#20: How To Revive The Love With Your Partner When Your Relationship Is Dying

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

Hey, welcome to the Love Shack. A little place where we get to get together and explore fresh perspectives, eavesdrop on juicy conversations and unique uncover the mysteries that nobody talks about but absolutely influences our relationships. If you are struggling in your marriage or a relationship, just starting out in a new relationship or are single and looking to do better next time, this is the show for you. My name is Stacey Bartley and I am here with my host and lover, Tom.

Good day, everybody.

Yeah. Together for the past decade, we have been teaching and loving on people from around the world with the song sole purpose of helping individuals and couples to love more and fear less in their relationships, both with themselves and others.

A shout out to our podcast listeners if you're catching us. So it may be good evening, it could be good morning, it could be good time anytime. I am reaching out to you. To number one, say thank you just like our live listeners and remind you that we are live every Thursday at I'm sound like a radio dj, KKNW up in Seattle. How was that, Eric? And with our awesome producer standing by digitally way up in Seattle. And I share that if you'd ever like to catch us live, ask us a question, text us a question, you can go to staceybartly.com Stacey with a I and go to on the podcast or our radio show page, there is a speak pipe which is a cool piece of technology that allows you to leave a voice message. And bottom line is we're here to serve you. Stacy and I are here to help you take your next best step. The bottom line is what do hear when people say they they they're not going to continue this relationship journey. They say what we I can't do this anymore. So momentum is your friend. My friends used to tell me that when I was a mountain bike rider. I never very good one. But momentum is your friend and you're going to lose momentum. Bottom line is we take confidentiality very seriously here. So you can text us, you can call into the show and remain anonymous. Bottom line is we're here to help you.

Yeah, I was going to say that's the bottom line. But wherever you are in this moment, please, thank you so much for listening and it's great to be here together with you once again this week and we so appreciate you listening in and helping us spread the word. So without further ado, let's jump into our topic today, shall we, honey?

Absolutely.

How to revive the love with a partner when perhaps the relationship is heading in the wrong direction. And the thing about this is we know when I'm starting to get a little worried about where we're headed. There's starting to become some things that are not feeling so great, that make me feel uncomfortable, that cause me to worry and cause me to panic. And then there's this principle that we've talked about in previous episodes, but I'll mention it here again. In our relationships and in our lives, we show up as good as we feel. So the minute I start to panic and I and I start to think that, oh gosh, we're going to go south, I want you to notice that you yourself start to show up differently. You don't do those things that you used to do in the beginning when the relationship was new and fresh and exciting. We start to show up differently. We want to talk about this today. When we feel like our relationships are headed in the wrong direction, believe it or not, we as human beings, we do similar things. When we feel like our backs are pressed against the wall, we start to panic. And then we start to experience uncomfortable feelings of fear and the unknown frustration for not really understanding how we got here in the first darn place. And then you doubt me, I doubt you. We begin to doubt our relationship or what's possible. And our emotions take us away to the same painful place that we've worked so hard and promised that we would avoid. You know that place, you know, the knockdown, drag out fights, threats, the begging and pleading. And have you ever noticed that the fighting, right, that talk that we're going to have always ends us up in exactly where it is we didn't want to go? I mean, really think about it for a moment. Have you ever really been in the middle of a fight, pulling out your evidence, proving that you're right, trying to shut them down and experienced a moment where someone said, I see the light. Yes, you're right. Yeah. The reality is that never happens. These types of fights never do anything to help our relationships, let alone improve them. We intuitively know this, but we continue to engage with them because honestly, we don't know what else to do. So we fight for the relationship we once had, long for and miss, only to embark on a fight towards the bottom. Who can get there the fastest? It's time for us to figure out what we can do differently. We need to talk about the four letter word that it's a part of every single relationship you have ever been in or will ever.

And it does not begin with an L. No.

And it's time to really put this conversation out there and talk about it, because pain in this place is a normal, natural part of the relationship journey. We'll be right back to tell you and get started.

Do you feel like your love life is on life support? It's time for a turbocharged relationship resuscitation with an alternative to marriage counseling. Head over to stacybartley.com to learn more about their proprietary programs their clients use to save their relationships. S T A C I B A R T L e y visit stacybartley.com today Are you tired of sitting on a couple's counselor's couch and feeling like you're just rehashing the past and making no progress? Do you feel like you're holding on to your relationship but panicked you're losing your partner? It's time to learn how to deepen your connection. Finally resolve the arguments that keep coming up. Understand yourself and your partner and create the level of intimacy you've been dreaming of. It's time for love to tingle your toes again. Schedule your private session with relationship expert stacey bartley@staceybartley.com checkup.

