Episode 155 Better Communication In Your Marriage with Rebecca and Seth

No need to whine, it's whiny palooza. Have some wine and join us on the whiny palooza podcast with Rebecca Green.

Welcome to the whiny palooza podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Green. I'm a wife, mother of 3, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have 3 fur babies at home too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles, failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family.

Hello everyone, this is Rebecca Green for the Winey Palooza podcast, and I'm a very excited lady over here because I have my favorite guest on today. Hi, honey.

Hi, honey. I'm excited to be your most frequent guest. We should have a whole separate podcast, just us.

I think you and I could probably do a podcast every single day, if I'm honest with you. Um, we have stuff, we have so much going on in our lives, um, with 3 children and our marriage and our pets and our, in our, in our work life that you and I could probably do this every single day.

Probably, but let's not.

Seth doesn't need more, any more work to do, and neither do I. But, um, this is my wonderful husband, Seth Green. He has agreed to join me. We have a few very good ideas to share with you. So today is idea number 1, which is going to focus all about our marriage and some revelations that we have had to have make our marriage better.

It might apply to your marriage.

I think it can. I think it's going to help us to talk more about it, and I think it's going to help other people to hear it.

Absolutely.

And right, um, but I have to introduce you. I, I should— right, I should have started right with that. Uh, Seth is amazing. I was going over in my head all of his businesses because, don't make fun of me, but sometimes I forget something. So Seth is going to chime in if I forget something. Um, he is a marketing genius. He His company is called Market Domination. He also has Silver Spoon Financial. He's a financial planner. He does howtosavemoneyforcollege.com.

How to find money for college dot com.

Oh, see?

We're not saving that. We're not saving money. We're cutting the cost of college.

So Seth has really honed in on helping people with finding money for college. So if you have children, you definitely want to connect with him. And I am very lucky to have him to find money for college for our children. And he also has BMD Publishing and has published so many books and has a million podcasts going on in his life that, that his team, him and his team are managing. I get to be one of those many podcasts, and I greatly appreciate him and how all of his businesses benefit me and our family.

You did a great job, honey. That is, that is accurate.

Okay, so anyways, um, I could talk about Seth forever, but he is very good at keeping me on task, so I'm sure he will do that today. So let's jump into our topic, and I just want to give you, um, a summary of what was going on in our lives. I I tend to come at Seth with a lot of things that I'm thinking all the time. So, so I'm going to give you some examples.

It's Rebecca's permanent verbal stream of consciousness.

He said to me the other day, um, I felt so bad when I realized what I was doing to him. We were like in the car, I think, and I was telling him all the things that I think I had to do that day. And he was like, oh my God, I'm so overwhelmed, like, stop. And I felt so bad because I realized I would— I tend to think a lot. I'm an extrovert, and extroverts think out loud. So Seth tends to process more to himself.

Yes.

And I tend to process more to him. So, um, one of my many, many things that I work on in our marriage is not to overwhelm him with all the things that I'm thinking, including all of the things that I'm aiming for. So I want to give you some examples of that. Honey, maybe we should move and get a house with a pool, or maybe we should stay here and just put a pool in where we live. I don't really want to change the kids' schools.

Or maybe I hate it so— I hate New York State so much, we should move to Florida.

Um, I have had a lot of struggles with New York State over the last couple of years, but I— there's a lot of things that I'm thankful for. I'm thankful for where we live and all the people that we are surrounded by and the beautiful house that we live in. But anyways, I give him all of these things. I keep talking about getting a new car, a pool, a new house has come into play, vacations. What else have I, have I asked for?

Uh, you want to remodel most of the house.

Um, I have a house list in my head and I know I need to write it down and go step by step. And when I tell Seth my house list of what I want to do to our house, you should see his face. So we were having this dynamic in our marriage where I was listing things and Seth was feeling— you want to tell them how you were feeling?

