#121: The Truth About Trying to Fix Your Partner

I know it's hard to love them where they're at because you see them in pain, and that doesn't feel good when your partner is in pain and you know the way for them to get out of it because you see it so clearly. But you don't know their inner struggle because you're not them.

Hey, thanks for coming. Welcome to the Love Shack.

Welcome to the Love Shack. It's a little old place where we get to get together, explore fresh perspectives, and eavesdrop on juicy conversations to discover the things that really matter while having a little bit of fun along the way. This is episode number 121 we're going to be diving into. Is it possible for you to fix your partner? Hey, if you're new to the podcast, welcome. I'm Stacy Bartley and this is my lover and partner, Tom. He's the co host of the show. And we also have our beautiful everything girl behind the scenes, which she may make an entrance, we just never know. She kind of keeps us on the edge of our seat. Her name is Brooke and she's actually our beautiful daughter as well. So we kind of got a three for special going on there, don't we? So let's. Let's talk about this. Can you fix your partner? Is it possible to change your partner? I get this question a lot. In fact, if I had a dollar for every single time a person asked me in my office or online, we.

Wouldn'T be doing this podcast.

I know we would be. Where would we be?

Somewhere on a beach with a little umbrella in your drink.

Would you be threading puka shells and getting a tattoo in a ponytail?

Probably so.

Oh, I love it. That's very sexy.

No, all kidding. This is asked often.

Yeah. Why does my partner do this or that? What do they mean when they say or do this? Or what can I do to get them to change their ways or see where I'm coming from? And they want answers and we're desperate for these answers. And I totally get why our clients are asking questions like this. And it's because we want something to change, especially when we're going through a very difficult time. And the reality is, if you understand anything about human behavior, you come to realize as humans, we all feel like our way of doing things or thinking is accurate, like it is the way it is. You should also know that my intentions as a human being are exceptionally pure. So the problem must be with my partner. Right? If I feel I'm not to blame and there's only two of us in this relationship, then the only other option is you. And so I get hyper focused as a human being on trying to fix the one thing that I don't have control of or that I don't understand, and it's some version of this idea or belief, if I can just get them to simply start or stop, fill in the blank, then we're going to be happy. This is going to be so great. I'm going to be happy. And so I just need to get hyper focused on this one thing or there's few things that they do get them to see the light and, and then we're going to be able to totally change the trajectory in which we're going in. Now, there's one problem with this because when you attempt to bring it up or point it out or teach and preach about just the benign thing that you think would be so simple and so easy to get a handle on because you feel like you have a handle on doesn't go very well and it tends to create a fight. And then the more we fight, the more I try and get my point across and convince you that the way I'm see it as wrong. And still the problem is you don't understand. And you won't see it or you won't address it, you won't look at it, you won't deal with it. So see, that just kind of highlights and adds to my already predetermined idea that, see, this really is you. Because if you were willing to do again these few things that I just see are the problem, we would all be okay. And so this escalates and you think to yourself, how can this be to the person attempting to change things, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The thought process is I'm trying to help you, I'm trying to help us. Right? We're not happy. I know you're not happy. I'm not happy. So come on, just let me make these few adjustments in our relationship and it's going to be great. And now you're going to treat me like this when I'm trying to do all of this nice stuff for us, for me, for our relationship, for our family, like, ah, it's maddening. And so at this point it's really easy to become obsessive about your partner's behavior and we start making a whole bunch of things up. You must be acting like this because you don't care about me or my feelings or our relationship, or you're selfish or you're lazy, or you're a liar. And it could go on from there, depending on where we take it. You're a narcissist. You're a psychopath. You're avoid freak. Yeah. You're avoidance. And on and on it goes, as we're pulling further and further away, convinced that we just need to get them to see the light. And then I get exhausted. I get exhausted from trying to be the person who's advocating for the change. And the reality is, in this dynamic that we've just described, we are creating change. Change is absolutely afoot. Unfortunately, it's just not the change that you intended to create when the conversation started. Okay. Because the change is happening in that both of you are becoming more and more frustrated with each other. The safety that to share, to be present in the relationship, to connect, to be intimate, whether that's with our words or our bodies, is becoming less and less. And we're all pulling away, seeking a safe refuge as one person goes, come on, come on, come on. I know the answers. Just let me show you. Let me teach you. And the other person is going to, yeah, you just don't understand me. You just don't get me. You got it all wrong. You're accusing me of things that are absolutely not true about me. So if you're spending time doing any of these things, you're probably in this cycle that I've just described and realize these things are absolutely not going to take you where it is you want to go. The first is getting someone else's opinion about why your partner does or does not do X, Y, or Z. This is just simply going to provide you with lots and lots of different perspectives and opinions about why they're doing it, how they're doing it, what their ill intents are, the good intents are, and it really starts to muddy the water and not give you any clarity whatsoever. Opinions can actually create a lot of confusion because if you thought you had options with just your own thoughts, get the thoughts of about 10 more people and see how much more clear it is. It's not going to be at.

