#46: 10 Forms Of Betrayal That Are Just As Painful As Cheating In Relationships

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Yeah. Yeah. We're going to be talking about 10 sneaky ways betrayal poisons our relationships. Now, I know when I probably say the word betrayal, most of us human beings have little brains that scramble to, oh, I know what you're talking about. I know what this show is all about. It's about sexual infidelity or an affair.

Yeah, well, those kind of interchangeable, right? Yeah.

Emotionally, physically.

Right.

But infidelity is not the only way the betrayal poisons our relationships. But it seems to be the one that we are most familiar and fixated on as human beings, especially right now. We've been given the permission to talk about it more and explore it. It's not the dastardly secret that it once was in cultural and societal history. And so now we find ourselves talking about it a lot. But today, I want to help us uncover some other forms of betrayal that are just as deadly to our relationships. And these forms of betrayal often seem like little things on the surf, and many times we easily dismiss them. And then one day we wake up and find ourselves saying things like this in our relationships. How did this happen? And before long, we're wondering, who changed me, changed you change? Or we come to the conclusion we've just outgrown each other, and it's time to move on. What we really say in times of betrayal, when our relationships have been broken down to a place where we need to let go of them, is I don't really trust you anymore. I can't continue doing this, or I don't trust myself in your presence anymore. You must know betrayal is at the heart of every relationship breakup because it destroys our feelings of trust, both with ourselves and others. And without trust, our relationships cannot thrive and survive. So today, in this episode, we are going to do a deep dive into discovering some of the more unspoken forms of betrayal. So stay with us. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back everybody. We are your host, Tom and Stacey Bartley, Love Shack Live. Great to have you with us. We're going to jump into the heart of the matter. We've got some sneaky ways of betrayal that's going to poison your relationship. That's going to. That do that do poison your. Well, I'm just being honest. I mean and I love that word sneaky because when Stacey and I were preparing for the show they really, I think these are, these are places where sometimes we dismiss or we. Yeah, they're not that big of a deal, you know and they really are, believe me, they really are. And we're gonna, we're gonna go through five of them today. Is that correct?

Okay. Yeah. Tell us about part one.

This is part one. And part, this is a two part series, ladies and gentlemen. Excuse me. I get so excited sometimes I tap the table. I know it drives our sound engineer crazy. Sorry about that Eric. But anyway, we're doing, gonna do five today and then five part two coming up in a episode soon.

Yes. We're only going to cover five of them today. We. There are ten significant.

Hard to believe.

I know you would think, okay, what in the world are they going to.

Say besides you know, the big one, infidelity or an affair. Yes. There are 10 additional.

Yeah. And I'm going to give you three clues as to what we're going to be diving into today. The first one is secrets non disclosure. Right. Erects walls between couples or between two people of any kind. The second one is anytime we're trash talking ourselves and the relationship or a partner, that's two. And then disappointments of betrayals which is what we're going to dive into today. But those are the three biggies that really send our relationships reeling. And they seem so simple, right? They are simple. They're just not easy. And we do them and find ourselves doing them sometimes without even thinking about it. Sometimes we can even make up that holding a secret or non disclosure is something that's serving the people that I love the most. And at what point in time do I disclose it not. And gosh, if you haven't had a chance yet to listen to our conversation with Mike Gorday who is a forensic psychologist on lying. That's a fascinating conversation. We'll certainly be having also co host.

Of our wonderful show on KKNW techtime Radio.

Yeah. So let's jump into these betrayals, shall we? Let's talk about the first one. The first one is what I would call conditional commitments. Now, conditional commitments can be everything from the conditional commitment to be in this relationship or it can be the conditional commitments that I make with you inside of our relationship. So let's break that down a little bit. Okay? Conditional commitments means sometimes I say yes when I really don't want to, and sometimes I say yes when I really don't mean it. And sometimes I say yes and commit in until X happens in my own mind. I don't disclose that part typically to anybody else, but I say yes until something better comes along. I say yes until you get that job or get school completed. I say yes because I know you want me to stop by the grocery store, but I really don't want to. I know I'm not going to have time, but I know if I say no, I'm not going to stop by the grocery store for you on my way out the door. It'll just create a fight. So I'll say yes, but I know I'm not going to get to it. Those are great examples of conditional commitments. So they're excuses, essentially. I know that I'm probably not going to do it. I know that I'm probably not in with inside of myself. And sometimes this changes. Sometimes when I initially commit in, I feel like I'm all in. I feel like I'm good to go, but then I get in it and I go, oh, see, I didn't sign up for this. And then I start trying to, you know, work my way out. Right, that happens too. So we've got two sides of where this kind of sticks us a little bit.

So. So conditional commitment would not only be my mind goes to write, you know, the big commitment. Are we going to, you know, be together? Are we going to, you know, commit and be in a long term relationship? But this is. These are much more even say micro commitments where we have conditional commitment.