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Hey, welcome back. We're about to embark on a conversation about relationships and when they're headed south. Now, I know this isn't our favorite conversation, but it's an important one because we act the same and very similar in our fighting patterns. And if we pull it out and talk about it and lay it on the table, we can start to improve our outcomes with that talk that we know we need to have. We know that things are happening and going in a direction that we really don't want to take it, and yet we don't know what to do differently. And so what we tend to do is the same old things, hoping it will take us in a different direction. And essentially it becomes a race to the bottom, unfortunately. And when I say a race to the bottom, it's a race to see who it is that is going to buckle first and who's right, who's wrong, who has the most evidence right. As we try and struggle with understanding the partner instead of us understanding ourselves. And so we know that we've got some wonderful tips and tools for you here today that are going to help break this down, help us understand how it is we arrive at this place in the first place, and then what are we going to do about it? What's the thing to do differently? Because the reality of us human beings is until we know how to do something different, we'll continue to do what we know, which is certainly the case here.

Yeah. And I would say when Stacy and I work with our clients, I'm trying to think if there's ever really been a situation to where, you know, we know intuitively when things are going in the direction that we're not too excited about, but yet we don't know how to have this conversation that Stacy's referring to. And oftentimes, you know, we can come in and be that place to establish some parameters, you know, and so the conversation can go differently. So this is what we're going to try to, you know, give you some real takeaways.

Every.

Every time we have the pleasure and honor to be with all of you, it's always to give you some things that are. That you can take away and Put them into your life. Because, you know, just like pain in our phys body, the pain that we're feeling when things are not going well is a tremendous indicator, but we just don't know what to do with is.

A tremendous indicator and we're going to jump into that. I want you to understand that when people come into a place of our work, our body of work, whether it be our office or online, the first thing you need to understand is that this isn't about hashing problems. Because what's needed and what's necessary is an understanding of how relationships work and how you arrived at where you are and how do we go forward, which is the most important part of all. At the end of the day, it's really not about who did what and how and how egregious that was. So let's begin here. Let's begin with the four letter word that is a part of every single relationship that you have ever been in and will ever be in. And as Tom said in the intro, it doesn't begin with the word L.

Well, I would think that we've asked that question, excuse me, many, many times. What's the four letter word that every single relationship is involved in? Every single relationship. And it doesn't begin with L And no one guesses. Pain.

Exactly. It's pain. Now I know that's not our favorite part of relationships, but unfortunately, when we feel emotional pain in our relationships, we start to panic. And this is where things, believe it or not, start to slide sideways. When we begin to panic, right. And don't know what to do, we as a human being. Right. Begin to make up all kinds of things that may or may not be true. I, for example, have, and most of us do, a place where I typically go. Where I go. Ah, I guess you just don't care about me anymore. I guess you just don't love me. I guess, you know, if you can't make time for me and you don't want to support me in this, I have all of these conclusions and in those conclusions I want you to notice that they are usually places where we feel very insecure, cure with inside of ourselves. And so I spike that, it flares up and now I'm just sure because of what you've done, this is what's happening. And then I start showing up as though that is the case now with pain. We've also not been told in the love stories and the myths and the lies about relationships, we've been told that pain is not a normal part of this relationship process and that, in fact, if you're feeling pain, you have big problems or you've picked the wrong person, or you're. You're really screwing it up. You're really blowing this thing apart.

That seems to have been omitted from the storybook.

Yes, it has been omitted from the story.

What a shock.

I need you to know it's normal, it's natural, and you will always feel pain. The question is, what do we do with that pain? Now, I love to compare the physical body with the emotional body because it helps us make so much sense of this thing that's invisible, it's intangible. It time travels on us. It can really wreak havoc if we don't understand how to manage and work with our emotional bodies and what its purpose is for us. This is the thing. Physical pain will always be part of the journey. We're good with that. We can accept that. We can wrap our arms around that. We anticipate and expect that when I do X, Y and Z, for example, cut my finger, trip over a curb, fall down, it's going to hurt. And we're good with that. And we will work with that. We don't want it to happen, but if it happens, we're not going to panic and just stop everything with our emotional pain. You need to understand in your emotional body, it works the same. There are going to be times where you're going to be disappointed, you're going to be let down, you're going to be hoping and wishing and praying for something and it didn't happen. And then what we make up about that is usually where we get sideways. We panic and we think, oh, gosh, well, this relationship's over. Well, really, I mean, that's kind of jumping a huge canyon, isn't it? Why don't we get clear about what's going on first? So the first thing that I want to explore with you and share with you is that pain does wonderful things for us in our relationships. Smack the radio. You know, don't. Don't spit at me or flip me off right now. Hang with me for a minute. Because pain needs to change in regards to how we hold it, Just like we do in our physical pain. Emotionally, it's going to happen. There's nothing we can do about that. It's a normal, natural part of how we function as human beings. Okay, so here's the deal. If I feel emotional pain instead of panicking, what can I do instead? And most of us, according to the traditional love stories, have been taught to Run, bury it, ignore it, get around it, over it, pretend like it's not happening, do anything, but don't address the emotional pain.