You know, even if you're talking a psychologist with a PhD who knows a lot of things about human behavior, they're still making a guess, they're making their best guess about why your partner is doing what they're doing. So the only person who knows why your partner is doing what they're doing is your partner. So if you want to know why they're doing it, ask them. That's the only place you're going to get the correct answer.

From.

And that winds up our episode for ladies and gentlemen. Just kidding.

But it's nice point that out because a lot of times we go to the two people who know more than us thinking that when they give us an answer that it's 100% correct simply because they know more than we do. But we have to remember we know more about our partners than the expert does simply because we live with them. But our partner is the one who knows the most about themselves.

Themselves. And a professional who's worth their weight. Gold is simply going to give you the acumen and the words and the frameworks to ask that question of your partner and not sit around and pontificate with you about what it is that they're doing and not doing and why that's. That should be a red flag because nobody has the right, in my humble professional opinion, to tell you what's going on with your partner. My job as somebody who would mentor and coach you is to help you gain the ability and the safety that you need to bring the conversation up so the two of you can explore it or explore it with me in our office together. But me deciding what that is for you so you can then hang your hat on that is a very dangerous and unprofessional place for somebody you're seeking help from.

And that's not going to get you where you want to go. That's just kind of gossiping, you know.

It very much is. Which brings me to the second piece. Assuming you know what your partner means when they say or do anything, quite frankly, is a setup for what I call the race to the bottom. And here's why. We are going to build and stack on that as though it's the truth. I'm going to start showing up in the relationship with you if I believe that you have ill intent for me. Our relationship don't care about me, don't want to love me anymore. And if I believe that's true with inside of myself, then I'm not going to extend bids for affection. I'm not going to really share with you how I feel. Instead, I'm going to start closing the doors and trying to turn my emotions off inst of come close, understand, have the conversations that are necessary to help us actually achieve a better understanding about where everybody is and what everybody is feeling. And so that's the danger of assuming you've got it all figured out. Because we don't. You think you do. I've even done this and will, I'm sure, because I am a human Being first continue to do this in my own life. And I remember making it up that you didn't really give a rip about me. And I remember you looking at me going, how did you get there? What the heck? What more can I do to show you that I love you, that I'm here for you, that you know I'm committed to you, to us, and you arrive there. Wow. And then when we have these kinds of conversations and have the safety to have these kinds of conversations and vet them out, you have a lot of those kind of moments like, wow, what? Like, help me understand.

We were at very different movies.

You were very different movies. But a lot of our listeners don't know what that means. Some of our. Some of our.

Don't we have an episode on that, Brooke?

We do. We do have an episode on our movies, but it's been a while. We'll have to do another one maybe. So that's why this becomes the race to the bottom. We stack on our assumptions. We're going to make decisions about how we show up and what we're going to say and what we're going to emotionally share, extend to our partners based on what I'm making up is true in my own mind without vetting it out. That becomes a very dangerous place. And that's how we go from once being really connected and feeling like we're soulmates and madly in love to years later feeling like we're canyons apart. It's because we've started to stack on these assumptions without vetting them out. Having the conversations that are so critically important to have in our relationships that continuously help us come closer together and reunite again and again. And the third is. How about this one? Set up a secret test to see what they're going to say or do. And that response means everything. I'm not going to tell them that I'm setting up the test, though, because that would be like they were cheating. I'm just going to decide. I'm going to set up a test and I'm going to see what happens and then that's going to determine what I do. Like, number one, that's a lie. Number two, even if they did have wonderful intentions, they might fail the test. You need to know that they might blow the test sky high simply because, A, they don't realize they're being tested and two, they're not seeing the situation like you are, obviously. And so the likelihood of them seeing the test and understanding it's a test and understanding how much weight you're Putting on this test is going to get overlooked and missed. Like, it is a setup for a tremendous amount of heartbreak and personalization and pain, quite frankly. So don't do that to yourself. Right. If there's things that you want to vet out, you can use your words. You don't have to set up a test to. To vet that out. There's much easier ways to do that. And then I understand that this gets really frustrating because here's the reality. We really haven't been taught how to do relationships, and we really don't understand them at the end of the day. But we all feel the pressure and anxiety of feeling like we have to be good at them. We're supposed to be good at them. And if I'm not, then there's something wrong with me. And none of us want that responsibility resting on our shoulders. And so we get frustrated and we start doing things like criticizing, thinking that maybe if I really point it out and just lay the truth on them really hard and point the finger, they're going to be able to pull their head out of their rear. That's kind of the idea. Like, maybe I just need to get more boisterous and demanding. And I got boundaries, damn it.

Tough, tough love.

