#223: How to Let Go of the Past in a Relationship (Even When It Still Hurts)

Have you ever had that moment in the kitchen? You know the one you're just standing there, maybe making dinner, maybe pretending to scroll on your phone, and the weight of everything unsaid between you and your partner fills the room like smoke. You want to say something. You really do. I'm still hurt. I'm still angry, or I don't know how to forgive you, and I hate that about myself. But instead, you just keep stirring the sauce or scrolling on your phone again. And once more, you say, I Absolutely nothing. This is the moment where so many relationships begin to quietly unravel. Not because there's no love left, but because no one knows how to move through the pain of the past. If that's where you are right now, please know you're not alone in this.

And good news.

You've come to the right place. Welcome to Love Shack Live, the podcast for couples at a relationship crossroads for people living in the tension of daily conflict and emotional distance, but still holding onto the hope that love is worth fighting for. I'm Stacey Bartley, a relationship mentor who spent spent over a decade helping couples rebuild what's been broken. Alongside my co host and lover Tom, and our daughter Brooke. Today's episode is a rebroadcast, but not just any old rerun. This conversation on letting go of past mistakes has been one of our most downloaded, most requested and most transformative episodes. And for good reason. Because when you're stuck in resentment, betrayal, or years of what ifs, moving forward through it feels almost impossible. But what we've learned again and again and again, both personally and professionally, is this. Mistakes are part of being human. Oh, we are so messy. Shame keeps us stuck. And love cannot thrive when the past is being used as a weapon.

So how do you actually let go.

Without pretending it didn't happen? How do you stop punishing them or yourself long enough to create something new? That's exactly what we're exploring here today. And listen, if you've heard this episode before, don't skip it. You've grown.

You. You're different now.

And what you hear this time will simply hit you differently. And if you're new here, welcome. I'm so glad you found us. Let's dive in.

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

We're going to be diving into the conversation today of letting go of past mistakes. Your how to guide for transitioning and extracting the beautiful learnings from our past experiences, regardless of what they might be, as well as avoiding the staying stuck in past experiences. So wherever you are right now. Sometimes it's difficult to see forward when I'm so mired in the decisions of my past. And here's what I want you to know is mistakes happen for many reasons, but the most common one, especially when it comes to relationships, is simply this. I didn't know what I didn't know. I was expecting one thing and seemingly out of the blue, experienced something entirely different. And I need you to know the reason that that happens is because we're human and we learn as we go, especially when it comes to love, not before we get started. And so these decisions that we make on the front side unknowingly become the surprises that we experience down the line. And there's no way to know how it's going to play out on the front side when you're asked and required to make the decisions to jump in, follow your heart, get to know this person, co create with this person, build a life with this person. There's no way for anyone to know in the mix how it's going to play out in the future. And ofttimes this can be exceptionally frustrating. And we can make up some terrible, terrible narratives about ourself and about our partners because of this simple thing. So we're going to dive into helping you navigate this today as well as give you some places and literally some practical, step by step that you can use to help get yourself out of the past and living again into your beautiful, bright, incredible, opportunistic future. That's our goal here today. So welcome. Thank you so much for being here with us. And where do we want to dive in team? I mean, I think we should dive into the messmaking machine part of being a human being.

I want to remind you, the listener, that letting go of the past is something that we get asked. I would say it's one of our top two questions on social media. And it's one of the hardest things that we're ever asked to do in relationships is forgive our partners and forget and let go of the past and also do the same for ourselves. And we like to use, we talked about this a little bit in our last episode, that we like to use the past as kind of a weapon. You, mom too, calls it the bat of truth to beat our partners up along the way and make sure they remember how much they hurt us and make sure you know that I'm still suffering because of the bad choice that you made. And I just want everyone to kind of frame the episode in this light that doing that is exactly what we're talking about it, because if you do that, you're not letting the past go. And there's no way that you can grow and move forward and really have any chance of having a successful relationship. The way that we're different is that we truly believe 100%, with all of our hearts that it is possible to let it, let things go. Even if your partner cheated on you, even if they betrayed you in the worst way that you could ever imagine. We know it's possible to let it go, but that goes against all the social constructs and everything your family is going to tell you and everything you're going to read in a lot of books. So just come into this episode with an open heart and potentially learn some new things about letting go of the past, because we know that you can do it.

I love that. And I want to speak to the people who are maybe thinking that you're the problem and that where you are is all of your fault. Let's talk to the other side of the equation, because we too, can feel exceptionally responsible for where we might be in our relationship, Especially when you see and look back, that you could have done things differently and that you were struggling with mental health challenges or where you came from as a child or your addiction or. We're talking about similar things that all come together in crescendo for a reason. And as I say to my children, look, I could have knocked it out of the park as your mom. I say this to my ex spouses, I could have knocked it out of the park as your lover. But the thing that I was wrestling with the most was myself. And so sometimes we can hold all of the responsibility on our own shoulders for where we are. And that's also going to keep us stuck because we're not learning from it.

And I would just say, just remember what we're encouraging to look at. And it's not at all, we're saying to just totally dismiss what took place. Not at all. But if you really want to be able to move on and transform from significant situations that you're navigating, then ultimately we're going to need to have you reconsider how you're holding this. Because if we weaponize what's happened, then we're probably not going to get any place new. That's the thing. So it's not a dismissal of what happened, but it's a place to understand how can we turn and face this and use this as a fuel to move forward in a way that's going to serve us and help us become stronger because of it. That's a much different context. So again, don't. We're not trying to say, just, ah, whatever, just let it go.

