#131: Beyond Betrayal: The Power of Agreements in Rebuilding Trust

It is through the agreements that we make and keep that help us feel good about who we are and how we're showing up and have a deep, deep level of trust and confidence in the relationship that I'm co creating with you.

Hey.

Thank you for coming. Welcome to the Love Shack.

Hey, welcome to the Love Shack. It's a little 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 131 and we're going to be talking about do you and your partner need to rebuild trust? If so, it's a common theme. There's usually at some point in time in every relationship history, places where we feel like we need to rebuild the trust between us. We're going to talk about how you do that and the best ways to go about rebuilding trust and what trust really is. But before we start, I just want you to imagine for a moment if all relationships had no agreements like whatsoever, what do you imagine would be taking place? How would you co create life with another person if everyone just did what they wanted to do autonomously, spent money, took care of the kids when it suited them, cleaned, went to work, cooked, paid the bills, and had sex how and whenever they wanted to. The reality is there is typically one person in the relationship that tracks the needs of the household and is typically described to be then because they constantly see what needs to be done and what is not being done. And very often their partners handle this by criticizing them, or even worse, by also trying to avoid a fight by agreeing to do those things of which they know they have no intentions of completing in the first place. But they don't want to have that conversation, they don't want to take that on. And if you really start to think about it, it's the lack of understanding agreements and the lack of what it is we're committing to actually between both parties and the lack of fulfilling these things that eventually ends up breaking down the trust that we so desperately desire in our relationships. So imagine for a moment if the roles were reversed in your relationship. The person who's taking care of the household tasks all of a sudden became the person who committed to a bunch of things that they had no intentions of doing just to avoid a fight or avoid the conversation altogether. And perhaps that starts to give us an idea of what typically plays out in our households over time, when maybe you're the person who either keeps track of things or you're the person who's constantly trying to get out of things because you have your own emotional internal experience going on. You're overwhelmed at work, you feel pressure, you feel all kinds of things. And I've seen this personally in my clients play out regardless of gender roles. I know you probably are thinking, oh, yeah, that's all women. No, actually, I know a lot of men who are the keepers of the household. And the women are trying to avoid the conversations to participate or be a part of. And yes, females can do it, too. So I want you to step out of the gender role for a minute and just think about the experience that plays out in our relationships overall, regardless of what gender we are. Literally, there are people, human beings, that are wired to keep track of what needs to be done and how much cereal is in the cupboard and where the kids are and what time soccer practice is and when the trash day is. And then there are others who are different types of thinkers. They're more of a big picture kind of thinker, and they're thinking about other things, and they tend to lose sight of those things that somebody else is tracking. And we can tend to go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll get to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's no big deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yet, come on, we're having real conversations in here. You have no intentions of doing it. You just don't want to say, you know what? I'm not going to get to that. You know what? I don't really want to do that. You know what? I don't feel like that's really my turn. You know what? I'm not going to do this. And so we make an agreement. We make a commitment, and sometimes we make agreements and commitments, and we don't even realize that we're making an agreement and a commitment, because it's happening in the cockles of my own mind, in my own heart space. I feel like I know what it takes in order to. Or what somebody should be doing. And I expect you to do that. But we're not having a conversation about it. And it's in all these small ways that we experience betrayals that end up sacrificing the trust that we have in each other and in our relationship. And I want to take this just a step further. I want you to realize that regardless of what side you might find yourself on in this conversation, that the true price is paid when we dump somebody in the soup. Because here's the thing I know to be true as a human being. We track what we're Committing to. We track what it is we're avoiding and what we're trying to get out of. And we track when we're asking for help and we're not getting it. And so when somebody makes an agreement and then they break that agreement with us, it's not only going to affect the relationship between the us part, it's going to affect the way I see myself. And what I mean by that is when you dump somebody in the soup, regardless of your story that you might have attached to that, you know you're doing it, you know you're avoiding it, you know you're shutting it down, you know when you say yeah, yeah, yeah and you're not even clear about what the agreement is, that you're not going to do it. And that causes us to circle back around and there's a voice inside of all of us that starts to say, you know what? You're so full of shit. You're such a liar. Why are you doing this? And then we exaggerate the story and gather more evidence. And yet I really don't feel good about the integrity, the confidence, the self esteem that I'm building in myself. And that's really the true price that we pay. Your confidence, your self esteem and your personal integrity. This is the true price that is paid when we dump another person in the soup or AKA don't live up to our agreements. Would it not be wonderful if we could have a conversation about what needs to be done? Everyone took true responsibility for what they could accomplish instead of fighting and comparing who has it roughest. Have you ever had that conversation? Like, oh no, I have it rougher than you. I do this and this and this and this and this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well you don't know what it's like to be at work and have to do with all of this, this and this and this and this and this and like we're literally competing for who has the rougher job in the equation called our relationship and our family and who is doing the most fighting about expectations about my expectations of you and how this was supposed to be done and your expectations of me. And these things have typically never been spoken nor agreed upon as a couple, but carried in the hearts and minds of us as an individual. Agreements are truly the gateway of co creation and after all, that's what a relationship is. And all the emotional rewards that you desire and long for being teamwork, being on the same page, trust, deep connection and safety, they all are a byproduct of making agreements openly and honestly. And then seeing each other keep those agreements, that's what builds trust and confidence and deep intimacy over the long haul in our relationships. And that's the only way I know of in this moment that we create an experience of us. Otherwise what ends up happening is that we live autonomous lives and we take care of the tasks of life and we check those boxes. But. But there is no us. There is no teamwork, there is no us working on something that is greater than the byproduct of us individually. It is through the agreements that we make and keep that help us feel good about who we are and how we're showing up and have a deep, deep level of trust and confidence in the relationship that I'm co creating with you. So without them, there can be no trust. Without them, there can be no experience of these things that we hold dear and long for deeply in our hearts and in our relationships. So if you're needing to rebuild trust in your relationship, agreements are an absolute must.