Yeah. And I'm going to really sling it to them, and then maybe they're going to finally see where I'm coming from. And so we commence with the belittling, the punishing, the pushing away, the dismissing, the ignoring, the withdrawal of intimacy and sex and spending time together, of sitting down to listen. And we will simply cause us to feel really crappy about yourself. Like, the net result of all of that is, you know that what you're doing is not making you feel better about who you are, how you're showing up what you're doing. And we justify it by saying, well, gosh, what am I supposed to do? I got to get their attention somehow. And as a result, you just feel.

Worse about yourself and you're pushing your partner away, which is not what you're wanting. You're wanting to bring them closer into this whole episode. The motivation, I would think, behind wanting to change your partner is to have a better relationship. And having a better relationship is being close and intimate and having a person you can tell anything to and being able to express your needs and be able to ask for what you want and say what you need to say all the time. And by doing all those things you just said, punishing or belittling or criticizing, you're pushing them away. So you're going to do those things and then you're going to be sitting in your house one day and saying, God, how did we get here? And no, we're not saying it's all your fault. We're just saying this is typically the path that people go down and they don't realize that all of these things they're doing to try to fix their relationship is breaking it down even further.

Well, that's a great example. We say this often as many times. And again, it's nobody's fault. You're acting in the exact manner of what you're pointing out that's wrong with your partner. So you think how incongruent that is. And again, I've shared that like on our calls and people say, oh my gosh, I've never realized that, yeah, you're doing the very things of which you're complaining about in your special someone.

Well, and that's because we become so obsessed and hyper focused on our partner that we've lost perspective within ourselves. And we're justifying it with the idea that, look, my goal is, my only way through is to get them to change and see what I see and, and thereby doing. We totally take the focus of ourselves off of ourselves and we place it on our partners. And here's the frustrating part. You've just lost control of the one thing you have control over, which is yourself. And so then it does. It's a race to the bottom because I start to feel terrible about the person I am. As clients have said to me more than once, more than one client, this relationship is turning me into a monster of my, my desperation to love them, to fix it, to turn it around, to have this go well, to have us be happy. And I want you to see the intention is always pure. It is a sweetheart message at the end of the stack. But how we start to show up, it is very counter to what it is we said we wanted in the first place. And then we just simply lose our focus. Our focus gets hyper focused on our partner and we lose that perspective with ourselves until we can see it and catch ourselves and go, oh my gosh, like I really am a monster. I'm not handling this, this really well. And hey, any of us are culpable to this. Any of us can. You know, I kind, I say it's like viewing the donut hole. You're so busy looking through the donut hole, you're not looking outside of the donut hole. And so you miss the whole picture. It's just gotten lost in this hyper focus of trying to stare through the donut hole and there's so many things that we're not seeing and understanding that are equally as important at this, this pinpoint that you've decided to focus on on. And that usually leads us to Dr. Google, where I go to Dr. Google and I go, man, I gotta figure this out. And I start putting in some keywords and I start getting directed to some blogs and some quizzes and some surveys and then pop, I get the diagnosis. I know what it is now. Oh my gosh, Hallelujah, this is it. And it feels like for a brief moment that you've actually been given like a lot of answers. What it's done is just validated the fact that you felt like there were problems in the relationship all along. And if we were to be honest, you knew that long before we just took this ride that we've described. And so there's this pop of validation and you go, oh my gosh, this is it. I figured it all out. This must be the deal. And now we start sticking labels on the foreheads of the people we say we love. Which ironically makes things like criticizing, pulling away, belittling, dismissing, shutting down, ignoring, pulling out, intimacy, connection, sharing, all of that. It just makes it easier because now you're not my lover, my person that I've committed to co create life with. You're this thing now that has to be dealt with in my life. And it totally is a game changer in regards to the way we view our person and we view our relationship. And so personally and professionally, I feel like labels are exceptionally dangerous to saving relationships, to understanding ourselves and our partners. I think it gives us a license to truly pour the gas on that mistreatment, as though we could punish them enough to turn them around, to get their attention and to help them see the light. And again, it's the race to the bottom because really the net result of that is I feel terrible and have a tremendous amount of incompletion and regret about my own behavior at the end of the day. And so when this whole thing falls apart, which you can start to see, I hope I just tracking this path with us that where do you think it's going to go if you were to step outside of your own situation and listen objectively to the path we've just described, could you not predict that there's only one way for this to go? If we were to continue with this behavior, is there a relationship that can survive constant belittling, shutting down, pulling away, cutting off of smothering secrets in the corner. No, there isn't one. And so we're going in the very opposite direction of what it is we set out to create and why this thing started to pick up ferocity and escalation in the first place. And then when the fallout happens, which inevitably it will, if I can't catch this, we're left with a tremendous amount of result or regrets as a result. And that's a very difficult, painful place to be. And then there's a tremendous amount of cleanup that needs to be done, which absolutely can be done. There's always hope as a human being. There's always a way to clean up your mess, go again, create a do over. And that's okay. Sometimes we take it to extremes. I know I sure did on a number of occasions with my partners before I could really catch on to what it was I was doing. Which brings me to the conversation about my husband, Dale. I blamed him so much for what went on in our relationship. I blamed him for everything that I felt like was wrong. And I turned into a monster of myself. Like I would penalize him, criticize him, belittle him, shut him down, not talk to him, cut him off for days, weeks. I was so grateful when he finally was traveling because then I could just have my way with the house and the kids and I didn't have to make a place for him. And when that thing all blew up, and yes, there were some really hard things that both of us did. I'm not saying he didn't play his role too. But I was left with a tremendous amount of aftermath and regret about me now finally mustering up the courage with trembling hands and sweaty armpits to turn and really face and look at what my part was. And I'm going to be honest with you, it wasn't pretty. But I'll never forget that pain that I felt and that regret that I felt because it taught me that was not the way to ever go again when I was unhappy, frustrated, and miserable in a relationship. That there had to be a better way to understand how this all plays out and to handle the things that create pain and frustration inside of ourselves when we're co creating. Creating with another human being. And I want you to know that's true for you too. And so initially, we do take this track because we don't know what else to do. And these are the demonstrations and the models that we have. So if you find yourself doing it right now, or if you know you're on the other side of a relationship, trying to get better at relationships, then know that we got it. There is a way we can clear up the mess. We can learn from this. And the more painful it is, the more we'll remember it and the more valuable it becomes. So take that to heart.

