Love Expert: Why Relationships Keep Failing (& How To Fix It)

They say the number one skill is.

Emotional regulation, and there is no way around it. You cannot escape this if you want to have a meaningful, intimate relationship. There is no way around this author and TEDx Voice whose programs translate emotional intelligence into everyday team habits. Please welcome Baya Vocheck. There is no truth in relationship. There are just two people who are having their own experiences. And you live in your world and I live over here in my world. And as long as we're arguing for the truth, we're both going to lose because the truth, truth doesn't actually exist. If we're fighting the truth, we are fighting a losing battle, period. Full stop. Agreement is the enemy of attunement, and attunement is really what we need in order to repair. We need empathy. Right? If you know that you're not arguing for truth, what we're arguing for is your perspective or my perspective getting heard, seen and validated. Conflict without repair is just pain. But then conflict with repair is, is healing. I deeply believe that we get into relationship to heal the parts of ourselves that nobody else could heal.

Do you feel like you've healed from those relationships with men?

I don't know.

Welcome back, everyone, to the school of Greatness. We have the inspiring Bea Voce in the house. And we were just talking, Bea, right beforehand about how both of us entered our previous relationships in therapy as opposed to waiting for conflict to arise and then try to repair. You have been helping individuals understand conflict resolution in relationships. You've been researching this for a long time. You've been working with people about this. And I'm curious, do you think we need conflict in order to have a healthy relationship? Is it part of a thriving, harmonious, healthy relationship? Or is it better to just create resolution, agreements, acceptance, alignment from the beginning of a relationship, the first six to nine months, so that we can minimize conflict so we don't have to try to put all of our energy into repairing in the future, which sucks the life out of a relationship in my mind. What are your thoughts on this?

I mean, listen, I think it's a dance, first of all. And I look at relationships in phases. The first phase is the part where you're sort of enmeshed, you found your soulmate. The other half, the like, how have I not lived without you? My whole, like, I have not found you. I'm so, you know, and there is this way that you merge and this is where you feel like you're never going to fight about anything. We have so much in common.

This is this person's perfect. That's right.

That's right. And then inevitably, because you are two different nervous systems with two different wounding patterns and different histories, inevitably at some point you enter into another stage, which I like to call the power struggle. The power struggle is where you're faced with a whole bunch of tension. This is where your differences start to rub up against each other. All of a sudden we start to individuate. So where we thought we were just one amoeba, now we're sort of like, you know, now we're, now we're starting to be like, wait, you're a, you're an individual with different desires and needs. And I am also. So, so what do we do? And so there's inherently tension in this phase. That tension is important. We have to, we have to find the areas of friction in order to move through them to where actually in a third, the third phase, you get to interdependence. You find a space in your relationship where you have more gentleness, you know, one another's wounding. And so you're, you're able to work with that wounding a little bit more easily, you know, where there's gonna, where you're gonna get caught. You know, you've been in the cycles, you know. But the tricky part is most people never exit out of stage two. Most people are in the power struggle for the duration of the relationship.

What does the power struggle phase look like for most people?

So it can look like, first of all, it can look a lot of different ways. This is not one size fits all. For people who are a little more conflict avoidant, you might find that the power struggle looks just a little more like distance. Like, huh, they just did something that really bothered me. I think I'm just not going to say anything about that. And I'll just act like that doesn't matter.

Like stuffing your feelings.

Totally.

Silent treatment.

Yes. Yeah, 100%.

You could be like, that makes me feel uncomfortable, so I'm just not going to speak about it at all. For some people.

Yeah, I like the, I like the like stuff down, down. Oh, I can. A lot of it. Some people might be. I can handle that. That's fine. It's the quintessential.

I'm fine until two, three years later and you explode.

You're definitely not fine. Or two, three weeks later.

Right, right, right, right.

And if you have two people who do that, you're going to end up, you know, you're going to end up walking two parallel paths and you'll be roommates. Before long, who aren't talking about much and you're just living different lives in the same house.

Or would that power struggle phase also be. You don't say what's truly on your heart. You don't have the courage to spe partner directly, but you talk about it to other friends and family about what they're not giving you.

100%. 100%. And listen, it makes sense on some level, because if we have grown up afraid of what it actually means to bring our truth, if we have learned that bringing what's real for us creates distance or punishment.

Yes.

Then we. We're. We're adapting to that response. There's a. One of my mentors is Terry real, and he's fantastic. And he has a line that I think is so profound, which is adaptive. Now, maladaptive. Then what? Now is an adaptation that you have that you have figured out because your mom yelled at you, and your reaction to that when she yelled at you was to hide and then be good. Now, what are you gonna do in your relationship? Well, you're probably gonna hide and be good. And so your partner might come to you and be mad at you, and you might just start appeasing. No, no, no, it's okay. Oh, I totally didn't mean to do that. I can't believe. And meanwhile, you're over here fuming, but you're not gonna say that, because what do you think is gonna happen? That your mom is gonna yell, but it's your partner. And so we have to start learning what it actually means to grow out of our maladaptive responses into adaptive responses. So if you were yelled at as a kid, for instance, and your adaptive, smart response, by the way, smart response was to, like I just said, maybe hide in your room and cry. And that actually gave you attention from your dad. So when you cried, your mom would yell, and when you cry, your dad would come and console. So what did you learn? You learned. Learned safety is crying, having a big reaction, and then dad's gonna come console me. Now, as an adult, you cry, hoping for that same attention, and it might not even be conscious, by the way you just cry, because that's the thing that comes up. It just comes out of you like that. It's so easy. And all of a sudden, your. Your partner doesn't actually respond to that. Your partner actually needs you to be in a little bit more of a regulated space for them to meet you. And where do you go? You go deeper into the pain. You go harder into the crying, because that's the thing that got you. So when we don't understand that there is this younger part of ourselves that is in charge when we're triggered. Now you can call this the amygdala, you can call this your inner child. There are many, many people have had many, you know, in many traditions have called this different things. I like to look at it as a little kid as like your 5 year old self who's crying, begging for a parent to hold you and give you attention. And when that matches up, which it just tends to do in relationships with your partner's wounding, well, guess what, you're probably not going to get your needs met. Yeah, it's going to lead to more tension. So this question of, you know, can we just deal with it at the beginning and talk our way through agreements and whatnot so that tension doesn't arise, I don't, I think, think that actually goes a little bit hand in hand with this narrative that we've all been sold and has been steeped into our subconscious, that is from Disney and Hollywood romcoms and couple goals on social media around what a relationship should look like. And unless you're in self development, unless you're in therapy, unless you read relationship books or go to the workshops, there's actually nowhere in culture where you're learning that conflict is normal and that you have to, it's intimacy building. Now there are plenty of unhealthy ways to do conflict. So I don't mean to say that yelling and abuse is, that's not a healthy way to do conflict. But if you can do conflict in a way that actually then lends to repair and then you complete the cycle, then when you, when conflict without repair is just pain over and over and over again. Yeah, but then conflict with repair is healing. I actually really like thinking about it this way. So you each come into the relationship with all of your relationships behind you. So it's your relationship with your caregivers, it's the relationship with the person who broke your heart or the 12 people who broke your heart before that. It's the pain that you did to other people and it's the pain that other people did to you caused to you. You walk into your relationship with all of the unhealed pain and you basically walk to your partner and you say, heal me. Here it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, here it is.

Yeah, yeah. But we don't know that's what we're saying. That's not why we get into, that's not why we think we're getting into relationships. But that to me is when we're talking, when I get a little more kind of spiritual and woo and esoteric about it. I deeply believe, I deeply believe that we get into relationship to heal the parts of ourselves that nobody else could heal before. And when we find the relationship that is the one we decide to basically put on the altar, as this is where I'm going to do my work, this is where I'm. Then what you're saying as each partner is I am signing up to be here to help you heal the parts of yourself that nobody else that came before me could help you heal. Like I'm up for that task and vice versa. It's to me, that lens is. It's a gift that we give each other when we sign up for relationships and say, it doesn't matter how perfect I want you to be, I know you come with unhealed wounding. And I have the exact recipe that's probably going to bump up against those wounds. But if we're responsible enough and we do our work enough, that what I also can do is support in the healing of those wounds.