We have them both. Want to talk about macro or micro first? Let's go big.

Okay, let's go.

Let's talk about when you, well, first.

Came together while you were reading my mind. That's where I'm going to talk about.

When Tom and I came together. Because the reality is I was very much conditional commitment kind of girl. I had gotten all in in a marriage of 13 years and felt like I was knocking it out of the park by checking all the boxes. And when that 13 year marriage came crashing down, it was maybe the most difficult thing that's ever happened to me because everything that I thought it was going to be or that I needed to do to make great relationships happen, work. And so it literally shattered the entire foundation that I felt like I needed to do and become in order to be good at family, love and relationships, intimacy, being a good person, et cetera. And that was all wiped away with one single divorce. And so then I had to kind of remanufacture myself. So I flipped to the other side where I decided that committing to anybody was a really bad idea and I was never going to give my heart away truly again. But I did know that inside of myself I wanted to be in relationships. I love relationship. I love to connect and meet other people. I love intimacy, you know, I. And that I knew was something that I was going to need as a part of my life in order for me to be happy. But the promise part, the commitment part, the giving my heart away, relying on somebody to be there for me regardless of what was going on in life's up and downs, it had been shown to me that I couldn't, I couldn't do that anymore, right? So I decided I was going to be a Miss Independent Woman and do life on my own terms, right? I wasn't going to need no man. I was going to rally my five kids and we were going to go and we were going to figure a way to do it on our own. And it had been working. But I did find myself in a lot of conditional commitments, right? I'll stay and be committed to this relationship as long as. And it could be a fill in the blank as long as you keep your job. As long as we're co creating and you're helping me take care of the kids, as long as you can not create a lot of hiccups with my children. As long as. It was always like this fill in the blank back there for me. And the reality is, looking back now, I didn't see it at the time, but the reality was I always had some kind of an emotional getaway car in case I needed it. Like if everything started to turn upside down, I could always say, oh, see, this isn't working, it's time for me to go bye bye. And I had all my reasons and stories behind that. And so it was very much a conditional commitment overall. Now when Tom came along, I was exhausted from this. Like I had had it, I had had My heart broken with this conditional commitment. I had hurt a lot of people that, that loved me dearly and I really loved them dearly. But my inability to kind of get all in and truly commit and go for it, I knew was the thing that was hanging me up. And so I came to this realization that I didn't ever want to be in a committed relationship again with somebody who couldn't be here just because they wanted to be here. Like that was the only requirement or criteria I needed was if we choose that we want to co create and be together in a relationship, then guess what? You and I just want to be here because we want to be here. There's no reason about the kids, the religion. Right. The finance, the cultural. Yeah. The financial. It's just because we really see a future together and we want to build and capitalize.

So I would say the very opposite of obligation.

Very opposite of obligation. So. So how did that translate to you, babe? Because, you know, we were coming together, we started having like lots of conversations around this.

Well, yeah, we.

Something. I was in the throes of trying to work through myself and understand myself in a whole new way more than a decade ago.

So long story, short story is Stacy and I, 600 miles apart. I. We live in Sacrament outside Sacramento and Stacy is from Salt Lake City. 600 miles. So that's how we started for the first nine weeks of our relationship. Got into some, you know, full disclosure and you know, in the spirit of full disclosure was always the pretense of which we shared. And we got into things fast and furious because it was so easy to talk to each other and wasn't maybe night two or night three. Stacy just said, you know, very clear. I just want you to know I have no, have no intentions to ever get married again. So I paused, I said, that's, you know, in our body of work we have deal breaker. That's not a deal breaker. I mean, God knows we don't need any more children. We've got eight between us. That's probably good. Already have 12 grandkids, so. No, that's cool. So that was very clear from the start. State. And I said, okay, no, I don't, you know, I'm not for marriage, not against marriage, but at this point of our journey, we, I think we can still have something really awesome and not be married.

And so things went swimmingly with that conversation until things started to get serious and we decided that somebody was going to move and we were really wanting to explore the possibility of a future of co Creating our lives together, like merging life. And that's where it took on a turn for. For not the worst, for the good, actually. Because all of a sudden all those commitment phobias, those conditional commitments that I had found myself in previously, started to shatter. And I thought, what does one do when you want to commit and get all into a relationship but marriage is off the table? That was my problem. And one night, in the middle of a conversation where it was approaching. So what are we, you know, what are we going to do here? How do about this? I threw out a joke, really, just to break the tension because I didn't know what else to say. I didn't have an answer to this question of, well, where do we go from here? Because I'd already said marriage was off the table. So I threw out. Okay, okay, here's the deal. How about a lease option contract for love? That's all I can do. That's all I can give. And we laughed about it, like, if there were ever such a thing, like, you can lease it, and then if you decide you don't like it or when your time is up, you just trade it back in, maybe pay for some extra mileage and all, you know.

The try before you.