I feel like when we get into these places, sometimes it's not even like it's real tangible problems. I don't know. I'm trying to find a way to express this, but you go to Google and you type in some keywords about what's wrong with your partner. And then all your thoughts are jumbled up into like this big tangled mess of like in cartoons where it's sometimes just a whole bunch of string that's like tangled up together. So that's what you feel like inside of yourself. Yourself. You're like, how am I ever gonna figure this out? How am I ever gonna get my partner straight again? How am I ever gonna. You know? And almost all the times the solution is not changing your partner because we can't do that, but it's finding a way or finding someone to help you untangle those strings in your own mind. And then you realize there's not even really a lot of issues anyways. It's. It's always inside of yourself. It's always dealing with that mess of tangled up thoughts inside of yourself. And once you can kind of untangle them, you realize that a lot of times it's not as bad as it seems.

You know, 100 and. And that there's always a way through. Right? It usually is the simple things or the sweetheart things that turn into messy entanglements that we don't know what to do with.

That's a really great many times there is a lot of complexity here. But. But the solution is not more complexity. It's not. That's never the answer in any kind of a situation. You look at people that are effective and whatever he or she does, they're very good at bringing simplicity to what looks like a complex challenge. And those are the masters of their crafts. They really are.

And just like me in my situation with my husband Dale, I can't feel good about the person I am and navigate this in a really good way. If I'm feeling terrible about my myself, like we show up in our relationships as good as we feel. And so that's where it needs to start, is I've got to start feeling good about how I'm showing up and behaving in this relationship. So at least I have a solid place to stand Amongst the many complexities or the seemingly any tangled things that are going on in my own mind. Let me just start there and be congruent with the person I want to be in this and through this. So that when I get five or 10 years into the future, I look back, I actually feel really good about the way I handled things. That's regret. It comes from the looking back going, ah, shouldn't have said that. Oh, I shouldn't.

Yeah. And that's really, I just to really pack stack onto that. I mean just think about it and if you can just stay in that line of thought, you're. It's really unfair to, to ask of yourself if you're showing up in ways that don't feel good. How in the world would you ever think to understand science and energy? That's never going to. So that's, to me that's, that's good news. Okay. So you need to, Siri says recalculate because that's never going to give you the result. It may give you a temporary moment of reprieve you but it's going to be very temporary. That's just not how it works. Energetically it doesn't.

So the answer is no, you can't fix your partner. But come on, you already knew that. But here's what I want you to know you can do. You can influence them.

I like that.

You absolutely can influence them. To inspire them to become better as you yourself become better and inspire yourself. So let's cover these relationships. Quick truths first based on what we've just shared with you.

Yeah.

And then let me.

There's listeners out there. Oh man. Come on, give me something. You've emptied my gas tank. My emotional gas tank is flickering on empty right now.

Yeah.

So let's fill it up.

