#47: Part Two: 10 Forms Of Betrayal That Are Just As Painful As Cheating In Relationships

Foreign.

Thanks for coming. Welcome to the Love Shack.

Welcome to the Love Shack. A little old place where we get to get together, explore fresh perspectives, eavesdrop on juicy conversations and uncover the mysteries that nobody talks about but absolutely influences our relationships. If you are struggling with your special someone, this show is dedicated to helping couples rescue their relationships. I am Stacy Bartley and I am here with my co host and lover, Tom. Together for the past decade, we have been teaching and mentoring couples from around the world with the sole purpose of helping them create and experience love for a lifetime in their relationships built with themselves and others with sound principles, goals and skills.

Absolutely. And of course, thank you for taking time out and gifting it to us. And we're every show we make it, our goal is to give you something to take away. And we have a awesome part two. I'm not going to spoil it. That Stacy loves. She always gets aggravated.

Don't be stepping on my stuff. No, he always kind of likes to give it away.

Well, you know, I'm. I don't get a lot of chance to talk, ladies and gentlemen, so I have to, I have to jump on the opportunity. But no, we have part two of a. If you didn't listen to part one, that was last week. And this is part two.

Yes. Wherever you are, it's great to have you with us. And if you have some topics that you would like us to cover in upcoming episodes, we would love to hear from you. Go ahead and ask your questions and we'll design an episode around your question. So let's dive in today. Tom's right. We are going to do a Part 2 series, 10 Forms of Betrayal that are just as painful as cheating in relationships. This is part two. We covered one through five in the first series last week and this is part two. And the reason why we decided to do this is because so often sexual infidelity is not the only way the betrayal poisons our relationships, but it seems to be the one that gets all the attention and fanfare. It's important for us to understand all of the forms of betrayal when it comes to our relationships because after all, spotting it is is the first key to not getting entrapped in it. So this week we're going to continue to uncover some of the other forms of betrayal that are just as deadly in our relationships. These forms of betrayal often seem like little things on the surface, like no big deal and so many of us don't even realize we're doing it because it was how we were raised. It was a big part of our behavior. And as crazy as it sounds, it seems normal. So many times we easily dismiss them. And then we wake up finding ourselves wondering, like, how do we get here? Like, I don't even know you. Do I even like you? And then we make up stories like we've grown apart, right? We've grown out of touch. You're not the same person that you once were. And there's some truth to that because we all are growing and changing. But so many times it's attributed to these points of betrayal that we don't realize that we're doing again and again and again. So today we are going to talk about the five that we didn't talk about last week. And I also want to beat you a little bit. Today is the day of our giveaway. We do a giveaway the first week of every single month. And so for the follow the fun moment, today we're also going to be doing a giveaway. So stay with us, stay tuned and we'll be right back.

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Welcome back everybody. We are your host, Tom and Stacy Bartley, Love Shack Live. Great to have you with us. We have part two of our ten forms of betrayal.

Yes, we're going to dive into betrayal today. We're going to start with number six. And betrayal is something that is a part of all of our relationships. I just want to put this precursor on the conversation here. If you find as we're talking about this that you yourself, your partner are experiencing these things in your relationship, don't panic, okay? Because the deal is if we don't learn and study these things, we really don't understand or we're not aware of the forms of betrayal because it seems normal. It's been neutralized for us.

And I would say also it's a what we're doing here is we're expanding your understanding of where betrayal shows up outside of the normal place. Like Stacy shared before our break, you know, typically the, the only place that most people know about betrayal in an intimate relationship is, is infidelity or an affair. But we are helping you understand. There's actually 10 of them that are outside of that typical one and they can be very, very impactful in our relationships.

And the reason why betrayal is, is called betrayals is because that's how it feels. Just like an infidelity moment where you feel like, oh, how could you? I can't believe this is happening. Right? This seems unjust. It seems unfair. These are some of the things that we describe the feeling or the emotion of betrayal as being like. And so we want you to understand and be able to point out some of these places in our relationships where we do it unknowingly. And the place that we're going to jump in today in the 10 is actually number six. And this is being unwilling to sacrifice. And I don't know about you, but when I started studying this, I rolled my eyes feeling like relationships are nothing but a sacrifice. I feel like that's all I'm doing is sacrificing here, sacrificing there. So come on, Stace. What makes it feel like a betrayal? Right. If I have to sacrifice and give more is usually where we feel when we're emotionally taxed and exhausted in our relationships. You feel like that with.