And again, Stacy, share. Give us some. I know you did, but this is really important because I think even myself and I've been with you for a long time in this body of work and what we do. Give us some really examples again of what emotional pain will feel like for us. What. What are the. What are the common ones that we run into all the time in our body of work?

Yeah, well, pain. Pain is really unique to us as however we're interpreting the circumstances and the events of what just happened. And it can kick off pain with inside of us that may be unique to me versus you. So what would you say a common pain point is? I don't feel accepted. I don't feel valued. I don't feel appreciated. I don't feel heard. I don't feel like you care. I don't feel like I matter. Right. And we're talking about, by the way, the emotional experiences that are getting kicked off from a circumstantial physical event. And we'll get there in just a minute. But let's talk about the gifts of pain for a minute. Let's make sure that we really work with and reframe this. We have to understand that pain is a gift. Pain is something that we can utilize, and pain is something that we've got to get good with because it's not going away anytime soon. So the first thing that pain will get is your attention, and that's its purpose. It's like, okay, pay attention. This is not going so well. Right. What do we need to do about it? We need to address something, and that is a gift. Because even in our emotional world, when things are kind of starting to skid sideways, we're going to get an emotional signal that needs our attention right now. And unfortunately, nine times out of 10, what we do is ignore it. And we ignore it until that pain gets to such a level that we finally can't ignore it anymore. And that's when you're probably going to start looking for help or sign up and find yourself in my office or on some of my online courses. Right. And. And that's too long. We usually wait too long to get support and help with our emotional pain because we're trying to outrun it instead, thinking it's going to go away. My plea with you today is, please, if you are in pain emotionally, get some support. Address it. Look at it. Okay. The second gift that Pain gives us is. It's a universal signal that says to all of us, go in a different direction and stop doing what you're doing immediately. Now, I want you to think of a fight for a minute as it's escalating, okay? The emotions are starting to pick up some momentum, and the whole time the pain is rising through the roof. We get more and more panicked, we get more and more afraid. We feel more and more attacked. We feel more and more misunderstood. Right? And that's why I call it a race to the bottom of exactly what it is we don't want. And unless we can gain the ability and the skills and tools to stop that from happening, I want you to notice. It always takes us to the same place, doesn't it? It always takes us to the place where we don't resolve much. It's a fight where everybody goes away and feels worse than when we started. So, of course, when we need to have the talk, nobody wants to go there. Everybody wants to avoid that because we know it's going to be a fight. We need to understand that as the pain is rising, it's literally saying, stop, stop, stop. Oh, my gosh, you're going in the wrong direction. Stop doing what you're doing immediately. Just like if I were to break a leg, don't walk on it, cut my finger, stop. Set it down. Right? All kinds. I get a headache. I need to address it. It's not just probably going to go away. It needs our attention now.

Well, and I would say just think about it. When we don't address something physically that needs attention, what happens? Well, it escalates. And then what do we do? It becomes what, an emergency. Right? It becomes an emergency. So the same exact thing happens all the time when people reach out to us. It's gotten to the place of an emergency.

Yes, yes, exactly. And the third big gift the pain gives us is it encourages us to consider solutions and activities that we would otherwise ignore or put off. Right. This is when. All right, fine. I'm going to get good at this relationship thing. You know, I know I don't have a clue. You know, I know my upbringing was a disaster, and I. Why my role models didn't teach this. In fact, nobody learns it, which I think is the biggest tragedy of all. But that's a conversation for another time. If we don't study relationships and how to be good lovers and create love for a lifetime, we'll never know and understand how. And that's just the bottom line of it. But pain is normal. Pain is inevitable. Pain is going to happen, and it does not mean what you think it is. But here's the kicker. When I make up what it means, I start showing up like that's what it means. For example, if Tom disappoints me for some reason and I make up a story that he doesn't care about me in our relationship anymore, I'm probably going to pull back. I'm probably going to stop doing those things I typically do for him, like, you know, make him dinner and kiss his head before bed or when I come home. I'm going to essentially push him away, right? And that's what I do, because I don't know what to do better or different. And all of this just causes him to feel pushed away. And as he feels more pushed away, he starts making up what that means for him, which is, oh, gosh, you know, I guess she doesn't care anymore. I guess she doesn't want this. I've probably screwed it up somewhere, and I just need to go figure out how. Maybe if I bring her flowers, maybe if I make her dinner, maybe if I rub her feet, she'll come back in my good graces, right? And we'll make love again at some point in time. But nobody's knowing how to talk about this. And so then he shows up differently. And then when he shows up differently, then I show up differently. And on and on and on it goes until we finally say, we gotta talk. Like, this is going south. It's sliding sideways very fast. And I go, I know, I know. It's about time you noticed. I mean, I was wondering when you were going to bring it up so we could talk about it.