It's not at all what we're saying in this episode. My promise to you and my commitment to you is to help us understand why we get stuck and then to help us understand the how to get moving again. Because that's what you want, right? You want to get moving again. You want to get back to the good stuff. You want to stop living in this pain and frustration and this continued escalation of what in the heck are we doing here?

Yeah, momentum. This is huge. We talk a lot about this. But I would say in this particular place, if you find yourself stuck in this place of a past significant situation, it is very difficult to create new momentum and think about it. I always share this on our clarity calls when people decide not to stay together. Don't we all hear some version of someone saying, I just can't do this anymore. And what they're really saying is, I've run out of emotional gas. And we all will at some point. We will. And so we, as a family and a body of work, we don't want that to happen for you. We don't want you to run out of gas.

And staying stuck in the past and reliving the same trauma over and over and over again, that requires a lot of emotional gap. It uses up a lot because you're just unintentionally, you're experiencing the same pain over and over and over again. And like dad said, we know what it's like to have painful things happen to you in relationships. We don't live in some kind of dreamland. Even though we talk a lot about the positive, we know that it is hard and that living in the past is kind of a natural human thing that we do because it. We think it protects us from ever having it happen again. But just know it takes a lot to stay there. It uses up a lot of your emotional fortitude and all of the things that we need.

It takes a lot of energy, 100%. In fact, that's often what drains us, is not that forward motion and momentum isn't possible. It's that we insist that we can't move until we decide what to do with this past piece. And so we'll hang out there. And so those are some of the things let's dive into the things that keep us stuck. And let's really make sure that you understand that. And then we are going to help you understand how to move forward with those very difficult, sometimes very challenging experiences that we have as part of life and a part of love. I mentioned this just a few moments ago, but the first thing that we need to wrap our head around is that we as humans are messmaking machines. We need to know by way of experience what works for us and what does not work for us. And as much as we would like to think that we can avoid the mistakes, as we're navigating through life, all of us know what it feels like to think that we're going in a really great place or in a great direction and then all of a sudden say something to the line of, oh my gosh, I didn't know this was part of the deal. What the heck is going on here? We can beat ourselves up and we can beat our partners up. Look, this wasn't part of the script, you guys. I don't know where y' all got off, but we're supposed to be doing this, and I'm pretty certain I know the way. And so you're messed up. This is a problem with you. You screwed it up. You screwed it up. Or I might get stuck. And I screwed it up and I don't know what to do about it. And this puts us in a place where if we don't understand and own up to the fact that if we're humans, we're mess making machines, it puts us in a place of beginning to live an illusion. And the illusion sounds a lot like this because I've done this thing in my past or because this is something that's happened to us in our past, or because you've done this in our. There's no longer a bright future. That bright future is no longer possible. And when we work with couples as clients, one of the biggest conversations that I have to help couples get over is not using the past as the benchmark of what's possible in your future. They're like, oh no, that'll never happen because this happened. Oh no, I could never go there because this happened. Oh no, we all know what they're gonna do or what I'm going to do. And I say, do ya? Because as long as we hold that as the belief and that illusion, then forward progress is going to continue to elude you. So instead of using your past as a benchmark of what's possible, how about if we just give everybody an opportunity to try something different and see how, where it takes us, let's give everybody the opportunity to try Again to go again, to reach for something different. Because until then, we're living in this illusion that because these certain things have happened in our lives and we can do this personally or collectively, that where I truly wanted to go or where we truly wanted to go in the beginning, when we first came together, is no longer possible. Like, it's done, it's over. And I just want you to know that's an illusion. That's a lie that we tell ourselves. And here's what I know. After years of doing this work, there is no, nothing. That if we allow ourselves and our partners to do something different as we go forward, that we can't heal and overcome. And I mean that with all the sincerity in my heart. I've witnessed it between lovers and I've witnessed it between parent and child. There is nothing we can't overcome if we will allow everyone to move forward and extract what it is we need to learn and understand about ourselves and about each other from the experiences that we've had. And so that takes us into a place of where to go from here. But I want you to understand we get lost in the past because this. Of this illusionary quality. And if I were to just tell a story a little more, it's like we continue to ruminate on it more and more and more. And it sounds a lot like, here we go again, we're having that say, oh, you just did it. Oh, my gosh. I was expecting that because this has happened in the past. And here you go again. When are you going to put it together? Oh, my gosh. Oh, so you're going to say that. Oh, okay, I got it. And there's a lot of eye rolling and there's a lot of dismissing and there's a lot of criticism and minimizing and controlling. And then there's there, there starts the mistreatment of when somebody is struggling with something with inside of themselves, we start to mistreat them. Oh, you're doing that again. Oh, yeah, this never going to work. And here we go. You're going to screw it up again for all of us. And I feel entitled as the person who's witnessing this play out, I feel entitled to make you pay. So there's a couple of storylines playing out here that I just want to highlight. The first is that if you make a mistake, it doesn't matter whether I make mistakes as a human being, because I do. But because of the mistake that you made, I'm entitled to punish you for it. Like, you have to pay. There has to be a penance that you pay in order for us to figure this whole thing out, which creates this illusion that we need to continue to bang around on the past and decide who's responsible and, and who gets to punish who and who gets to make who pay. And then we can move forward if we can just get to the bottom of who created this in the first place, who's responsible, whose fault it is. And then finally we're going to be able to solve the problem. And the mystery, which I just want to point out, keeps us stuck in the past. And so imagine for a moment with me that where our focus goes is what we feed. And I'm drawing you in present day time and I'm drawing lines that represent your past experiences. And every time we talk about them, I'm going to highlight them and I'm going to make them bigger and bolder and bigger and bolder. How many thousands of conversations do we have as a couple to determine who's right and who's wrong and who screwed the pooch and who didn't and who had the right answer and who didn't? And the whole time we're having those conversations, I'm making those moments in our past bigger and brighter and bigger and brighter and bigger and brighter. If you can see that visually in your mind's eye, you can start to understand. The more time we spend here trying to decide and make decisions and make somebody pay and decide who's superior or inferior to the other, the more our present moment, today and tomorrow is going to feel a lot like this past moment that we've experienced and lived together. Did it happen? 100% it happened. Was it hard? Yeah, it was really, really hard. It was sad. And instead of looking to creating a different path forward, we're continuing to bang around on what happened, thinking in our illusions that it's going to take us to the promised land. It's going to help us move forward in a better way. Another metaphor that I love, that may resonate with you, that I want to share here, is that if we were to take emotional messes and make them more physical or tangible, if you will imagine me having a mess happen at a dinner party where a glass gets knocked off the table and it shatters into a million pieces and I'm so embarrassed and I'm so right, awkward and uncomfortable that I decide to ensure that this never happens again. After the dinner party, I'm going to pull a shard of that glass from the garbage can out and I'm going to put in my pocket, and it's going to continue to be the reminder that I'll never, ever, ever, ever do that again. And you would probably think I was crazy if I left your dinner party, dug through your trash, and put a piece of glass in my pocket just so that I could remember to not ever make a mess like that again. And yet that's what we do emotionally, all the time. We carry it and we hang on to it because in our illusions think that it's going to prevent it from happening again, which it does not. It only provides the opportunity for us to continue to show up as though it's still happening. It's still playing out every single moment and every single day of our life. Because as a human being, I show up as good as I feel. And if I believe and feel as though I need to hang on to this emotion, it's going to allow me to continue to show up as though it's still happening today. And that's why your moments in the future are going to feel just like your moments of the past.

