#182: Should I Stay or Should I Go? Here's How to Move Past Relationship Uncertainty

Are you in a place in your relationship where you're constantly asking yourself, should I stay or should I go? If you're listening right now, it probably means you're feeling overwhelmed and heartbroken. Maybe the fighting never seems to stop, or you feel stuck in toxic patterns that seem impossible to break. Couples wait an average of six years to get the help that they need, and by then, sadly, it's often too late. But it doesn't have to be this way. Welcome to Love Shack Live, the podcast for listeners who find themselves at a relationship crossroads, facing daily conflicts and a growing emotional gap, but who also aspire to rebuild a bond that feels genuine and lasting. I'm Stacey Bartley, and I'm joined by my co host and lover, Tom, and our daughter Brooke. Today's episode is a special rebroadcast of one of our most impactful discussions, navigating the Land of maybe. Whether you've heard this before or you're tuning in for the first time, there's so much to gain here. If you've already listened, this is your chance to revisit the unique insights and strategies that can transform your relationship struggles into breakthroughs for new listeners. You are going to discover how to handle the uncertainty and emotional turmoil of wondering if you should stay or you should go. Because in this episode, we answer the crucial question of how do you navigate this impossible life? Land of maybe. We'll provide you useful tips on breaking free from this exhausting cycle as you move towards a thriving relationship.

This is especially relevant for those of.

You currently dealing with space in your relationship, offering you guidance that is timely and essential. Stay with us as we dive into the actionable strategies and insights to help you find hope and clarity. Let's explore the tough questions together and equip you with the tools to move forward today.

Hey, thank you for coming. Welcome to the Love Shack.

Yeah, Land of maybe is something that us as couples spend a lot of time in. And we're also going to highlight this is a part of every single relationship.

So what does the land of maybe mean for people that are saying, what the heck does that mean?

Well, the land of maybe is kind of this place where you're trying to wonder, like, is this, Is this gonna work? I mean, we find ourselves in these places where we go, this isn't what I thought love and our relationship was.

Gonna be happily ever after. This is not heavily.

It's kind of hard, and I'm starting to show up in ways that I'm not necessarily fond or proud of. And my partner is too. And we just kind of cross our fingers and hope this is gonna go a little better. This is usually the time, especially if we're newly together in a committed relationship, where we saying to ourselves and our own minds, or what we say in our body of work, babe, the movie, just, just don't be a problem. It's going to pass. It's okay. It's no big deal. You know, we start to just kind of start to minimize these things that we know are not working for us, big and small.

So could this also be a place where people that maybe have been together for, say, an extended period of time as well?

Oh, absolutely. In fact, this usually plays out in that regard. And so, you know, as we like to say, a little problem now, big problem later. There are things that when we co create or come together as a couple that need to be vetted out. And I think the thing that we don't understand and realize as human beings is that having things that don't work for us in our relationships is absolutely normal. And that prevents us from being able to navigate through these moments of being in the land of maybe, where it's like, oh, holy cow, I didn't know this was part of us. I didn't know this was part of our relationship. I didn't know this was gonna be the way this was all gonna go down. Because on the front side, we all make up this incredible vision, thank goodness that it's gonna go a certain way. And when we become disappointed or disenchanted by what it is that's actually playing out of times, we just don't know how to handle it. And what we find ourselves in is that land of maybe. And unfortunately, and this is why we're doing this episode, is couples spend their entire relationship in the land of maybe.

Yeah. So we're going to do everything we can to help you understand it and then give you actionable strategies and some skills and tips to get you out of the land of maybe. We're not supposed to hang out in the land of maybe. It's supposed to be a place of.

Navigating through, though maybe.

Stacy and I have both been there. It is, I would say, one of the maybe the most difficult place I've ever been in, relationship wise. And yes, we find our clients have hung out there too long. And guess what? You're going to run out of gas. Emotional gas. You cannot stay there. And some people choose to. And it's why a lot of destruction happens with themselves, with their physicality, with their emotions and their Emotional body, you know, as well as their physical body and types of breakdowns happen.

It's also responsible for a lot of impact on kids and our money, our health, our careers. It's responsible for a lot at the end.

So if you forget everything we've said, please, with great love and respect, do not hang out in the land of maybe. And I like to say the land of maybe looks like this. Some days yes, some days no, and some days maybe. So, yeah, there you go.

So, babe, when were you in the land of maybe? I call it hell on earth. Like, if there was a place that I would deem as hell on earth from my own personal experience, as well as, like, supporting our clients through this place, it would be this place of the land of maybe.

Yeah, well, I was there, you know, in my. My first marriage with my first wife, Roxanne, where I know both of us knew that there were, you know, moments and days and weeks and months of land of maybe. And it's very difficult. The most difficult, I think, for me personally, not think. No. Was the thought of breaking up my family.

Well, and that's the thing about the land of maybe is, you know, there's always a place where there's some good and then there's some challenges.

And let me just. I just had a thought here, and I'm gonna share it. We're not at all saying or suggesting that if you're in the land of maybe, you're not gonna make it. You can't do a redo and restart and make it better than before. Absolutely not. That was simply my choice, in my experience. But we want you to know, and we have success doing this, bringing people together in this very difficult place and having them create a redo. In fact, we're gonna share some clients that come top of mind that came to this two. To us, in this very difficult place, and now they're doing better than ever, so.