With you?

Yeah. You know the answer.

No, I think I. I think we do a very good job at. At understanding what each of our needs are and contributing and leveraging off of each other. When I think. When some person in a relationship thinks that they're doing all the sacrificing and there's no sacrifice on the other side, that leads to exhaustion and it's not going to work out so well.

You are spot on. Relying on each other is an important part of a healthy relationship. This means there will be times you will need to be willing to forfeit. And the operative word there is willing to forfeit your own needs for the good of the relationship. If one person is willing to make those types of sacrifices and the other isn't, it creates a sense of betrayal. We also might throw the caveat in here. This is also where we throw out the word as human beings, of you're so selfish. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying, look, I feel like I'm willing to make some sacrifices here for the betterment of the whole, and I don't feel like that's reciprocated. And I wish we could talk about it like that instead of saying, you're so selfish. Because if I say that, all the defenses come up and we're going to fight. We are now on our road to not going anyplace good. And so it takes us off of what really needs to be talked about. What if. What if we had the capacity to say, I feel like I'm really sacrificing and trying to do my best and putting all in here. And I don't feel like you're meeting me there. And they might say, well, how are you seeing that? What's your perspective? Help me understand more where you're coming from. And I could actually point to, you know. Well, Tom, you seem like you work a lot, and I feel like I'm always sitting here alone with our family and trying to make light of it and making up excuses. And I don't feel like you're willing to let go of that enough to be in the conversation with us. And you might say, what would you say?

You have a very large family. No.

Yes, I do. I do have a very large family.

We have a very huge blended family. But you know, no, it. Again, I'm gonna. I don't think I've shared this quote in a long time. You know, I love quotes. I love acronyms. But, you know, specificity in our relationships is like catnip for our soul.

And unfortunately, in our conversations, especially when it comes to feelings of betrayal, we don't get specific enough. Because if I were to say to Tom, hey, I really want you to be here and be a part of me and this conversation or this party or this situation, and believe me, we've had these very honest, real conversations.

Yes.

And I say to him, could you please stop working? And he says, okay, but tell me how I can make the money and stop being, you know, stop being here and be present there. If you will help me do that, then I would be happy to step away from this. And this is a conversation that we often don't get to as couples because the defenses go up instead.

Well, and I would just remind everyone that, you know, the way that Stacy prefaced that was an invitation for me to join a place that she's missing me, rather than a condemnation. Again, think of how excited we are when any of us get an invitation, whether it's a. It's a digital one or one in the mail. I mean, that's exciting, right? We don't. We don't get a lot of them, you know, so it's the same experience emotionally when we are invited. And Stacy just gave a great example of inviting me into. I really. I'm missing you. You know, our children and grandchildren, they want us to be with you and converse with you and feel you.

How do we need to set this up so that you can come and be present? That's a very different conversation than, oh, my gosh, Tom, you're so selfish.

Right?

You're always just working and working, and in spite of me saying, why are you working all the time? You never show up. That's a condemnation, and that's how it feels. I also want to point out here that if we could explore more of these specifics, like you said, babe, I mean, that was a great one to pull out of the history archives. We could then have conversations to troubleshoot most of the problems that we face. But because we can't ever get to specifics and talk about the real issue, we're left talking about the surface issues instead. And that creates the sense of betrayal.

Absolutely. I mean, you always say, and I would agree, 100. Whether it's between us or with our clients, we can deal with anything as long as we know all of the moving parts. So really what Stacy and I do is we bring in the safety and the permission for people to oftentimes share things they've not been able to share before.

Yeah. And so many of us are sacrificing so many parts and pieces of ourselves to make our relationships go well. And unfortunately, the large majority of us feel like those sacrifices are never appreciated or seen. And then we start to wonder, why am I doing this again? Because we in the relationship feel like we don't matter. Because regardless of what I'm sacrificing, you're continuing to bang on me for more or criticize what I'm not doing instead of seeing what I am doing. And that's where we start to really run out of emotional gas. So this is important. If you are feeling like in your relationship you are making sacrifices and you're not seeing them reciprocated, it doesn't mean that they're selfish. It may mean that they don't know how to talk with you about why it is they stop themselves from showing up in the way that you're asking. And maybe we all need to take a look at how we're asking because most of us don't ask so well, it usually comes across as a judgmental form of communication and not one that's the invitation that Thomas and I can.