Yeah. We can't change the way a person feels. We can only understand it. That's what we have available to us. We can't want the potential of what could be within a person more than they want it themselves. And that's sometimes really hard. As a lover man, I see you've got so much potential and greatness inside of you. And when we truly love people, we do see the good in them. Of course. Parents see this in their children and lovers see this in their partners. It is so much there and it is so real and it's so spot on and I want you to know it's so true. But at the end of the day, you can't want that more for them than they want it for themselves because That's a journey only they can take. We can't punish or penalize someone enough to inspire them to do better. We just can't. It does not work. It actually just makes us feel worse and less hopeless and more overwhelmed emotionally. When I feel like you're penalizing me or punishing me for the mistakes that I'm making, we can't sacrifice ourselves enough either to act for them, to please them, to wait, because it's going to take too long and you're going to end up sacrificing yourself in the long run. So that is not love. That is not a loving thing to do. In fact, that's usually a breakdown for everyone. So there's just some really core truths that I want you to know about the thoughts and the ideas that we may have around trying to change our partners. But again, we can't change our partners, but we can understand how to influence them. And so this is a much better option. So let's talk about influencing them. Like, how does that work? How do we begin that journey? And let's start with what influence means, because I think that will start to shed some light on where it is we're going to take you now.

Yeah, even me, I find myself you can trip over into is influence. Are you like. Do you mean manipulate? You know, that's a very. No, influence is. And I appreciate you bringing the true definition of what it is. It's a powerful attribute, powerful quality.

No, if you step into manipulation, you're still obsessively focused. You're still forcing, coercing, testing, leveraging, threatening.

The part where you said you can't want the potential of them more than they do. I also want to stack on that and say you have to love them where they're at, exactly as they are. Because in my first marriage, my partner saw the potential of me losing weight and I think loved that version of me more than the version I currently was. So I was always feeling like I was not good enough. I was not worth it. I wasn't going to be worthy of his love until I became that version that he saw for me. And yes, I know he saw it out of love and because he loved me and he knew I could get to that point, but it made me feel terrible. So if your partner is struggling in a similar way with overeating or, you know, addiction or anything like that, I know it's hard to love them where they're at because you see them in pain, and that doesn't feel good when your partner is in Pain. And you know the way for them to get out of it because you see it so clearly. But you don't know their inner struggle because you're not them. So if you can't love them where they're at, you got to really think about that because it's not going to work unless you can.

Well, and oft times we fall in love and we're in one place as a human being and then we don't stay stagnant. Right. There's going to be things that we're going to wrestle with down the road. And so it's the 5 year, 10 year, 15 year mark where we start to go, you're not the person I loved. And we become hyper focused on that because maybe they're going through a difficult time or maybe you're going through a difficult time. And we're trying to decide who's responsible for this. Right. And who needs to do what in order to take us back to the best days of our relationship. And so it's important for us to understand how. And that's number one of influence. It's that piece of radically accepting where you are as you are in this moment. That's where it needs to begin. And even if it's hard and even if it's challenging right now, because the two of you have become different people through the passing of time, which we all do, that's where we've got to begin if we expect to have any influence whatsoever over our partners.

And what's the give us the textbook definition?

Yeah. The meaning of influence is the capacity to have an effect on the character development or behavior of someone or something that affects itself. So you have the ability to inspire, to connect, cheer on, to motivate. I learned this with one of my daughters heavily as well, where she really struggled with a bipolar challenge beginning as a young, young child at the age of eight. And it was just when bipolar and the conversations were just coming out and she would become incredibly anxious. And through the years, I had become so hyper focused on helping her manage her mental health challenge that I forgot to, to tell her that I believed in her, that she could do it, that she was capable, she was strong, she was beautiful. And to point out all of her other fantastic qualities, it just became about, don't do that, take your med. You know what to do. Now I was hyper focused on the challenges that she would have throughout it. And I spent no time, zero time highlighting all the incredible things that she would do. And I think it's very easy for us to do that again, looking through that donut hole, you're missing the bigger picture because you're so hyper focused in that one particular spot. And so that's what radical acceptance will give you. As human beings, we tend to be attracted also to people who possess attributes we do not. And it's really important for you to understand that, like the person you've fallen in love with right now, I guarantee you, has attributes within them that you don't have. It's mysterious, it's sexy, it's erotic, it's mesmerizing. And we want to, as human beings, develop things to expand our own capacity. And so it's. What better way to learn it, we say unconsciously, than to partner with somebody who has what I don't? And it's those things that tend to be the things we think we need to change. Because when we finally come together, we realize, or don't, actually don't realize. We misunderstand that the reason why they have the attributes they do is because the struggles they have or have had in their past. And we didn't anticipate that. We just thought it was going to be all rainbows and unicorns and roses. We see the upside, but we don't see the downside. Just to put that in perspective and in real time, my husband, Dell, was a blast. You want to talk about somebody who was an adventure buddy from a dream come true, and that was what I was all about, I can tell you. Countless spontaneous trips where I'd come home from work and he'd have my suitcase packed and an airplane booked, and we would take off for four or five days. And in that four or five days, we would dance until dawn and we would ski the Alps and we would stay in these beautiful places. I mean, who doesn't want that kind of feeling?

Like chopped liver if you're just listening right now. No.