And do you think we do that? Because if we didn't take that approach, like I shared earlier, then we're just dismissing meaning. Do you think people get hung up? Because that's what seems to come to my mind logically, if I take that approach, then I'm just dismissing this egregious egregiousness that was perpetrated upon me. Do you think that's where we get. That's why it's hard for us to.

Take this approach, because we have this idea that if somebody hurts my feelings, if somebody betrays me or disappoints me, then I'm entitled to make them pay. They have to pay. And you think about even the way we were raised, right, if you do something wrong or you make a mistake, there's no teaching or learning about it. I'm just sent to my room or I'm grounded, grounded from cars and phones and keys and conversations and exploration, and then that's it. You're just supposed to figure it out from there. And this is happening to you, I get to make it more painful for you because you've screwed up. So take it on the chin and I'll see you in three days. When you're ungrounded. And that creates this pattern in our minds that we think we have to continue to play out as adults.

And that's why we lie. Because we don't want to be caught, because we don't want to be punished. A lot of Times, but then that creates so much shame inside of us because not only are we ashamed of, of the fact that we made a mistake, but we're. Then the punishment is also a form of shaming. It's all, it's all ensconced in shame because you shouldn't have done that. You should have known better. Now you're gonna get punished because you did this terrible thing. And so that's coming from outside of us. But inside of us, we feel more shame and self hatred and pain than anyone could ever imagine because we're the best punishers of ourselves. So we. There is absolutely no opportunity for learning from these mistakes because the shame just removes all grace or humility or any acceptance that would be appropriate. If you did the same thing, you would want that for yourself because most of the time these are genuine mistakes. That's what, that's the title of the episode. How do we let go of past mistakes? You know, so I don't know, it's just the, the shame in our culture around these relationship mistakes is so big that it makes it impossible for any growth sometimes 100%.

And remember what I said as I opened this episode. As human beings, especially when it comes to relationships, because we don't study them, we don't practice them, we feel like we're supposed to be good at them. Based on what, I'm not quite sure, but we all feel very much like we're supposed to be very good at them. Especially if I show up and do my part and I find a person who is perfect for me, my soulmate, then we're supposed to be able to have a great relationship. And that just highlights the illusion that we continue to live in our lives. And the reality is I didn't know what I didn't know. And so through the course of navigating relationships, there are going to be many things that come up as truly the human messmaking machines that we are, that we go, holy cow, I didn't know I was going to show up and wrestle with this. I didn't know that this was going to be such a challenge for me. Or holy cow, I didn't know my partner was going to wrestle with this. I didn't know this was going to become a thing in our relationship. And here's the thing. Nor did they know it was going to be something they were going to wrestle with. And what we don't understand about relationships is as we get into them and co create together, which is what a relationship is. Right. What you do affects me and What I do affects you. And then where there's all the risk on the table, right? Like my physical health risk, my mental health risk, my spiritual risk, my financial. It's all on the table because we are going to co mingle it and putting it all on the table is the only way that we're going to be able to have success and this ability to co create. And yet you're asking me to risk it all. Yes, it will ask you to risk it all. And so we're not supposed to have a lot of fear and insecurity about that. When you find the perfect person, well, that's a bunch of crap because here's the truth. You're going to have more fear and insecurity in a co creation than you are living autonomously in your own life. The journey is worth it. But we have to give ourselves the understanding that you're going to make messes and so is your partner. And the opportunity is to learn how to lean in and navigate through those. And if you step into the place of punitive that we come from, the grounding, the penalizing, the pushing away, the isolation, the shunning, I really want you to come close, but what I tend to do is say, I can't talk to you, I can't let you love me, I can't have sex with you. Well, then you're putting yourself in a place where you're going to continue to not extract the lessons from what you've experienced and learned about yourself and quite frankly your partner. And you're also going to put yourself in a place where you're going to sustain the painful event again and again and again and again. And so we start to fight and we become sensitive and then we fight some more. And literally what needs to happen is the understanding piece of what happened and what can we extract and learn. Not the penalty, not the punishment, not the shunning, not the isolation and the pushing away. But to be able to lean in and say, wow, okay, that was hard. That was really, really hard. That was painful. That really hurt my feelings. Help me understand what was going on for you here and help me understand what we need to do now. I didn't see that coming. And you're going to find a lot of holy cow. I didn't see it coming either. I'm so sorry.