So is it fair to say then when whatever agreements have been broken, which is what I would sense is causing the trust that is no longer there, then we need to create some new agreements going forward to rebuild that trust?

Yeah, honestly, a lot of trust gets broken down because we don't talk about the agreements, we're not clear about the agreements, we're acting on the expectations of it. And then when there does seem to be an egregious thing that happens, we immediately go to the beat up the criticizing, not to the agreements. And then I can almost become obsessive in trying to rebuild that trust by thinking that I need to make my partner jump through a lot of hoops in order to rebuild that trust. They have to pay a price, they have to be punished, there has to be a penance to be paid. And unfortunately, all of that takes us to a furthering breakdown of safety and trust. So let's just talk about trust for a minute before we talk about agreements because I think it's really important for us to understand how trust is rebuilt. Trust by a product of how we hold it is kind of one of those nebulous things that we really don't understand. We know we need it in our relationships and all of us would agree, oh yeah, we got to have trust. Relationships are built on trust. Okay, great. How does all that work really, in the world of human behavior? It works a lot like this. When I say I don't trust you, what I'm saying is I don't feel comfortable risking with you anymore. In the beginning I felt like I could risk the world. I felt like I could jump all in and throw caution to the wind, and we could be invincible and we could accomplish and do whatever it is we wanted to do. And then something happens, a disappointment, a big betrayal or a small betrayal, and we start to go, man, maybe I need to be more careful. Maybe I need to reconsider. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. And there's a lot of doubt and fear and personal insecurities that start to funnel in to the relationship itself. And then depending on how I handle those is going to determine how much I'm willing to risk with you again and what I tend to do as a human being to try and create a safe space for me to operate here. As I start to get a little critical, I start to get a little demanding, I start to get a little manipulative and pushy. And I leverage you and you leverage me. And then we start the comparison game, like I talked about just a few minutes ago, where I'm comparing who has it worse and who's doing more and who's doing less and how it should be done and how it should go. And that starts this spiral of breakdown. Unbeknownst to us. What we're not talking about is, let's reset. Wait a minute. Let's talk about what you were expecting and what I was expecting. Wait a minute. Let's talk about new ways that we could go back to the drawing board and create places where I feel safe to risk with you again, and let's go from there. And that's not a cognitive thought that we have, but that's absolutely how trust is rebuilt over time. We take small risks that we become successful with over time. Builds trust. If I can trust you to do this little thing, then I can trust you a little more. And if I can trust you to do this bigger thing that I can trust in the even bigger thing, and so on and so on and so on. Once those little betrayals set in. And I want you to know that's going to be a natural, normal part of every single relationship. We're all going to have places where we go, ooh, maybe I'm not safe with you. Ooh, maybe I can't risk with you. Oof. Maybe I did it wrong. I got in too fast. I didn't give us enough time. I should have edited this out more. Those are logical conversations that we start to have around a very emotional experience we call relationships. And literally all we need to do is reset and review our agreements and Decide how it is and where it is we feel safe enough to risk again and create some. Some successes there, some successes will lead to more successes. Then all of a sudden I go, oh, yeah, trust you completely.