And lastly, I'll just remind us that off in, you know, really, your partner, your significant other or husband, wife, they may not really know. I mean, we can get, all of us, let's just be honest, can get really holed up in our own little cocoon of life. And unless it's pointed out to us, and hopefully in a, in a similar manner, what Stacy just suggested. Thank gosh, you know what, I'm. I apologize. I didn't realize, you know, so it can be a very eye opening process. You know, you're right. You are. Now that I can take an objective viewpoint, you are. I can see where there's a disparity in what we're both putting into this.

And I will also say until we develop some emotional muscle to look and observe and do a reflection within, this can be challenging for us. Okay. It's not that you're not capable. It's that a lot of us don't do our emotional weightlifting so that I can hear something that might be hard to hear. That's where we need to begin. Because otherwise when somebody says, man, you're so mean, I just feel like you're criticizing me instead of saying, really Tell me how I. I don't want to come across that way. So help me understand why you're thinking I am coming across that way. I don't have that conversation. I immediately jumped at the fences of going, oh, I'm not either. I'm not, I'm not. I'm never mean to you. But you know what? You're always mean to me. You do nothing but be mean to me. And that's what makes me so angry. Now where do you think that conversation is going to go? I know hearing this auditorily or watching it on a video starts to really ring true because we don't see ourselves in these conversations and we go, oh, I've said that. Oh gosh, I've done that.

So it's going to be very short, very emotional and it's not going to go anywhere but just kind of going round and around. Someone's blaming someone, shaming and you don't get anyone.

Were. Yeah. So sacrifices because the relationship is important. We all need to be willing to sometimes set our own personal needs aside for the betterment of the whole. And let me just polish this one off with one last thought. There is a difference between obligation, have to and should and willingly choosing in to do it just because.

Great point. Huge.

Isn't about getting somebody over the barrel head. Right. We don't need the upper hand. We need to hold hands. It's very important. So it's not about leveraging the situation. I need to look and and choose in. I'm going to let go of this my weekend trip with the girls or the guys. I'm going to right leave work because I know you're in need of me. I'm going to spend the night in and give you a break from the kids. I'm going to step up and do do the laundry one more time.

I'm gonna swing by the grocery store on my way home because I it would be a big help and then that would save you a trip to do so.

So many of these things are choices. If we will allow ourselves to choose in instead of feeling like we're always leveraged, we will experience that and I.

Would just say and we won't keep going here because we could do all episode on number six. But if I know with Stacy and I, if I know we're both on the same team. So see. So it just brings a whole different energetic experience. We're both, you know, working towards a common goal that we've agreed upon and we've chosen and we're in sync and harmony. Well, that's an energetic, positive experience that doesn't drain you. Huge difference. Huge.

And if we need to, we'll renegotiate them, which is what we talked about in part one.

Okay, number seven.

All right, let's go. This is my favorite one to talk about. So I must warn you, number seven, disrespect. And people go, oh, disrespect. I know what that is. I don't ever do that. Okay, now, hold on a minute.

We might surprise you. That too might surprise you.

What is disrespect at the heart of the matter, at the core of the emotional place that we experience it as human beings?

Well, I would say. I mean, what comes to mind immediately is if you're. Or, you know, verbally, you know, you say words that are very, very disparate. You know, you're being very condescending or you're being very vulgar or you're, you know, I mean, to me, that's. That's. I think that's. Many of us think, you know, verbally being very disrespectful.

The core of it is anytime somebody implies I'm inferior, I'm inferior to you. Your intelligence, the way you do it, the way you see it, the way you show up or don't show up. So anytime there is. And it doesn't even have to be words. It can be an eye roll. It can be leave the room. It could be an ignore you. That implies, I'm done here, you're crazy, I'm out of here.

Or how about you said I rob? Or lack of eye contact, you know, looking away or doing something else while he or she is talking to us.

