight, wouldn't even bring up an argument, wouldn't bring up anything. I'd just be like, okay. And then if I did bring it up, I was able to stay more focused on what I wanted instead of trying to be right. And in the past, for like 15, you know, 12, 13 years, all I wanted to do was be right. So I would get into an argument, and the minute it got spicy at any level, my entire commitment became. Became being right but not trying to actually get what I wanted. That's true.

I think we argue in relationships, you argue. It's like you argue to be right, not to get what you want. And I think that's one thing that we both did. We both realized that there's some submission in getting what we wanted. And so we were less willing to be right and more willing to get what we wanted. That's a good note to end on.

Very good notes. And on we're going to end this podcast. We just got into no Boo in Newport. Get out of the car. And we're going to see if my wife can get out of the car pregnant style. And if not, either way, it's all good. So we're going to wrap this show up. You guys have a great rest of your week. We will talk to you guys next week here on the D2WIFE podcast. Getting a couple things. If you haven't checked out@warriorbook.com head over there. Also, Danielle, you can follow@dkwstyling.com and everything on this show available@datuypenow.com I'll show notes, tips, tricks, questions, challenge, and action guys for this week's show. We are done for today. We'll see you guys next week.