Yes, I heard Gabor Mate said that if it's hysterical, it's historical. And if someone is reacting based out of a trigger or something, and they're reacting hysterically to a situation or an environment that even isn't a physical threat, but feels to them like there's a physical threat, there's some type of history behind it that's causing them to be hysterical or reactive in whatever situation. And what I'm hearing you say is that healthy conflict takes courage is what I'm hearing you say. And what I lacked for most of my life in every intimate relationship I was in was courage. For most of my life, I would stuff it down. I was in the second phase, the power struggle phase for most of my, my relationship life. And I was, you know, I'd get into relationship for two years, three years, four years, and just kind of repeat the cycle thinking it was the person I was with and get in a new relationship and kind of repeat the cycle of phase one to phase two. And then you're in phase two forever and you're trying to get into interdependence, right? But it never felt like it for me until this. My, my marriage now. And what I'm hearing you also say is that you're not getting into a relationship with a human being, you're getting in a relationship with their nervous system. And if their nervous system is wounded and irregulated, or deregulated, then that's what you're getting in a relationship with, is how someone perceives everything in the world. And if they're traumatized or if they have thin skin by every little thing that you say or do or don't do, that's the relationship you're getting into. Not the person and how they look, but what's inside their nervous system and how they respond to their environment.

You know, I often say, like, if we were to go on first dates and be like, all right, what. When you're. When you're just off the rocker, what do you like? Like, when. When you're super triggered, when you're a 10 out of 10, when you're a 5 out of 10, what do you. What do you like? What. What are we up to?

There's a bear inside of me. There's, like, a bear that wants to destroy. If I'm, like, not regulated, you know, it's like I'm like, let me just take on the world, you know? It's like a bear.

Same. I can get. I can get both. I can get loud, and I can get super quiet, and just, like, you don't even feel my heart. Like, I can go to both of those places, and they're. And they're not. They're not places I'm proud of, by the way, of course. But we. And by the way, no matter how much work we do, these pieces live inside of us. It's not that the little kid ever goes away. It's that when you start to understand what your nervous system is, like when it gets dysregulated, like, oh, I know that my chest tightens, or I start to talk really, really fast, or I start to sweat, or maybe it doesn't feel so physiological, but I can start to feel you become my enemy. I'm, like, trying to build my case against you, right? Like, we've all kind of been here in one way or another. When I begin to understand what my particular brand of dysregulation looks like, then I can start taking responsibility for when I'm going there and that adaptive part, because that's really what it is. It's the part of ourselves that's just trying to fight for, keep me safe, keep me safe. We can sort of do this thing where we put the kid in the back. It's like, okay, you're five. I don't want you to go away, but you also can't drive. And this is another thing that Terry talks about, which I think is also really Smart. Which is like you put the kid in the back and you got to give the kid love, but the kid needs a boundary. Like that's what kids need. They need love, but they need boundaries. So you put the kid in the back and you're like, hey kid, I got this. You don't need to be the one. And they generally don't want to be the ones to be in the fight anyway. They're like, oh great, hands off the wheel. I can take a nap or play Legos in the back. And then the more regulated part of you can start to come online. But you've got to take care of the part that's dysregulated. Generally speaking, you're either better at auto regulating, so regulating on your own or co regulating. Like you need somebody to help you regulate and we want to get better at the other. That's generally what we need. I, I fall into the co regulation category. Like I really, it feels like at times I need my wife to help me. Like I need her to help calm me down. Like I can't. And that's been a huge.

But if you attract an independent person and they're like, hey, I don't, I'm independent. Like get away from clinging some to someone who wants to be alone.

But that, but that's also where the healing comes into play. Right? So because I have been like, save me, save me from my own emotions that I don't feel like I can handle on my own. And she's like, that doesn't actually work. What do I have to do? I have to build the skill of autoregulating. I have to build the part of myself that understands how to take care of myself.

And probably the more you do that, the more she wants to come in and 100% co regulate exactly. As opposed to feeling like she needs to do 100% and like yeah, 100%. That's interesting. Support for the school of greatness comes from Robert Half need contract helped for those workload peaks and backlog projects. Well, you're not alone. At Robert Half they found that 67% of companies surveyed said they will increase their use of contract work. And that's why their recruiters leverage their experience and use award winning AI to quickly find the skilled candidates that you want. Learn about our specialized talent in finance, accounting, technology, marketing and legal and administrative support at Robert Half they Know Talent. Visit roberthalf.comtalent today. You mentioned before that there's a massive link between physiological health and emotional dysregulation. How does this play into relationships, then.

Oh, thank you for asking this. Thank you, thank you. Because this is so important. So I think one of the things that we're missing in the relationship space as far as, like a real conversation in the field is right now we talk a lot about trauma, we talk a lot about nervous system. And those are important. I don't mean to say they're not, but what we haven't linked in the relationship space is how our physiological and biological health connect to our ability to regulate. So if you just ate a meal that was. That had a bunch of sugar, if you haven't gotten sleep, if your thyroid is off, if you don't have enough vitamin D, if your hormones are out of whack, if your cortisol. I mean, my wife and I were literally just talking about this. She's been dysregulated lately and we were talking about why, and she was like, oh, I just got my thyroid levels checked. Turns out they're all, all out of whack. And it changed within two months. She had just gotten her labs done and got her. And we were like, oh, this makes a ton of sense. This happened to me too. My cortisol was way out of whack. And I. And I was like, why am I being so sensitive? I don't understand. I've been going through ivf. Same thing, but with ivf, I. I know what's happening. It's like, I'm taking estrogen, I'm taking progesterone, and I can literally be like, whoa, one day I take progesterone and I'm like, the devil. And then, you know, I take estrogen the next day and I'm like, everything's cool, everything's. I'm fine, I'm fine. Nothing bothers me. Nothing. But we're not linking that. We're talking a lot about trauma, which again, is not. It's not that it's not important, but there are other reasons why you aren't regulating. And it could be something that is. So getting your labs done to me is one of the most. It's like a low hanging fruit. I mean, if we're talking free, we're talking morning and evening sunlight, just easy. We're talking about getting as good as sleep as you possibly can and then eating well. Those are free options. The next level up is getting labs just to peek under the hood and be like, okay, what's actually going on with my hormones? Function Health does a great panel. They do a membership that's way. It's Way cheaper than the actual labs. And they're fantastic. I work with them closely, so I love them. And they also track it over time. So once you start to understand, it's another way to take control of the regulation conversation and you cannot repair without being regulated, period.

It's really tough because if you're in breakdown or fight or flight, it's hard to resolve any conflict. No, you can't. You need to get down to a peaceful state so you can have a conscious conversation without being freaking out. Because I, again, being in that phase two that you talked about, the three phases of relationships. I was in the power struggle phase a lot because I lacked the courage to sit with someone who is emotionally dysregulated. When they would scream at me or cry or have an explosive reaction or giving the silent treatment, I was like, how do I just make them happy in this moment? You know, it's like I would attract people with a disregarded, dysregulated nervous system. And I lacked the courage that I needed to get into interdependence. So I was in that power struggle constantly. And I kept repeating the cycle because I was just like, I just don't want someone screaming at me anymore. I don't want someone crying every time they're not happy with something about me. I was like, I couldn't handle it. I didn't know how to sit with the emotions. So I just change who I was to try to please someone and become a completely different person and then resent myself them in the relationship. And it would fall apart because I was like, I don't even know who I am anymore. I'm constantly evolving and adapting to please this person and they're never happy. And I take full responsibility because I lacked courage to say, listen, I love you, I care about you, but this doesn't work for me. We need some boundaries, we need some agreements as opposed to, it's your way you're going to react if you don't get your way and I have to shift to make you happy. So I lacked courage in that space. They lacked, you know, regulating maybe, or whatever. It was courage as well. We both lacked things. And I realized that I need to be able to sit in the fire when there's something that feels uncomfortable and I need to continue to heal so that it's not that uncomfortable anymore. So it becomes more like, okay, I don't like this maybe, but it's not going to make me change who I am to make one person happy.