So even if. Let's just speak to the elephant in the room. The big trust one is obviously an affair, right? I mean, that's the one we hear all the time. But if I heard you correctly, even when that's not even these more subtle, small breaches of trust that, like you say, inevitably are going to happen in every relationship, these same frameworks and processes still are very important.

Very much so. Everything from the egregious we would call an infidelity. And I just need to say this, an infidelity is the biggest egregious marker in our relationships because it tells me, or I make up in my mind that when you have an affair, it means you don't care about me. I don't matter. This relationship doesn't matter. Our family doesn't matter. And if it doesn't matter, then what the hell are we doing? That's why that's the most egregious. I can maybe get over the fact that you forgot to do some things that you agreed to do, like mow the backyard, cut the weeds down, forget to pick up the chicken, or even.

Say, forgot our anniversary.

I might be able to wrap my head around that. But the egregious behavior of infidelity tells me straight up in my mind and in most of our minds that you didn't care about me, you didn't care about the family, and you certainly don't care about this relationship, otherwise why would you have done it? And there's a lot of reasons that I might have done that. But at the heart of us all, it literally dismantles the fact that you don't care about me. And if I don't matter to you, and if this relationship doesn't matter, then I guess we're done. So there's a lot of conversation, and that's not the point of our conversation today. We have other podcast episodes that are absolutely dedicated to recovery of an affair. And if you're in this place, I would encourage you to highly check that out. But again, going back to the conversation we did want to have, trust gets broken in every single relationship you have ever been in or will ever be in. It's only a matter of time before we're going to disappoint the person that we love.

What are the more so common ones that we may not think would Be a breach.

The idea of you committing to come to a dinner with me and our granddaughter and you never showed up.

Ouch.

Yeah. How about committing to mow down the backyard? And I have no intentions of doing it. And so somebody's watching that and it just never happens. And the days go by and weeks go by and I keep going, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to get to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to get to that. Or the fact that I'm plugged in and kind of cross and crabby and I attack you for seemingly no reason whatsoever. I just take my emotion out on you. And what I'm mentioning here, folks, are places where Tom and I have absolutely on the DL, done these very things. Tom and I know what we're talking about right now. That's why he said ouch. But I've done it. He's done it. You're gonna do it, Everybody's done it. And so before you get all up in your high horse about how your partner is mistreating you, just recognize and realize there are probably times and places where you too are creating little teeny tiny breaches of trust in your relationship based on what we justify and how we're showing up. And I know, like Tom said, that's an ouch. But we need to be able to look at those things and understand those things and how they play out on our relationship. So that's why I confidently, with 100% money back guarant, he's saying to you, you are going to create breaches in your relationship. It's not about that or what we call messes or compromises in our trust. It's about how we come back around and reset and clean them up effectively and efficiently and go forward from there to rebuild the emotional safety and the trust that we long for in our relationships. And that's why agreements are so important. Because if we have agreements for my person that they know nothing about, I can use them as a test to see what they do, but it would probably be better for me to disclose them so that we all know and are playing the same agreement game as opposed to me setting you up for failure. I have lots of clients who do that with each other. I play this role in my relationship. So I'm just going to stop and see what you're going to do. And they have no idea they're being tested. How about you set it up? I'm tired of doing this. And what I need from you is to pick up the ball here. Would you be Willing to do that would probably be a better test of what's really playing out in your life and in your relationships. But we set each other up for a test all the time like that.

I would say a lot of times people don't consider the little unspoken promises that they make with their partner or that they expect their partner to know just because it's maybe something they've done in the past. You know, you mow the lawn every Sunday, so therefore expect you to do it, but the other person doesn't know you're expecting that because you've never really fleshed it out as an agreement. But number two, if we don't do it one weekend or then we don't do it a couple weekends, we don't feel like we've broken anything because the agreement was never made. What we're trying to point out is that those little things are really important. So even if they're unspoken, it seems like to the other person that you've given up caring or that taking care of the house isn't important to you anymore. So therefore, the relationship isn't important to you anymore. These jumps that we make, that's how our relationships begin to break down. Although that's not the correct way to go about it, because verbal agreements, it's important to get them out and on the table so that everyone knows what's expected of them. But these little tiny slights are considered betrayals and are a breach of trust. And I don't think that most people consider that. So what you're pointing out here is really important for you, the listener, to understand, because we all do it. It's not just cheaters. We all break trust with our partners in little ways, but those add up to big ways.