Or trying to have a conversation with you, and you're staring at your phone, right? You've got your head buried in your phone. Or right, You. You were in the middle of a conversation, you get a phone call and you take it, right? Those are things that imply I'm less than. I don't deserve your time. I don't deserve your energy. And then there we go. I feel disrespected. And an experience of emotional betrayal sets in. There are places where I could ignore you. I can leave the room. I can eye roll, I can stomp off. I can compare you. I can correct you, right? There's a fun joke in a book where this betrayal series was taught in the Gottman series. And one of the stories that they told in that book was a gentleman who was always correcting his wife's grammar, which I thought was brilliant. And she said, you know, I hate to be corrected. I'm adverse to that. And he says, you actually mean a verse. And so funny. Yeah, but not so funny in the relationship if you're constantly feeling like you're corrected because then I can't do it right. Or another client of mine says, I'm trying to. I take care of, better care of myself. I'm trying to eat well. And my. My partner is a rock star athlete. And I went up to work out, you know, trying to get back into the routine of working out consistently in my life. And I come down the stairs and he says, so you're done. Like, that's all you're going to do. And I know the women and that are hearing my voice right now are going, oh, please don't do that. Don't say that. Right. That's an inferior. Like that's all you're going to do. You shouldn't be done yet. You haven't done enough. And anytime we hear that, it creates this feeling of, I'm not good enough. I can't get it right. I can't be enough for you. You must not like who I am. As it creates this incredible deficit of doubt inside of us and our relationships. And that's exactly what it is we don't want to do. And so, so many of us, when it comes to the conversation of disrespect, do this unknowingly now, now that we can see that maybe. And some of us are like, gasping, like, oh, gosh, I've done that. I've done it. I'm sure I have done it. Absolutely all done it.

We've all done it.

And the thing is, is we're going to. And it's about coming back around and saying, I hope you didn't take this like this. I'm so sorry if you did. I love you. I'm just trying to help you be better because that's generally right where that experience is coming from. I want you to sound better in public. Don't say adverse, say averse. I want you to get healthy and strong. Right. And I want us to be able to do physical things together. So you didn't spend enough time up there.

Well, I would say this. In this, this particular betrayal, if we have, say, mastery or, you know, have spent a long time and say, an area and we have some, certainly some area of expertise and our partner does not what you're describing there, that would be a place where we really need to remember, look, are we looking to encourage and inspire and Support our partner, you know, and again, I. We.

Are we looking to demonstrate our superiority because of our own fears and insecurities?

You know, just, you know, we, we all know the power of a pause. We've talked about that often. So maybe take that additional power of the pause before we choose to speak and remember, is this going to support and encourage and inspire our partner? Are we looking to demonstrate our superiority here, which is a absolute form of disrespect? Because again, at the end of the day, you all know we say it all the time. What are the three things we all want to know that we matter to be appreciated and to be acknowledged. That's all that we're, all of us are looking for. When you break it down to both common, common, basic needs of us humans.

And when we begin to get. Let me just throw this last one out there, we'll move on. When we feel like our emotional needs are not being met, it is so easy for us to unconsciously slip into aspects of disrespect. It's so easy for us to go, oh, we're going to have that conversation again, or your parents are coming over again, or I'm not talking about this anymore. You know, those are all very simplistic forms of betrayal that have devastating repercussions because if we can't talk about it anymore, we can't move on.

Would you also stay put? You know, a sense of humor or, or sarcasm. Excuse me, Sarcasm into that as well. Sarcasm can be used as a form of disrespect.

Absolutely. I can make a joke about it that cuts you to the core. And everybody's laughing. So I think I got away with it. When I know I'm saying things I've wanted to say for a really long time, I'm just covering it in humor, so please be aware of that. There is nothing good that comes from giving somebody a criticism. Right. Or demeaning them or causing them to feel like they're stupid. You're big, they're little. In any area of our life, that is backhoeing, literally the safety to share yourselves in your relationships. And there's only one way this goes, and it's not the place you want to visit. It's not the place that you had dreams and aspirations of visiting when you committed to build a life and a relationship together. And it's. It's difficult. I'm not going to tell you. It's not hard. It is hard. It takes emotional strength to stop us because we immediately go there when we're Feeling defensive. And like Tom suggested already, we need to take that moment of pause and breathe and come back around and have a better conversation. That's the work that we do. That is, that is the core and the heart of what we, what you, we do here. So disrespect is a big one. And when we're feeling hurt and we're feeling slighted or we are feeling betrayal ourselves, it's very easy for us to.

Yeah, I'll just add one last piece. You just, you were reading my mind as you often do. You know, even if, let's just say it's, you know, you could say, hey, this is justified. You know, there was a zinger thrown at me and I get it, you know what? But I think we can all agree, you know, typically a zinger for a zinger or an eye for an eye, you know how that goes. It doesn't usually go well. So the higher road and which takes much more practice and skill is to be able to, you know, ask an open ended question so you can truly connect with that person to help you understand why it is they chose to go that place.

Number eight.

Eight. Number eight.