Yeah, yeah. And we did have a really good laugh about it. And then it was actually Tom's genius who said, honey, I think that's a really good idea. Like, I mean, if we could get all in for even like 90 days, let's see what that looks like. And I went, you're in. Like, okay, I'm going to take everything I know and everything that I've been doing for the last umpteen years in relationships, and I'm going to plug it into what would make me feel safe and comfortable. And the conversations that I know get broken down through the course of time or that we don't have. Don't know how to have. And I'm going to put this all in the framework, and then let's just see what happens. It was truly an experiment in our own relationship. So I did create us a lease option contract for love. And the first one was 30 days. And it was a beautiful experience because what ended up happening was we could start talking about the things that mattered most. We could explore some of the things that didn't work for us. And then we could start teaching each other what we loved and what worked for us and what didn't. Essentially, we learned how to teach each other how to love each other best. And you know what was so interesting is through that whole experience, I learned that commitment wasn't my problem. The conditional commitment that I had chosen as my operative actually was dismantling and creating more conflict and heartache inside of myself. And what I needed was that idea of commitment actually serves. It's not the problem. What the problem is, is we don't know how we're going to navigate the inevitable ups and downs and changes that occur with inside of ourselves and, and our partners and our relationships. And so knowing that you had this framework to come back to and reevaluate it, I went from 30 days to.

90 days to five years.

And then I locked him up for five years.

And then marriage.

Then we finally did get married.

Went after me hard, ladies and gentlemen.

So conditional commitment.

And it is really, it is now a trademark framework within our body of work. It is for real. It's an incredible thing. It can bolt on to everything. It's a neutral platform. It can work around any type of spiritual belief, cultural help, community, whatever. Whatever the rules are for the people involved. The lease option, contract for love will work fabulously.

And if you're interested in this, all you got to do is reach out to us. So there you have it. So let's move on. Oh, wait a minute. The smaller ones, okay, the smaller ones. The smaller ones are where I make promises and commitments that as I'm making them, I don't intend to keep, or I make them and then I realize I'm not going to get to them. And we tend to sweep those under the rug instead of just saying, hey, I made this commitment to you, I'm not going to be able to make it. I need to renegotiate this with you. That would be an example of cleaning up a commitment instead of saying, you know, that was stupid for you to even ask that of me anyway. So, no, I'm not going to do.

It or to commit it and not do it and act like, you know, it's not going to come up in conversation. Say, for instance, you said you were going to pick something up at the store and you chose not to. I think, like. Like it's not going to come out in the wash pretty quick that you didn't do it. Like, why would we even waste precious energy on that?

Well, yeah, so, I mean, I'm just.

Saying, you know, but yeah, and we do it.

I've done it. Yeah. I either realize I've forgotten about you and I go and do it immediately, or I say I come clean. Hey, you know what? I promised I was going to do this it didn't happen. Can I do it tomorrow? And I get agreement on that. And so that's how we navigate these, these conditional commitments. I'm not saying they're not going to happen. I'm just saying don't leave them hanging and certainly don't try and cover them up. Come clean. And if you notice that you're kind of half in and half out in your relationship or you're having to leverage somebody to get them all in to commit, there's a problem in the foundation of your relationship that we need to talk about and explore. Because I can't leverage you. You know these places where, you know, we threaten people to be in committed relationships with us, that's not good. I'm going to tell you firsthand from personal experience, that does not work. And I can tell you that trying to buy them the moon and the stars to try and get them all in, that doesn't work either. They have to genuinely come and get all in. And if that changes, then we need to talk about that and decide how we can get all in again and again and again. But these conditional commitments are a sense of betrayal that we continuously try and cover up and then they destroy our relationships in the end. So that's number one. Let's move on to really number two.

Number two.

What's number two?

Lying.

Lying. Okay. You're probably not surprised to see this on the list. Come on. Lying we know is not necessarily good for us. We are pretty aware that lying is a form of betrayal. We probably see this more obvious than any of the others that are on the list. And this includes things that are said as well as things that are not said but need to be. But what about the lies that are said or not said to maintain the peace and quiet? Mounting tensions. Yep. If you guess they're not good, you guessed right. What the emotional confusion and tension needs is understanding and adjustments not to be avoided. Lies that are told to maintain peace and supposed well being are a form of betrayal. And truthfully do not lead to a peaceful outcome or a sense of well being inside of ourselves. Because there's always someone who's holding the lie, the secret. The tricky part about being a human being is that we show up in our lives as good as we feel. And if I know that I have a secret to keep, it affects the way I show up. It ex. It affects the way that I disclose that I share the places I'm willing to go in my conversations and the places that I am not.

So would you say lying, babe, in all the work with our private clients, many times is done because that person doesn't have the ability to perhaps share a difficult conversation or something that's been bothering him or her for a long time.

I think it can go two ways. I think it can. I lie because I want to protect myself. And then I lie because I want to protect you or the kids or the family. I want to protect my. Me or I want to protect you, but mostly me, my image. I'm afraid I'm going to be rejected. It's not going to be received well. But I genuinely can try and make a lie happen because I want to protect you too. Maybe I've done something that I know is going to really hurt you.