Sure. And I think there's some, there's some context to that. There's your You— we also got to the point where I would feel threatened or not enough or inadequate because you would watch like Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and they go on these free fabulous vacations and you're like, look at that trip, why can't we go there? Or look at that house, that's amazing, we should have something like that. So it's been like every time, oh, I hate New York State, let's move to Florida. So I am a Rebecca and I have two different philosophies. Rebecca is, and I think you'll agree with this, I am a baby stepper. I take, I break things into tiny, tiny, tiny chunks and do one, want to do one little chunk at a time. So when we were, when we had moved in, when we decided we didn't like the carpet, Rebecca would have paid someone, ripped out every piece of carpet all on one day, and to be all piled by the curb, and that would be it. And we didn't know, we originally started ripping up carpet because our late cat, Rebecca's late cat, was peeing in the same spot over and over over again, she was having kidney issues that we didn't know about. So I went and ripped up that one section. And was like, oh my God, there's beautiful floors under here. I wonder if they keep going. And you were like, keep going. And I would rip up a little section in a room. So maybe a day, it would take a week or two for an entire room to get dug up. Whereas you would have done it all at once. So if you apply, if you think about that in terms of how Rebecca expresses her list and how some of you spouses might hear your spouse's list or how they might express it, She will go firehose. Like, it's like how people feel watching a webinar with me. They're like, after 2 hours, I can't believe all the great ideas I got. I'm overwhelmed. So Rebecca does that to me. I'm blessed by that. She will say the 87 things she wants or to do or strive, and I'm like, oh my God, my brain is fried. I can't process. I am overwhelmed. Please stop. You're freaking me out.

Well, and I think you explained that really well. And I think what I didn't realize was I didn't realize that I was making Seth feel no, Seth was deciding to feel like he wasn't enough, like he was inadequate. And when he explained that to me, I was totally crushed because if you know me, I am so happily married. I have a wonderful husband. I'm so thankful for our house. I'm so thankful for our kids. I'm so thankful for our cars. Like, I'm so— I walk around feeling so thankful and blessed.

Is my perception is you don't tell me that. You don't tell me that very often. So if you tell me 3 times that, oh my God, I'm so blessed, you tell me 21 times what you're pissed off about or what you want more of. So I hear that. I don't hear as much the praise because you need a lot more praise to counteract the, how come she got a new car? I want a new car.

Well, I certainly I think that our— I think that there's 2 things that we realized in our communication. I think thing number 1 is that I realized I was overwhelming you with my lists.

Yeah.

I think thing number 2 is that I realized that I was— that you were taking it as you not being enough with my lists.

Yes. And I was like, oh, I'm not providing this, I'm not providing that. I thought I was doing a good job. I guess I'm not. She's not happy. Oh my gosh, we have different, different, different, different definitions of happiness. Like, I will think— to me, happiness is I'm content, I'm happy, I'm good with what I have, I appreciate it, and I'm not complaining about everything that I don't have. And I was misinterpreting— this is on me— I was misinterpreting your list as attacks, as I'm not doing that, I need to step up. And I'm like, how many more hours? And she complains when I work more than 7, 8 hours a day anyway. What else? Where else am I supposed to find time? So I was misinterpreting what you were saying, which was causing me more stress, which is kind of like, it's interesting because I am much more enjoying watching Outlander with you than I would enjoy Beverly Hills. And it's not because they don't fight on Outlander. On Outlander, they kill each other. Like Beverly Hills, they're just throwing drinks in each other's faces. No one's dying. But what I realized the other night was, which I haven't even told you yet, Beverly Hills, Real Housewives of Orange County, all of those give you ideas. It's like, oh, that's a beautiful house, that's a beautiful purse, that's a beautiful vacation. I want, I want, I want is how I interpret you saying it. But never once have you said, honey, take me back to 17th century Scotland. I want to pee on a bucket and not have good food and no indoor plumbing. Like, we can enjoy the fictional show and I don't have to worry that, you know, if you say I really like 17th century Scotland, I'm like, yeah, it looks great, honey. I can't help you. I physically can't do it. Whereas you going, they have a beautiful pool. I feel like, oh crap, go make some more money and buy her a beautiful pool.