Courage is one way to look at It. But you probably actually had a really good reason.

Sure.

Why you went towards pleasing and appeasing and overwhelmed.

I wanted to feel safe.

Yeah. So it's like now that doesn't work as you know. But. But there's actually good reasons. We do things that at the end of the day we might get done with that fight and be like, God, why did I do that? I can't believe it. Why did I yell again? Or why did I override again? Or. There are really good reasons. This is where the digging. This is where therapy or workshops or whatever are so important to start to understand the mechanisms for why you behave the way that you do. Like that's there. I think, I think one thing that feels really important is that we give ourselves a bit of grace here about why we. Why we behave the ways that you're not wanting to appease. That's not something. And you're not going into a conversation being like, ah, I'm going to override all my own boundaries right now. You do it because there's something in your system that locks up that doesn't have any idea how to react other than the way to your point that is going to keep you safe. And I think it's really important that we know that.

Well, something that goes in with that. You have a quote about this that says the real challenge isn't just about using the tools. It's about rewiring how you approach conflict. And speaking around this like, I didn't have all the right tools before. And even if you have the tools, you also say it's about rewiring how you approach conflict. So when there's a breakdown from your partner or you're in breakdown, they are. You're both are whatever it is. I think one, we can both agree on that we need certain tools to regulate our emotions when our emotions are heightened, period. Every human being. And then it's also figuring out how we approach the conflict. Where I used to approach every breakdown or conflict is how could I get through this as quickly as possible? Back to peace, back to safety, back to harmony, back to back to soulmate energy versus power struggle energy. Right. How can we just go back to the way it was in the first month was so easy and fun and amazing. Can't you just be that person again? Like it was like, who are you? What is going on? You weren't this way for the first six months of knowing you. Now this like hurt, wounded little girl is crying every other day and yelling at me. Well, what this isn't who I knew. So you're like, you're going through an identity shift of the relationship where you're like, what is this? They're maybe seeing something in you that they said, oh, you weren't doing what you used to do. Whatever it is. Right. We're both not doing something. And then you're in this power struggle. You're just thinking, how do I get back to soulmate energy? This feeling of soulmate, which also I don't even agree with, but because I think it's a. You know, it's interesting. My wife, she's a very famous movie actress in. In Mexico, and she's done over 40 movies, and she was the rom com queen in Mexico. So every movie she did was a rom com for many years, and it was number one box office. And she grew up in the Disneyland rom com. This is how relationships are based on cultural. She didn't see that with her parents. Her parents have a very healthy relationship. But she grew up kind of in this movie scene, living these stories and kind of embodying this in her own life as well. And she had to really heal and realize, like, it's not about you complete me. It's like I need to complete myself and create wholeness within me. Then we can create interdependence when we're both creating this wholeness next to each other. Right. It's like we can both continue to grow next to each other. But part of it is like the approach to conflict. We. I think both parties need tools, but we both need to approach conflict with saying, instead, I used to want to create peace. I wanted to create harmony, or I wanted to win and I wanted to be right. It's like, you're wrong, I'm right. I know you're weak right now. I have the answers. Like, my ego is so big also. Right. It was like I just wanted to win.

Yeah. Welcome to all of us.

Right? Exactly. But then when I got into the relationship with Martha early on, I was like, the only way I win is that we both win. And if one person loses, then we both lose. Yeah. So we both need. So it was. My approach was like, how do we both win when there's conflict? And that's something I've learned in emotional intelligence workshops that we've both been through. And it's really about approaching conflict with me to that mindset. And it's not always easy to do. Even today, even with the tools you still have to approach it with. It's not about me being right, you being wrong. How can we both win here?

Yeah. Just speaking of mindset, I actually think there are three things I think about when approaching conflict that are really important that I think we've gotten kind of wrong or we haven't been taught. I use the acronym TAR basically so that I can remember it, but it's truth, agreement, and responsibility. Now, truth, you're saying, win, lose, oftentimes we want to fight for the truth. We want to fight like you just yelled at me. I wasn't yelling. I was just speaking loudly. Yeah, yeah.

No, you weren't.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going too fast. I was going five over. Right. If we're fighting the truth, we are fighting a losing battle, period, full stop. There is no truth in relationship. There are just two people who are having their own experiences. And you live in your world, and I live over here in my world. And as long as we're arguing for the truth, we're both going to lose because the truth doesn't actually exist. It's so important to know this because we often think that we need to, to the second point of the mindset shift, agree with one another. Now, if we think we have to agree, then we think your truth has got to be right, and then my truth has got to be wrong. So how does that work? That doesn't. That's not. That's not an equation that works out. So. But if you don't, if you know that you're not arguing for truth, what we're arguing for is your perspective or my perspective, getting heard, seen, and validated.

Yes.

The way to do this is one person has got to go at a time. You cannot go at the same time.

Try doing that with a Mexican family. Oh, God, they all speak at the same time.

At the same time. This is. But by the way, simple. Not easy. Simple. Not easy, everybody. This is. This is super, super tricky.

You have to really listen. Even when you feel heightened emotions, you have to say one. I'm going to listen. You're going to listen. We're going to create an agreement around who's listening.

Yeah.

And without interruption. Right. It's like, it is hard.

This is hard. This is. This is. It's like we, we. We. We don't really realize how challenging these skills can be to put into play. Like, we need so much repetition for these. So listen, you're gonna. You're gonna go one at a time. You're gonna say, it's your partner's turn. They're gonna say something that pisses you off, and you're gonna Jump in. That's gonna happen. Like, we just have to know that that is going to happen as we're practicing this. This is a lifelong journey here. But the move is to know who's most dysregulated, and that person should get repairing first. So first, before ever entering into a repair conversation, you. You need to both, I call it, do nothing. Like, go into your separate sparring corners and like, drink water, take a bath, phone a friend, talk to a therapist, do whatever you need, Put your feet on the ground, like, whatever. You need to start to ground a little bit to start to regulate. Once at least one of you is, you know, regulated at like a. On a scale of 1 to 10, like a 3 or below, then you're ready to have a repair card conversation. Then you're ready to. When you're ready to go in, at this point, if you and I are repairing, and you're the one who needs repairing first, I have to over here, be like, okay, it's not that I don't get my turn, but my turn just isn't right now. For a lot of us, especially my people pleasers who are listening, that's me, also recovering people pleaser in the house, you have to know that you're going to get a turn. So how I think about it is you, like, zip down this little meat suit, you just zip it down and you just take your perspective off and you put it over the side and you just take a little cat nap. Just take. Not that your perspective doesn't matter. Not that it's not important. It's just taking a nap for the time being so that I can come in over here and focus 100% of my effort and energy and attention. Even though I have my truth over here, even though I have my perspective over here, I have what happened that really hurt me over here. We're going to address that. We're just not going to address it right this second. So if I know that, then I actually can zone in on you now I can start to get curious about what is happening over in your world. This is what I was talking about with the second piece, which is agreement.

Yes.

We get so caught in needing to agree like that, you're going to say something and all of a sudden it's going to need to change my mind about my worldview and what happened for me. We don't need to do that. Agreement is the enemy of attunement, and attunement is really what we need in order to repair. We need empathy right attunement empathy. I can use them kind of interchangeably. And there are two types of empathy, Emotional empathy and cognitive empathy. Honestly, there are probably more. This is Susan David at Harvard. She talks about this, and I think it's a really brilliant way to think about it. Emotional empathy is. I feel. Feel what's happening over here with me. And as you talk and you speak and I start to learn more about what's going on for you, I can start to feel how that feels for you, how that hurt you. It's not that I leave myself, but all of a sudden I can start like, oh, wow, if. If I. If I believed what you believe, I can totally see how that would hurt and how you would be angry and sad and frustrated about that. That doesn't mean, by the way, that I don't have my perspective. It's just taking a nap. It's just still over here. But now, because I know it's only taking a nap, I can just come over to you and be like. Be so immersed in your experience. Cognitive empathy. I might not feel what you feel, but now I can start to understand it on a really different level. Your story is starting to make sense to me. I'm starting to be like, ah, okay. Well, again, if you believed that, that makes sense to me. It's not necessarily happening in my body, but I can understand it cognitively. This doesn't mean we agree.