I think the greatest example that's coming to my mind in this moment is when you leave the house. I'm famous for this. If there was a place where I would need to improve, it would be here. It would be. I leave the house and I say, okay, I'm going to be back in a bit. And then one thing leads to another. I decide to stop in and say hi to the grandkids. And then I stop by the store and I think, oh, well, I'm here. I'll go to this store. And three or four hours pass. I know where I am. I know what my intentions are. I know what I'm up to, but my partner doesn't. And it's like, hey, like, where are you? And if we're sitting in the void wondering what's going on. It, it leaves us to our minds can start going crazy places. Right?

And I would just say from on this side of it, it's not that I'm, I'm not worried that Stacy's having lunch with some man. It's more just.

No, but you're worried where she is, like if she's okay.

Yeah, just a general, not a like crate overzealous safety thing. But no, it's just, I mean after an extended period of time past where I sense she would be home, even on appointments sometimes Stacy runs over, decides to do other things, especially in the evening. I'll say, is everything good? I just want to know. Just everything good.

And I'm like, hey, I know where I'm at. Why are you worried? You know, what's the problem? And yet the problem is as you've left somebody else hanging. And that happens with our agreements too. Hey, look, I know when I'm going to get to it. I know how this is going to go down. I've got this. But if we're not talking about it, the person that you're co creating with is going to fill in the void. And when there has been breaches of betrayal, small or big turn into a horror movie. This turns into a horror picture really fast and it literally turns us crazy. I hope that you're starting to see that agreements are super important, that they really are the parameters of your relationship. And we can't really co create anything unless we have a set of agreements. And these lack of agreements, AKA in the pseudo form would be expectations are going to rock your relationship. So I want you to understand why you need them. I want you to understand that they eliminate misunderstandings, they build trust and they create a sense of we are in this together. How many times do we hear that co creation is what a relationship is? They also build confidence in self and in the relationship. So to not be missed, we have to consciously think about, take the time, effort and energy to create agreements. Especially when we are experiencing egregious places of betrayal in our relationships. So here's how it works. We start out really small because remember I said we've got to create successes. So I wouldn't want you to choose any more than three to five agreements max to really focus on and knock out of the park. And that would be number one. Number two is you're going to get clarity and know exactly what is being asked of you before you commit and say yes. And listen here, if you don't feel like you can keep it and make good on it, then don't commit to it. That's going to save you and your partner, even though they might have a shit fit on the front side. Better for them to have a shit fit on the front side than to continue the breakdown of trust and betrayal and the experiences of dumping you in the soup. There's nothing worse on both sides for that. You engage in what I call the race to the bottom. Okay? The number three. You got to keep them. You got to keep your agreements or renegotiate them before you break them, not after the fact. Sometimes that happens. I'm sorry, time got away from me. I had an every intention of doing it, but you want those to be on the exception, not the regular. Be mindful of the commitments that you make. And that's why it's important you don't have too many. We want to knock this out of the park. So keep the agreements that you commit come heck or high water or renegotiate them before they are broken. And if you make a mistake with them, you need to clean it up quickly and you also need to allow space for it to happen. And number five, understand that do overs, they can be created in a nanosecond. I'm sorry, I committed to this. I agreed to this. I broke this agreement. Here's what I'm going to do to fix it it. Let's go again. Let's re agree and go again. That's really important. And then the last super tip that I have with you is stay out of either or thinking. Focus your attention on creating what you both want and only use your past experiences to learn from as you decide how it is. You need to course correct, agree on this and then go again. And so here's some small agreements in categories that I no effect relationship. There's actually 10 of them that we talk about a lot in my work. And I'm going to go through them with you really quickly and I'm going to give you some ideas about some agreements that you can make in each category. Again, pick three to five of the top things that are playing out in your relationship. Don't overburden yourself with all 10. Most relationships operate where we have many of these categories going really well. And then there's two to three categories that are really rocking the boat. So focus on those two to three categories.

I think a lot of times in relationships, every single expectation that people have is unspoken because we're just not taught that agreements are a thing in relationships. So if a relationship is struggling but not Necessarily with trust, just in general. Would creating these agreements help them as well?