I was listening to a TikTok on addiction today and I feel like there are a lot of different kinds of addiction problems that affect relationships. Even I feel like cheating can be sometimes because of sex addiction, you know so there's a. I feel like there's often a lot of underlying issues that if you are a partner of an addict, you're constantly feeling like you have to monitor them and make sure they're staying on track. And if they slip up, talk about the biggest shameful experience you could ever have.

A relapse.

So a relapse of any kind, that's probably the last thing any person on the planet wants to confess to their partner. And that's why we lie. Just think. Yes, exactly. That's exactly what the point I'm making is. That's why we lie. But the person on this TikTok said, what if we didn't think about relapses as the antithesis of moving towards recovery?

Because they're not.

They're just a simple mistake. So if you say a relapse is stopping the recovery, then you're discounting all of those days that the person worked towards the recovery before their relapse. You know, it's just a little reframe in how you think about it. But just because your partner made a mistake does not take away all the previous days that, that they loved you and that they were committed to you and that they wanted this relationship more than anything. But that's how we look at them. We look at them as if there's a mistake. It wipes out everything that happened before it. And I would argue that's not true at all. And I know you would too.

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, you have to understand, just think about anything else that we do in our human experience that we get better at. There's the head learning, right? There's the knowledge and understanding of what I need to do differently to create the change that I'm seeking. And then there's the doing of it, the implementation of it, the practice of it. And whenever I'm trying to translate my understanding of what I know into something that I'm going to do differently in my day to day, there's always going to be a wrestle there. And I don't care if we're talking about becoming a proficient baker, learning how to drive a car, improving our skills at work, trying to become a parent, or yes, wrestling with the throes of addiction of any kind, I am going to mess it up. That is the only way as a human being I can get better at something is by learning from my mistakes as I go. And unfortunately, often what keeps us in these places, places of struggle for longer periods of time, sometimes lifetimes, is there is no permission and space to mess it up. We don't count that. Just as you said, Brooke, as progress towards where it is we're ultimately going, it's there to teach you. Like, when I mess it up, I'm learning something. If I can hold it in that light about what I just did or how I understood it, that's going to help clarify what it is I need to do differently in the next moment. It's okay, let me try this. That didn't work. How I was holding it or seeing it or doing it didn't work here. I fell off. Okay, what can we learn from this? And then go again? Try again. We don't hold it like that. We carry the shame. We feel like we need to punish them. And that, at the end of the day, is what takes us back to square one. Not the fact that we made a mess of it or screwed it up or it didn't go the way we thought it was going to go. And I would say that is true about anything you create as a human being throughout life. And so if we can just remember that when we're getting better and we're trying to change our behavior, regardless of what that is, if I'm trying to become more productive, or I'm trying to change my diet or my health regime or my mental health regime, or I'm trying to improve my relationship, we're going to get better at this as we go. And the implementation of under my intellectual knowledge into my behavior is where the wrestle is. And that's where I'm going to screw it up as I learn along the way. Right? That's how I become masterful at things as a human being. And I also want you to know, if we don't accept and own that journey, then we're going to be stuck in the past believing and buying into the illusion that we cannot have the beautiful future that continues to await us. Because I refuse to take the journey and I refuse to let the past go, to even try, because I've already decided that I'm going to screw it up or you're going to screw it up. So I guess this is as good as it's going to get. And the only way that's true is if you continue to buy into that story and behave and show up every day as though that's true. Like, exclamation point, exclamation point. And that, my dear listeners, is how we get stuck in the past and we live it out again and again and again. And I love the John Mayer song that says we Continue to live out the same old moment throughout our whole lives because we will not allow ourselves to do anything different. We think we've got it all figured out. Okay, I want to tell you about a client of mine that has really driven this concept home. And then let's step into how to turn this around and some simple steps that we can help you start to implement into your own life with a little mess, with a little wrestle, with a little challenge that can actually potentially take you in the direction that you know is possible. Right. This conflicted place inside of us as a human being thinking and believing and hoping that something is possible and yet continuing to wrestle with the idea of maybe I can't, maybe it won't happen, maybe it's not possible for me, maybe I can't get it right, maybe they can't get it right. That is the most painful place in the universe. Like, it continues to pull on you about what you want, and yet you continue to doubt what is possible that is so painful.

Can I ask you a question real quick? It's one that we get often. What do you say to someone whose partner cheated on them or betrayed them in some way, and they just are so sure that it's gonna happen again, they don't wanna let the relationship go, but they are not willing to let the past go. I know on one hand you can say, okay, there's no future for you. You're gonna have to eventually break up because you're not allowing any solution to occur. But what would you say to that person?

