A recorded "Confession Tuesday" radio/YouTube segment (titled "SHE WANTS MY PASSWORDS") in which a caller describes his wife repeatedly requesting his account passwords and checking his social media while he is away. Life coach Rebeccah Silence discusses relationship disconnection, social-media boundaries, the need for explicit agreements about accounts and time apart, reconnection strategies (e.g., daily flirty texts, repair work), and recommends couples coaching if needed.
9, 9, 7, 9, 10, 55 Kiss FM. That's weak. It's Liz and a big papa.
And it is a confession Tuesday. Life coach Rebecca silence in studio. Inspired results coach.com Good Morning Once again.
Good morning.
So we're getting. Here's how we roll on a confession Tuesday. Of course, corporate trainings, your organization just reach out to inspired results coach.com and that's the best way to get a hold of her. All of the it's like Rebecca Sile. It's like grand. It's grand central. Rebecca silence.
Everything you want to know.
That's the best way to do. And of course inspired results LLC on Facebook as well. But what we've been doing here for years on confession Tuesday is we take your emails and your suggestions and we talk about them here on the radio. And Rebecca has no idea what's coming at her. And that's by design because Rebecca just this is what she does for a living, whether it be with individuals or couples, families, you know, corporate stuff. She just takes it and goes. And so if you want to be a part of it for next week, you can go to cnykiss.com Are you ready for this week's question?
I absolutely am.
Okay, here we go. Dear Rebecca, today my wife requested my password and I found out that she's been trying to check on me by putting verification on some of my sites. Snapchat, let's see here. Argument is that she wants to have my passwords not necessarily be checking on me. It's been a few times I've caught her checking my stuff. Nothing for me to hide, but it's annoying. I feel like there's no trust on top of it. She says that she wants it because it'll make her feel better about herself knowing that she has it and she can access my stuff whenever she wants. However, I don't feel that's fair being that she says I have all of her passwords. But quite frankly, I never got her stuff. There's no reason for me to go out her stuff because it's her stuff. Just kinda looking for a solution. I told her I can't be in a relationship that has no trust. I feel like that is exactly what's going on in our relationship. Not sure if it's because I'm away and have been away for a few months now. It doesn't seem like it's getting any better. I actually feel like I want to push her away and that's not what I want. We have kids together and we've been Married for a few years. Please help. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you so much for this email. And it's actually pretty hot topic when I'm, when I'm coaching couples, you know, social media and trust and sometimes long distance. I'm in a marriage where I travel and my husband travels, so I can personally relate to that. What I would suggest first and foremost is just paying attention to the disconnection in the relationship, right? Because overwhelmingly what I'm hearing is that, you know, your woman here feels disconnected from you. So when a couple starts to get disconnected, all of a sudden we have really rich, fertile breeding ground for drama, right? There's only drama if there's disconnection, Right. If a couple is solid and connected, there's no drama, right? So just consider that. So disconnection can very easily speak spin out, right? So in an effort to get reconnected because you're hitting fear that you're disconnected, it's very easy to kind of blow everything up, which is what it sounds like is happening here in the email.
So if you're in a relationship and all of a sudden there's, there's disconnection or there's space or you don't feel like you're in that groove, and I think that's probably the best way to kind of, you know, you don't feel like you're quite where you should be, all of a sudden there's that little seed of doubt, right?
And then, because now I have doubt and I'm afraid it's easy to take action, that only makes things worse, right? So in her effort to reconnect then, now all of a sudden she might be seeming needy and all of a sudden this guy is feeling threatened and the effort to reconnect didn't work at all.
Okay?
Right. So instead of fear based action that could only be probably make things worse, what I'm gonna suggest is number one, communication. And you two need agreements around how are we handling social media, how are we handling business trips or, you know, for whatever reason that you're traveling, how are we going to handle time away from each other?
So what kind of agreements are we talking about?
Like, so it's different for every couple. So when I'm coaching couples, I tell them I have no idea what's gonna work for the two of you. That's what we need to figure out. We need to wade through the muck of your past and not be focused on how not to live the past. Again, we need to figure out right here, right now, as fully expressed Adults what takes care of each of you and then come together. And what I call it is create a win win in each of these areas. And from there, you know, you could call them rules, but that almost sounds punitive. Sure, your relationship doesn't need rules, but you need a plan for each area of the relationship. You need a plan for money, you need a plan for parenting. You need a plan for, you know, your schedules for how the house gets managed. So I'm just talking about with social media, what's the plan? And every couple is gonna do each of these areas different. And what we would need is to figure out what works for the two of you. So what I'm hearing in this email is he's not interested in sharing passwords and checking each other's accounts.
Right.
He would like for each of you to be responsible for your own accounts. So, you know, that might not work for her. Like, maybe she wants a Facebook page where it's their combined Facebook page. Lots of couples do that. And so there's no right or wrong. It's just, you need to come together and communicate and create a solution that works for both of you. And it's very easy when disconnection is happening and people start acting out because of fear to want to push the relationship away and to want to push your partner away. But then you're just, you know, prolonging an inevitable end to the relationship. If you let those voices in your head that say, push her away, push.
Her away, take over, it sounds like that the person writing the email is away right now. What is a good way to kind of help reconnect? Because you're talking about there's, you know, a lack of connection which is causing all this. What's a. Real quickly, what's a good way to reconnect, especially if one of the two is out of town?
Okay. Yeah. It's another really good question. So disconnection happens so fast, too. I mean, it doesn't have to be that you've been disconnecting for months or years, and now it's come to a head, it can be a week, and things just all of a sudden feel very distant. So the first thing I would say is, you know, you can send each other, you know, a fun, flirty text once a day and try to bring fun back into the relationship, because if it's just all heavy and serious, it doesn't make it very attractive to do the repair work that is necessary. And the second thing is, don't be afraid of the repair work. It doesn't mean that things are a mess or awful. It means you care about the relationship. And then, you know, you also don't want it to be this super needy energy around having to talk to each other every day. So change your mind around I have to do this or else. And choose. Choose to care enough about the relationship to want to hear what's going on with this woman that you care about and for her, you know, care about. This guy is doing his best to juggle all the balls in his life and care enough to listen to him, too, because both of you have different experiences going on and it's easy to get wrapped up in what's going on with you and to forget that, oh, this other person has their own experience. So care enough to about wanting to communicate and care enough about wanting to understand what's going on with the other person so that you can come back and create some new plans for the areas in your relationship where there are breakdowns. And of course, you know, you can call me to do couples coaching or find another therapist to work with, but if it's really, you know, difficult for you on your own to come up with these plans, find some support.
Life Coach Rebecca Silence Inspired Results Coach.com is the website Inspired Results LLC. Like them on Facebook as well. And of course, if you would like your topic handled here next week, just go to cnykiss.com Amazing job as always.