Ah.

Okay, let's go to step number two, reactions. I want you to contemplate this question for a moment. The reactions that we have in relationships, are they yours? Really? Is that really how you feel? Or is it a canned response? Because of the love stories and the lies and the myths that we've been told about how love is supposed to go, how it's supposed. Supposed to go down, and when everybody screwed it up. Okay, that's a big question that most of us don't have a really great answer to because most of us, the majority of the time, respond to our loved ones in a way that we feel like we're supposed to. It's a canned, trained, behavioral response that.

That. Say that again. Because, I mean, this is huge, ladies and gentlemen, and it may just slip right on by you.

Yes. We are taught stories about how this whole Love thing is supposed to go. And I'll be bold enough to say it's just a story because the reality is the story doesn't really exist. And we're all running around trying to live this story, but the reality is nobody is right. But it's a great story. So we keep buying into it. And if I feel like I have challenges in my relationship as a parent, I'm going to think it's because I couldn't adhere to the story. So that intensifies my desire to pass it down to my kids. So if they can stay within the bounds of the story, which is, you do it this way you self, you know, you sacrifice yourself for others. You don't raise a ruckus. You don't absolutely, absolutely advocate for what you need. This is for the female role, right? Men will be men. Let them do that. It's okay, right? And it can flip the other direction too, in this storytelling where women are supposed to do their thing and their roles and men are supposed to behave accordingly. And if we can get the story right, then we believe that we're going to live happily ever after without any pain. That is a lie. That is absolutely 100% a lie. It never happens as we propagate the story down and down and down again. So the first thing that you need to realize is it's a story. And in this story, we've all been taught and programmed canned responses to certain things that happen in our relationships, things that we are supposed to react to. For example, if somebody is late, that's not okay. If somebody ignores you, that's not okay. Oh, they shouldn't do that. And when we're hashing it out with other people, not the person that we need to resolve this with, what we're talking about is what they should and shouldn't do and how that's not okay, or they should be doing this. You need to tell them that's what they need to do. And that's not okay. And you need to tell them. Right. Does that sound familiar to anybody? Like we are hashing this canned response and in this unison of how relationships are supposed to go. Well, I got big news for you listeners. Relationships go all kinds of directions. And what's okay and not okay could be vastly different from relationship to relationship to relationship. Because a great relationship is great because it works for the two. And I jokingly say, or more people in it. And we need to wrap our head around that. And that's stepping outside the story. And most of us don't take the time to really contemplate that question. Are you just reacting because you think that's what you're supposed to do or is that really how you feel about it? This comes up big time in affairs. Affairs, you're supposed to react a certain way. When somebody lies about something. You're supposed to react in a certain way. When somebody misses the trash can or doesn't put their clothes on the garbage can. There literally is a family canned response about how you're supposed to respond when the reality is, maybe it doesn't even bother me, but that's not okay. I was taught that that wasn't okay. So I have to react. So the first thing we need to do is accept the pain's part of the journey. It's going to happen. It's inevitable. Everybody's going to get disappointed and let down at some point in time. It's going to happen. It's not a bad thing. It doesn't mean your relationship is over. It just means, ha, okay, I need your attention. There's some things that are not okay within you. And now what do we do with it? The first thing I'm going to encourage you to do is not panic. We can panic and run over the edge and end up exactly where it is we were trying to avoid to be. What we need to do is we need to pause and we need to check in with ourselves. And that's hard. And when we check in with ourselves, it's easy and natural and normal. But we're not programmed to go there. Like, how do I really feel about this? What's going on for me, why I'm upset? What do we need to do differently? Do that introspection first. Because what we tend to do is communicate in the talk the circumstances or the problem and why it always leads to a fight is thus the first thing that happens is I pull out a circumstance, meaning this is a problem. You shouldn't do that. This is how it's supposed to go. I can't believe you did this again. And I need you to just hearing me say that, recognize and realize I'm feeling like I'm attacked. We're not solving a problem. We're not gaining understanding or clarity about our problems and how we go forward. We're literally picking each other apart. We're criticizing each other. We're criticizing our behavior. You're criticizing the way I saw it or the reason I did it. You assume why I did it, but you don't really know. And on and on and on this goes as long as we're pulling out problems to solve. Right. And not getting clear about how they made me feel. I'm talking about the circumstances instead of the emotion of where I went in my emotional body. So I'm going to give you some examples here because your head's probably spinning right now.

I would agree.

Yeah.