You have to look at, if I buy into that as a human being, then that's my truth and I'm going to live congruent to that. There is no other option for us as human beings. And so think about how I'm going to show up in my life if I'm just so sure I'm. You're going to cheat on me again. What's going to happen is I'm going to withhold affection and connection and conversation, and I'm going to withhold dreaming our plans for our future. Because I'm going to say, oh, that's way too painful to even think that that's possible. And so literally what you're telling yourself is that it's time to start pulling out of the relationship and letting go of our future hopes and dreams and shutting down this relationship. That's what you're saying to yourself. And so you're going to show up congruent to that.

As we always like to say, everything comes out in the wash. So let's say, okay, Tom, Stacy, Brooke, okay, I understand what you're saying. I'm going to take a new vision of this. I'm going to allow a place for renewal, new understanding. And let's say the partner does step back into the same behavior. Well, ultimately it's all going to come out in the wash. So then now you have a decision to make. If this same situation is going on with a whole different approach is still continuing, meaning we always have an opportunity to make different decisions even going forward. So even the fact that you've taken a renewed look at something and maybe the same behavior continues to show up and show up. And so ultimately you're going to be able to make a decision. But we find that regret happens when we feel like we haven't given a situation ultimately all the chances for possibility to reframe it, to create something new, to do a redo. So because people, most of our clients and members come to us individually and people say, Tom, what if my partner, he or she never comes to the table? I said, remember, ultimately we're going to get the decision. I didn't say it's a decision maybe that you were wanting, but you'll be provided the opportunity to make a decision and whatever decision you make will help you put a plan around it. So if let's say in the case I just said this partner comes back and still gets back into the same behavior that's not working for you, well then that allows you an opportunity to say, is this going to continue to work for me long term or I going to need to make another decision?

Well, and people are going to say, okay, yeah, that's really great. But what I'm interested in as an individual is minimizing the emotional pain of it all. And I think that if I just anticipate you doing this again, then it's going to stay off. The emotional pain that I'm feeling, that's my way through. That's the best way through. So I'm going to start pulling out of this relationship and I'm going to cut you off and we're going to stop doing things that we used to do in our relationship. Because I just know you're going to do this again. And I just want you to understand that, number one, it does not give you a pain free experience actually usually sets you up for a lot of regret on the backside because how you start showing up is not congruent to what it is you truly want. You say you want this relationship, you're not willing to let this relationship go yet. Then don't behave like you're ready to let it go. Then continue to show up and do your part, because that's what's required of all of us to get back to saving your relationship. And doing your part means I'm going to continue to show up and love you and understand what you're wrestling with and why this is happening, what you need from me, how it is we can continue to realign our vision for our future. And when and if that happens again, by you doing your part on your part, there's not gonna be any regrets. You're gonna know you showed up, you gave it your all, you did your part, you love them, and there are no regrets there. It's much easier to find completion and to let go from that place than to know that you were withholding what you wanted to give them, that you were now making up in a story and an illusion that you were entitled to shame them, beat them up, control them, manipulate them, minimize them, push them away, cut them off from sex and intimacy. That is going to come back on you. That's the boomerang effect of your behavior. Because there's going to be a voice inside of you that says, that was really messed up what you said. That was really messed up what you did. You know that we weren't leaning in and cheering each other on to go in a different direction. And that's going to cause you to feel like there's a tremendous amount of regret. So let me just ask you, which place do you think is more painful trying to convince yourself that this isn't possible and that you shouldn't have to do your part and that you're entitled to mistreat your partner. And you're going to just live that out until they get exhausted or give up and throw their arms up in the air, or you too, or showing up and behaving as though you did your part in this relationship to give it every opportunity to go in a different direction. And I'm going to tell you, the way we hold it, like, I'm just sure you're going to do this again is going to be the most painful option for you. And not only for you, but for your partner. Like, we don't need more shame. We don't need more punishment to help us see the light. We need to believe that you believe in me and that what's possible and what we decided to create as a couple in the beginning is still possible. And that's going to be the inspiration that helps me wrestle with myself in ways that I need to in order to go in a different direction. There's nothing like love that inspires us to do things for ourselves that we would never imagine doing. Changing our behavior, our mindset, wrestling with our mental health, our physical health, our addictions of all sorts and types. I will do things for you if I believe we're in this together that I wouldn't do for myself. But if I already have you holding me as though it's over, there is no inspiration there to do whatsoever. I'm going to go into a pool of shame and I'm. I myself, I'm going to throw my arms up in the air. And now you're just going to mistreat me. And as I mistreat myself until this thing is done. And it's just going to be a matter of who's going to do the egregious blow in the end. And I'm going to hope we're all going to hope it's going to be you. And so we keep trying to set each other up.

We would call that the classic race to the bottom.

The classic race to the bottom. So these things need to be talked about head on. And punishing my partner or myself, quite frankly, is never going to take us to the place that we need to go in order to save a relationship that's in any shape or form. Because we don't need more of that. What we need is to be able to affirm a vision and to be able to believe that we can get there. And all I can be in charge of is my part doing my part to the very best of my ability. I can't monitor my person. I can't critique them, judge them, decide what it is they should or shouldn't be doing. We just monitor what's happening for the agreements that we have. And if we break those agreements, then we need to understand what's happened here. Why did you drop the ball? What's going on for you? Help me understand, not beat me up, punish me, send me to my room, cut me off. There's the piece of understanding that we continuously continue to pull point at in the conversation. Before we turn the corner, is there anything else that we feel like we need to share with our beautiful listeners to help them understand how it is we stay stuck in the past. There's an illusion there. There is a place where we think we're going to protect ourselves from pain. We believe that if we hash it again and again and again, somehow it's going to give us the answers that we so desperately need in order to move forward. And what it does instead is just keeps us stuck in the same old moment that we keep losing living out. And ironically that same old moment becomes more painful as time passes. Right. Almost as a signal to say you're going in the wrong direction.