You.

Right. Or I've done something myself that I know is going to really hurt you. So.

So I mean what I'm. What you're sharing. And I think there's no disingenuous, sometimes intent. There is. It can be done for reasons of protection and really a sweetheart reason, right?

Absolutely.

Not to say that it's okay and not to say that that is a form of betrayal, but it is. It can be done because that's a simpler place for us to go rather than to really address what we like to call the heart of the matter.

You know, we had a guest on last week that talked about the ins and outs of adoption. And some parents choose to not tell their children they're adopted because they don't want them to feel like they're less than. That would be an example of, I think that I'm telling a lie to protect you. Right. We can find out things about, you know, disease. I've had couples come into our office that have been diagnosed with cancer and they don't want their partner to know because it's going to affect the way that they treat them or show up. Right. So we can. We can also tell lies or emit details and bits of information and the protection of others. But it does affect the way that we show up. And ultimately it does affect the relationship overall just because of the way that, yes, you're showing up, like I just said, but also if it ever comes out, if it ever comes out, which nine times out of 10, it does. It's kind of funny, the world in which we live in, the universe, we call it Gus, us, God, universe and spirit, doesn't really like secrets. And we tend to rat ourselves out when we know we're holding secrets. And the bigger the secret, the more it seems to like, roll out. We tell on Ourselves, others tell on us, or somebody connects the dots and there we are. We don't want that to happen. And so that would be the worst catastrophic thing that could ever potentially happen. And so I have always found for myself and my clients in life, and I've told some lies, that if you just tell the truth in the beginning, then you don't ever risk the backlash of an end inevitably coming out some other way. My mom used to always have a saying about lying, that it always comes out in the wash. Well, and I was meaning if we wash and rinse and wash and rinse, eventually it's going to come out.

And I would say that when we go down that path again, we all have erode or significantly challenge the basis of trust that we have. Yes.

And I want you to realize one significant lie like that that comes out on the backside has the power to destroy the most sound or look, you know, the most sound, foundationally sound relationship like that. It dismantles those, you know, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years of building in now.

Well, I'm sure all of us know of or have heard of or read of like something. Yeah, these, you know, whether it be in business or a personal intimate relationship where things have gone fine for, however, a long period of time and then this massive zinger gets exposed and it's done. One thing that comes to mind, you know, not personally, but certainly investment wise is the Bernie Madoff. My gosh, the man was revered. Revered for how many years? At the highest level, working with the highest, you know, levels of people, wealth wise. And he was running a Ponzi scheme. Talk about a, a lie.

And the other, the other thought directly related to relationships is the gentleman that had the porn addiction. And not the gentleman we had on as a guest, but somebody he had worked with and the story goes, he had covered up for years and years and years. He's in a 35 year relationship with his wife, he now has grandchildren, he's raised his daughters, and his granddaughter goes in, is doing something on his computer and the porn pops up. And then all of a sudden, not only the granddaughters and they're looking at it, the daughters and they're looking at it and the mother comes in there looking at it and the whole thing comes out and it shattered that 35 year old family.

Yeah, that was Joshua on. Joshua Shea was our expert on, you don't want that. Right.

And, and I know the more we get away with things, the more we feel like we're going to get away with it. But again, Remember the words of my mom, it always comes out in the wash. And it's better for you to come clean on these lies, these things that we're holding in secret so that not only we can set our. Ourselves free, that's the biggest gift because we're having to carry them, but also the gift that it gives to our relationships.

Well, and one last point. I'll just add. I mean, we live in an. A universe of energy. I mean, let's just be honest. This is. This is quantumly proved. And think of the energy it takes when we know we're not being integral with ourselves versus when we are. I. It's the difference of night and day.

Oh, and. And. And the person that's lying and keeping the secrets pays the ultimate price.

Absolutely.

The betrayal is a disaster. But. But the price that they've paid emotionally, mentally, and physically over the years to carry a secret like that is. Is arduous. Right? Sometimes it's such a relief. Even though they see the destruction happening around them as such a relief for the personal preservation part of it, they can now finally move on and not carry that into anymore. So lying. We're all doing it. It all happens. We. We all have tendencies in places where we lie. Whether it's intentional or not, it's something to just keep our eye on because it does have an impact on our relationships. And it is the. The highest degree or form of betrayal for sure. Let's move to number three. Number three is disrespect.

Respect.

Yeah, disrespect. Did you say respect? Respect.

Because you said respect. So the opposite of respect would be disrespect. So.

And what is disrespect? Simply put, disrespect is present anytime that we imply you are superior to someone or something. And this can be tricky because it can show up as a blatant disrespect, like name calling or outright criticism, but it can also show up in more subtle forms like sarcasm, slights, and innuendos. One of the most difficult forms of disrespect is the disrespect through humor. And everybody laughs, but everybody knows what's really being said. That's hard. Okay.