Number eight is being unavailable when our partners turn to us and we're unavailable. That it can be viewed as a form of a betrayal. And one of the biggest forms of behavior that shows up here is when I use sexual intimacy as a bargaining chip or a negotiation tool in my relationship with my partner. You've been bad or you made me angry or you didn't do what I wanted you to do. So unfortunately you're going to have to sleep on the couch or I'm leaving to my parents house or I'm taking the kids and going to the cabin. These are all things where I'm negotiating the well being of our relationship and I'm using sex as the leverage to do that. I'm going to tell you my stance and my viewpoint on this is never ever, ever, never should sexual intimacy be used as a bargaining chip in your relationship. That is never going to play out well long term. Sure, you might get what you want in the moment, but in the long term the repercussions will destroy your relationship. Sex and intimacy. By the way, if you want to hear more about this, you can go back to some of our previous episodes on Sexual Intim and the role that it plays in our relationships. But when you start to realize that it is actually a deeper place where we get to take our relationship and we get to explore deeper aspects of intimacy in ourselves, you start to See why this is such a huge problem. If I've been leveraging you, if I've been forcing you, if I have been manipulating you in the name of intimacy, there is no safety to go there. Sex is never going to be an enjoyable, safe exploration between two people. It sacrifices it. Not to mention people who have intimacy out of obligation often regret it. So now we're just getting angry, we're just getting frustrated. We're just becoming infuriated with the whole experience.

It sure seems to be that it would take all the enjoyment right out of it as well.

It does becomes a very rote, robotic.

Experience, task oriented type experience. I mean, just to try to put those words together seems very bizarre for something so sacred that should be so wonderful. So would you find in working with our clients, babe, that not to be chauvinistic at all, but is that used maybe by one sex more one, you know, gender more than other? And you're in our work. Have you.

Do you see that it can be used both ways, just differently? Right? Men, and then all men. But men traditionally are trying to enroll their partner into sexual intimacy. And the woman is trying to say, well, if you're a good boy, then we can have sex, and if you're a bad boy, then, no, we can't. So that's where the bargaining chip comes into play. But men can also say, look, I wind and dined you and I'm, you know, I'm doing the dishes. I. You owe it to me. You owe it to me now. You are my wife. And both of those forms play out the same emotionally, even though the circumstances are different. And we do have conversations again in that podcast. I encourage you, if this is something that you're wrestling with in your relationships, please go back and listen to that podcast episode where we dive deep into the heart of intimacy, because you start to realize that if we are not wanting to be intimate with our partners because of personal challenges, we need to learn how to talk about them and to be honest about them in a loving way. Because let's tell the truth here. We all want to feel desired and cherished. So when sex is withdrawn from or withheld, its emotional effects on us are very wounding, regardless of how the circumstances are playing out. And there could be many things that are contributing to this, most of which are very emotional, but there could be some biological and chemical hormonal things that are playing out as well. And all of those things need to be looked at before we start leveraging and doing more of the manipulation and taking the frustration or trying to push our partners away in this area. Very important for us to talk about it instead of just continue to play this game of trying to be a good person, bad person and buy my way into. Hopefully I'm going to get lucky tonight. Right? Cross your fingers again. This should never be used as a bargaining chip. And very often it is. Have any last thoughts on that? Big.

No, I just. It just puts me into a place of a lot of thinking about how, yes, I. I would sense there's a lot of couples that are navigating this in a way that's not serving them, you know. And again, you know, sex and intimacy should be, I mean, such a dynamic, wonderful place in relationship. And I think for a lot of couples, especially if that there's time, you know, that is. Has been in place with these two individuals, it oftentimes is not the experience and it's used like you had just shared for places of leverage and advantage and things like that versus, you know.

Yeah, we, we both sides of the equation. That's why I never point fingers one side or the other. Both male and female, regardless of what the combination of lovership is, we need to expand our personal understanding and place with inside of ourselves to become better lovers. And I'm going to say that again because it's so important. The role, the goal when it comes to sex and intimacy is to be able to expand what we already know about the conversation of sex and intimacy. Because when we can do that, when we expand who it is we have the capacity to be, we realize that there is a whole, whole another world that opens up and is available to us. And that's what needs to happen on both sides. Right? Women are typically not comfortable in their bodies. Men are. But men have a really difficult time typically connecting emotionally. And so there's places where everyone can expand to find more balance and harmony in our lives. Right? Women can be more physical and men can be more emotional. Why? Because at the heart of it, regardless of what our genitalia is, we are human beings. And we all have emotions and we all bleed red and we all have the capacity to expand ourselves. And so that's where the opportunity is. So let's move on to number nine.