And let me tell you, the backside of that attribute. Crashed depression for weeks and months on end right there. There was a manic bipolar in him as well. And I loved it when he was on the upper, but when he was on the down, right? And I, I think back and think, of course, it's not probably customary for the average human being to go four or five days non stop. And the creativity and the passion that he had in those moments was incredible. But then there was this counterbalance of that attribute that I knew nothing about and grossly underestimated. And it can be like, that's just a huge piece of highlight. Yours may not be so easy to See, but I promise you, it's there. Like the things that create us don't just come because they're an attribute that we love and admire. They come by way typically of some of the challenges that we've been through and that we're still wrestling with. And from time to time, the development or redevelopment of those attributes or the expansion of those attributes are going to set in on us as a human being. And then we're going to need to wrestle with them. And sometimes I feel up to the task and sometimes I don't. But if I have somebody who's pointing them out and criticizing me and minimizing me for that, it's going to be much more difficult for us to get ourselves out.

A lot of people think that to change their partner, they need to dangle their love and affection like a carrot in front of their partner to be the reward that happens when they finally change in the way that their partner finds meaningful. And let me just ask you, when in your life personally has that ever inspired you to change? You know, it's mean, it's a mean way to, to try and so called support your partner, to remove all of the things that they love in the relationship, like kisses and hugs and sex or words of affirmation, anything like that. Imagine that makes your relationship the most unhospitable place to be. So maybe you're doing it out of love because a lot of people do, you know, and they think, okay, my partner needs to get healthy, they need to stop doing this behavior, that this is a life or death situation, we have to get this to change. But it isn't the answer.

Well, and sometimes you need to do something healthy for yourself and that's the catalytic moment that somebody needs. But you're not doing it out of Matt Malice and manipulation. You're doing it out of love and concern for yourself and for them too. And, and that's what tough love really is. When I have to make a tough decision about my own well being because I can see the cycle that we're in is not perpetuating anything that's good for either one of us. So because I love me and because I love you, I've got to make some changes that are really tough to make and hopefully that will be the catalyst that helps you to. That's the hope. And we've got to leave it with them because here's the reality. The individual person, they have the roadmap to doing what they need to address as they go through the strengths and the struggles of their Attributes, not you. You don't have the roadmap. And unfortunately, by consulting others, they don't have the roadmap either. So when we step into radical acceptance, we help them find it for themselves. Like, that's what that will give us. And that is the goal. If I love you, like I say I love you, I want to support you in finding what it is, you know, you need to do to get through the challenging time that you're in right now. What would that be? Tell me. Share it with me to the very best of your ability, and then I will do what I feel like I have the capacity to give, to support you in this. And that's influence. That's how we can be that standing for change, by being that person who's the cheerleader that says, I believe in you. You got this right. That's the greatest thing and the greatest gift we can give to somebody. I know you're struggling right now. Tell me how I can help you. I believe in our ability to turn this around. Because as a person outside of the person who needs to wrestle with the struggles, the only place you can play is out of support, if you will. Right. The cheerleader, the supporter. You can throw ideas on the ring, but they've got to be the ones to pick them up and do something with it. No?

And I would say also, and not in a vindictive or better than you manner, but to demonstrate what it is that you do to keep yourself feeling good about yourself. Again, I'm thinking in the athletic environment, those that are labeled as MVP most valuable players typically are not real vocal, but very strong in demonstration and their commitment to their own excellence. And that in and of itself rises all of their teammates around them. They're not real big on talking smack.

And they, yeah, they're not pointing out what the other people are doing wrong. That was what I was going to say next. You're not. This cheerleading is not calling your partner out and saying, hey, you didn't do that today. Hey, I noticed you stopped doing that. It's noticing when they're doing the good things and talking about that or, gosh.