In circumstances, you could use another word if that's tripping you up or not. You're not. It's not really, you know, resonating with you. It's the conditions. It's the details. It's. It's. And let's just be honest. I mean, those are happening to us every single day for the rest of our lives. So, you know, the light was red when it was supposed to be green. You know, I mean, there was someone walking across the crosswalk when I was supposed to turn. Right. And that's why I'm late. I mean, bottom line is those really don't matter. But. So we're going to share with you why we get tripped up on those circumstances. And that's what we use as our ammunition when we're having this talk.

Yeah. And we don't know what else to do. We don't know what else to talk about. So I'm going to say, right. Something along the lines of, you work all the time. You're never here. When are you going to stop? That would be a circumstance. The circumstance has an emotional driver, though, and that emotional driver is something along the lines of, I miss you. I'm feeling lonely. I'm feeling like I'm alone in this relationship. You're never here. Now, which one. Just listening to me say that feels better. Which one would you be more open to in a conversation when you notice that. Right. Your needs as a person, the pain is saying we need to do something different. I'm noticing this doesn't feel good. I miss you. I feel lonely. I feel alone in the relationship. Yes. I could go to. I guess you don't care because if you did, I would be here. But that's an assumption that I need to vet out. And so when we have a talk, it would sound more like this. It would sound more like, I'm really missing you. I'm here alone a lot, and I don't like it. Actually. I remember when we used to have some time together and we used to spend a great time cooking and doing some of these things that we love. Would there be any way that we could carve out some time to be together more?

Well, and I would say think of the receiving end because, you know, I've certainly, you know, not to be stereotypical, but you know, being the provider, I mean, yeah. And we have been self employed my whole life, so that's always been something I've danced with. But I mean, as the receiver of someone sharing truly how they're feeling, it doesn't dismiss all that I'm thinking, I'm like, damn, I'm doing everything I can to make this work. But rather than like, why do you, you're always wanting to be away, I know you're working, you know, blah, blah, blah, versus you know, I miss you. That's a much different response that I'm going to have if that's how it was presented to me. So it's not accusational, you know, you're, you're being invited in because your partner misses you.

Where we really miss the circumstances versus how I feel about the circumstances. I'm going to say that again because that is so super important. When you're looking at, okay, am I reacting just because that's a programmed response? And what is it that is really hurting? How do I feel about what just happened? It's not about what just happened. It never is. It's always about the way that whatever just happened caused me to feel and experience in my emotional body. That's what's creating the pain. But we never talk about that. We never talk about that. Instead we're talking about the circumstances of you always work late. I can't take it anymore. Well, why do you care? Why is it a big deal to you? Where did you go emotionally? What are you making up as true? And what is it you feel like you need as far as a remedy? And in this statement that I shared, hey, I'm really missing you. Right? That's what I'm wanting. Notice, this is all about what I want, not what I don't want. Is there any way we could carve out some time to be together again? I'm advocating for something that I want. Let's try another one. We don't ever have sex anymore. And when we do, it's always the same. And I got to work hard to get that to happen. It's a very common complaint in my office. Try that on. Where do you think that's going to take you? I feel criticized. I feel belittled. I feel shamed. I don't know how to tell you why I don't want to have sex. Because that conversation is allowed. I'm supposed to. That's what a good wife or husband does, right? But I don't. And I can't talk about that. We're not going to talk about that. I'm scared. And it could be a whole host of reasons, and it always usually is, and it's never what you think it is. So try that on. We don't ever have sex anymore. And when we do, it's always the same. Try this on. I'd love to spend more time making love to you. And what. What comes up for you when I ask for this, because now we get to explore why it's not happening. I can't criticize and belittle and shame you enough to want to come and make love to me. Let's be honest. That's never going to get us there. We're going to fight. And now we're back to fighting to the bottom. And it won't matter how right Gottman says we're supposed to have sex. It won't matter what the sex therapist says. It won't matter. All the research and all the reading and all the points that, you know, you bring to the table as evidence about how this is supposed to be a thing that happens in our relationship because you're not addressing what's actually happening, which is why your partner is resisting making love to you.

Why?