Yes.

And I think this is so important because it's where we find collapse in conflict, is when we feel like we have to take our perspective away or the thing that happened to us away in order for you to feel repair.

Yeah.

I also have something that I call the 70% rule that I discovered because this is a hard one for me, which is when we start to expect about 70% attunement. 70% of you're trying, you're doing it good enough, you're asking the questions. It might not be exactly how I want you to ask them or in the tone, but you're like, doing.

You're doing fine. Yeah, yeah.

It's like 70% there. The 70% is the couple's work. It's like below 70% you need. The couple needs more work, but anything beyond the 70%, you need that 30%. That's really your work. That's the part of yourself that is sort of unrepairable with. That's how I think. Like, I'll never forget Emmy. My wife and I were in this fight, and she's trying to repair with me. It's before bed. And she's doing all. She's pulling out all the stuff, trying everything. Everything she could possibly do. She's pulling out everything. And we're in there for maybe an hour, and eventually I just look at her and I was like, I don't think there's any way for you to win right now. And she looks at me and she goes, thank you. And it was actually in that moment that I started to understand this more, that I was like, oh, this is mine to do. This is the part of myself, the well of loneliness that I am so deeply needing, quote, unquote, needing somebody else to meet in me because I'm so afraid to meet that black well of sadness in myself. Once I got that, now I. Now I know what's mine to do. I know where my work is because she has met me as much as she can meet me. This is important work for me to do. And then the last one is responsibility. And we know this because of the mitt, and I know this from the landmark world which we both did years and years ago. And generally, when we don't know what it means to truly take responsibility, we're either absolving responsibility and putting it onto you. So I'm blaming you or I'm taking all of it. And I have so much shame.

And you're resentful also, probably. Yeah. It's like.

And you can't actually meet your partner in that space. You can't actually meet their pain in the place where I feel so much shame about the thing that I did that all I can think about is like, oh, I can't believe I hurt you. What is it about me that made me do that? And now I've completely left your experience. So neither work like we've got to.

And the partner feels abandoned because you're in your shame world versus trying to repair still. Right? It's like, yeah, completely. Okay, you did this bad thing. Now you're in this world. Now I have to tend to you, even though you hurt me. So now I feel like I didn't get repair.

Yes.

Because now I'm trying to soothe your pain of feeling so guilty and shameful.

Yeah. Now we're over here on in your world where what happened to what I was just going through and now I've been completely left.

This power struggle phase is like, oh, it's exhausting.

It's a tough one. It's a tough one. And by the way, just to name you, don't actually go through, you know, merging and power struggle and Interdependence. And interdependence as some, like, linear. You know, you can go back into the power struggle when there's a new transition that you're going through, when someone loses a job, when there's something really big that happens. Like, you can. You can kind of go. You can, you know, move through the phases, and it's not. It's, you know, as we know, relationships aren't so linear.

Yeah.

But. But knowing that there is a way that when you're either blaming outward or you're blaming yourself, neither of those places are going to help you actually meet the needs of your partner.

That's so true.

And it's really important to get. There's. I actually brought this. We can go over it if you want. This is a. Okay, so this is. This is. I got this from Terry Real also, I think. Listen, I don't necessarily buy into one modality of couples work or another, but I think this simplifies where we go when we're triggered.

Sure.

So I think it's kind of an easy, easy model to look at.

So what is this? What does this.

So this is called the relationship grid. This is explaining when we go into blaming outward. Right. We. It's. It's what you call grandiosity. This is where. This isn't me. This is all you.

You did this.

You did this.

You need to take responsibility.

That's right. Like, this isn't. This isn't me. I didn't. I. There was no fault over here. We tend to. And this is going to be on the dramatic end of things. We tend to either go up one up to grandiosity or one down into shame. But we do a couple of other things, too. We either go into boundaryless behavior, and boundary list behavior is yelling, it's crying, It's. It is exactly how it sounds. It's crossing over your boundaries. In order to get my needs met or to protect ourselves, we wall off. These are the silent people. These are the ones who are going.

Like, give in also. Is that what we do or is that more boundaryless?

Well, it depends on where you fall in the quadrant. We'll get to that.

I used to give in to, like, someone blaming or screaming or crying at me. So I didn't create a boundary to try to keep peace, but I never had peace.

No, no, no. I have a guess of where you fall, but I want to say. Okay, so. So those are the four places that. The four places on the quad. But we. We basically embody one of these four places. So in grandiosity, if we're, if we go one up into grandiosity and we tend to be more boundaryless, this is behavior that's, it's, it's on again, the very dramatic end. This is where all abuse and violence lives. This is yelling, this is hitting, this is throwing things.

When you are being grandiose towards your partner and you're not having a boundary, is that what you're saying?

It's not actually not having a boundary. And we can talk about boundaries in a bit. Boundarylessness is, it's like the way that we express ourselves. So if someone who's walled off is going to get quiet and reserved and distanced, the boundaryless person is going to get needy and please and I. And it can show up in a lot of different ways. Actually, that's the one. If you're getting needy and graspy, that's down here. So up here in grandiosity, your boundarylessness, that's where it looks like anger pointed at you. I'm screaming, I'm getting big. I'm trying to intimidate you. When we go down from boundaryless and shame based. So now we're in the one down category. Now I'm not yelling at you and making things about you. I'm over here being like desperate and need. Please don't leave me, please, I'll do anything. Like, I didn't mean to do that. I can't believe I just did that again. I'm being dramatic.

Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

But, but. And my gas bringing neediness. Like, yeah, I'll make it go away. Okay. I'll do anything that you need. This is appeasement. But appeasement can also be walled off. But you're probably going to find more appeasement. And they're like, okay, I just want to make that. This is why I kind of feel like this is where you may have lived. I don't know.

But maybe not the extreme.

No, no, no.

In that area for sure.

Most of us, by the way, don't inhabit the exchange. Some of us do. But you know, this is like, you can think about what a moderate version may look like. I would do this. I, this is where I live. I live in boundaryless and one down. And so how it would look for me is I would be, she would. My wife goes into kind of a walled off, close down space. And I would do it super covertly. I would be like, oh baby, are you, are you like a little bit shut down right now? Do you like. I Wouldn't go into. Like, I would therapize her. I would be like, do you need space? Like, is there something that you need? But I'm not doing it from a regulated place. I'm doing it from a place of please don't leave me.

Wow. Really?

Yeah, totally. Totally. Okay, so then we go over to walled off and shame based on this is like just Korea.

Before you go on there. What would happen if she left you? Like, or someone left you? What would happen for you if someone's like, you know what? I've tried. This just doesn't work for me anymore. I think we're done. How would that make you feel, by.

The way that's happened? So it's really.

But what happens in you when that happens? I guess. Or that's.

It's actually sort of what I talked about before. It's the. The place in me where I go is this lonely. Well, that feels like if I touch it, it's so big that. That I. That I'll die. Like, that's how it feels. It feels like this space of, like, there's one place I can't go. It's that dark thing that lives in this amorphous place that if I touch it, it's like the world ends.

What is that thing? Is that you being alone or not loved by one person or not accepted by one person? Or is that. What does that mean for me?

It's the. It's the space of if you leave me, you prove that I am actually as unlovable as I may think I am. And that's in kind of my unhealthiest space. That's where I go. I've done a lot of work on that part. But the part in me that will always exist, that I'll always do work on, is the part in me that feels like no matter what I do, am I actually lovable? Can you really. Can you really love me? If I have a big reaction, Am I worth loving? Or would you leave? Would you walk? And so part of what, again, my kind of young adult life and growing up in relationships would be, I'm gonna be big and I'm gonna cry. I'm gonna get loud so that you can prove to me.

You can come in and show me.

Show me. You're not going anywhere.