I noticed this didn't happen today. Help me understand where you're at. Do you need something? How can I support you? What's going on? Let's inquire and get the deeper story right? Because if we just focus on the thing that didn't get done or the mistake that was made, it's not going to take us anywhere. It's just going to escalate a Fight. Okay. You're probably thinking, yeah, yeah, okay, I got it. But. But how do I begin this path of influence and understanding my partner? Partner. The first thing is this. Because you're the one listening to our voices right now, this is going to be on you. What I'm about to say next, you're going to have to set your own agenda down long enough to understand them, and that's really hard sometimes. And you're going to need to do this in order to avoid the power struggle. So somebody's got to go first. Somebody's got to say, okay, okay, okay, I'll understand you first. And then will you understand me? Right. Often our conflict and our fighting is, hey, I need you to understand me. And you're like, screw you, I need you to understand me. Well, I'm not going to understand you until you understand me first. You know what? Screw you, because I'm not going to understand you until you understand me. And it becomes this back and forth when really we just want to be understood. We really do. We just want to be heard. We want to be understood. We want to be vetted out, and I want to know that you understand it, even though you don't agree with me. Like, that's really important to all of us as human beings, and often that's what we're fighting about. So somebody's going to have to set the agenda down first and be the one to go. All right, I'll set my agenda down first, and I'm going to do everything I possibly can to understand where you're coming from. And you've been selected. You have been absolutely selected because you're the one that's here listening to our voices. The second thing I'm going to invite you to do is share what you would like to see happen from a place of inspiration and what you envision could be a beneficial potential outcome from your vantage point and point of view. And I want to help you do this by saying you can share anything that's going on as long as you own it. It's not. They're doing this. It's not. You're doing this. It's not. This is your fault. Because I feel this way. It's. I feel this way. I own it. I'm worried about this. I'm feeling anxious about this. I'm obsessing about this, and I don't know what to do with it. It. And that statement can be laid on the table, followed by a question. Do you have time to listen to me so I can share More about this. Is this something that you feel safe enough to engage with me about? Right. If I ask the question, it becomes an invitation into the conversation instead of that condemnation we talked earlier about. And you'll find that it might take a round or two of this so that they see that you really mean it. I'm not going to force you to come to the table. I'm not going to squeeze you or test you for an answ that I genuinely want to understand where you're coming from. And I want to create a space where you'll give the same back to me in return. And that's what an influencer does. They are the demonstration of how we can do this differently and in a much more beneficial, productive way to the to improve the quality of our lives individually as well as collectively. And you need to share, you need to lay that card on the table and then you can take the next step and you can actually ask for what it is you want. Now, that doesn't mean you don't tell them. You don't teach and preach. You don't point it out, you don't gather your evidence. You don't get out the graph. You don't tell them, I saw this person and they said this, you know, so. And Martha Ann around the corner says, the pastor, the preacher, the bishop says, that's teaching and preaching. Just ask for what you want. What I would like to see happen right now is what I see as possible for us right now is what I'd like to see happen. Is that something you feel like you could do? And there's that question again. Is that something you feel like you're up for? If not, will you let me know when it is? When you are ready. This keeps that radical acceptance that we talked about earlier in the mix. It's super important to do that. And then once we start sharing and we've created a safe place for this to happen, we can start brainstorming ideas on how to experience what we both need to move forward. What kind of assurance do you need? What kind of support do you need? Help me understand what's going on. When you, you feel depressed or anxious, type it to me. Tell me about it. Let me know what I can do. What are the words you need to hear? What are the physical gestures I can give you that will help you feel comforted and let you know you're not alone? That's all I have to give. And your person has the roadmap map. And then the last one is this to be an influencer for change. You've absolutely just got to focus on doing your part. No more, no less. From this place, what's possible becomes much more clear. And that is all you can do, if you please. You're overstepping that line. If you're waiting, you're overstepping that line. If you're feeling good about how you're showing up and sharing yourself and asking for what you want, even though it's not reciprocated, that's your place of win. That's doing your part, essentially. Think about it like you're going to do everything you can to do your part in this relationship, to co create with your lover. I'm going to get myself to the table and do my part and then I'm going to count on you to do your part as I cheer you on. And if that starts to become a struggle, then that, that's a whole nother conversation that we can step into.

You just, at least it's clear there's a listener out there and think, okay, great, I think I'm doing some version of that, for the heaven's sakes. And it's feeling like it's taking forever and I am running out of gas. What do I do first?

You've got to take care of yourself first. Because if you run out of gas and you tap out, we've not accomplished anything anyway. So sometimes, yes, it takes some difficult tough love to say, you know what? I've got to take care of myself now. I've given all I can do here. I've supported you, I've chair led you on and now I've got to turn the lens back on myself because now I'm falling apart and I've got to take care of that. And that is absolutely appropriate and that is absolutely loving. And that's your best bet because there's no benefit in you falling apart, waiting and waiting and waiting and striving for your partner to do that. It's one of the reasons why we created the Better Love Club. So at a person who is kind of that more cheerleader support role in the relationship at this current moment can actually come in and get the, the support that they need in the community that they need in order to refuel their gas tanks while they learn better and more effective tools and strategies to cheer their partner on and be that influencer for change. Because essentially what you're doing is you're holding the torch of what's possible. And sometimes that in and of itself can be a really difficult, daunting task. But let me just share this with you. There's a reason why you're in that place. And remember me sharing with you about attributes that we all have and carry. There's an attribute inside of you too that because of these difficult things that we go through, expand your capacity to become who it is you have the capacity to be. That probably doesn't feel really good right now, but it's a wonderful experience that I get in the work that I do to see how it is the struggles we're currently engaged in contribute to the person you're becoming. And that's just the way it is for all of us. There's going to be a bit of push, pull and a bit of of challenge there in order for you to truly embrace that. And you happen to be the torchbearer. And the torchbearer has a very important and sometimes challenging and difficult job to do.