It's really hard. And. And as Stacy shared, it's. I guess it's somewhat socially acceptable, but it's. Yeah, it's a. You know, I mean, believe me, we. Laughter is powerful. And used the. In the correct manner, it can be very, very healing. But used in the way that we're describing can be very destructive, destructive, very Destructive.

Well, and I want you to. I want to talk about disrespect for a minute. If, if you're by chance finding yourself in a place where you're constantly disrespecting yourself by self criticism, belittling, preventing yourself from moving forward, trying new things, giving yourself permission to explore what's really going on for you? I had a client in my office just today who kept trying to protect her relationship and her partner. They'd been together a really long time and she would, you know, talk to me about how she was feeling and the pain would come up and the disappointment and the sense of betrayal, and then she would quickly spin right back on herself and say, but the relationship is good. I'm so lucky. I'm so blessed. He's really such a great guy. And I finally had to just say, look, I know your relationship is good and it has been good, otherwise you wouldn't have made it 35 years. And I also want you to know that I'm not here to pick on your partner or make him appear as though he's in a bad light. Can you give yourself the space and permission to just explore and tell the truth about how you really feel without feeling like you got yourself caught in this conflict of having to protect yourself in your relationship? And I'm really not okay here. And, you know, I can't say that because, you know, this is really okay. And I'm really sad here and disappointed and I'm. I'm, well, dying here on the vine.

That's a really powerful distinction. And just like trust, we share both of these frameworks and it's somewhat surprising. But for to be respect and have respect, we need to have it ourselves because we never can have anything of which we don't already have, or we can never have enough of what we don't already have. So in order to have respect, you know, is we need to. And to be able to, and we need to give it and we need to extend it. And if you're not doing that to yourself, you know, with yourself, it's. It's a place to begin, place to begin. It's not cliche. It's. It really isn't, unfortunately, not unfortunate, I would say that's really great news.

It really is great news, you know, so if you find yourself criticizing, belittling, minimizing others in an attempt to feel in control or better, or you notice that people are doing this to you in their own attempt to feel better and in control and significant, that's disrespect. Whether it's done through innuendo, humor or not. And then keep an eye out for those disrespects that we do to ourselves by ignoring or refusing to meet our own emotional and physical needs for our own personal well being. Again, I want you to. I'm going to keep saying this. All of these lead back to I show up as good as I feel. So betrayal really starts with inside of ourselves. Sometimes it can, and then it affects the way I show up. So I tell a lie, I get half in, right. I disrespect myself. I don't take care of my own needs. I think that serving others is the way through. Or my partner that I'm in a relationship with is struggling with those things. So that's how they show up, you know. So those are the betrayals that start to undermine our relationship. Regardless of all the good things that we're doing little by little, piece by piece, these are the things that poison and erode our relationships. So let's move to number four.

Number. Number four.

Under four is unfairness. Now, life in general is unfair. And I personally have a saying that says fair. It only comes around once a year. It's a place where you go and get a corn dog and that's fair. Okay, that's. It's my joke. Like, life is not fair. Wasn't meant to be fair. And if you want fair, you got to go to the fair, get your corn dog. Maybe you're cotton candy and now you've experienced fair. But I want you to consider what I'm meaning here. When it comes to our relationships, feelings of fairness become important. Tom and I see this from time and time again. Like when money is spent on a dirt bike for one person and yet for the other person, it's not allowed to purchase a new outfit or a necklace. That's not okay. That's an unfairness. That's an inequity, shall we say? I like that word even better. Right? Or another person might commonly feel like they're constantly putting into the relationship. Right. As one person had recently said, as a client, I feel like I'm a character in your one man show. Oh, that means I'm showing up. I'm trying to meet you where you are. I'm trying to meet your needs, everything you say you want. But when it comes to you showing up as a character in my show, there doesn't seem to be the equality there.

No reciprocation.