Number nine?

Yeah. This is where it starts to get a little juicy. And there's lots of conversations around this topic because of the fear of infidelity. But number nine is forming an alliance outside of your relationship. And you're like, whoa, now you're gonna start to really rub me. Here's the thing. Having A friend, a parent, a co worker, a neighbor, exercise partner. Yes. A running buddy, etc, outside of your relationship that you confide in heavily and receive counsel from instead of your partner can be deadly to your relationship. Of course. Please hear me here. Okay? It's very healthy to have relationships with others and not rely on your partner for all of your needs. That is not what we're saying here. But when we begin to share our most intimate feelings with someone rather than our partner, this does create a dividend and a breach of trust with your partner. Why is that? Okay, we stated it, now let's break it down as to why that's the case and that's how it plays out from an experiential place, wouldn't that be helpful?

Yes.

Okay, perfect. If I were to tell you the core of what creates relationships is when I share a little piece of me with you and you share a little piece of you, you with me. And it's not the words that are coming out of my mouth so much as it is the feeling we are sharing. It's the emotional parts of ourselves that I am sharing deeply. And it could be over something that was hard to deal with, or it could be, oh my gosh, I just want to celebrate this most wonderful, incredible thing with you. It's the emotional part of myself. And the more I share that with a human being, regardless of what their relationship is to me, the more we as human beings feel a deep bond and connection. And here's the thing, we can sense it. It's kind of like walking into an environment where I go, the temperature is safe, the temperature feels jovial, it's celebratory. Or I go, there's a lot of heavy stuff going down in this space. This is not good. I'm going to come back at a better time. I can tell I've come at a bad time. I'll just turn around and come back. We have the capacity to feel when there is a deeper connection with a human being and when there isn't this, we talk about them in the terms of surface relationships. Oh, that's just they know me, but they don't know me. Or I can totally share myself with this person and I don't feel like I can share myself with that person over there. I can only go so deep. We say, well, if that's the case and I'm in a committed relationship with a lover and they see me sharing emotional aspects of myself, not even see me, but feel me sharing emotional aspects of myself with them, their parent could even Be their parent. Right. I have a client that has a very, very tight bond with their relationship. And every time they go to their parents house for dinner, her partner feels completely slighted because she's having conversations with her mother that he longs for her to have with him and so he feels displaced. So don't look so much at the relationship, but focus on the principal. If I'm sharing more of myself with my, my kids, with my parents, with my friends, co workers, with my exercise peoples and not with my partner, they feel it. They feel it. And then they will see it when you're out together and then they start to go, why aren't they, this is what starts to cook up. Why aren't they sharing themselves emotionally with me?

And, and why is that? Is that because there's, there's more safety with these other relationships, more permission or at least what that's perceived by that person. That's why they choose to share that with those individuals versus with their partner.

They feel emotionally safe to do so. So you have a safety issue there. It's not that somebody's doing something right or somebody's doing something wrong. What that highlights is we don't understand how to build safety in our relationships and we certainly don't know how to tell our partners about it. So how in the world can we work on it then? What happens in that scenario? Traditionally we'll play it out for you is I'll go, you're crazy. I love you. I want this relationship to work. And then I'm going to go and share more with my mom, you know, what happened? And then they're going to go, you just did it again. And they're like, you're crazy. Pull it together. And every time I do that, I'm basically disrespecting you. I don't know how to talk with you about it. I'm telling you, you're crazy. And so the person who's getting slighted, right, continues to have the breakdown of, you don't get me. You don't feel safe with me. I don't talk about it in these terms, but you don't want to be with me. I'm not important to you, you don't care about me, there's nothing here. And that's going to continue to spiral as this person pulls away. You know, then the sex and intimacy starts to fall apart and then we don't spend more time together and then everybody starts coping in new and profound ways and the breakdown of the relationship begins. And so you play that out, you know, a month, a day, a week, 10 years. You can see why we find ourselves in places eventually where it's like, I can't do this anymore. I just can't do this anymore. I fought and fought and fought for this. But we're really not talking about the real issue because we don't talk about how relationships really work. So I want you to understand that this one is a place of emotional connection that we can feel when you feel safe to go places with somebody else and not with me. And then we don't know how to solve that problem. And so we then fight about that problem and then we profess, I'm not having an affair, I love you. No, it's, there's nothing egregious about this. Pull it together. This is your problem. But what we're not doing is fixing the safety experience emotionally between us so that we can start practicing sharing more of ourselves. Really important.