When you feel like you're the one that's taking all of this on and really trying to, you know, the best you can affect change in your partner, don't dismiss and make sure you are doing self care for yourself. Yes. Because again I always we remind people look it when our emotional gas tank tank is empty, there's not much we can do unless we quickly start to make some deposits. And I ask people on our clarity calls how, where if you use the metaphor of the tank in your automobile we're all pretty clear where that's at always. And when it's empty, what do we do? Is there any indecisiveness? No. We go get some gas. Right. So yet many times we behave in ways as if our emotional gas tank is unlimited in its storage or not storage in its capacity. Capacity. It is as long as we keep refilling it it. And what we're all about here is when that thing runs dry it's a.

You gotta go fill it.

You gotta fill it. And there aren't too many of us that can go for in indefinite when it is dry.

No, we can't as a human being go indefinite. And so if that's where you are right now, I strongly encourage you to check out the Better Love Club for support for community and for refueling of that gas tank before you start making big decisions that are going to affect the rest of your life. Because oftens what we have, what happens to the torch bearer is they just simply run out of emotional gas and then they feel like they've got to tap out and be done with this.

And bring the whole house down at once. And yeah, it's. Don't make your decision from that place.

Exactly. My thought about this as I wrap this up. Anything else you guys wanted to add? It's a really important conversation.

No. And again, if you are. I love that analogy of the torch bearer. Look.

That's a.

That can get very heavy. Can be. Feel like you're carrying the weight of the world. You're carrying the weight of yourself and potentially your partner and your family, you know.

Yeah.

And all your responsibilities and things. And so I. I can identify with that. And so you just cannot discount oftentimes all the focus we're placing on others. You need to turn that inward and focus it on yourself. Because again, you hear us say this often, you do show up as good as you feel.

Yeah. And if you're expending the majority of the effort and energy to keep things turning, then you'd better make sure you refuel yourself so that you've got what you need for the journey. That's important. So don't negate that. Here's the thing. I love Leo Pascalia. I love his work. I use many of his principles in my work. And I love his quote where he says, most of us are strangers to ourselves, asking others who are strangers to themselves to love us. The reality is we must embrace and radically accept ourselves and our present day to create the changes that we truly desire. In the end, and I hope this has been helpful for you, that is the intent of putting this together for you. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm just saying letting go of changing your partner and stepping into that idea of being an influencer is just a better option for the journey ahead. There is a wonderful place of having some fun. And today I want to talk to you about the power of eyes and lips. I know you know you have eyes and I know you know you have lips. And I want you to know that they matter. Your eyes and lips don't simply cause you to see and feel. They also emit energy. Think about the last time you were looked at and it made you smile or tingle all over by just a simple glance. Or it also filmed you with strength and courage. A kiss can do that, too. Their eyes didn't just see you, they passed along to you. Energy from them to you. And it can even happen from across the room. And what about a kiss that communicates that to you? That you're loved, that you're appreciated, that you're desired. How you use your eyes and lips in your relationship matters and can have a positive or negative effect on your partner. Each glance you send, each kiss you give or don't give can create more love or more conflict at a distance. So this week I want to invite you, as part of our Follow the Fun to make an earnest effort to put the love and appreciation you have for your person into your gazes and into your kisses. Like, how much feeling can you put into it and send it across the room or plant it right on their lips? I want you to intentionally send it off and watch what happens when it's received. Check it out. It's incredible. So have some fun with that. Do it more than once. Play around with it. Have some fun with it. This week's song in our Phil can you feel it segment is Doubtrice start of something good. I know it's going to take some time, he says. I admit the thought has crossed my mind this might end up really good. I'm going to say what I need to say and I'm going to hope to God it won't scare you away. I don't want to be misunderstood. I'm starting to believe right now, in this moment, something good is about to happen. And I think that's where you are too right now. If you're listening to this episode on this podcast, something good can happen. And given our options about whether we could spiral into tragedy and think this is all for not or hold the hope and the torch that something good is about to happen, I personally am going to hold the torch that something good is good for you. You can check out this song along with all of our songs for each and every episode on our websites or on our Spotify playlist. Love Shack Live there's some real goodies in there. There's some real juicy ones.

Playlist list goes at the end.

Did I say that? What did I say?

You said Love Shack Live. But then it's a Love Shack Live playlist.

Thank you Radar. I appreciate that. That's it today. Wonderful to be here with you. Thank you so much for spending your time with us inside the Love Shack today. And if by chance you have a conversation you would like to have around sex, love and relationships, we would love to hear from you because, well, we're dedicated to talking about the things that matter most to you. And gosh, if you need some help, the reality is most couples wait too long. We're going to encourage you to raise your hand and do that now. Sooner is always better than later. And until we see you again, bye bye. For now. Have a little fun with the follow the fun. Check out our song and we look forward to connecting with you next week. Bye bye for now.

Okay, everybody, time to go. We gotta close the doors to the love show Shack for this week. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Come back next week, though, and join us for another edition of Love Shack live with Tom and Stacy Bartley.