Absolutely, absolutely. Because we are all running in what I call our movies, our internal narratives, and we have these expectations that are constantly not being met. And then we make up a whole scenario about that and we stack on it. So absolutely that would be the case. And so verbalizing those things, being able to vet those things out, and deciding on some things that we do want to pursue as agreements in our relationships will help us feel like we have an us, we have a team, we're working on something as a couple instead of what we typically do, which is the criticism, the nagging, the comparing, who has it worse, who's doing more, whose turn it is. You know, we compete a lot for just the acknowledgement and the validation that we're all seeking as an individual that breaks our relationships down big time.

So these 11 categories, these are the big ones that we find where most of the banging of the head, so to speak, take place.

I'm going to go through them one at a time and I'm just going to give you very quickly some ideas that you can contemplate creating as far as agreements that might work for you.

And are these 11 places of significant agreements a big part of our lease option contract for love?

Oh, look what you just brought up.

Yeah, we're not going to get into.

That, but no, we're not. We do have a lease option contract for love. And this is why we've created it is because agreements, whether we're navigating through a difficult time or we're starting a brand new relationship from scratch, help us decide what it is we can accomplish and where it is we can go as a couple. Gotcha. It is the model for co creation. So number one, the subject of sex, we all know that's a big topic, like dun dun dun. We might as well go big or go home, right? So sex, a small agreement that you could make with your partner is. Let's talk about it. Let's just talk about sex. Let's have an agreement to talk about it. As awkward and uncomfortable as we may find it. What does sex mean to you? What comes up for you when you think about sex? What are your experiences with sex? What were your experiences around sex when you were growing up? How was sex talked about in your life? What is your reference there? So many things to talk about when it comes to sex. And number two, the exploration of pleasure. Like how about you and I just reset and decide what pleasure is to us and let's just use our imagination and our creativity and see what comes up. But let's just start from scratch. Those are two really simple agreements that you could have around the context of sex. If infidelity is part of the mix, that conversation about sex, about intimacy, about love, is huge. And so we want to have an agreement to talk about sex. And you're probably going to need some help and support about creating agreements around rebuilding the trust there around sex, because it's not about having sex at all. It's about so much more. Okay, so there is nothing I can give you right now without knowing your situation and your circumstances and the people involved. I can give you as a small place to start. But I do want to reassure you, there's always a place to start small. And I would encourage you to start talking about sex, what it means to you, what you get out of it, you know, how you feel when you're having it, what is your reference with it, etc. Number two, let's talk about another big one that comes up. Money. Dun dun dun. So money is a big one that rocks our relationships. Who should be spending what and who should be doing what with money and who should be earning it and how much should be earned and why I'm earning more. How come you're not pulling your weight? These are all big conversations when it comes to money. Some simple agreements that you can have around money is expressed. Explore truly what is wanted from money. What do we want to co create? What do we want to do? So many times it's like this idea of a couple will say, I want to have a ranch in the country and I want to live in the city with all the lights and be able to attend all the shows. And both people are fighting for those things, but we're not talking about those things. And we don't realize we're co creating totally different realities and hopeful that the other person will come through for us. So having conversations about money, about what it is we want to save and create and explore and experience together as a couple and as a family are really, really important. Another small agreement could be let's set a budget. I mean that I know. And every I even go budget. Oh, it's so unfun. I know. But we can't go anywhere unless we know what we're spending and what our expenses are. And then it prevents us from being able to fine tune it so that we can start pursuing some of those goals that we have. So a budget would be appropriate and then we could set spending limits and we could Also save for something very special and something very fun that we would both look forward to putting in and co creating together. Another one is drugs, alcohol and porn. Like I said, go big or go.

Someone just swerved off the road. If you're listening to this driving, please take some.

Yeah, it's okay. Again, these are the things that affect our relationships, but we never talk about them. Drugs, alcohol and porn. What is a simple doable limit we can support each other with? I don't care what your relationship is with drugs, alcohol and porn. What I care about is that you're having conversations about what our limits are with drugs, alcohol and porn and how it's going to be a part of our relationship. Relationship. There needs to be agreements around that that we feel are doable and keepable. Often what happens in these three things is that we do them in secret. We do them in the down low. We do them right with where nobody else is watching. And what we don't realize typically is that that's what begins the drive to drive addiction is the fact that I need to do it in secret.

Well, and I think it's important to share this right now. We've said if you've listened and thank you, if you're listening, we appreciate you listening is, you know, the only agreements that matter are the agreements between the people involved in relationships. So these areas, these first three especially, we can get really caught up in what is the narrative on maybe how we were raised or if we were lays, maybe in a strong cultural tradition or religious, whatever that is, we can get caught up in a way. But the only agreements that matter are the agreements between you and your special someone. That's it.