Well, yeah, I love that you brought that up. Janet and Rich, some clients that were in a really challenging place when they reached out and became part of our Love for a Lifetime program. And the story is, Janet had already filed for divorce, actually, but they were still living together. Why? Because Janet really didn't want it to end. She just didn't know what else to do, and she sought help. And her counselor was professing to Janet that her husband was a narcissist.

Oh, the. That. That was thrown. Thrown around here, man.

I know. And. And that's. That's a conversation for a whole nother time at any Rate.

Yes. So. So Rich was. Was. Was labeled, oh, that's good job we.

Did that at the same time. Labeled narcissist.

A narcissist.

And the counselor said, no hope. No hope. There's no way he's going to change. That's not what narcissists do. They don't care. They don't share their feelings. They are just interested in serving themselves.

And no dang good.

Well, it kind of is the label. You know, in human development and behavior, there's two words that make us all take a gulp, and narcissism is one.

What's the other one?

And psychopath is either. So those two make us kind of go, whoa, that's bad. Oh, they're a narcissist. Oh, honey, there's no hope for you.

Or.

Gosh.

So anyway, they came to us. That was a situation.

And, yeah. And so her counselor was strongly encouraging her to leave, that there was no hopes and no options, and that actually she was the one that was dysfunctional by choosing to stay in it. And there was just something that Janet couldn't let go of. And so she started looking for more answers and more solutions for this very conflicted place that she found herself in. You know, she really was in that place of, it's too good to leave and it's too bad to stay. I know that change needs to happen. I just don't feel like ending my relationship is something I'm ready for right now. Even though, like I said, she had filed for a divorce. And so she, you know, chose to come and work with us. And through the process of working with us in our Love for a Lifetime program, Janet and Rich discovered a lot about each other. Janet realized that Rich was showing up as a narcissist only because he was scared to share his feelings, not because he didn't care and didn't have the ability to feel empathy. He had come from a very abusive past, religiously and family of origin. Wise. But. And he simply was terrified of really sharing with Janet what it is he wanted and what he needed and what it is he was truly longing for. At the end of the day, he didn't feel like he had any rights to do that. So let me.

So that seems to be you. Correct me if I'm wrong. A similar challenge for clients that we work with when we don't know how to share what's going on within ourselves. Like we say our movie put that in words that we first understand, then be able to share that with our loved ones. Our partner Our husband, our wife. Why is that so terrifying?

Well, because a lot of what we've been raised in and a lot of what we know as human beings is manipulation, quite frankly, like we have. We live in a whole society and culture that's based on manipulation and doing that game of manipulation. We don't even really see and understand what it is we're doing when we show up in this way. And I would encourage you to watch the episode on manipulation where we dive deep into this conversation. But manipulation is simply, you do what I say and you're gonna get what you want. And this is definitely how Rich was raised. And this is definitely some challenges that he faced. And so he didn't feel like he had the right or the permission to ask or advocate for himself. That would be selfish or self centered. We all can relate to comments like, you know, you think the world revolves around you. You think that I'm just going to do what you want because it's important to you. You know, no, I'm going to do what I want. And oftimes that can go misclassified as narcissism. Without digging deeper, you won't find that actually I'm not showing up and I'm not sharing and pretend like I don't care because I'm in so much pain. And Janet was doing everything she desperately could do to get him to show up in their relationship. And she herself was starting to break down. And so they found themselves in this very, very difficult place and didn't know what to do. And it was beautiful to watch them as they would share their stories and some of the teachings and frameworks that we teach a lot to our love for a lifetime clients. It was able finally to open a safe place where they could start sharing what was truly going on. And this is where Janet discovered not only was he not a narcissist, but he was a very emotionally sensitive person. Emotionally sensitive people often gets mislabeled there because if I'm emotionally sensitive to cope, I'm gonna pretend like I don't care. When really the pain is coming from the place of I care so much, I don't know how to deal with it. It's overwhelming and I don't know how to handle it. So I'm going to try and convince myself and pretend like I don't care at all because then I have to deal with all these uncomfortable feelings. I don't know what to do and how to manage. And so not only were they able to repair their relationship, they were able to Rip up the divorce papers and they are still together to this day. And more importantly, they gained the skills that they needed. Because listen, we all have a behavior, I call it that thing I do that when my emotional back gets pressed against the wall, that's going to be probably our first knee jerk inclination. And instead of learning the knee jerk inclination as the end all be all I can say, oh yeah, okay, this is that thing I do. I need to do this instead. And at first it's a very clunky process, but as you start working with it, it's a life changer. It's a game changer. And that's exactly how it played out for Rich and Janet. Now, Janet had her peace too, right? Janet had her piece where she wasn't necessarily making it safe for Rich to show up and share some of those emotions that weren't working for him. We do all have things that work for us and don't work for us in our relationships.

And excuse me for interrupt. That brings me to, I bet a common question, a common thought that people have when they're in this space is it's usually only one person's fault why they're in this place. Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

And what do you find?

I want you to think of relationships or I would encourage our listeners and those who are in this place to look at it as a place of co creation. Like we all have our part that we play in this and sometimes we don't realize that what I do is absolutely the trigger for my partner. And then we fight and debate about who's right and who's wrong in that without looking at my own thing that I do. And I like to say to people who are new to us and finding our work, hey, we can turn anything around. Really, literally. You know, anything can be healed from and moved on from. The one thing that's going to prevent you from doing that though, is the unwillingness to look within yourself. If you're hell bent on blaming your partner and looking at all their flaws and all of the situations that they've created in your relationship that they're responsible for and you're kind of given the crown jewel of whoa, I've done nothing, then I can't help you.