Explore it? Discover it. You're going to both learn something, and we've got to be willing to have that conversation. That's what's going to see us through. But instead, we emotionally exhaust ourselves fighting about the circumstances, and we never accomplish a remedy or a solution. Let's do one more, and then we'll take a break so that you can let this sink in. Money. It's a big conversation in relationships, and how we typically talk about it is right. You spend too much money. I can't believe you bought that. Oh, my gosh. You know, that's not okay. What are you doing? Holy cow. This isn't okay. And then I gather my friends or my parents and they say, yeah, they shouldn't be spending money on that. That's horrible. That's completely outside the lines of our relationship. And we fight about that. And again, we do all the research, all the reading, we bring in all the evidence. My mom said, my sister said, the pastor said, and we're never any better for it again. A race to the bottom. So try that on. What feels better? You spend too much money. When are you gonna stop? I can't believe this. This is not okay. Or the emotional version of that, some version of, you know, every time I see deductions from our account. I panic because a I don't know how I'm going to pay the rent next month or I want to save for our retirement or I want to save for a second home or want to save for that big trip we keep talking about. Can we work at this together? Will you help me? Why is it that you feel like you need to spend Help me understand. One talks about things that are going to help see us through and the other will take us out in the weeds. What I call the weeds. We need to look at our conversations that are challenging. Yes, they hurt, they're painful, but that's normal, that's natural. We're not going to get away from that. And instead what we need to do is we need to discover relationships and communication. And relationships are really about understanding yourself and each other. They're not about who's right and wrong. Circumstances don't matter, but how I felt about that and where I went when I experienced that. Circumstances with you is what we need to be talking about. And then it becomes an exploration instead of a fight. So think about that and we'll be right back. To continue the conversation in a moment.

Reset your relationship in five days flat from March 8th through 12th.

It's a free five day experience.

Five days full of free live workshops, foolproof roadmaps and the exact tricks and tools you'll need to reset your relationship.

Day one Transform your hot mess.

Learn how to Catching yourself in the moment is the secret to learning what we call the power of a pause.

Day 2 Get back to dreaming with your partner.

You'll learn exactly what you need to do to start dreaming with your partner again. So often when our relationships are suffering, we're focused only on what we don't want. You're going to learn what to do instead.

Exactly what to do during arguments.

During the arguments, most of us either find ourselves in one of two camps. Controllers. We're trying to bogart the conversation and tell our partners what to do. Collapsers. We shut down or walk away from the conversation. There's a third and really powerful option. Today you're going to learn it.

Day 4 Ready to return to bliss.

Resetting our relationships is all about getting back to how we felt at the beginning beginning of our love stories. Remember what it felt like to know you were the most important person to your partner. So today you're going to learn how to sprinkle a little fairy dust.

Let's pull it all together.

We're going to bring together everything you've learned so far and you'll learn the four step strategy our clients use to stop the endless arguing, reignite their connection, and save their relationship.

To to learn more and to register, visit staceybartley.com/ that's staceybartley.com reset do you feel like your love life is on life support? It's time for a turbocharged relationship resuscitation with an alternative to marriage counseling. Head over to staceybartley.com to learn more about their proprietary programs their clients use to save their relationships. S T A C I B A R t l e y.com visit stacybartly.com today are you tired of sitting on a couple's counselor's couch and feeling like you're just rehashing the past and making no progress? Do you feel like you're holding on to your relationship but panicked you're losing your partner? It's time to learn how to deepen your connection. Finally resolve the arguments that keep coming up. Understand yourself and your partner and create the level of intimacy you've been dreaming of. It's time for love to tingle your toes again. Schedule your private session with relationship expert stacy bar@staceybartley.com checkup. Broaden your horizons. You'll be amazed at all the topics we cover on Alternative Talk 1150.

Hey, welcome back. If you're just joining us, we've been having a very juicy conversation on Oof. This thing when our relationships are sliding sideways and we don't know what to do. We've talked about reframing our pain. Understanding that pain is not signs of a problem, but that we need to stop, we need to pause and we need to address it instead of trying to ignore it or run from it or pretend like I'm never responsible or you're responsible and I'm not. When it comes to our emotional pain, it's inevitable it's going to happen in our relationships. It's going to happen in every single one you've ever been in. So before we panic and think that this relationship is over and there's no help and no possibility of creating what it is I want or we desire or we did in the beginning, it's important for us to understand that pain is actually our ally. And it tells us things that aren't working and things that need to be addressed gets our attention and it also motivates us to do things that we otherwise wouldn't want to do or have been put off doing instead of what we are doing.

Yeah, we talked about most of us, we, we get hung up on the the conditions, the Situation, the circumstances, all the details of why we're upset, rather than, you know, truly how that situ. How it made me feel. And when we can share that with our loved ones, with our partners, it's a very, very powerful place to, To. To. To step in and, you know, versus, you know, the accusation. You can literally invite someone into what you're experiencing, and then most oftentimes, the response is going to be dramatically different than the constant arguing and escalation of voices. And ultimately someone leaves and slams the door and we're back to where we've always been.