I would just say we've received a lot of feedback on and specific to an affair. And I love your take on this babe, is look again, please understand I'm not dismissing how painful this is. But for us to want to risk again, all of us want to guarantee in a relationship and with great love and respect, as Robin Sharma says. I love Robin Sharma. It doesn't exist other than us showing up as the best version of ourself. That's the guarantee. And so with these types of situation when something egregious has happened in our relationship, the only thing we truly have control over is us building the foundational strength inside of ourself to be willing to step in and risk again and see what's possible. That's the finest guarantee that we as a family can give you. And that is truly the only one that we can with integrity. All the other stuff you hear out there, quite frankly is BS because it's human behavior. But if we can know and understand within ourselves, okay, I understand how relationships work. I see how we got to this place. I see what's possible. If we turn and face us and go forward in a new direction. I'm willing to risk again and see what's possible. Okay, that's the best that we can give you. Any of us should be fair. That's it. So I think that's really the message here. Whatever it is that we're facing but oftentimes specific to an affair, that's what we say. We take a very different approach. Trust has to come within ourself. It isn't something we can demand outside of us and to our partner, whatever. Yes, you can go that route, but it's going to be exhausting. The finest place you can go, it's going to be some peace of mind, ability to move forward in a way that works is to know that you can step in and risk again and face the inevitable whatever chooses to come your way.

And that's what's going to tell you what's possible with inside of the relationship. So as we let go of that control of our partners, we can start to observe and see things because we're not getting all mired in it. I'm just Focusing on doing my part, that's my win. I'm not saying it's going to prevent you from experiencing challenging moments. What I am saying is it's going to empower you to navigate better through them and to gain the understanding and the insights and the learning that those messes have for you. And that's kind of a whole nother mind shift. If. If you go through a challenging time, what do we need to extract out of that? And that's going to move us into what we want to share with you today to help you move forward. And here's the thing, as we turn the corner here, you can't punish someone for what they've done to you because that's always going to get you into a place that's stuck. And I know that's really hard. We feel entitled to mistreat them, minimize them, criticize them, shut them down, especially if they've done the same to you. But again, what's going to happen is you're not going to feel good about the way you're showing up in your own life. Like your own essence or your own soul is going to say, that's really messed up. What you just said or did is really messed up. And that's how it kicks our own fannies. And as one beautiful client said, this relationship is turning me into a monster of myself. And that's how that happens. As I feel worse and worse and worse about myself because of how I am showing up and treating somebody I say I love. We can all get lost in that. We can all feel entitled to criticize or minimize or belittle or shut down or cut off somebody because of what. What they've done to you. I just need you to know that gets you lost in a maze of illusion that you won't find your way out of from that direction. It will just continue to create more and more pain and suffering for yourself. So you can't stop it. When your partner is wrestling with something, you can't do it perfectly because there's nothing perfect about us as a human being that we have to let go of as well. And we cannot control it. What I can control is me and how I hold it and my mentality around it. But you can do your part. And that's what helps you to feel good about yourself and the role that you're playing in any given situation that you might find yourself in. And in this way, you're going to realize as a human being, you have an unstoppable will to grow forward. It's unstoppable. If I will just look at going forward in the very best way that I possibly can. And then I do that again. I just do my best today, and then I do it again, and then I do my best again, and I do it again, and I begin to stack on those things so that I become more congruent with the person that I want to show up as. Even though we're going through a very difficult time, this is what we call radical acceptance. Acceptance of what has happened. And my encouragement to you is to develop a reflex to ask yourself, what am I going to do about where I am now? What direction do I want to go in? And what is one small action that I can take right now in that direction? And then we stack on those, and I do it again and again and again. Some super tips that I have for you in implementing this is do not allow yourself to say negative things about your situation. You're not stupid. You shouldn't have known better, because if you did, you wouldn't have made the choices that you did. You got all in. You loved, you gave it your all. Or you didn't know that you were going to be wrestling with some of these emotional things that are coming up for you. And because of where you come from, your only coping skill is to drink, to reach out to other people for validation, to go missing, to isolate, to pull away, to stop talking. Those are things that we talk about as emotional survival mode. You're not stupid. You didn't know better. You didn't know this was going to happen. And we're all called upon to navigate those things in real time. Number two, find something positive about your experience. How can this help me? Where is my awareness and my understanding needing to come from because of where I am? And I know that one's gonna really ruffle.

I was just gonna say people pulled over, like, okay, Stacy, you've just.

That's it.

I'm done. I'm clicking off. Like, you have lost your.

You had me listening for a moment.

Come on, man.

No idea.

As Brook says, you're being a Disney. Disney person now. Come on. So give us a little context around that. What might that look like or sound like?

Yes, there's always a silver lining. And you want to know why I'm 1000% sure that that's the truth is because we live in a world, a universe, that is full of polarities and dichotomies. And so what could be really bad for me can be good for me. And what could be good for me could become really bad for me. And when we understand that that's just principle, just like gravity, just like oxygen, just like our hearts beating, we can take 100% assurance that that is the reality. Even in things that are really challenging and difficult to live through, there is always a little bit of a silver lining. And I feel like we need to give some examples here of some really challenging things. And here's the irony. When I'm going through a difficult time, the minute I can find something positive about it, that difficulty, that trauma becomes a superpower for me to propel me forward. So here's how it works. Let's give myself as an example. I remember when my father died as a kid, and I remember thinking that was the most incredibly difficult, awful, sad thing that I could potentially go through.