No reciprocation that is felt as an unfairness. Essentially a Betrayal that undermines us little by little, day after day. The common unfairness is basically an agreement that is made. So we're back to agreements, but then you don't show up. For example, we might have a conversation where I say, tom, come on, man. I'm cleaning the house all the time, and you're still leaving your dirty panties next to the. To the washer, and I'm having to pick them up. How many times I gotta ask you? You're smiling because you do do that, but there's not a sense of inequity. But let's just hypothetically say, okay, come on. And you agree that you're gonna start, you're gonna clean the bathroom once a week, and you're gonna take out the trash. Okay, let's get real here. And you promise me that you're gonna do it, and then it comes around and you don't get to it it. And the first week, I might forgive it. I might say, okay, fine, you know, it's taking the trash out anyway. I'll just grab the one in the kitchen, in the bathroom. No big deal. Second week comes around, oh, Harani. Sorry. Sorry. Oh, gosh. Time. The third week or the fourth week or the fifth week kind of starts coming around. Guess what's going to happen. Stacy is going to get a little upset. That's going to be a problem because of the unfairness or the inequity in the conversation as well as the broken commitment. So I got two whammies going on there for me in regards to the betrayal itself. So has there ever been anything. I mean, that kind of came up for us today where it was so sweet of you because, you know, you can be proactive about these kinds of things when you're aware of them. And Tom was working out this morning, and he was walking out the door, and he turned around as I was cleaning, and he said, you don't feel like you always do this on your own, do you? And I said, no. Do you feel like you're always making all the money? And he laughed. So how cool that you could think about and be proactive in these kinds of things. Like, you don't feel like I'm pulling my weight, do you? And if. If that is a concern that you have for your partner because you see your partner, like, doing incredible things for you, what a wonderful thing to say. Hey, there's not an inequity here, right? You don't feel like I'm taking advantage of you? Because I'm genuinely not. I really Appreciate what you do. Can you even imagine the difference that that would make? I would want to. I, I mean, today I was like, oh, no, I'll do this forever. As long as you, you see me and appreciate me. Heck yeah. This is a get to for me.

Yeah. You know, I mean, and it took all of about 30 seconds, you know, but I just said, look, I want you to know, look, I really, and I really appreciate. Thank you. The house looks awesome, you know, and I was taking some time for my well being and Stacy was, you know, cleaning around me. I'm like, yeah, God, dude, stop what you're doing and you know, lend a hand. But we're really good because, you know, we do drink our own coffee and we're really good at leveraging off of each other and knowing we're what each other needs to support each other. To have it be the most, you know, incredible experience possible.

You can kiss feelings of mutual satisfaction goodbye. When one person is taking advantage of the other, it's going to translate as a sense of betrayal. So our last and final today is broken Promises. Now you might think that that sounds a lot like everything else that we've talked about, but broken promises are things when we're building a life together and we have a vision and we're pursuing this vision and things seem to be going along just fine. And then that vision, for whatever reason, changes either I decide I don't want to go and do that. It's not important to me anymore. This is what we call in our body of work the contrast of living. The contrast of living means this works for me. This doesn't. I want to do this, I don't want to do that. This is part of who I am. This is part of who I'm not. And we're constantly looking at those and things that I think I may want today may change tomorrow. That's part of what makes long term relationships so tricky, is all I can do is look out from the moment and place I'm in today and see what's possible and make some promises regarding that. And then I need you to know that along the way, those promises may be broken. Because who I am, how I show up, who you are, what's possible. You know, life has a way of kind of presenting all these incredible surprises for us. Those things may change and we need to allow for those. It's very important that we make promises because a vision is what helps us drive to the future. But when it, when it changes, when I realize that's not something that's working for me or I don't know how to get there or I don't know how to be successful in what we said that we were going to co create together. Rather than pretend like they don't notice, we need to disclose it. Some possible things could be. Losing weight, dealing with my addiction, taking on stepchildren, building a house, moving to.

A different state, starting a new job.

Starting a new job, business starting a business. We start out with the best intentions in the whole wide world. And I want you to realize that as we commit into our relationship, we always have the best intentions, don't we? We don't really ever think, oh, okay, this is it, you know, I'm really promising to really mess up your life and mess up mine too. We start with the best intentions. Every wonderful dream and vision does. Where we often go awry in the. In the realm of betrayal in this journey is we don't know how to talk about the changes. And so we need to learn the skills that are necessary in order to talk about those changes. When I make big bold promises to. Towards a dream of co creation that we're putting together as lovers, I would say.

Would, would you say that's in the same realm as how we teach boundary? You know, in the sense that many times boundaries are taught, there's a hard line in the sand and there's no negotiation of that boundary. We use that garage door analogy. Would, could we, could we help people understand that as far as promises and meaning, there's some malleability there.

There absolutely is some malleability because we're just trying to. We're just trying to take our vision in this moment and, and forecast what it is that would make us both sing. Tom and I came together, as he had mentioned, 600 miles apart and we had to navigate a lot of things that we thought were going to go one way when we made those promises and ended up going another.

That is very correct.

The biggest one was we thought that I was going to come here. We were going to live with his brother for six months or so until we could get our own place. And that six months turned into not one brother, but then a second second moved in. And then guess what? We lived together, me with three other men for 10 years. So that was a little bit of.

A surprise, actually one of our first episodes in our show, if you want to go back. It was fun. When we had our two brothers on with us, we were just getting ready to all break up and go our own separate ways.

Another surprise that we had to navigate as we were saying, I love you baby. We're gonna co create our lives. Let's do this vision. I'm all in. I love you. Do you love me? Let's, let's go is I had a daughter that needed to be rescued from a domestic violent relationship. Okay, well that wasn't in the plan.

Well, not just a daughter.