Oh, honey.

So more fictional shows and different— like Bridgerton. You're never going to say I want to wear 4 sets of corsets in like 1400s, 1500s England. I'm safe.

Okay, so Seth is not like that. There— I don't watch all of them, but I love the Real Housewives of Orange County, and I love the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and I and he has always been annoyed with me watching it. And I've realized lately it's because he thinks it's giving me ideas, but it's not giving me ideas. I love seeing their houses and their pools and their dresses and their purses and their— where they're traveling. I am not expecting any of that. Like, that is like—

have a fundamental— but this disconnect started when we were dating and it still exists. When I was— when we were discussing getting married, I will throw you under the bus and tell everybody the story of you went on a website. I was like, what kind of engagement ring do you want if I were going to get you one? Just curious, just looking. And she went on a website at the time called bluenile.com and designed a ring. And I looked at it and saw this very expensive, beautiful ring and said, oh crap, I'm not going to be able to propose anytime soon. It's going to take me way more than 3 months' salary to save up for that thing. And I didn't ask her any questions. I just said, oh, that's what she wants. I got to work on that. And she was like, he asked me what I want in a ring. Why isn't he proposing already? I don't understand. I know he wants to marry me. And it was because I didn't ask you any questions and assume that that's actually what you wanted. And you didn't tell me, haha, honey, I was just dreaming and kidding. You didn't know that I thought you literally wanted that ring. So we're still playing the same dynamic where you go, ooh, look at that person. They have a beautiful pool. And I'm thinking, oh crap, I got to go buy that $60,000 pool.

Okay. So first of all, I would hope that in our almost— it's going to be like 18 years. I think we've been together for like 18 years. I would hope that you have learned, and I see that we're still playing the same game.

Yeah.

I would have said yes to a $100 ring that you bought I mean, it didn't need to be the $5,000 ring that I showed you, first of all.

Second of all, $5,000— was it like you showed me was over $10,000?

Oh geez. Okay. Um, as far as the pool, I was telling Seth the other day that I am not aiming for the $60,000 pool, so we need to have more of a pool conversation. But what I want us to explain to everyone is that I started to explain to Seth that I don't tend to— like, Seth just wants me to just be happy, which I am. I am just happy, like, just how things are right this moment. And I will work on telling him more. And what I want to say to Seth and all of you is I don't tend to stay stagnant. No, whether it's work or kids or pets or, or goals in life, I tend to have goals. So a goal of mine is to get a pool. A goal of mine is to get a new car.

And so this is a very fundamental, important lesson, and I'm interrupting and I'm sorry, for every married couple or couple listening or watching this, because For years we had this conflict and it didn't start to improve in my perception until recently when I was always like, can't you just be happy? She said it. She just quoted me back to you guys. She said, I would say, can't you just be happy? And she would ask, she asked me a brilliant question. It was a couple of weeks ago. You said, I don't know if you realize this. You were like, are you ever just happy at work? Aren't you always learning something? Aren't you always growing? Aren't you always trying to get to another level? Aren't you always improving things? I said, oh my God, you're totally right. And she said, you have goals at work like every single day. I'm like, yes, we have daily goals. And she said, well, shouldn't we have goals as a couple? Shouldn't we have goals together? Shouldn't we, you know, whether it's a pool or whatever? I said, oh my God, you are absolutely right. Treat our marriage like a business. What are our goals? What are we trying to get to? And then you said, well, the pool is a goal, or remodeling this room is a goal. And I said, oh my God, now you're speaking my love language. Not a love language, you're speaking my language. Like when you said this is a goal, I said instantly started translating. The stress went away. I immediately chilled out and I said, awesome, how much is it? Give me a price. Tell me when you want it by and tell me what my payments are and I will go get the business necessary to fund that goal. Because you translated into my— the way I think, as opposed to if I came to you, I would talk in terms of, hey, you know, if you wanted that $60,000 pool, Yes, there's the how much is the monthly payment, but there also is I could take that $60 grand, invest it, and in X number of years it could spin off a new pool every couple of years if you want it, which would be turning it into your language of how can I have even more and not have to stress or work for it, work for it after I've worked for it once. So I think as we get better and better at translating into each other's languages, conflicts get resolved faster and our emotional intimacy deepens even more.