So I would say what you just described there, what we say often is you're, you're, you're sacrificing the circumstances. So you're trying to just understand and identify the circumstances versus really, really understanding the experience and what's truly going on.

Yeah.

And that is a, that is not a logical process, ladies and gentlemen. That is not as much as we like to think that it is.

Yeah. And we can't tackle it logically because it won't make any sense. All right, let's quickly move to the next one.

Number 10.

This is number 10, non sexual affairs. This is kind of a deeper experience of the first. But let's say non sexual affairs, what are they? How can we identify them? We all have close friends and co workers and just because you have a wonderful connection with someone does not mean that you're having an emotional affair. So I wanted to give you this guideline between what is an emotional affair and what isn't. I want you to imagine having a conversation with somebody, a co worker that you are really digging and your partner was sitting there, the person that you had committed to, you made promises to if they would be uncomfortable with the level of your sharing and, or what you're saying about them. You need to understand that that is in the danger zone. Right. Then you're sharing too much. You really are beginning to build an emotional affair outside of your relationship. Like it or not. Remember what I just said? Emotional connection. The more I share and the deeper I share myself with a person, the more of a bond we are going to develop. And if I find myself doing that, I'M and I want to stay committed to my relationship, say with Tom, I would cut that immediately. You know what? I'm so sorry. I shouldn't be sharing this with you. And then to clean it up, I would come home and I would tell him so that I could let it go. I could let it go. You know what? I was over sharing with this person. I'm so sorry it got away with us. Honey, you're important to me. I love you. I want this to work right. I need more connection with you. I need more time with you. Can we work on this? Right. Because if I'm going over here to somebody else who's emotionally feeding me to get my needs met, that's the problem. And I'm not disclosing or talking about it with the person that we can actually solve it with. So what do you think's going to play out? I'm going to continue to go to the door where I feel like my emotional needs are met and then I'm going to say I'm sorry, you just weren't there for me without realizing, actually you created that. You started investing time in a place where you were getting deeper and more emotionally connected to another person without saying, oh my gosh, this is what I'm doing. What do I want to do there? There's a critical moment of choice there that we need to talk.

And would you say that, that I would sense that that's a very slippery area for a lot of people and that's a way for them to. To keep themselves maybe feeling. Look, I'm not doing anything wrong here. You know, I'm not. There's.

The more we have to say that, the more we're justifying.

Right? Right. So there's you often. I know we say this oftentimes that an emotional affairs can be more just devastation, more devastation, more destruction than a physical affair.

Yeah. So one last comment on betrayal. Verbal and physical abuse is also betrayal and should not be tolerated under any circumstances for any reason whatsoever. And if that's happening in your relationship, I'm going to encourage you to please get immediate help and assistance with that. That is not okay. So now you know what you need to know in regards to how betrayals are cropping up in your relationship. I encourage you to just look at them. Right. Understand them. Because that's going to be the first step that's necessary in order to alleviate them, minimize them, because they're all going to happen. Our relationships. We're human, remember? We're mess making machines. The goal is to come to a new understanding together with your partner. Create better agreements, new agreements perhaps come clean as we move forward to work together and get back to loving as quickly as possible. Now this is going to require some skills. It's going to require you to speak up, express yourself, ask for what you want and teach your partner how to love you best. These are all skills that we'll touch on at another point in time. But for now I just want you to simply spot it as it's playing out in your relationship. And if you are needing help and support with any of these forms of betrayal that we have talked about, I am going to invite you to go deeper by signing up for our three step workshop that you can find on our website as well as there's some other juicy goodies that you can engage with on our website as well.

So that's Stacy. I just will remind everybody that's S T A C I B A R t l e y.com right on. Right when you click to that you'll see right there at the top. It's a brand new, we're really excited about. It's a free master class. It's the three simple, simple three step system that Stacy uses with our private clients to help them rescue their relationship. There's, it's free, it's awesome. And yes. And I'd like to remind people like look, these are skills just like we do in our professional journey or in our exercise and health and fitness journey. They're not only for the chosen few. We love to dispel that. That is a bunch of bs but we're not out of the womb. We don't know how to do these. So how do we do them? We, we learn how to practice them over and over and over again.