So for those listeners that are saying, stacy, I heard what you say, but you don't know my situation, what would you share with those folks?

I would say I appreciate that and I understand how we come to those conclusions. I'm not trying to negate the fact that you've been through some serious Challenges. There are moments in your relationship that have brought you to your knees. And I would say the easiest way out is to understand yourself and to do what you can do, to do what I call getting yourself at the table. And what does that mean? That means I'm showing up in a way that feels good and congruent to myself. Because what we tend to do to create a new beginning in our relationships is try and become the version of what it is I think my partner wants me to be. I try and morph myself into this pretzel or go along with things that I know don't work for me, that I'm not comfortable being. And in the end, the whole thing backfires because I then become this shell of myself, this, this place or this person that I know I'm not proud of. Now, if we understand the behavior behind it all, I show up as good as I feel. That all starts to make a lot more sense. So Rich and Jana were able to navigate to this place where Janet was able to be introspective and to look at what she was doing. By playing the victim and dramatizing things, she was creating the space in an effort to get Rich's attention. That created an unsafe space for him to show up. And the more she did it, the more he shut down. And that was literally how they had spent a decade or more of their relationship life making up a lot of things that simply just weren't true. Once we understood what was at play and what was going down, once they could share it, you know, that in and of itself was a reconnector. Even though they were sharing the difficult stuff, which is such a great thing to realize and understand, it doesn't have to be rainbows and unicorns. We can share the tough stuff and that has the ability to bond us as well. And then as they got better at the skills that they were learning and what to do, instead of that thing I do, they could go, oh, wait a minute, this is that uncomfortable feeling, this place where I go. And instead of doing this that I've always done, I'm going to do this other thing that I've learned that I know and then several times has gotten me to a different place and literally transform their relationship.

So the ultimate key or the ultimate thing that moves people's needle and I know this is what you're most passionate about, is changing our behavior.

Yes. Because until we change our behavior, we will do what we know, even though we know it's a non working strategy. And continues to take me to the same old places I don't want to go. And we will continue to go to those same old places that we don't want to go until we learn what to do differently.

And is it possible to change our behavior if we don't practice?

No, we are not able to change our behavior without practice. And I want you to think of love and the ability to get better and improve our love and relationships. Like anything else you improve and get better at, we do it over time, and we do it with learning and practice. And at first it's really hard. At first it's really messy. And so, you know, it's kind of ironic when we think, oh, okay, this relationship is not really working for me. I gotta do something different. And we think a new relationship is gonna do that. And then we find ourselves showing up in the same way in the new relationship. And inevitably, most often, we find ourselves creating very similar situations to the one that we were trying escape, not realizing. It's my behavior, it's where I go when my back is pressed against the wall emotionally. And it's the emotion that gets us. It's the triggers that get us. Logically, it doesn't make any sense, but we go to these places that we don't want to talk about, we don't want to identify, and we don't want to learn about. So it prevents us from getting better at it. Long story short, it does prevent us from getting better at showing up differently.

And would you also say that the type of practice required to change our behavior, certainly, if you're in this place, is difficult to do without some skilled facilitation?

Yeah. Well, you know, I thought what I wanted to do on this episode, babe, is I really wanted to break it down. Break it down in regards to how it is we need to approach this land of maybe and what helps us get out of it fast. And I think you touched on this in the beginning. The goal is in the land of maybe, to not hang out there. The land of maybe is the most difficult place on the planet for relationships. And so many of us live our relationship lives there in that place. You know, sure, there's a few great moments, but most of the time is in navigating the turmoil, the past, the challenges, the difficulty, trying to shut the feelings down that I know I don't want to feel because this isn't working for me, but I don't know how to talk about it. And so we live our lives in this place and don't realize that when I choose to do that Because I don't know what else to do. I'm going to run out of emotional gas. Like that's a real thing. Like I can run out of emotional gas and not have any passion or vitality or drive to even work on the relationship anymore. I'm exhausted. And if that's the place that we arrive at, we've got a big problem. It's not that we can't turn the relationship around. It's not that there aren't solutions to the challenges and problems that we face. It's that my give a damn doesn't care anymore. I'm out of gas.

So much easier to turn it around before you've reached the place you've just described.

That is the biggest risk that we face in relationships in this place of the land of maybe. So we want to understand it, address it, look at it as quickly as possible and navigate through it as much as possible. And I want to just point out the land of maybe shows up in our relationships because there is something that's not working for one or both people in this co creation of our relationship. Okay, that's normal. And unfortunately, when we find ourselves in places where it's not working, we want to blame ourselves or the other person and we think that's the thing that's going to help us get through it. If we just find who's responsible here, then voila, problem solved. No, actually that's not problem solved. That's a place where you're going to continue to be in the survival mode place. I always like to say to my clients, hey you guys, how about this? How about you blame me? I'll take full responsibility for anything and everything that's happened in your relationship. So now what are we gonna do? And there's this moment where we kind of go, yeah, great point. So we can't spend time deciding who it is that's right and wrong in a situation and think that that's going to take us to the problem promised land. We need to think of solutions. And so I have some tips here that I want to pass along for you that help you kind of look at this place in the land of maybe.