Yeah. So the takeaway here is when we're stepping in to address something that's painful, I want you to pause. I want you to get clear about why it is. It hurts for you and communicate that, why does this hurt me? What's happening? And then if you can. And this is kind of, I know, a super skill, but you can get really good at it. We just don't spend any time doing it. Ask for what you want, advocate for it. And I've given some examples here about money, about time, about sex. These are important. When we talk about the emotional experience of the circumstance, it's a game changer. We're talking about the thing that's actually going to move us forward. I always say to my clients, hey, I don't care how you got here. It doesn't matter to me. I don't. Because that's the story we always get right. Oh, they did this, and they did this and they did this, and then this happened. And then, oh, my gosh, can you believe it? We're talking about the wrong things. And if you're doing this in your relationship, you too are talking about things that won't help you through the difficulty and ease the pain. We need to talk about how it made me feel. I need to talk about what it is I want and that I'm longing for. And help me understand why we can't get there. And help me understand why you do this piece. Let's uncover that. Right? And in the examples we've given three of them, in the example of, hey, you never want to make love. You. You never want to have sex. I'm always having to force you. I always feel. And I'm waiting around, waiting around. That's a huge conversation. What if we just explored why you resisted or why that's not comfortable for you, or what could I do to make it something that you looked forward to? That's a very different conversation. And if I were sharing with you how I long for it and I miss it, and I want it. That would be a very different conversation than just belittling you and criticizing you because you never want to go there.

And it's a very different response or how it's received on the other side, too, which is. It could not be more different. So, again, I know I've been redundant, you know, repetitive, but if we can invite someone into how we're feeling, I would absolutely guarantee you that that's going to be a much different experience for someone, you know, your loved one, your child, your family member than if. If you're just throwing out zingers of accusation. Because let's just be honest, ladies and gentlemen, we, you know, we get accused and we're beating ourselves up enough every single day, so you can't do any better job than what we do every day for all of us. So this is huge. It may sound subtle, but once it plays out in real time, in real life, it' changing.

I vote that we figure out how to create a discovery of what's possible instead of a fight. We uncover what's not working by not the circumstances, but the way it makes me feel. Hey, I'm feeling uncomfortable here. I'm feeling awkward here. I don't know what to do here. I'm feeling scared here. You too, huh? Okay, well, let's talk about how we feel better then. What do you got? Here's what I got.

And you just have to realize, too, that all the details are still there. You're simply approaching it from a much different perspective. So they, you know, we're not trying to say, don't act like it didn't happen. Not at all. But again, how is this, you know, what is the feeling part of all of this?

Yeah, you're talking about it from the place of discovery instead of the place of picking a fight, criticizing, belittling, shaming, and thinking that that's going to take you in the direction you need to go. And I also wanted to just point this out. Not all things in your relationship, when you're feeling pain, are wrong. We tend to flush all the good stuff. There's maybe a lot of things that are going well, and we need to talk about the few things that aren't going so well. And don't forget that, because we tend to flush all the good in nanoseconds. Right. As I say, right. In some of the stories that I share about Tom and I, it's uncanny how he can 365 days a year, most days make me feel like I'm the most important thing to him in the whole wide world. And then there's that day where I start to panic and freak out because that didn't happen. That wasn't my emotional experience. And all of a sudden, I flushed all the 365 days. He did amazing things for me.

So actually, 364, if we're doing our math, the one day would be 1 minus 365 would be 364. I'm doing my best, ladies and gentlemen.

Yes. So we're gonna. We're gonna switch gears here, but I just want to recap. Okay. Don't panic. Pain is normal. It's natural. It's actually an ally. We need to reframe how we think about emotional pain. It's going to happen. When it does happen, the best gift I can give myself and my partner or anyone that I'm trying to be in a tiff with is a pause long enough for me to understand why it hurts. I need to understand the emotional part of this circumstance and get off the circumstance itself. And then when I do share this with you, I share with you how it made me feel, where I went, what I'm hoping for. That will be a game changer in regards to finding a solution, stepping into that discovery piece, uncovering things, opportunities, possibilities, instead of going to the bottom with a fight. We want to open up a new segment of our show. It's always been something that we've wanted to do, but it's an ask a question part. As Tom had mentioned in our intro, questions from you are so important, and we want to make that a part of the show. So I have a couple of questions here, and if by chance you're listening to this conversation right now and you want to call in, you can do that here at 425-373-5527. Or you can text a question to 601-207-0080. You can also go to our website. Go ahead.

Absolutely. Yeah.

We.

On our website, I shared this using a cool piece of technology, speak pipe. And you can go in there and record. Send us a voice message, if you will. You can choose to not even share your name and where you're from. Simply just jump right into the question and we'll do our very best to answer it next week.

Yeah. And we want to add this piece because we think this is just an additional way that we can. Can support you right where you are. And as you're trying to implement this information that you're hearing from us, Each week, we want to be able to give you as much support as we possibly can. So the questions that have come in on this topic thus far on our website. The first is, why do you think so many relationships fail?

Oh, boy.