You have to.

So make sure you're answering from that place and not what you think you're supposed to say.

Yeah, a great relationship is great because it works for the two people in it. That's it.

It's our personal agreement. But make sure everyone's on the same page. And if you don't like the agreement, then for heaven's sakes, don't put it in there. If you don't like the tenets of it, then don't put it in.

Well, I'm just gonna say. And there's the need for a conversation of clarity, like right there. There's lots of conversations that never get had because we don't know how to talk about the things we're not comfortable with. And we need to get comfortable. We need to learn the skills that we need in order to have those conversations. That yes, by Nature are uncomfortable and make your armpits sweat. Those are the things that we need to be talking about. Otherwise we're living lives of illusion. We're living in some form of pretend manipulation, etc. And the we don't want that for you and you don't want that for you. So the next one is family. And family I want you to think of like in laws, brothers, sisters, those are the things that impact our relationships. Is that what.

Well, it could be lots of them and maybe they're not. There are lots of them biological to you. So there could be a big package that comes into your life. I mean, I'm having fun, but I'm being real, like. So whatever that is meaning for you, whatever the family package is, make sure that it's my. We've had thousands of conversations around this one.

Well, and here's the thing about family. They always have an opinion about what you should be or not be doing as a couple. And they want to impart their wisdom and it's because they love you and they want you to be successful. But as you're talking about agreements, an agreement between a couple that is dealing with family is what I call a broken record statement. It's like, please support us. This is what we've decided to do, do for us. And just please support us in these decisions. I hear where you're coming from. I hear that you love us, you want the best for us. Thank you so much for that. And here's what we've decided to do about this. Please support us in that.

All of a sudden, that's everyone outside of our circle that's an expert on what we're doing. Yes, that's. Isn't that interesting?

Yes, I agree. And yet even us in with our kids and our grandkids, we can go, oh, this really makes me nervous. Oh, I hope this is going to go well. And we have to remember. Okay, wait a minute. At the end of the day, we want them to make the agreements between them ourselves and be good with those. Not necessarily do what we think they need to do. And that's just an important lesson that all of us as parents and grandparents need to remember. And for you, the couple that might be struggling with family members who are imposing their will on you, and you start to feel conflicted between your partner and your family, I'm going to encourage you to choose your partner and you guys decide what it is you need to do about your relationship and then ask the family to please support you with that. And that's the broken Record statement piece. How about children? Children can be a big one. We can argue about how they should be raised. We can argue about the routines in the morning and in the evening. These are things that we need to have agreements around, and these are going to play out over time. So you're going to find yourself as a parent in a situation you're not quite sure how to handle. You're going to make a decision to handle it a certain way, and then that might ruffle the feathers of your partner. And then you need to have a conversation about, okay, as this plays out in the future, what do we agree to do? Not necessarily fight about what happened and who did it wrong and who should have known better, but, okay, this is the way I chose to handle it. It was the very best of my ability. And so, based on what you see and I see, how do we want to handle it in the future? And so also, there might be some agreements around morning and evening routines, and there might be agreements around parent dates and spending individual time with each parent. As a child, I find that those things are really helpful.

How about time that the kids go to bed?