Before you get into the tips, I have a question. I think some of our listeners might be wondering, like, how do you know if you're in the land of maybe? What does it feel like? And the thing that comes up for me is laying in bed next to your partner and feeling the loneliest you've ever felt in your life. You know, like having that feeling of connection that you used to have and it's gone. What would a symptom of being in the land of maybe feel like?

Yes, great point. Being in the land of maybe is a place of conflict. There are things that are really good in your relationship that you really appreciate. So, for example, you might love the safety of living in your beautiful home. You might love the stability financially. You might love the beautiful children that you've created and that are a byproduct of that. You might love your in laws. And there might be these really wonderful activities that you and your partner do. And when you do them, like, there's no better place on earth. And then there are these long spans of where like Brooke had described. I'm lonely. I feel disconnected. I don't know what to do. There are things that I need more of that I don't know how to get. And so it's in the attempt to get those things that I don't know how to do. And those things grow into bigger things. The frustration and the disappointment and the lack of what Brooke had said, connection are traditionally things that are exceptionally important to us as human beings. We talk about it in terms of fairy dust. Fairy dust is basically hitting on those three basic primal needs that we have as a human being. And if those are missing in a relationship, even though we might know how to go camping, for example, or take the boat out and put it on the water, or visit the in laws or spend time with the kids, and that brings me joy. There are long periods of time where emotionally, I feel like I'm dying on the inside. I guess that's how I would describe it. Thinking back to my own days of being in the land of maybe is, I feel like I'm dying on the inside. And I'm desperately gasping for some emotional, like, sustenance to make me feel like I'm okay, that I'm alive, that I'm passionate. I'm delighted to be in this relationship, and that's my struggle. And so I cling to these little bits and pieces of joy that I do have. I can think of one relationship where it was all about being on the dance floor with this person. Like, that was the place where I felt like I could really connect with him and we could have a great time. But that was one evening out of, you know, once or twice a month that I felt like we were really there. And the rest of the time I was gasping for some form of like.

And do you think that so lonely we have such resistance to what Brooke just described or Any of us, to where if we admit that, dang, this is not what I thought, then we have no chance to, you know, Is that what we have such resistance for? Which I tried to preface in the beginning, like, look, just because I made that choice, ultimately, that doesn't mean that that's how that. Because we just shared Rich and Janet's story. But, I mean, is that what we most of us internalize and that's the narrative that we have?

Yes. Well, I mean, think about my story here. I didn't know how to say, I'm so miserable in this relationship. The way that I get joy out of this relationship is, if we could go dancing every night, that would really work. But that's not realistic. Come on. That's not going to happen. There were bigger problems. There were bigger problems. We could overstep them and have a few moments of connection, but the real serious issues on our relationship were not being addressed, and we didn't know how to address them. And just like most of our clients do at that particular point in time in my relationship, I thought just hanging in there was going to see us through. If I just waited it out, certainly the light bulb was going to come on for me or him or both of us, and we were going to be able to turn this thing around. And what we don't realize is that that's not ever going to happen.

Kind of like the hope and pray strategy.

Because if it does, then what ends up happening is that I don't get skills. I don't learn. I don't practice anything different. I continue to practice what it is. I know.

I have another question. I remember when my marriage was ending, a very specific feeling where I had that. You're talking about mom, too. Where I was like, I don't want to be questioning this. I don't want to be questioning my marriage. I don't want these feelings to be creeping in my head.

I.

But it's almost like once you see them and once you have those thoughts for the first time, you can't unsee it. And then it feels like you can't escape the land of maybe. So what do you do?

Then you get some help and support. This is where the tips need to come into play. Because there is a disappointing element to this land of maybe, where you go, oh, man, I wish I hadn't seen that. Oh, man, I wish I didn't feel this way. Oh, man. You know, I don't want to address this. And you know what's interesting about this? I've done It. And I see clients do it where they're trying to, like, convince themselves they don't want to talk about the problem because they're too busy trying to convince themselves that everything is okay. And at this point in time, everything becomes a really big deal. Hey, you know what? They brought me a gift. Oh, hey, guess what? They filled up my car with gas. Oh, hey. They took the kids out to get ice cream. Oh, aren't they great? Aren't they wonderful?

Those would be the moments where you go to the. Some days. Maybe so. So it's this unbelievable place of talk about a roller coaster. Yeah. We did it again. Nice job there. But, I mean, really, that's why you have. Yes, no, maybe. So just exactly what Stacy described. And like Brooke said, like, dang, this was not in the happily ever after picture. And I really don't even want to deal with it.

Well, and unfortunately, because of what we've been taught about not wanting to be a problem, not wanting to accuse our partners of being the problem, you know, we talk about, don't blame them. You know, that's not going to take you anywhere. Good. So how do you address something that's not working and not blow your relationship up at the same time? And because we don't have those kinds of conversations, we just shut down.

And is it possible to do what you just described?

Absolutely. Absolutely. But it has to be done with teaching skills and practice.

So what got you into this situation?

Yep, absolutely. Help. And it usually takes help from others. It's kind of like going to school if I want to get good at something. We do all kinds of things. We take online courses to improve our career skills and to learn about our finances and money, and we do all kinds of, like, things to give ourselves an upgrade. I take tons of courses in my field and line of expertise.