No matter what I do, no matter.

What I do, you'll still be here. Yes. Yeah. Which, I gotta tell you, didn't work so well. Was not the. Not a winning game. If we're going to talk about the, you know, Not. Why do you think I'm in the space of repair? Repair has been the hardest place for me in all of my relationships, and I have had a lot. So this is just, like, the work that I've had to do for myself. I grew up in Salt Lake City where my parents were hippies and I wasn't Mormon, but I grew up so desperately wanting to fit in, and so I went to church. I dated the Mormon guys. I.

Your parents didn't go to Mormon church?

No, no, no. They weren't.

They weren't.

No, no, no, no.

But you were in a community where a lot of people did.

It was Salt Lake city in the 90s. Mostly everyone was Mormon.

So you wanted to. You wanted to fit in and be accepted, and that's what they were doing. And so you're like, I'll go.

At such a young age, I learned how to chameleon. I learned how.

The same thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was. I. I remember in junior high, getting into seventh grade and being like, okay, there's a. There's a new game to play, and it's called I'm going to be liked and popular by every single person in this school, and I will do everything to fit in with every single person. And so that's what I did. You could take me anywhere, and the Bayer you would see in hip hop dance class would be a completely different Bayer you would see in a. In church with my friend or dating my boyfriend or whatever. It would be like, that's. And I. And it. By the way, it worked. I was everything you would. I was Miss high school until it didn't work.

It worked until you realize my nervous system is still unregulated.

You know, it worked until I. I would. I would date. I would literally be like, I gotta tell you, I'm kind of like an indoor outdoor cat. I, like, I could be outside, but, like, you know, I actually feel really good inside, being warm and cozy and whatever. And I would date, you know, pro athletes and be like, yeah, let's go on a black diamond on a really crappy day outside, where it's gonna be, you know, super cold. And, yeah, let's go. I'm in, like, the whole time, I'm like, I hate this. I hate this is terrible. But I didn't care because all I wanted to do it was like, I was great at the game of seduction. And in fact, I went. I used to teach a workshop when I was younger called Seduction 101. I used to be in the. In the.

She, like, Seducing men sounds like it was a game to, like, get them to be into you.

Yes.

But then what? You didn't.

But then about six months later, like.

You'Re saying, what am I doing?

I was probably a lot like your ex. Like, six months later, I would be like, oh, I can't keep the game up any longer. Now it just. Now I don't know how to hide it anymore. So here's this thing that it's actually really vulnerable. And here's how it's gonna. It's gonna come out sideways and lopsided and not cute and.

Are you gonna accept me for who I am now that I'm not this perfect person that you saw for six months?

Totally. I mean, it sounds a lot of my life.

Yeah.

I gotta. I gotta say, from. From all of your exes. I just want to say I'm sorry to my exes. I'm sorry I. I didn't know better. And it wasn't, by the way, I was not doing this consciously. This was who I was. It was like, survival. It was as easy to me as picking up this glass of water and drinking it. Like, there was nothing to. Wasn't like I had to sit there and be like, oh, what am I gonna do next to make this person like me?

What happens when you seduce a man from a wounded place or a man seduces a woman from a wounded place? What happens to that relationship?

So there is a theory that we attract somebody who is at our level.

Of emotional development or based on our psychological wounds. Dr. Tara Swart would say, yeah, you attract based on your psychological wound.

Totally. And so as much healing as I've done, I'm gonna scan the room and probably be attracted to the person who's done just as much healing and is on in about my stage of development. I mean, because what would happen when that. I dated a fantastic. One of my best boyfriends. He was amazing. I was bored out of my mind. I was bored out of my mind and ended up breaking up with him for no reason other than I just couldn't name it, but it just didn't, like, make me feel alive. I had no idea what healthy love felt like or looked like.

Healthy love is a little. It can feel a little boring at times in some way. It's not supposed to be like this.

No, I know.

Firework.

That's. That's. I had to learn that, though. I had to learn what.

And I feel peaceful.

Exactly. I wouldn't actually call it boring. I would feel peaceful, calm, peaceful.

Not boring.

Yeah. Yeah. But that's how it felt in my system. 100 and so what would I do? I would scan for attraction. It's not like I knew out of the gate that's who I was going for. So what happens when someone wounded attracts someone wounded? Well, guess what? We're gonna hit against each other's wounds. Now. I want to say this because I think this is. I think this is important. Okay. We don't necess. It's almost impossible to go into a relationship fully healed. Of course, my perspective is we do most of our healing inside of relationships. It's going to be harder to do that healing. When two people come from trauma, when even one of you comes from trauma, it's gonna be harder. It's gonna be more volatile. It's gonna take more work.

You both need to be committed to saying I wanna grow.

That is to me the number one thing to look for. And it's not just someone who wants to do it, but who can be.

Willing and will do it and will do it.

And so you watch behavior change over time because we're all fallible human beings. It's not, you know, we're not perfect yet. Wouldn't you imagine that I am after all this? Just talk to my wife. She's definitely telling I'm perfect.

What kills trust more than anything in a relationship? In your mind?

Threatening the relationship.

Threatening it, yes. What is threatening the relationship look like.

Saying you're going to leave when you're. When you actually are not going to leave it? To me, this is the number one trust killer. Because what happens when you start to threaten that you're going to leave and then you don't do it, and then the next time you get into a fight, you threaten to leave again. Your partner now starts to not feel safe bringing things to you because they feel like every time they're going to. They say something that you're going to disagree with, that the relationship is on the line. So they'll stop feeling safe bringing things to you and you'll stop trusting yourself. So it is a one, two punch that is so detrimental to the health of a relationship. That and the threatening to leave and not doing it. I mean, think about it. You. When, when you say it, I'm gonna. And then don't think about how degrading to your own sense of what you're going to do. Own sense of responsibility, integrity, all of that.

Yeah, yeah. You don't do what you say you do. You're. You're weakening your identity and part of.

You feels that like it. Part of you feels that. And so as much as you can, if you do not intend to leave, there's a very big difference of I'm actually contemplating leaving. Really it is on the table and we need to address the thing that is going to have me stay or go and being in the heat of the moment triggered and just saying you're out but not meaning it, and then five days later you're in a spiral again. Like it is. It's so detrimental to health of relationship. I cannot overstate it.

I can only imagine the amount of traumatic experiences you've had in past relationships. Because I know I've had a lot of them. And one that reminded me of this is When I was 23, I was in a relationship with a woman who was a few years older than me. And it wasn't good from the beginning. Like it was just the dynamic wasn't right, all these different things. But you know, she threatened to like take her own life multiple times. Not, not like leave the relationship, but she threatened. Is she threatened that? And as a 23 year old, I had no clue how to handle any of this, let alone intimacy. Like I was just so, okay, what do you need me to do? Is like, oh, you know, it happened to multiple times where it was like a threat to ending her life. And I'm just like, how do I navigate this? What if this actually happens? You know, and I just didn't understand anything about it. And I remember one day after, like whatever the third time this happening after like I don't know, six or eight months or something, she was like, I laugh. I don't know about you, but I have like a laugh when something's really traumatic. You know, it's like thinking of a memory. I'm like, this is not that funny. But it was scary.

This is like in therapy when someone laughs and it's ha, they almost died. And you've gotta be like, that's not funny. There's a reason, you know.