And you were how old?

I was seven. And I remember the casket closing, and I remember thinking, my gosh, I don't want my dolls. I don't want my blankets. I don't want my toys. I don't want my friends. I don't want anybody. I just want my dad back. And the silver lining for me in that whole experience was that in that moment, it taught me how valuable and important relationships are. Like, they are everything. They are life, themselves. And without that experience, I would have never had that experience as a child. And yet that's my silver lining. Out of. In my memory and my knowing, watching that casket lid close every time. Now I experience death. And we've just experienced death again in our sphere of influence. From a dear friend who has lost a baby, 14 months old, her beautiful granddaughter. I'm reminded again of the preciousness of life and love, and that if we take it for granted, we're going to miss the essence of the gift that it has to give us. Was it difficult? Was it hard? Did it make me cry? Yeah. But there's a beautiful gift in there that it reminds me yet again of living. It's kind of like, okay, if we're not going to be here forever, we'd better get busy doing and pursuing the things that are going to bring us joy and light and love. And I want to be a part of that. I want to get on board with that instead of spending one ounce or wasting one ounce of my precious life experience mired in a tremendous amount of pain that I could potentially set up to last my entire lifetime.

Well, I'll give a really insightful one. I think. 2010, one of my sisters passed away. Somewhat expectedly, she was navigating cancer. I was Braced for that one. Then seven days later to the day, a family friend died. And because of that, I mean, it literally hit me like a two by four across my chest. Remember the day my brother told me when I walked in and shared that Mike had passed away unexpectedly, died of a heart attack in the pasture of his little ranch that he had. I just literally had to sit down. And the message, overwhelming was like, reach out to the people in your life right now and let them know you love them. And interestingly enough, you were part of that circle. And to be fair, this is. I'll make a real short story here. Stacy and I didn't really have any. There was no basis for me for Stacy to be included in that conversation at that point of our journey because I didn't really know her nearly like I knew all of the other people. So that's the reason why we are here right now, because of death and the reminder that, yes, life is precious and let people that you love know that you love them.

Often this is often the case when we're talking about affairs or addiction. They pop up because there are things that are happening that we need to look at and be aware of and learn from. As we help couples get through affairs and really difficult, challenging places in their life and in their relationships. As they look back over time, they could see that their things weren't really going so well, but we weren't in a place to really address it then. And then as things continue to escalate or break down, and then we have this moment where we have to come face to face with looking at it, we realize that is a great gift because without that moment, there are a lot of other things that could potentially go awry as we want to go forward in a different direction. And that's what I mean by there's going to be something positive that you can extract from every negative.

And might it take a while to find that nugget for yourself? Yes, give yourself some grace. But. And we're not being Pollyanna here.

But no, it's principled, right? There is a positive nugget out of every negative experience, I promise you. But we've got to learn to look for that. So let's move to three. By doing this, by looking at, looking for and knowing that that's where we want to attune our minds to looking for the learning, the understanding and the silver lining. In any negative moment, this is going to ensure that your experiences of life, whether we classify them as positive or negative, bring more meaning into your life. Your life becomes more meaningful because you're looking for the meaning that these things have in our lives that help me then decide how I want to go forward. And meaning comes from the small things. It doesn't come from the big things things. It comes from the ways that I hold things in my own mind and I can make them negative, which is what we typically tend to do. Oh, this is terrible. This is never going to work. This is over. I'm done. I'm done. I'm never going to recover from this. It's never going to be okay. I'm never going to live like this again. We have all kinds of really crazy conversations in the negative that we make up. But I also want you to know that if you weren't aware, you could also say, I'm going to learn from this. It's going to help make me a better person. I'm going to go in a different direction. I think the best is yet to be. I'm going to learn from this and implement this and I'm going to be the best version of myself going forward. And I'm going to find somebody who can meet me there. I'm going to find us, hopefully can meet us there. That, that there. There are always two sides of that conversation from the positive to the negative. And I'm going to encourage you to reach for the positive, not the negative. Because the negative one is the one that keeps us stuck. And then the last one is look at all your experiences as valuable instead of right and wrong or good or bad experiences help us understand what works and what doesn't work. And in this way you can place yourself positioned for tremendous opportunity. Because I can improve as I go as a human being, which quite frankly is how we improve as a human being. Anyway, I figure it out as I go. We all can relate to trying to figure it out before I get started, which very much has the tendency to put me stuck in a corner from the get go. And I do nothing. I wait and I wait and I wait because there's always something more I gotta figure out and understand. And oh, I wait some more, thinking that I'm gonna wait until the perfect moment will happen so it will all roll out perfectly. And the reality is nothing happens like nothing happens from that place. You're just stuck. We figure it out as we go and we're going to make messes as we go. That doesn't mean that your future is compromised and over. It means that there are some things that we need to learn and understand about what's happened that will help us go forward in a better way. Forward in a more productive, positive way. What I invite you to do right now is to take all of your don't wants, those things that are, like, rolling around obsessively in your thinking, those thoughts that say things like this will never work. I can't get over this. I can't let go of this. My future is ruined because of this. I don't want this. I don't want that. I just want you to make a list of them, like write them all down on a page. And then I want you to get up and walk away from it, get a glass of water, and then come back to your list. And I want you to take the challenge on of turning every single one of those don't wants into a do want. So if I don't want this, then what do I want? What do I want to see happen? What do I want to gain the ability to understand or do or know and take each one of those and flip it into a want. And this is about the moment your brain's going to start to freak out. And I want you to know that's totally normal because we have programmed our brains for the most part in our society of paying attention and attuning themselves to all the things we don't want. Thinking that is going to keep us safe. And I need you to know that's part of that illusion creating that we do. So challenge your brain and say, no, no, there's a want here. Let's find it. If I don't want this, flip it. What do I want? Just flip it to its alternative. If I want to feel safe in my relationship, then I probably need to show up and learn how to create emotional safety in my relationship, to experience that. That's what I want. That's what I want to do. That's what I'm going to focus on. If I want to get out of debt because we're swimming in credit card debt right now and can't make our bills, then I want to learn about credit card debt and I want to start saving money. And maybe that's I need to get a second job or I need to start creating a budget or tracking my money. There's lots of things that could become a result of what it is I want. And you could do that with every don't want on your list, turn it into a do want, and then that's going to start to help you see and understand the action that you need to take going forward. Starting tomorrow and look, you don't need to swing for the fences. Just come up with one teeny, tiny, small action that you can take or make that helps you feel like you're going in the direction of that want. That's how we get out of the past. Step by step, little by little, moment by moment, giving myself new opportunities to understand, to learn, to implement, and to go again. So that is the best you can do right now. And then you just do it again. And then you do it again. And this is how we move out of living out of our past.