How about our new body of work? What are we, you know, consistently doing now we've never done before? Four times a week.

CrossFit. I go to Cross. You know, we go to CrossFit because as we're aging, we're realizing we don't want to lose strength. And so, you know, we sign up, we take courses, and we've learned about health and nutrition and all those kinds of things. And it's an ongoing journey. And where do we go to do that? When it comes to love and relationships, we've got to get better at this. And the only way we can get better at it is if we look at it, we study it, we embrace it, and we practice it.

Well, I was Gonna say the last point because Stacy and I, many times when we were able to walk to where we do our CrossFit and I think, you know what, that's hysterical to think that I would do that on my own. There ain't no way in heck. And I'm a pretty disciplined guy. Yes. Would you say I'm pretty disciplined?

Are you talking about the bare faces?

Whatever. I mean, come on, drop and do 30 burpees.

I mean, because you wanted to after a morning cup of coffee.

Most often, especially in the beginning, we're not going to practice, do what Stacy calls in her book, the emotional push ups. We're not going to do them on our own. That's okay. It takes a stronger person to realize where we have shortfalls and then seek out the professional people. Our owner, crossfitted lady, she's awesome. But, you know, that would not happen.

Teach to be taught and mentored through the process is everything. And we've got to do that if we want to get better at anything we do. And that includes love and relationships too.

So how do I convince my partner that they too need to work on this with me? If I've got a. What I would say what I like to call a resistant husband or wife, how do we. Well, how do I make them him?

Let's talk about what we typically do when we're in this place and we get this question a lot like, how do I convince my person that this relationship is the greatest relationship and how can I talk them into working on it? And let's talk about what we typically do and then I'll help you see what I encourage you to do instead. What we typically do is we blame them. We say, hey, you know what, when you pull your stuff together, right? Or hey, if you don't want to work on this relationship, then it means you don't love me and you don't care. And what are the kids going to say and what are the in laws going to say? And we come at it from a very negative, brow beating sort of conversation. Aren't I enough for you? Is a great question that we'll throw in there, you know, or why am I not enough for you? What does it take to please you? I've done all of this for you and you're just gonna cast me aside like, how could you, you devil of a person? Is typically how we approach this conversation.

How about physical attraction? Does that come into play? Like, you don't turn me on physically anymore?

Well, you're talking about two sides.

Okay?

You're talking about a physical problem that I might. That may not work for me in an emotional problem.

Gotcha.

And so if I'm trying to convince you to work on my relationship, and I'm approaching it from a place of this is, look at everything I've done for you. I guess you don't care about me. What are the in laws going to say about this? How are we going to help the kids navigate this? I'm heaping on the guilt. And I'm heaping on the guilt in hopes of turning you around and helping you work on our relationship. Obviously, if I heap on enough shame and guilt, then you're going to see the light and you're going to work on this because I'm going to make you feel browbeaten and tell you do. And I need you to understand that even though this is the natural inclination that we go to to save our relationships, it is the absolute worst method we can turn to and use. What's going to happen is you're going to push your person away. They're going to shut down. They're not going to want to work on their relationship. Nobody wants to go into a session and come out feeling worse than when they walked in. Like, who wants to do that? And if this is the approach you're taking, this is often what shows up in my office without realizing it's not going to take us anywhere good any time, ever. And I use that word very lightly. Ever and never and anything and always are words that I encourage you to stay away from. But in this particular instance, we cannot beat somebody up enough to motivate them to truly change and create the behavior that they need to have a successful relationship. So what I would encourage you to do instead, if you really want to give it a last go, is tell them how much you care. Tell them how much this relationship means to you and why. And you might be saying to yourself, oh, but Stacy, that's really vulnerable. I can't go there. Like, that's crazy. Why would I open myself up? And I'm going to say back to you, well, what are your options? If you're not going to tell them how much you care and how much this relationship means to you now, then when would be a better time?

Okay, let's say, you know, you're feeling really bummed, you know, banged up, and there's obviously some things that haven't been done as good as they could have been on both sides, your side and your partner's side. How might that sound? Give somebody a Sentence or a couple sentences that they could take home right now and use.

Well, I'll give you a real life situation. I remember being in the land of maybe with my. My second husband. I thought that was. Oh, you did? Did your armpits get sweaty?

I wasn't sure. Maybe we had something to talk about on air here.

Honey, we're going to do it right here. We're going to solve this here, now.

Okay?

I was admittedly the one that was saying, I don't think I can do this anymore. I'm so out of gas after 13 years of trying to figure this out. And he. Instead of him saying, I love you, I want to work on this relationship. Let's not break up our family. I'm willing to do whatever I can do to save our relationship. He turned it around and said, well, it's because of you. This isn't working. You've done this, this, this, this, and this to destroy our lives. And some of that may have been true or not been true, but the fact that he approached it that way and continued to bang on that in spite of me, going back to. Now, wait a minute. There was addiction in this. And wait a minute, there was bipolar in this. And wait a minute, there was infidelity on your part in this. How in the world can you not take any responsibility for this? And that's where I got hung up and thought, if you're not even willing to take responsibility and you're going to blame this all on me, then I've got nothing to work with here. There's my sign. And that's why it's so important you can overstep all of that if you just simply communicate how much you care and how much you.

So give us a precise example so people, you know, how would you phrase it? Short and sweet?