Yeah, it's not funny, but it's just like I can look back and it's kind of funny 20 years later or whatever. But she, I was sleeping on my this is how bad relationship was. I'm sleeping on my sister's couch. I have no money, I'm sleeping on my sister's place. And she comes, she's trying to call me all day and she comes to the her. My sister's house where she knows I'm living and she's like, I'm on the why I Laugh about if something's bad. She says, I'm on the go to therapy. I know, right? She goes, she goes, I'm on the doorsteps with a knife. It's funny. So I'm on the doorstep with a knife. I'm going to stab myself in the stomach if you don't come out right now and get back with me. And I kid you not. And this is all of her text, right? This is all of her text because I didn't pick up her calls and she was like calling me obsessively all day and I want to, I wouldn't pick up. And I kid you not, I was just like, something switched off in me where I was just like, this was multiple times after eight months or something. And in my mind I said, do it. You know, I was just like, I'm sick of being this person where you're threatening to do something that you don't do, you know? And I'm talking about if you're threatening to leave a relationship. But I'm a 23 year old and I'm just like, I'm sick of this. I'm tired of this manipulation. And I was like, at the point, I was like, in my mind I said, do it. I didn't text her that. I called 911 and I said, my girlfriend, ex girlfriend is outside of the house. Here's what's happening. She's threatening. I have all the text messages. Can you please come and do something? I don't know what to do. And I just called 911. They came and arrested her against. I laughed because it was just a crazy moment in my life. And I remember just being like, I don't know what to do. What do you do in these environments where someone's threatening the relationship, threatening to take their life or doing something extreme, hurt themselves, harm themselves, harm another person, threatening something. These are things that we as human beings usually are not equipped with. Like we don't have the skills, the tools, emotionally, physically, logically on how to navigate the emotions of another person or the threats of another person. And it is a scary thing when someone threatens any of these things to exit the relationship, to exit the world or harm someone. It's. It's terrifying.

This is where 12 star programs like Al Anon, CODA, Adult Children of alcoholics, like, this is where programs like this are actually really helpful because they're not only free, but they, so they're, they're helpful resources in that way. But they, they teach you about what it actually means to take care of yourself when you are with somebody who cannot take care of themselves. And, and these could be relationships where you can't leave, where it's dangerous, where. And that's really what they're there for. So I do think this is where programs like that. Because you're right, we don't. Who's teaching us this? How? No one's equipped to deal with somebody who says, I'm going to kill myself if you leave me. I mean, no one. Unless you've ever been in that situation, you have no idea how you're going to react.

No idea. Especially if you're wounded psychologically and your immune system or your nervous system's off. It's like, ah, yeah. Again, your main focus is how to repair from conflict. Something you've researched for a long time. Is there anything that someone can do in a relationship that is unrepairable?

I think that's up to the people in the relationship. Like, for some people, infidelity is a deal breaker.

Yeah.

Period.

Yeah.

For others, they can actually get through it and it will make them stronger. That's just the truth. So I think in some ways that's a pretty personal question. You know, even people. There are people in relationships where someone has murdered someone else and they're still in that relationship. That person is in jail and they visit them.

Wow.

That's. That's, you know, so is there. I don't think I'm the person to answer that. I think that deeply depends on your value system.

Interesting. But in your work, I guess, with people who come to you for repair, you know, information and expertise, what have you seen that is almost like a deal breaker. Every time this happens, it's hard to come back.

Here's what I'll say. If there's active addiction, it's really hard to. It's. It's hard if not impossible to repair because you're in a cycle of retox and detox and you're not really in relationship with that person. You're in relationship with their dysregulation and their addiction.

Right. Almost. You're just saying I commit to accept this life for the rest of my life.

Yeah. And some people do. So I'm not even saying that's bad or wrong to stay, but I'm saying it's really hard to repair with someone who is in active addiction. It's also really hard, if not impossible to repair in situations where there's high levels of manipulation, you know, personality disorder, narcissism. Yay. I know you've had Dr. Ramani on a couple of times. Yeah. And so she'll speak to this much more intelligently than I will. But, but because what's happening in manipulation cycles is there is no intention to actually repair. There is intention for power and control and coercion. And when only one person is in on that game and the other person is trying to repair, both people have to be in on the repair in order for. It's a two person game.

You can't deal with them.

No. No.

So those accept I'm with this type of person. They're never going to change. Is this the life I want? And maybe I don't have a choice because my life's in danger, my kids life's in danger. I have to learn.

And then you make it work. And then you make it work however you need to make it work. You get yourself in a program, you get a therapist, you just, you, you learn to live with it in a way that, that you need to.

Yeah, interesting. So if someone's in addiction and unwilling to, to get out of addiction, that's really hard to have a thriving relationship.

You're in a. You're in a relationship with their dysregulation. They're consistently going to be in either on a substance or coming off of a substance. And that's impossible to. You have in order to repair. You have to be in a regulated place, at least one of you. And if one person is always the one who's dysregulated, they have. And with addiction it's hard to come into a regulated state ever really. Like you're always again in kind of detox or retox. That's consistently happening in the background. So it may not be impossible, but it is really, really hard. And it takes a lot of skill. And it's probably, I would say one mistake I see couples make a lot of and I see this online more than anything is that they, to your point of therapy and getting into the work, they try over and over again to work whatever their trigger dance is without support and their nervous systems are in too much intensity to actually address it on like you need a third party. Thank goodness for the kind of generation of practitioners and facilitators and therapists and coaches who came before us, who normalized therapy because now we're in a culture who says therapy is fine. But getting into therapy earlier, to your point that you've talked about, I think or coaching or whatever, getting support earlier. A lot of times people. Here's the thing. A lot of times People wait a really long time to come to see a couple's therapist or practitioner. And by the time they get there, it might not be too late. It might be too late, but at that point, you've got to have somebody who is so skilled to work with you. And the truth is, couples therapy is super hard. There just aren't that many great couples therapists. If you start at the beginning, though, when things aren't as bad, your couples therapist doesn't have to be as good.

Yeah, it's true.

But if you start where things are like it is, do or die, and you're on the brink, good luck. Your therapist, first of all, it's like a miracle. It is, it's, it's just really hard to find a really good therapist.

And here's the thing, you know, you got to give. It's. Yeah, I feel for couples therapists because you're not just trying to help a relationship. You have to address each individual's childhood wounds and nervous systems and understand the psychoanalysis of each individual and their nervous system and then the relationship. It's like you're helping three people.

Yeah.

It's not two individuals and a relationship with individual history of both. And then relationship history. It's three entities totally in an hour session once every month. Good luck.

I know. Or 50 minutes, which is what a lot of complications. I know, I know.

It's going to take years. And that's why there is a lot of negative feedback with therapy. Because it's like, oh, we've been going once a week or once a month for six months and we're not getting improvement.

It's because it's a slow moving process.

Because you need, I feel like you need extreme exposure therapy individually to start healing and processing these things, each individual. And if one person's willing to do the work more than the other, it's going to be harder for the relationship to really thrive. And it's going to feel like it's taking years and you're still not getting anywhere.

Well, and this work in general, repair work in general is hard and takes a long time and is a slow process. This is something that I liken it to going to the gym because I.

Feel like you want to see muscles right away, but it's like years and.

You'Re never, you would never expect, expect to get fit going to the gym once a week. You would never expect to get fit going once and never showing up again. That's sort of how we psychologically think repair works, is I'm gonna show up. And I'm gonna somehow naturally know how to do this. But you gotta go to the emotional fitness gym and you've gotta practice all the time. It's like, literally, it's almost like we're expecting that we should be able to be able to play Beethoven on the piano before ever being able to play Chopsticks. Oh, yeah, we have to. This is the exposure. This is the exposure over and over and over the small things. This is why, like, having a simple. Okay, I know I need to do nothing at the beginning. I need to regulate myself. That's okay. That's one thing I need to practice. That could take. You could practice that for years. That's hard. Okay. I need to practice perspective taking. There's a fantastic. I. I don't know if you've interviewed him, but he's a former CIA agent named Andrew Bustamante.

I haven't yet.