Well, and I think that you just nailed us using language that works for each other because me saying I want a pool makes you feel— I mean, we've talked about a pool for years, but I also am guilty of, you know, Seth is a very concrete, detail-oriented person. So if I really, really wanted a pool, um, part of my hesitation is the two beautiful trees in our backyard that need to come down, but I need to get over that if I really want a pool. So if I really want a pool, then I need to present to Seth, this is how much the pool I want costs, this is the monthly payments, this is the tree place that is going to come Like, if this is a goal that I have, I need to explain to Seth that this is a goal, explain to Seth the details of the goal, and then together we have to work together to achieve it.

Yeah, you could get it in 2 seconds. You don't realize that. Like, if you just gave me an itemized budget and I said, oh, okay, it's X amount a month, I need to go get 3 more clients or whatever to pay for that. No problem, honey, I'll go get them for you. And magically, I bet you those clients would come on board easier than any other type of clients because there was a more compelling reason why beyond let's make more money. It's baby wants a pool, mama wants a new pair of shoes, go get me this client for the pool as opposed to just in general.

There is so many things that I could say about the financial way that you're looking at this that I don't agree with right now, but that is, that is a whole nother conversation. I don't necessarily think that it would take new clients to get a pool. But that's a whole nother conversation. I think that you have a total— Seth, this is just one example. Like, we— he hasn't been presented with the plan. Do you know what I'm saying? I have taught—

when I talk about something, the kids know, like, some— Max will come, Ella will come, and they will give me PowerPoints. I'm not expecting you to, but there have literally been times that all three of our kids at different times have come and said, Dad, I've got a PowerPoint presentation for you because they want something big and they give me a presentation. I'm like, I would just go buy it for you just because you gave me a PowerPoint.

So I think that what we're all learning here is that if we speak our spouse's language, then we can make each other feel better and we can achieve stuff together. And what I have been doing for the last 18 years is telling Seth dreams that I have. Oh, let's go to Hawaii. Let's get a new car. What do you think about a new house? Like, I have just like come— he's so funny. He's like, he's like, do you know how like huge of a project and how stressful it sounds to move to a new house? That's a, that's a, that's opening a whole can of worms.

I guess.

You can all relate to the fact that when your kids are at schools, that you don't want to move them to different schools. So that really limits— if I ever was going to move, that really limits myself to where I'm willing to move to.

Yes. And I got to chime in and say, husbands, stereotypically in this case, another important lesson I've learned is every time she said something, I reacted. I'd be like, oh crap. And I got an emotional reaction. I started making lists in my head and going, you know, trying to fulfill whatever it was she said. It took me a long time to realize she is dreaming out loud. She is thinking out loud. And I no longer have it. The other day you were like, oh, we should go blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I don't— I didn't have an emotional reaction. I was really proud of myself. I was like, yeah, honey, we should do that. Because if I just humor you, 80% of the time, a lot of the things just go away. Like, you're not serious. You don't have a plan. You're not really going to get a new house tomorrow, or you would have a long ass list and be stressed about it. So I can just humor you and say, yep, that'd be fun to go to Hawaii and not argue with you because that doesn't even need to happen until you're actually serious.

Oh my God, that's so funny. We learn more about each other every day, and our kids even said something. Um, what did I learn about you the other day? Do you remember that you didn't go to Darien Lake as a kid? Yes. Do you remember that conversation? Um, and my kid— and our kids were like, you're still learning about Dad? And I was like, yeah, I didn't know that he didn't go to Darien Lake as a kid.

Yeah, I don't think my parents ever took me in there. I do not remember any trip in high school where we went. Um, I may not have been at school when that trip happened.

Sure.