Okay, Short and sweet is. Hey, you know what, sweetie? I know our relationship is really struggling right now, and I know that I'm unhappy and you're probably unhappy, if I had to guess. But what I want you to know is that I really care about us and I care about you, and I really want this to work out. I really want this to go well. So could we get some help and support? And would you be willing to work on this relationship with me? I'm willing to do my part to turn it around. Would you be willing to do yours? I love you. And I love you is something that's difficult for us to say, especially when we're upset and we're frustrated and we're disappointed. But Think about it. That's why you're disappointed, frustrated, and upset is because you care so much, because you want this to go well. And so we've got to dig down and we've got to pull those things out because we have a higher percentage and chance of enrolling our partner into working on our relationship if I come from that place than if I come from the place of that guilt and shame, which is traditionally where I go. We can't beat somebody up enough. It's just a human behavior principle. I can't beat them up enough to influence them or to encourage them or motivate them to work on our relationship. And ofttimes, that's the track that we take. I also want you to know that feeling conflicted in the land of maybe is totally normal. Like, that's normal. And we're all gonna have a place where we're conflicted in our relationships at times where we kind of go, oh, man, didn't know this was part of itself. And in fact, in the spirit of full disclosure, Tom and I have had that same experience in our relationship pretty early on, and I'm just gonna check in with him right now. I mean, are you feeling it now?

I am all in again, as Stacy shared. Look, you're going to have. You can have moments of this. You'll slip into this. But you know when you can get good at cleaning up your hot mess, when you're a hot mess, cleaning it up fast and efficiently and effectively, that's really the game changer for happily ever after. That's it, in my opinion, is being able to realize, look, we all make messes. We're humans, as Stacy loves to remind us that. So it's not as if it's not going to happen, but build for that and, you know. No, I. No, I love you. Love you very much.

Love you, too.

At least today, anyway.

Today's looking pretty good.

Yeah, I think we're good.

So that's a key thing that I want you to remember in this. If by chance, you find yourself in a difficult place right now, being in the land of maybe is normal, to feel conflicted, that's telling you you're in the land of maybe, that there are things that are great and that you love about your relationship, but there are also some things that are not working. And it's addressing the things that aren't working and learning how to get through them that are going to help us navigate through the land of maybe as quickly and effectively and efficiently as possible.

Speaking of that, though, do you find when people, like, say, okay, I can't do this anymore, then is there all of a sudden they rush to thinking that it has to end?

Well, that's my second tip, is yes. Because when we're in a tremendous amount of pain and we don't know what to do about it, we got to do something now, like, hurry, hurry. How are we going to solve this? What do you got? And you'd better start showing up differently, like right now, today, or it's curtains. And that's just a sign that we're in a tremendous amount of pain and we don't know what to do about it. And so we tend to, like, get anxious about it. And when we get anxious, we speed up internally as well as our actions and our behavior speed up. And then we feel like we gotta do something to stop the pain, to shut it down, to find the answers. And I need you to understand that actually what's gonna really help you navigate through this better is to slow down. And the slowing down helps us utilize different parts of our brain. It helps us think things through. And if we slow down, we're also going to be able to see and understand and more importantly, get complete with the things that aren't working. So many relationships end with a feeling of incompleteness, and that's a difficult place for us to live. As we attempt to rebuild our lives. There are things that have gone unsaid, things that have gone unexplored, and things that have gone unlearned out of the relationship. And in the wisdom of our bodies, you know, in our minds and in our souls, we have this uncanny way of recreating them again in a different circumstance to give us yet another opportunity to learn and see and grow.

Now, I would assert that if you aren't able to get complete, especially in this very important and difficult place, it's going to lead to a lot of regret.

So the greatest thing we can do is slow down, realize there's time to figure this out. And in fact, if you want this to go really well, you must slow down. Next, I would encourage you to search if you're feeling conflicted. That means I need more information. That means I need to try new things. So I'm going to encourage you to search for things that make sense, things that resonate, answers that you're needing, and maybe even help and support in bringing up those difficult conversations that you don't know how to have. They need to come up and remember that having things in our relationships that don't work, that's Normal. Everybody has things that don't work, especially from time to time in the relationship, because we're individuals and we all have different needs and wants in our relationships. And then the next thing I'm going to encourage you to do is switch it up. I can't tell you how many times couples come in and one says, I just need to move out of our bedroom. And I go do it, move down the hall, go two bedrooms down, and see what it's like to sleep without your partner. And oft times, this is the place where it's like, oh, actually come to realize, I really thought I was done and I didn't like you, but I miss you. It creates a totally different emotional experience.

So you're not necessarily saying moving out of it, just changing up the arrangement.

Of, yeah, it's kind of like when we come scared, it's like nobody moved and we become paralyzed in place and nobody wants to do anything for fear it's going to be the wrong thing without realizing. What's going to help you understand what's available here is to do something different. Switch it up, create. And that's the principle of contrast that maybe we should talk about at another time as well. But we need that. We need that to see and understand things that we've just grown numb to because we've been in so much frustration and pain for a long period of time. So we need to seek new learning, we need to seek information, new ideas, new perspectives, and then we need to switch it up. And that's going to help us see and understand ourselves and our partners and our relationship from a totally different place. That's the greatest gift we can give ourselves.

So we've got listeners out there. Let's say we have listeners out there. That makes a lot of sense to him or her that's listening. But we have that resistant partner. Are we done? Or can one person literally change the trajectory of a relationship?