He's fantastic. And he has this. I love what he talks about around perspective and perception. Perception is where I sit over here every day. It's okay. How do I look right now? Is this interview going well? It's where I live most of my life. Perspective taking is coming over to you and being like, okay, so how does Lewis think this is going? What's going on in Lewis's world over there? That's the skill. And really, you go one step further and it's persistent perspective getting, which is not just, okay, you have another perspective. And I can do the work to figure, you know, to get in your world. But like, now I get it. I have. I've been curious enough. And even curiosity as that one skill, that's a freaking hard skill. That's complex. That's like learning how to get out of your own way. Ask the right questions, ask them in a way that's going to elicit something from your partner that you've never heard. Like, these are hard tools. These are hard skills to learn. We need to practice them. But if I can practice getting out of my own perception over here and perspective take over there. But that's a. That's. He's talking about that as a CIA skill. Like, we're not practicing that on a day to day basis. It can be really tricky. But it is. But it is the practice that is required for entry. There is no other way. These. These are the skills that we have to. Relationships aren't as hard. This is. I think it was Alison Armstrong, and this is a quote from her that I'm going to butcher because I butcher every quote. I just can't remember them exactly, but it's something along the lines of relationships aren't as hard as we make them out to be. But we, the skills that we need are like we need to. We've just haven't been trained for relationships. That's it. We know, we psychologically understand that in order to get fit we have to go to the gym, period. Full stop. We have to work out. We just know that no one needs convincing of that. We have not yet learned. We haven't like really gotten at the core of ourselves what it takes to be in healthy, long term, secure, functioning relationship, Especially for people who come from trauma.

Yeah.

It takes a lot. It takes years and years of practice. And you can't expect to come into a relationship fully healed. That doesn't happen. You do your work on your own. But ultimately most of the work that you're going to do is when you get triggered inside of relationships, period.

Yes. And learning how to integrate the tools you've learned from the healing journey in the emotional reaction and say, how can I feel safe here?

Yes.

What's the tool I can use in this moment to calm my nervous system to regulate so that I can take a break? Not feel like I'm getting threatened and listen and then respond.

Yes.

And know that I'm going to be safe after this uncomfortable hour to five hour conversation. Ten minutes. Whatever it is that I'm safe after, it's still going to be okay. I may not like it, but this is going to help me thrive. And I think the more we can learn how to have calm conversations when our nervous system is frustrated, it's just going to help us be better in relationships.

Yeah. And that takes. We're not going to be able to have calm conversations if we're not used to that or that wasn't modeled for us at the beginning. So don't expect that that's going to be. That. That just means, okay, next time I'm going to be a little more or I'm going to be able to say one thing that's a little. That's, that's, that's the. It's the micro.

Exactly.

It's the micro repairs that actually ultimately 100%.

100%.

Yeah.

It's a journey. It's healing is a journey. Thriving in relationships. Listen, I'm only four and a half years in. I'm almost a year in marriage and I'm sure, you know, I'm gonna have to continue to learn how to do this like after kids and it's like.

She'S gonna be different after kids, her priorities.

She's already different. Yeah, she's already totally. I mean, it's like. And I have to continue to evolve and I have to continue to learn new skills, and I have to continue to be even more present and more patient, which is like, I need to work on the most all these things. Right. It's like, I gotta lean in and it's uncomfortable. It's not my. What I would like to do. It's not like, oh, this is all.

Easy, but this is transformation and growth, which is ultimately the dojo of relationships.

Exactly. And I think it's very. It's not easy, but it's rewarding. If we're willing to lean in.

Yeah.

And we can take the comfort, convenience road and just keep things simple, I guess. Or just try not to rock the boat. Or we can lean in and say, how can I continue to develop as a human being to have a. To have the best relationship I can have? Or why am I in a relationship? It's like, if I'm not willing to go all in and try to transform myself and be of service to the relationship, sure, we have to take care of our needs. We don't want to neglect ourselves. But how can I take care of me and then serve the relationship? I just think that's the only way we're going to have a long lasting, healthy relationship that's going to have bumps and bruises and stuff like that. But like, long term healthy is taking care of self and service to the relationship.

It's a beautiful frame perspective.

But again, I mean, I don't know, ask me in five years, but I mean, I just think that's probably the path. It's like, you've got to be willing to continue to reinvest in you and the relationship. Always for growth.

You know, there was a moment right before Emmy and I got married. It was two weeks before our wedding, and we got into one of the biggest fights we'd ever been to.

Two weeks before that, you both probably tried to sabotage it, you know, fear some substance. Sabotage.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was over something dumped. It was like a. It was one of those fights that devolved so quickly that anyhow, we ended up taking two nights of space and.

Two weeks before you're supposed to get married.

Two weeks before our wedding. Two weeks before our wedding.

Wow.

We take two nights of space. Space for her is like a breath of fresh air. She's like, ah. Space for me is like. It's painful. It's a lot of pain.

She's like, I'm free.

You're like, she's not gonna think about it for two days. She's gonna, like, romp around, do whatever. She and I going to be, like, in pain body. And I want.

You know, I'm just.

Anyway, that's who I am. So. So anyway, the first night, I cry myself to sleep, and I am just sobbing and sobbing and sobbing and. And in that moment, I have this voice that I hear, and it's like me, but smarter. Like that version of me who just knows something I don't. And she starts being like, it's okay. Keep crying. Keep. I've got you. And I'm crying and I'm sobbing, and she's saying, it's okay. I've got you. Keep crying. Keep going. You're not going to be alone. I'm here with you. Even if Emmy leaves, I'm here. Even if she goes away and never comes back, I'm here. And I'm sobbing and I'm sobbing and I'm sobbing until I. Until I basically cry myself to sleep that night. And the next day, I rewrote my vows and I said to her, And I think about this. I come back. Honestly, I don't even remember any of our other vows. This is the vow that I come back to all the time. I said, here's my heart. The most vulnerable thing I can do is say to you, you have it, and you do. You have my heart. Because what I really want to say is, you have my heart. Please keep it safe.

Don't hurt it.

Don't hurt me.

Interesting.

And what I know I'm saying is, here's my heart. I know you'll drop it. I know you'll break it. And in the moments where you can't help me pick it up because of your wound and your trigger and you're in your thing, I will do the work to pick up the parts of myself that are hardest for me to love and hardest for me to be with. And I won't have the expectation that you'll do that work for me. And I know that when you're able to hold my heart, you will. But when you're. When you're. Not able, I've got me.

Yeah, it's beautiful.

And I come back to that all the time in the moments that it is hardest to get me.

Yeah, I think that's necessary. And that's very internal family systems kind of mindset. There's lots of parts of us.

I use it.

Ronald talks about this a lot Gabby Bernstein talks about this a lot. It's like there's lots of parts of us. This is the body keeps its score. Yeah, there's many parts of us. And the highest conscious version of our adult self has to kind of build this like connecting relationship with all the parts of us that are wounded or the past parts that we haven't healed. And knowing that the adult in the room, the highest, healthiest whole version of us, it's like what you did there, it's like you had a conversation spiritually with the wounded part of yourself and you integrated safety within you. And as woo and weird as that sounds, I think psychologically we all have this psychological mind and it can mess us up a lot. It's like thinking of all these things, like our brain, we have to kind of take back the reins. And the IFS format mindset is like having that relationship with the wounded parts of us, not making them wrong. It's also allowing them to have a voice, not trying to block them out. So I used to try to shut those voices up and like, get this wounded part of like away from me. I don't want to show this part of me, but it was like, gosh, then I'm just abandoning myself. Like I'm doing what I felt everyone else did to me when I was younger. If me as the adult is trying to kick out the 5 year old, the 7 year old, the 13 year old, the 23 year old who felt like not enough, then I'm not healing that part of me. I'm trying to remove him from me. And that's not, that doesn't feel good.

And that's what's yours to own that, that your, that work your partner can support with. But ultimately your partner cannot heal from it.

They can't do it. They can't do it.

And it's where we get ourselves into trouble. I've certainly have where you expect. This is the 70%, right. Where your partner can only show up so much. But if they're giving stuff 70%, like a solid 70, that 30% is your. And you're still not, you know, you feel unrepairable with that 30% is yours.