I know. That's a really good question. It's a big question. And a lot of relationships. Relationships do fail. We've talked about and uncovered some of the reasons why right now. But the real answer is we're not really taught how to navigate and manage our emotions. Our emotional body is something that's very foreign to us. We understand the physical body. We have a lot of conversations and commentary on how to take care of it, what to eat, how to exercise, where to go. But when it comes to taking care of my emotional body and how I navigate and. And understand how it operates, I don't know. I mean, do you know where to go to get that? Most don't. And yet the relational experience is a very emotional experience. It's what got you in this mess. You sort of feel some sort of way about somebody special in your life, and all of a sudden you're like, hey, let's move in. And so the emotional experience, or turn, soon turned off because we don't know how to navigate our emotions, manage our emotions, understand our emotions, and we certainly don't understand our emotional body. So that's why, in my opinion, most relationships fail. What is taught is manipulation. Manipulation of those emotions is what we know and what has subtly been taught. And what is practiced all the time and didn't.

Wasn't last week was that last, last episode before this one is a really good one. We talk a lot about manipulation.

Yeah. And lastly, we don't study and practice relationships. We don't. It's not like other things. Why don't we study relationships at least as much as driving a car, making a casserole, or learning how to make that wonderful souffle Swiss style. We don't. It's something that we either feel like we're good at or we're not. And that much just the way it is. Again, another.

Why.

Anything you want to add there?

Well, I would just say, yeah, I mean, when you really think about it and Stacy and I, we, we talk a lot about this is so. Because typically people reach out to us when there's. When things have become an emergency of what I alluded to earlier in the, in the show, in the episode. But why isn't that we wouldn't potentially take a proactive approach? Because if you've read any, any of Your end of life type regret stories and I have and they all start, seem to be around the same thing. They're about the, the conversations we didn't have, the time we didn't take for our loved ones. So if that's the case, and again it seems to be pretty consistent, then why don't we reverse engineer that's a popular phraseology in, in our day and time right now and understand that we're not born lovers, that that's a, that's a bag of goods. I'm being radio appropriate here with my language but, but it simply takes the same amount of investment of time and practice and such to become a good lover. We'll have the capability to be a great lover, but we vary dramatically in our capacity to do so.

Yeah. So. Okay, I know it's a sad moment at least for me where we've got to wrap this up, we've got to move on and we've got to step into the rest of our day. I want to just say thanks so much for joining us here on the Love Shack Live and there's a couple of things that I want to tell you before we go. The first is thank you so much for listening in, for helping us spread the word as we together support more humans in creating more love and less fear and to truly step into what it means to love for a lifetime. I also want to take a moment and invite our listeners to join us for our five day challenge that's going to be happening here on March 8th. We're going to spend five fun filled days together with live workshops and foolproof roadmaps with the exact tricks and tools that you need to reset your relationship journey right now. Don't miss it. You can sign up for this challenge and become part of the Facebook group right away. We've actually got some fun things happening in there right now. Pre challenge. I'm not going to tell you anymore, but it's kind of a secret. You can go to stacybartley.com forward/reset to sign up for that challenge.

And I would just say the reason why we chose that, the name. I mean think about it. I always remind Stacey, what does your tech person share with you? You call your tech person My darn computer is not working with a dam. And what does his, him or her typically say? Well, Mr. Bartley, have you tried to reset? Have you reset? Have you restarted your computer? No, we'll try that first and call me back. So I think there's a lot of, lot of real relevance there.

We need to reset our relationships. Right. We need to learn how to govern them, navigate them and work with them. So I'm going to invite you also to come on back next week and join us. We're going to have a guest on our show. It's going to be Victoria Volk. She's a grief expert. We're going to dive into the conversation of grief and it's not heavy, actually. She has a really wonderful, unique slant on grief and how to work with it emotionally. So come on back and we'll have that conversation next week. The song that we've chosen to wrap up this episode, I feel like is so appropriate. It's an oldie, right, by Nina Simone, and the title is I Put A spell on you. The reason why I chose this song for this episode is sometimes if we could just simply avoid the difficult stuff, right? The way I feel, if I could just not have to share that with you because it's vulnerable, because it's hard, because it's difficult, then I could just put a spell on you. Wouldn't that be nice? Have you ever felt like you wanted to just do that? Make somebody fall in love with you or stay forever because you care about them, but you know, you know that you're having some challenges and you don't know how to get around them. I know I surely have felt this way and I feel a sense of desperation to explain or to enroll my lover into what I truly desire sometimes eludes me. If I could just be given right another chance if I could just have the opportunity and permission to put a spell on you that seems like it would take. Take care of it. All right? Well, unfortunately, that doesn't exist, and too bad, it really doesn't work either. There's something bigger afoot, which is the exploration of you, the exploration of your partner, and the exploration and discovery of what's possible. Don't panic, just stop and pause. Get clear about how you're feeling. Talk about that and let the circumstances go. I promise you it will be a game changer. All right, until we see you again next week, have a beautiful week.

See you next week, everybody.