Yeah, that would be an evening routine. We gotta agree on that and how that's gonna go down and how we're gonna rotate it and who's gonna do what. Those are all up for agreement and conversations. While we're talking about children, too, I just recently had a client who was in the throes of a conversation with one child, and they didn't know what to do with this child. They had been really struggling and they were trying to support them and keeping their grades up. And the child had said, hey, you know, I'm not doing what I told. I was told I needed to do, but I really want to have this friend come over the weekend. And they were having this with one parent, and then the parent didn't want to deal with it and got conflicted and confused about how to handle it, and so they just dropped the conversation, left town. And then the parent that was staying at home with the kids to support the family ended up finding themselves on the throes of the same conversation. This parent said that it was going to be okay. No, this parent didn't say anything. And so I interpreted that as a child, that it meant it was okay. And now the other person is set up to be the bad person. That's a classic example of not having an agreement or some kind of a way we handle these conversations so that we're all on the same page. And in the Loop. Right. Even to say, I didn't know what to do, I got confused. I'm conflicted. What are your thoughts? Let's solve this together. Those are oft times, the things that create those small betrayals that we talked about in the beginning. Okay. Religion and spirituality share where you can and support our differences here. We're all going to have very different religious or spiritual beliefs, or sometimes they're the same. But if they're different, don't let that panic you. Just come up with some agreements about how you're going to operate this and be supportive of your person's religious or spiritual experiences. That is, if you want it to go well. Right. These are usually things that are very intrinsic and important to us. And then the next one is household tasks. And I would encourage you to explore what's possible here. Divide them up, have conversations about it, and don't make agreements that you're not willing to keep, because household tasks are really easy places for us to start rebuilding tasks, or, I'm sorry, rebuilding trust. If we can be successful in the household tasks, it's very easy for us to expand in some of these more challenging areas. The next one is emotional needs. Emotional needs are emotional needs that you have, that you long for, that you hope for, that you keep crossing your fingers for when I have a conversation about it. And more importantly, ask for some things that you need in order for those emotional needs to be met. We keep those usually close to the chest, and we don't disclose those. And so there's no chance of my person getting it. Right. So I want you to think about these things in terms of how you want to hear it or how you want to answer, experience it or a task that you want to see happen as a byproduct of getting your emotional needs met. And then the last three are physical health. That's an important one. Some ideas that you could agree on is eliminate one food group just to see how it affects you. Plan an evening or day or morning walk together, create a weekend outing that's related to moving, or how about take a class to learn more about physical health and what you can do to improve it it together. How about mental health? Very similar. Right? We can meditate together, give each other quiet time together, pray together. We can learn relational things. We can use communication skills to get through some of the difficulty that's pulling my mental health down. We can take classes on PTSD and anxiety and depression and.

Or maybe you could identify what you need and you could. You could potentially understand what your partner needs and he or she could do that on his or her own and vice versa. It doesn't necessarily have to be together, but just understand what's important for each of you.

Learn about what each of you are struggling about. Learn ways that you can support each other in improving our mental health. Spending time in nature I just want you to understand physical and mental health kind of find balance in themselves. So sometimes when I'm struggling with my mental health, physical movement, moving my body, being out in nature, it really helps to offset that. It's probably not something you intrinsically reach for, but it very much is a balance maker and vice versa. When I'm physically exhausted, sitting down and spending some time with myself and evaluating how I feel and what's going on for me, it's really good for our mental health. Having conversations about where I'm at, what's going on for me, and allowing you to do the same creates moments of intimacy. And so those two things are very much in tandem. And then the last one is vocation and career. And don't worry, I'm going to go back through these categories one last time before we wrap up here. But a vocation is simply something. Being a mom is a vocation. It's something that's intrinsic to me, something that's important and valuable to me. Being a stay at home dad is a vocation. Creating a body of work that is part of who I express myself to be. A singer, songwriter, dancer. The work that we do here, it comes from a place of vocation, not a career. It's not something that I found myself doing and I just make money at. It's something that is a part of who I am. And that's the difference between a vocation and a career. And some simple agreements that you can have around this container in our relationships is number one, especially if it's a vocation. Honor your days off. If you say you're going to be done, then be done. Because sometimes it's really difficult to be done when you say you're going to be done. So that we can focus on other aspects of our life and our co creation, spending money, making sure that we have agreements about what's going to be spent and that those are honored. When I'm building a career or a vocation and then navigating the change, being able to talk about the changes that are inevitable and the support that's needed in order to champion the vocation or career, those are all very important small agreements that we could do. So just to recap These, as I promised I would do, they are sex, money, drugs, alcohol, and porn. I know that's a heck of a combo. Family, which is your in laws, parents, brothers, sisters, children and grandchildren are a totally separate category. Religion, spirituality, house tasks, emotional needs, which are your personal emotional needs, not your partners. Physical health, mental health and vocation and career. So I want you to know that I know we've thrown a lot at you here, and I hope that I've given you some simple ways that you can start creating some small agreements again in those two to three, no more than five agreements that you can start to have conversations about in those categories. Yep. I would encourage you to keep it small, keep it doable, and then renegotiate those agreements before you break them, if at all possible. And I also want you to know that there's more on this topic being shared inside of the Better Love Club right now. And you can join today if you need more help and support in this conversation. That's what we do inside of the Better Love Club and above and beyond anything, make sure that you don't wait if you're struggling in this area, if trust is something that you're needing to rebuild, or this conversation around agreements is something that you're just like, whoa. Okay, now what I need a total, like, lesson on this and I need some more support in order to put this together here. Don't worry, we got you covered. You can go to my website@stacybartley.com and you can click the Work with me page. You can schedule a single session. You can jump into the Better Love Club or do a combination of both. Both are welcomed here. We are here to support you wherever you are. All I'm trying to impress upon you in this conversation today is that trust is a byproduct of risking. And we rebuild trust by creating agreements. That's. That's how it works.