Yeah. I mean you could also even reframe it. If it's 70, 30, you could say like they've got to give 100% of themselves and you've got to give 100% to like, what do you call it, 70, 30 or 100. But it's like you got to be willing to go all in and it's Going to look differently. But if we are not able to learn the strategies and the tools for self regulation, that is healing the parts of us that we're ashamed of feel not enough. Healing the parts of. I heard you say this early in the conversation. It's like, I used to feel like if anyone knew this about me, no one would love me totally. If anyone knew this part of me at this season of life, if anyone knew I thought this thing, if I did this thing, how ashamed I felt, no one would actually love me. And that was my biggest fear. If anyone knew that I'd been sexually abused and raped by a man, no one will ever love me. It was 25 years I've kept a secret from the world, from anyone in my world. And it rocked my heart. It rocked everything inside of me. And I was just like, I have to project confidence. I have to project that I'm strong. I have to project that all these different things. Because if anyone knew that this happened to me, no one would love me, no one would accept me. I would be alone for the rest of my life. It was a survival mechanism. So I had to learn how to heal and have, like, grace and acceptance for that younger version of me when the healing journey started. And just know that, like, okay, that's why I showed up in certain ways and that's why I attracted certain people and that's why I had no boundaries, and that's why all these different things. And have compassion for that 25 years of life which you're like, man, I missed out on all these opportunities. And what if I just would have known this sooner? It's like having compassion and letting that go and just saying, okay, now how do I create safety in me every day? How to create this sense of safety, a sense of harmony? And it's not always going to be perfect, but the more harmonious that I can create inside of me, the better I'll be in every relationship. And it's a constant journey.

It's a con. And. And you know, you know, and I'm.

Never going to be perfect. And it's, you know, it's, of course.

What, what comes up for me, as you say, that is this idea also around what we are tracking in our nervous system with our partners, that when there are secrets, when there are things that we're keeping, we may not understand it, but on the subtle body, we are feeling an incongruence.

Yes.

And that might have nothing to do with us. It might have everything to do with your shame. And you just. But depending on our wounding will then make it about us. And this is where we can also start a trigger dance. So this is. It's just there are so many, so many ways in everybody. So many ways in to conflict.

Yeah. I felt incongruent for most of my life based on shame, guilt, lying, stealing.

You know, so you can imagine partners you would attract would either pick up on that or be incongruent themselves or. Or then be getting mad at you at other things even though they're feeling a group. Right. That's just.

Yeah, yeah. So it's like having compassion for your younger self and having the wisdom now, hopefully, and saying, how can I use this wisdom now moving forward to stay in congruent as possible, knowing that we are again, have crazy thoughts and dreams and all these different things. It's got to come up. All these things. It's like, how can I live with my intentions, my words and my actions in alignment the best I can? Every moment when you do that, you feel peace. You may not like situations in life. Like things are going to happen where you're like, I don't like that you might still react. But if we can create more harmony and peace within us by being integrity with ourself, you're going to be in a more harmonious relationship with others. It's just going to naturally attract others energetically, or you'll be able to be more discerning, like you said, and be like, oh, this doesn't work for me or this relationship. I'm going to put this on a pause. Or maybe I shouldn't work with this person because you're going to feel out of alignment.

You know, it's. I love this. And, And I also think there's another kind of take on it, which is we. So we're in this era right now of authenticity being authentic with ourselves. And not that that's not important, it's super important. But what I'm finding interesting is that as authenticity rises in the conversation and speaking your truth rises in the conversation, there's another thing happening around. How do I want to say this? How hard it is for us to hold complexity.

Yeah, yeah. Gray.

Yeah, like it's gray areas. I believe this. And so, and so I have to hold to this and I can't change my mind. And I've. Or. And that there's like, you know, this is kind of an. Esther Perel has been talking about this a bit, and I think she's really onto something here where, you know, she has this quote, which is relationships are not problems to solve, but paradoxes to manage. And inside of ourselves, when we're on our own, we have to. We're forced to look at the paradoxes inside of ourselves. So maybe the part of us that wants to move close to our aging parents and the other part of us that wants to stay where we live because we have community.

Yeah.

And we have to wrestle with that on our own. Like, that's a. That's a friction that we feel in ourselves. As soon as we have somebody else in the room, a partner, all of a sudden, the paradox inside of ourselves that we would need to wrestle with, we can now polarize and project onto the other person. So maybe, you know, we're talking about parenting. Maybe there's a conversation within myself around sleep training or. What's the other one? Sleep training. Training or co sleeping. And maybe there would be a. Or breastfeeding for six months. But I want to keep my career, and so I'm going to need to do. I do that for six months or a year. How do I manage the. And do I want to do formula? And that's. These are complexities that we need to navigate and wrestle with in ourselves. But when we polarize with another person, all of a sudden, we no longer need to wrestle with the complexity within ourselves. Because if you hold the pole of we sleep train, then I can just hold the pole of okay, no, no, no. We co. Sleep. And that's the truth that I want to stick my stake in the ground on, and I'm going to fight for that, because we've now polarized into these two different perspectives, and I no longer have to wrestle with that inside of myself. And so it's interesting as we sort of started to have this conversation about authenticity and speaking our truth, and it's almost as if we're losing the ability to hold complexity of this idea that sometimes it's not gonna feel good, or we have to do things that are really challenging, that might challenge the ideals that we thought we once had, but that feel more in line with a self that we're coming into or we're needing to wrestle with it within our partnership, because we both have these different values or ideas about how we want to raise kids or where we want to live or all these things. And so I think in ways, there's a way that we've simplified the conversation of authenticity and integrity and that has. It's almost like this social atrophy, this atrophying of. Honestly, is it atrophying? Did we ever have the Skill I.

Don'T actually know.

Really makes me wonder about how we build our relationship with our ability to hold complexity. We're seeing this in the social political divide, right? And one way I see us being able to do this is through. And this is a huge conflict resolution skill, but is through stories like truly being able to sit with someone else's story, not need to be in agreement over it, but actually sit with it and contemplate it. But we don't need to do that now because everything in our feed is feeding us. It's an echo chamber of everything we want to feed us. So we're getting fear from where? You know, from the other side, and we're getting fed the information that's from our side. And we never have to listen to another person's point of view. But now we're in relationship and our partner has a different perspective and we want to be authentic with ourselves. What do we do?

Right. Something that me and Martha did early on was like. I was very clear. I was like, we need our values to be aligned, otherwise it's going to be hard. We need our values, our vision, and our lifestyle to be in alignment.

What happens when one of those values or the vision changes?

Exactly. Where in the beginning I was like, we need to be like 80% aligned on all of our values, vision, and lifestyle. And she was like, I'm in, and I need you to be flexible. You know what I mean? It's like. And it was like, it can't be so rigid. It has to be this way. It's got to be absolutes. Like, you were talking about absolutes, where I was more like, well, you know, I want these things to be in alignment. Otherwise, what are we doing? Why are we getting to a relationship if we're not in alignment? At least we have to have some alignment somewhere. You know, you can't have complete friction. And she was like, yes, and I need you to be flexible on things. And I go, okay. So it took time for me to learn how to be more flexible and make sure we're also staying in alignment. So I didn't feel like I was compromising values. Right. Same for her. She doesn't want to compromise values, but she was like, like, you can't be so strict on a rule here on this one thing. If I didn't live up to something, I'm like, okay, I get it.

All right?

I gotta be more flexible and this and this. And I think that's been a great thing. It's like, how can you be flexible with your values, with your agreements, and making sure that things are going to evolve and change and you got to be okay with it.

Well, there's. There's certainly research on rigidity in relationships and how if you are the more rigid and the more you expect perfection. Obviously this is not going to surprise anybody, but the less satisfied you're going.

To be relationships, you're going to be miserable. Yeah. Well, B.A. this has been powerful. I want to. I want to ask you a couple final questions before I do. Where's the best place for us to support you, follow you, connect with you online?

You can go to my website, bayavoche.com, b a y A V O C E. And I'm a voce on Instagram is mostly where I hang out. But on my website I have a couple of resources. I have a free repair PDF that you can get which has a ton of scripts for all sorts of of conflicts. So that's a good one. And I also have another worksheet on the change and effort mismatch. So for people who are in that kind of change and accept dance if they want some support there, that's also free. And then I'll be launching a group for repair.

So awesome. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Appreciate you. Wow, that's a good one.

Everybody has relationship issues they need to address.

Everybody.

Me included.

Everybody.

The only thing is not if you're going to do it, but with whom. Who is the person with whom you're going to say, I'm ready to do this work? So we have never expected more from romantic.