Um, I may have chosen not to go. I remember the chem-free senior year ski trip. Um, so I remember that one, but no, I don't remember a school trip to Darien Lake.

Did you go skiing?

I attempted to snowboard.

Okay.

I had never had any lessons. I wonder if I was there. My only experience— no, it was my senior year. You had graduated already.

Okay, because I went to my senior year.

Yeah, chem— yeah, you agreed your senior year, you signed the thing saying I won't do drugs all year, and you got the free trip.

Yes, I did do that.

I remember wherever we went.

Yeah, see, so Seth and I went to the same high school. He was in the grade under me, and, um, we did not really know each other in high school. Um, but yeah, I'm still learning about him, and I'm still learning how to better communicate with him. And I can't express to Seth enough How I have to do it, I have to consciously do it more often. I am so happy. I am so content. I am so blessed. Seth and I together have made a wonderful life with our children, and he knows me, and he's gonna get things in the next, you know, however many years with me of We should refinish the floors in our house.

Yeah, we really should.

Um, but we really do need to. Um, we do. And, and we need to paint the stairs.

And I'm gonna say you want to paint the stairs and you want to— none of those are physical needs, they're wants. That's just—

okay, so I don't need anything except clothes, clothes, shelter, food. Safety, some love. Like, we need those things.

Yes.

The other things— whoa, I'm gonna knock over my ring light— the other things are extras. So our life is fantastic just how it is right this second. And there are goals that include home improvements and travel and things that, you know— and you probably have goals as a family too. Maybe there's somewhere you want to travel. Maybe there's something you want to do to the house. So this is something that is like, it's never going to end, but it doesn't make you any less that there are always things to achieve.

That is very helpful.

I feel terrible that I ever made my husband feel inadequate. He's amazing. He works his buns off. You don't work 8-hour days. Do the math.

I didn't say I worked 8 hours. I say you complain if I work more than 8, which is obviously since Max started football, a lot, all every day.

So Seth takes Max to, um, Seth gets to work, I would say around 7 o'clock a lot. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Um, and he doesn't come home until, you know, whenever his meetings end.

So it's usually 5-ish because I have to get someone to somewhere. I usually have to find some It's usually between—

it's usually between 5 and 6 o'clock. Yeah, it's typical. And it's a long day and you work really hard and you're very appreciated. And I think you're fantastic and I think our marriage is fantastic and I think our life is fantastic. And I will work on communicating that and communicating the other stuff as goals that I have that are not needs that we can achieve together.

Love it. So hopefully, hopefully we have amused you, given you a laugh, entertained you for sure.

What'd you say?

Entertained you.

Entertained you, brought you a little bit into our lives, and shared with you some marital tips to hopefully make your marriage better, right?

You might resemble this remark one way or another.

I, I would say people probably relate to this, and I think if you and I are having some sort of conflict, that other people are too.

Amen.

So, um, anything else?

I, I think we covered it. I think we gave some valuable pointers and some lessons, and I am sure there are husbands and wives out there in either role who have experienced something similar to this, and hopefully this helps.

Awesome. Well, I appreciate you doing this with me. We have a couple more that we need to do. We're going to do a Father's Day special for you, and we're going to do a birthday special because my birthday is coming up, and I love my crazy busy birthday month. So, um, happy June, everybody. I hope that you are all staying sane. I hope you are enjoying my podcast. I would love for you to to give it a 5-star review and comments on, um, I would love to hear from you, uh, your takeaways, your favorite guests. I love to hear from you. I love when you share, um, topic ideas and guest ideas because I do, um, write a new topic every week in my Wine Inclusa blog that you can find at wineinclusa.com. Go find my app that Seth created for me, the Wine Inclusa app. I'm on TikTok. My girls got me on TikTok, so come find me there @whinypaloozamom. I keep spreading my wings and having fun, so I hope you're enjoying all the content, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate you all. So this is Rebecca Green reminding everyone to spend every day laughing, learning, and loving.

Thank you for tuning in to the Whiny Palooza podcast. If you like what you heard, Please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.

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