Yeah, a daughter and five babies with number six on the way. So these are the surprises that can come into our promises. We make them. So I just want to encourage you to talk about them when they change or you're struggling with it or, or it's not turning out the way that you had thought. Thought you need to be able to come back and share those things to come clean on them. And if you don't have the ability to do that, that's where some upgrade in skill and understanding about relationships and love would really, really serve.

So how about it? And for our listeners that may be saying now wait a minute, a promise is a promise is a promise. How do you navigate that when you're working with our clients? Because I know we talk about this often where people saying, you know, that make our promise, you know, maybe it's in a traditional marriage. So I mean promise till, you know, till death do us part part. And then what is your, how do you support people and maybe expanding their paradigm around that.

Promises that are unmet is not the problem. Promises that are contradicted are and these create major disappointments. So it's one thing to not meet it and say I don't think we're going to be able to get there. I'm so sorry, we're going to have to recalculate this or I, I know I promised that I was going to do X, Y and Z and it's, I can't get there. I have a promise where I was supposed to have a book written for us and our body of work maybe a year ago and that not it's gone undone. And I've had to come to Tom many times and say I'm so sorry. I just can't seem to make it happen. And I'm so sorry. Guess what else? I'm wrestling with myself. I just can't seem to sit down and write that book and I'm in internal conflict about it. And Tom's listened to me talk about self doubt and time and as I'm wrestling really with myself. And so finally we came up with a plan together because we're discussing these promises of saying I think you just need to. To go away all by yourself. And you sequester yourself in there and get this book written. And I'll be cheering you from the side because of my wrestle. Anything that could be a distraction to me, I would do instead of write the book. And that's what we finally came to because of the many times we explored it. And me taking responsibility for this broken promise, that's different than contradicting it, saying, you know what, Tom, I'm just not going to write that book. I know, I promise that, but forget it, you know, scratch it off the list. List. I'm not doing it. Or you know what? A book's stupid. We don't need a book. You know, I got all these other things, you know, stop hampering me about this. Get off my back. Right, That's a contradiction. Now wait a minute. You promised that this was important and when you told me about it, you were sincere. I know you were. So let's talk about it.

What's going on now so many times. If I hear you correctly, then there's also potentially some things underneath which is really causing the reason. Reason for the. The yes, no, maybe.

So let's think about what disappoints us. The thing that betrays the relationship here is the disappointment underlying it all. It's the disappointment that it's not happening. But yet you continuously promise to me that it's going to. Okay, okay, just give me one more time. Okay, okay, okay. I promise it's going to be different this time. But we never talk about how that difference is going to happen. So if we could get real and say, man, I don't know if I can do this. I might have over committed. I might have over promised. I'm scared. I'm wrestling with this, this. Got any ideas? We can then get support instead of just trying to like bury it, dismiss it, contradict it, make it bad and wrong. You know, all of the wonderful things that we try and do to get ourselves out of this promise.

Well, I also can. We'll share that, you know, because we decide, you know, we have a friend that's, you know, offered her her home to Stacy and it's in Carmel. I said, babe, for heaven's sakes, what's so bad about going to Carmel and, and giving yourself, gifting yourself this time? I mean, heaven take advantage of it. You know, I support you. Go. You know, and so. Oh, I shouldn't have to do that. So. No, why wouldn't you? I mean a lot of your well known writers do this I mean, Wayne Dar used to go to Maui every time he'd write a book. So, you know, why not? I'm sorry, I'm not going with you. But this time doesn't work. You go by yourself.

Yeah, well, all right. Those are the first five in part one of betrayal and we'll come back with part two, we promise with the next five.

So the quick.

Yeah, quick review rather than, rather than worry about what to do if you see it, the first step is just to see if you can spot these forms of betrayal happening with inside of yourself. Because we betray ourselves, we ultimately show up and it creates a sense of betrayal in our relationships or I see them in my relationship overall. And rather than point fingers and get freaked out and sad about it, I just want you to notice them. Are they happening? And if they are, then let's take another step and learn more about them.

Them.

Okay. That was my intention for today's show. All right, let's take a little break and we'll be right back with some Follow the fun. We take a breath of fresh air.

Here's what one of Stacy Bartley's clients says about working with her.

Working with Stacy has been life changing in a very magical way. I wanted to work with Stacy when I left a long term marriage because I didn't want to repeat any of my relational, how would you say, unhealthiness. So amazed how she has taken her experience and wrapped it into her own program. A program that is designed specially for you. For anyone that moves forward with her. She's unique, she's profound, she's magical. She has a love for others that is unmatched. And it would be a gift to yourself to work with Stacy.

Learn the simple three step system to rest. Rescue your struggling relationship by registering for Stacy's brand new free workshop. Reserve your seat by going to stacybartley.com workshop.

Welcome back everybody. We are your host Tom and Stacy Bartley. Thank you so much. We just finished the Heart of the matter. The five of the 10 sneaky ways ways that betrayal are poisonous to your relationship. We're going to cover the other five in another episode. Right now we're going to segue into Follow the fun.