Aha. Well, here's the fun part. If somebody gets started and somebody does something different, that's switching it up. That's everything we just talked about, okay? And you bring that back to the relationship. This happens a lot in our world as well, where somebody gets going and starts showing up differently in the relationship. And the partner, sometimes they're like, hey, knock it off. Like, this is working. And it makes me uncomfortable, you know, because I don't want to admit that this works. I don't want to admit that we have problems.

I would say we have at least, you know, sometimes the percentages are different. But I would say Overall, in our 10 years, I would bet at least half of the clients that come to us in that are coupled start individually.

Yes, yes, absolutely. And then the partner goes, okay, fine, this is working.

And I always share with people when I'm talking on the phone. We've been called some things that aren't so nice to and like, I'm never going to work with those bleep, blip, bleep the bleep people in California, right? And lo and behold, they do. And you know, we're okay, we can take that, we understand, you know, emotions are running high, so none of that bothers us. You know, just oftentimes your new behavior can be the inspiration, the catalyst to bring that hesitant or standoffish partner to the table.

Well, it's, it's really putting yourself in a no lose situation where you're either gonna improve and get better for the next round or they're gonna come along with you and you're gonna transform the relationship that you're already in.

So a true win win.

It's, it's a true win, win. And oft times, I just wanna, I wanna just say this. As partners, we have our partner, our respective partner as a catalyst. So, you know, sometimes, I mean, in the spirit of full disclosure, let me just say what it is I'm trying to say as I'm stumbling over my words here. I wanted to go back to CrossFit. You didn't.

And I was, no, it's very true, very true.

And I said, okay, we're doing this. Come on, you're either coming with me or you're not. And that was the catalyst that Tom needed to go. Yeah, okay, you're right. Probably right. If I would have sat around and waited, we probably still wouldn't be doing CrossFit. And, and there's times where Tom will say, okay, enough, Stacy, you know, it's time for us to get the heck out of here, stop working, let's go have some fun. He does that for me too. We're gonna, we're going to go to the wine country this weekend. I'll go. Oh, I don't know. I get in the car because we're leaving and. Okay, that's the catalyst that, to help us knock ourselves out of these patterns that we can get into as human beings. And that really is one of the core benefits of being in a relationship. So if we sit around waiting for everybody to be on the same page, which very similar, you know, very typically they're not, then we lose the gift sometimes that we can bring to the relationship and saying, hey, we got to do something about this. Come on. I got this idea. Let's try it. So much better to try something and decide it doesn't work than not to try anything new at all. Because then we become literally stuck in these patterns of breakdown, which is the last thing I want to say about this place. If you know you're in a pattern of breakdown. And we know when we're there.

Yes, we do.

We know when things are not getting better. It's not working through a tough time, actually, it's like everything is getting more and more difficult. Our health is getting more difficult. The kids are getting more difficult. The career is getting more difficult. It's in a process of breakdown that's very different than breakthrough. Breakthrough means we're still going through a really difficult time, but things are feeling a little bit better. We're getting better at this. I'm starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel, and that's knowing that you're working your way through the land of maybe. So if you find yourself in a place of breakdown and you've been there for a while, it's really imperative that you do something to switch it up, that you learn something new, that you do something different. Because you're literally stuck in a pattern that becomes very quickly a prison. And your relationship will run out of gas and somebody's going to choose to end it. You know, it's kind of like you, who runs out of gas will end it. Not because they don't love you, not because they don't care about you, not because there aren't great things present in this relationship. But it just sounds like this, I just can't do this anymore. I'm out of gas.

And I like to remind us, we've all heard that in our circle, some version of, gosh, you're not staying together. Yeah, I just can't do this anymore. Well, yeah, you can't. Because none of us, if we're not doing things to continually. I love Brendan Bashar. The power plant doesn't produce energy. The power plant creates energy. So if you're not creating daily new energies, guess what? We're going to run out of gas.

Yeah. And it can't come from a place of banging on the problem or the challenge that you're finding yourself in, which is what we know to do. It's finding solutions to move through it. That's going to be the ticket out of this place called the land of maybe.

And if you feel like you can't do this on your own. This is exactly what we specialize, helping people. Why? Because Stacy and I have both been there, and it's what we wish we had access to when we were going through it ourselves.

So reach out to us if you need some help. This is what we do. We're going to switch gears now. This is where we do a hard left, and we go from talking about something like being stuck in the land of maybe to our follow the fun moment.

Why?

Because I want you to see we can do that. If you can do it here, listening to my voice, you can do it in your life. It's like, okay, that was tough. That was hard. Probably brought up a lot of feelings and thoughts that were uncomfortable, and now we can push the brake on that. We can totally switch gears, and you.

Don'T have to wait till everything is all figured out before you have some fun.

No, please don't do that. This is a great way to recharge or refuel you so that you do have the emotional gas necessary for the journey. It's important. That's why we include it in every single episode we have ever done and will ever do. There has to be a little bit of fun in here to remind us all. Okay, look, that was hard.

And I have to add that having fun is the antidote to the land of maybe.

Yes. Yes. That ability to dance with that partner of mine at least a couple of times a month is what gave us the gas to last as long as we did. And unfortunately, we didn't know how to go and correct some of the things that were going on in our relationship. And so we, too, ran out of gas. But that ability to connect kept us in the game longer. And if we had the other few steps, you know, I don't know, honey, maybe you wouldn't be in the picture. That's not possible.