If today's conversation stirred something inside you, if you're in that season where communication is clunky, distant, or maybe just completely shut down, please hear me when I say there is a path forward and you don't have to find it alone. First of all, stop beating yourself up for needing reminders and support. That's not a weakness. That's just being human. We don't just learn from love once. Learning from love is an ongoing experience and practice. That's why we've created something simple, powerful and affordable to help you take your next step. Step it's called the Space and Separation Communication Playbook. And it's specifically designed for those moments when the conversations feel hard or are not happening at all. Here's what you'll find inside the playbook. A self assessment to help you spot the emotional survival patterns that you're both stuck in. Real guidance for shifting how you show up. Because it's not just what you say, it's how you say it. And simple communication tools to create better clarity even in the hardest of moments. You can grab it right now for just nine bucks. Yep, that's really true. Nine dollars. It's the best place to start. If you're tired of guessing and ready for some grounded, practical clarity, just head to the link in the show description to get your instant access. And if by chance you're ready to go even deeper working directly with us, join the Better Love Club in one of our signature programs. We've totally got you. Everything you need is just a few clicks away. Because love, it's not magic. It's a practice of real skills. Love also isn't about being perfect or lucky. It's available to us all. So if you want it, come and get it. Take that next step. We'll be here to walk with you, side by side.

So let's have a little bit of fun. Today's our little bit of fun is I want to invite you to revisit the dreams that you held together as a couple. When you decided to create a future together, do you remember those dreams? Here's what I want you to know. All relationships are built on dreams of what we are to be and what we can accomplish and build and create together. I want you to celebrate the ones that you've already accomplished. Have a little celebration ceremony around it, clink some glasses, make a wonderful meal, recount and relive all of the wonderful dreams that you had in the beginning, that you fulfilled and that you've created. And then also take this opportunity to create some new ones to pursue. Maybe it's designing a new house or buying that convertible that you've been drooling about for years. The ranch that you want to own. Own. Or the faraway places that you would like to travel to, or the business that you would like to start. Pretend like this. Pretend like you've just won the lottery and let the conversation take hold from there. What would you do if you won the lottery and money was no longer an issue? What would you create? Where would you go? What would you want to experience together? This is going to put you in a place where you have new dreams to pursue, new visions for your future. And let's face it, as human beings, we all need one of those to pursue because that's going to help us navigate our way out of the past. Leo Pascalia had this to say in his book Born to Love. Nothing is so fatal as predictability. Dull routines have a way of insidiously creeping into our lives. There's Sunday morning breakfast after church, the same old restaurant, Wednesdays with the in laws, Friday's movie night. These threads of habit are woven into our lives until we find ourselves bound, limited only to experiencing the same old slice of life over and over and over again. What is so desperately needed right now, at this point in time in our history is acts of serendipity. A surprise dinner, an unexpected gift, a little craziness to shake up this deadly habitual experience and existence that we have. And it all begins with a dream. So take some small steps today towards it. Our song for this week is can you feel it, baby? It's Digby Jones. And the only word in the entire song is, all right, it's going to be all right, it's all right, it's going to be all right. Which I thought was quite profound because of our conversation today about trying to get out of the past or the past mistakes that we've all made. The places where I beat myself up, I beat up my partner like it's going to be all right. Let's just turn the lens and look at this from a different direction and let's see if we can extract a little nugget of understanding, learning and potential. Because again, I remember you are unstoppable. When we turn and realize we can always move forward. We can always try again in a new day and in a no moment, don't forget that it really is all right. This song is a beautiful instrumental with these incredible words. It's got a little bit of a funk to it too. It's personally one of my favorites. You can check this song out on our playlist on Spotify, at the Love Shack Live Playlist, or on our website@staceybartley.com.

I think that's a wrap as we land this episode. Thank you so much for giving us your time, which is the most precious resource that any of us have. If you have something you'd like us to cover in another episode, reach out to us. There's lots of different ways you can email us. There's a wonderful little widget on our website. You can leave us an audio message. We're here to talk about what's important for you. Thank you for being with us and.

Until next time, go create some dreams. It's important while you listen to the song. It's a beautiful mix. Bye bye for now.

All right, it's time to get 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 the our Love Shack Live community.