Okay, I was just gonna say one last thing. If anyone is like, what the heck? My partner cheated on me, how is talking about who cleans the toilet on what day gonna fix this problem? You know what I'm saying? But that's just it. To close the loop, so to speak. You rebuild trust not by obsessively talking about what happened in the past or persecuting your partner or checking their phone every five minutes. You do it by saying, let's make this agreement. And it doesn't have to have anything to do about the big problem you're trying to solve. It's making agreements in all different kind of areas, little agreements that Stacy just lined out and then seeing if they're met. And that's how you rebuild trust.

It's.

People are so confused by this when we talk about it on social media, and that's exactly why we created this episode. So I think people might be surprised that this is the answer.

I totally agree. I totally agree with you. Because we feel like we need to monitor. And there's so much fear and anxiety that gets kicked up there because you've compromised the fact that I matter. And there's all kinds of narratives that are running. And literally, if I just realize I can start counting on you in some of these other areas, it literally gives us the ability to finally understand what was at the heart of that infidelity to begin with. So we got to start small and we got to start doable, and agreements is where we absolutely need to begin. So let's take a moment and let's have a little bit of fun here. The follow, the fun that I'm going to share with you today for this episode is literally coming from Deepak Chopra. He has a wonderful piece that I just love called the law of Giving. And the law of giving is just a practice, actually. It's a mindset. And I just want to encourage you to do it today or maybe tomorrow. Start the day with a fresh perspective. And the law of giving goes like this. Number one, wherever I go today and whoever I encounter, I'll give them a gift. And maybe that gift is a compliment. A simple hello, it's great to see you, or listening Earth, this will circulate joy, wealth, and abundance. Number two, wherever I find myself today, I will receive the many gifts that life has to offer me, from nature's sunshine and beauty to a kind gesture or gift from others. Maybe somebody is saying hello to you. Maybe somebody is willing to listen to you today. Maybe somebody is giving you a compliment that you need to receive and say, thank you so much. I appreciate you bringing that up. And number three, just an awareness, literally a commitment, because we've been talking about agreements in our conversation today, but an awareness and an agreement to keep abundance circulating in your life. This is literally the giving and receiving of life's most precious gifts. Caring, affection, appreciation, and love. It's at your fingertips every single day. As long as we make a conscious effort to commit to receiving it it and giving it, it will always be yours. So have a little bit of fun today. Can you feel it? Each and every week, we have a song, a theme song for our topic of conversation. And I just had to go with number one, Bruno Mars. He has a song I'm sure you're familiar with called Count on me. One, two, three. And that's literally at the heart of what it is we're talking about. We want to know that we can count on ourselves and we want to know that we can count on our partners. And that is literally how we rebuild after any type of betrayal, big or small. So have an enjoyable listen or re listen to Bruno Mars, a fantastic performer. And you can check out this week's song along with our entire relationship playlist by going to our website or a podcast page. Or you can find it on Spotify by searching up Love Shack Life playlist. That's it today for this episode. Anything you want to say?

I don't seem to remember that we introduced ourselves, so if you're listening to the first time, thank you so much. Really, we really do appreciate. We're Tom and Stacy Bartley along with our daughter Brooke Brown. And again, what you're sharing with us is our most precious asset, which is your time. So we really do appreciate it. And if this was meaningful for you or someone in your circle that needs to hear this, please share it. We really appreciate and and thank you for those that of you that are sharing it because our followers are increasing and that means a lot to us.

Thank you. And if by chance you have a question or a conversation you would like to have right here inside the Love shack, don't hesitate to let us know that by going to our website and reaching out to us. We'd love to hear from you. Bye bye for now. We'll catch you next time inside the Love Shack.

All right, it's time to leave the Love Shop Love Shack. But before we part ways, we want you to know our door is always open and we'll leave the porch light on. Ready to welcome you back whenever you need a dose of relationship wisdom. For more resources and tools, visit us atlove shacklive.com to dive deeper into the topics we've explored and find additional support for your relationship journey. Stay connected by subscribing to our podcast. Thank you for being part of our Love Shack Live Live community.