Yes. On today's follow the fun moment we do these so that we can continue to regenerate our souls and our relationships with each other. Novelty and play and fun is something we gotta do. So we're trying to do everything we can to inspire you today. We're encouraging you to unleash your imagination and I have three Ideas here for you that you could pick from. The first one is I encourage you to doodle or color for 10 to 15 minutes and in that doodle, see if you can see something that reminds you of something else. The second is stargazing. There's lots of apps that we can do that, but stargazing and staring at the stars, before long you can start to see interesting things there as well. Right. What do you see? I can see all kinds of things in the star if I start to open up my imagination. And number three, feel sensations on your skin. Take a shower. Plan your next dream vacation. Right. Take your shoes off and walk through the grass. Feel something. And it's amazing when we do that. Taking a shower often will will solve a problem or all of a sudden it'll snap your imagination, your creativity because you've changed the sensory experience around you.

One of your favorites is to take your shoes off and walk in the sand.

It's my favorite favorite. Bernie Siegel. He is a physician who once quoted saying, dreams are the language of creation. So step into your imagination and dream a little bit this week. Are you stuck because there's nothing to be done or are you stuck because you won't give yourself permission to try anything new? I want to encourage you to also get on our fun list. If you're not there, get on there. We're going to be given some prizes away here at the first of the month month. So spread some love. It's time to do that. And we have a wonderful audio clip for you from a wonderful woman who refers to herself as Ms. Franz Sway. This is what Ms. Francois has to say.

My name is Ms. Francois. That's MSS for multi talented and super sexy. I am the host of the Ms. Francois show where we have candid conversations, a variety of entertainment and we use humor to help you deal with your dysfunctional relationships. And did I mention I'm also an author of Let that Effing Man Go five plus steps to Getting over a Breakup. I can't wait to be inside the love shack with Tom and Stacy very soon. As their most amazing guest, one thought I would love to share with you guys about relationship is remember, one size doesn't fit. All right ladies. What work for Donna would not typically work for Sarah. So guess what? I look forward to being together again with you. You inside the love shack.

I think I said it right. Wrong. I said Ms. Francois.

Francois.

It's Ms. Francois.

Oh yes.

And she's right. One size does not fit all. That's a really true statement. In fact, we say a great relationship is great because it works for the two or more people in it. So take that as you will. Will. We're going to leave you with a song today. The can you fill it? Segment of our show. We choose a theme song for each episode. Why? Because we want you to now feel we've given you a lot to think about. You know, betrayal is a big, heavy topic. We've given you a lot to think about, but we also want you to feel the conversations that we have with us inside of the Love Shack. So each and every one of our episodes has a theme song attached to it. It. And today's theme song is Anita Baker's I Apologize. I mean, is that not fitting?

Oh, man.

Right? When we make our mistakes, when we find ourselves in a place of betrayal, what we need to do is apologize. And this is an oldie but a goodie. She SINGS from Love that song.

Love that song. We play it often here in our own at the Love Shack. For Tom and Stacy, it's a yeah. And. And again, we do this and there's every on our website, staceybartly.com forward slash podcast. You'll see there's a song for every episode. And I say say maybe have a fun challenge. Listen to the song first and then be moved emotionally. Be moved from the feeling side of it because, you know, we've given you a lot of things to think about, which is in the logical cranial part of our.

Sing it to me.

We wouldn't want to go ahead. And that's probably.

No, it starts out, operator.

Stacy's got a much better voice than I do, ladies and gentlemen, so check it out. All right, well, it's. This is the fastest 60 minutes of our week. Thank you so much for being with us in this week week's Love Shack Live.

And if by chance you have a conversation about love, sex and relationships you would like to hear us talk about or a question you would like us to answer, just simply reach out to us because Tom and I are dedicated to talking about the things that matter most to our listeners. We want to give a special thank you to Ms. Franois for spending spreading some love with us today. Indeed, one size does not fit all. Come on back next week and join us for additional ways to to improve your sex, love and relationships. And if by chance, you found value in being here with us today and want to take your experience with us deeper, we encourage you to check out all the many ways that we can support you on your sex, love and relationship journey@staceybartley.com Also, may we suggest that you begin with our free live workshop that's happening now, the three simple ways to rescue your relationship. Don't miss it again. You can find all the goodies on our website. We're Tom and Stacy Bartley, hosts of the Love Shack Live, together with our engineer, Eric Rider. Thank you so much for being here with us and spending some time with us inside the Love Shack.

We'll see you soon.

Thanks for joining us today in the Love Shack. We hope you came away with something that made your toes tingle. To learn more about everything you heard on today's show, go to stacybartley.com podcast Love the Show. Help us spread the love by sharing the show with others. Okay, everybody, time to go. We got a close the doors to the Love Shack for this week. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Come back next week, though, and join us for another edition of Love Shack Live with Tom and Stacy Bartley.