Moving right along, ladies and gentlemen, follow. The fun has now been canceled. No, just kidding. What do we. What. What kind of fun we having?

So I want to. I want to let our listeners know that last night I told you that you have the body of a God. And you know what his reply was? Are you referring to Zeus, the Greek God, or are you referring to Buddha? And we laughed. And that's the part that I want to say. Hey, you know what? We all need a little humor in our life, right? And, of course, I reassured him that he was the God of Zeus. I mean, come on, give me a flex here. But here's what I want you to do for this week's Follow the Fun. It has been said that the shortest distance between two people is laughter.

Absolutely.

And when building a long lasting relationship with the one that you love, humor is an attribute that must be part of your relationship mix. It's the place where even when we're going through a difficult time, we can take the pressure off. Right. We can come back to the problem and circle around. After all, couples who laugh together stay together and the chances are pretty good for you if you can laugh, you're going to be able to see each other in a rocking chair and grow old together with your great grandchildren. So this week, let's set aside some time to laugh together. Like this is important. It's no like, small thing. So I've got some tips here for you that I want you to consider. And the first one is really simple. Like prepare a meal and just look up some jokes online. There's like hundreds of them. I did a little search on relationship jokes and I had hundreds of them pop up. So take turns like sharing some jokes, right. Laughing about it. It's great fun. I get laughing. I feel a little bit better. It's really good and it switches up our entire chemistry and it doesn't take much. So that's number one. That's simple, that's easy. Anybody can do that. Number two, if you want to get wild and crazy, how about you pick up some tickets to a local comedy club? Why don't you get out and really shuffle the deck, really create some contrast in your life. Go see somebody. Even if it's somebody you don't know, it's going to be a new experience regardless of how you slice it. And I've not been to a comedy club where at least a handful of jokes have made it worth the ticket price. Number three, do an in home comedy night. Stream your favorite comedians on Hulu or Netflix or Amazon or whatever your streaming device is. They have so many to choose from, you can pull up your favorites. Mine happens to be Ron White. You know, he's kind of crass and.

Funny and Fluffy's incredibly funny.

Fluffy's incredible as well. Gabriel Iglesias. Those are a couple of our favorites that we'll pass along to you. Check those out. You can do it right in the comfort of your own home. How about watch a movie that you both know makes you laugh?

Which movie comes to that right immediately.

For me, Liar Liar. If I'm feeling Down in Blue, that's, that's going to be my go to for sure. And if you're feeling really brave and this is where I need to give you a fist bump, babe. Like Tom's even gone to an impromptu comedy like class. I bribed him with a massage first and then drug him into an impromptu class where you're doing things on the fly. And you know what, you're really kind of funny. Put your problems on the shelf for a minute, throw back your head and give yourself a moment to howl and laughter. Okay, that's the follow the fun moment. So as we wrap up this episode, we're going to leave you with a song.

The song Today's a great one.

You want to why don't you tell us about.

Well, I was, I was doing some early work this morning, you know, and was very respectful of Stacy likes to sleep a little bit longer than me. But that as we got closer to the time when I knew it was time for starting to wake Stacy up a little bit longer. It takes Stacy to get up than it does me. So I've got to kind of build in the time so we're not late for CrossFit because if we're late we have to do frickin burpees. So that's a non option. But any rate, I just turned on Pandora and just, you know, lightly, not too loud and lo and behold a few songs in which was perfect timing. When the when Stacy needed to get up, Stacy was already up. She said, that's our song for today's episode. And man is it. I love this song.

It's Diana Krall. Yeah.

When she rocks.

And the title of the song is why should I care? And I love this because it does speak to this place of the land of maiden. And the song begins and opens with. Was there something more I could have done or was I not meant to be with you? You're the one. Someone always wants to leave and someone always wants to stay. Why should I care? Why should I care about this? And it's a beautiful song and you can check this song out on our website. We have a Spotify playlist as well. Love Shack playlist. You can check it out on Spotify and if you want you can check it out on our website. But this is a great place to feel the essence of what it is we've been talking with you about today. So and I love music and so I get to choose whether I'm going to include this in the show or not. So that's why we always have a song. I hope you enjoy it. Okay, I think that's a wrap for.

Today, honey, I just can't overemphasize. This is a place that Stacy and I have such empathy and it really hits close to our hearts because we've been there ourselves and we know people struggle. And I always say when we're in this place, even my own two brothers who are my best of friends, didn't even know to the degree of what I was navigating and how much I was suffering. So the point there, I share that to like, this is not what we go down to the water cooler and say, how's it going, Fred? Great. My marriage is coming apart. We just don't share that. So I cannot overemphasize. Do not hang out here and reach out to us. This is what we specialize in and it is a place that we can help facilitate great transformation in your life. However it goes, what we know it has to go is go well. In the absence of going well, it will cause a lot of challenges and problems. Long term.

Been great to be here with you today inside the Love Shack. We're Tom and Stacey Bartley, hosts of the Love Shack Live Show. Thanks for being here and spending some of your precious time in the Love Shack with us today. Come on back next week as we continue to share some additional ways for you to improve your love, sex and relationships. We look forward to doing it all again next time.

Bye bye now.

All right, it's time to leave the 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 at loveshacklive.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 community.