Yeah. Awesome. So let's let this all kind of sink in. Let's take a quick break and then we're going to come back and we're going to do a giveaway for our follow the fun moment.

Yahoo.

It's going to be good you guys stay tuned. Foreign.

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, of my relational, how would you say, unhealthiness. I'm 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. She's magical. She has a love for others that is unmatched. And it would be a gift to yourself, yourself to work with Stacy.

Learn the simple three step system to 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 Stacey Bartley, Love Shack Live. Great. Great to have you with us. We just finished our 10, 6 through 10 of the forms of betrayal. So if, if you haven't caught those, please go back and listen that we are now stepping into. The first Thursday of the month is time for our fun giveaway.

This is our follow the fun moment. And the first week of every month we do a giveaway. And today is one of Tom and I's very favorite things we wanted.

Can I register for the gift?

No.

Okay, silly.

That would be. What do they call that when you're doing it?

Well, you're rigging. You're rigging it.

Honey, come on.

I just. Yeah, this is. Well, we have this. We have what we're giving. We have.

Wow. That's why we want to share it.

Right off to our side here we.

Have a French press coffee maker and some of our very favorite Eli Italian coffee. Now the thing is so cool about this coffee, if you're making espresso and or just enjoying a cup of joe, is it's ground really fine and smells amazing. We discovered this when we were in Italy and, and of course we know where to get it. So we want to share it with you. Okay, so we're going to have our wonderful engineer, Eric Rider. He's going to come up with a random number just so that you know this is random. And we're pulling the winners. By the way, for people who are on the fun list. If you're not on the fun list, go get on the fun list because you are totally missing out. Okay, Eric, drumroll.

What's the range of numbers?

Eric 1 to 100. Eric 1 to 100.

Okay.

22.

Oh, 22.

That's going to be right here on the first page. Wow. Okay, not to give it completely away, but this is Sarah/blank your last name. And I'm going to say it starts with an H. Hotmail.com Again, sarah-h and I'll give you the last. The last verb IsHowSo Blank Wayotmail.com. don't worry. I am going to email you to make sure that you get your gift. And, and to retrieve your address so that we can pack it up and lovingly send it to you in the mail. And again.

What is it?

Congratulations.

I know what it is. I just like to hear it again.

Yeah. Sarah.

No, no. What, what is getting.

Oh, it's a French press coffee maker and a can of Eli Italian delicious coffee. Fantastic.

And how do people get on the fun list? Excuse me?

Oh, go to the website. It's all on the podcast page and says get on the fun list. All you got to do is register and then you too will receive weekly tips on how to have some fun. And you will also be registered for our monthly giveaways first Thursday, first give.

Away some good stuff first Thursday of.

Every first Thursday show of every every Thursday single month. So go get on that fun list. It's absolutely important.

Congratulations, Sarah.

Yeah. So we're going to move to spread some love. This is a segment that we do to honor people who are doing incredible things in the world and in the.

World of relationships also could be a potentially a guest. Sometimes we do a little sprinkling of someone, let some get people excited about.

Could be an individual that choose to share with us their perspective on relationships. Right. And if you hear things that rub you wrong in this segment, that's a good thing. That's our opportunity to kind of like hear some differing perspectives but trust to know it's not contagious and it's not going to get all over.

And I would, I would encourage our listeners if you know of, of, of someone, an organization, a body of work, a platform that is doing good things around relationships, reach out to us and we will encourage them to leave us a message and then we will feature them. This is something, there's no agenda here. We are simply spreading some love. There's lots of people, organizations, bodies, but work doing good things and we need more of that and we, we need people to know of what's being done. Yeah, let us know.

Today is Eric Winters and he's actually going to be a guest on our show upcoming and he's going to speak all about courage, which we've been teaching courage when it comes to relationships for years. It's going to be wonderful to have a conversation with him. But he has some very profound little words of wisdom that he wanted to share with you today.

Hello, my name is Eric Winters and I'm a self leadership coach specializing in building courage. I'm also the author of swipe right on your best self, simple steps to a bolder life with fewer regrets. I'm really Looking forward to being inside the love shack with Tom and Stacy soon as a guest. And the thought I'm having today, I'd like to share with you about love and relationships is just how important courage is at every step of the relationship journey. After all, it takes courage to begin a relationship, to grow one, and it takes courage to end one. At times, we'll need courage to ask for what we want and courage to say no to what we're not willing to accept. The good news is that being courageous is a skill we can all get better at and one that can make a profound difference to the quality of your loving relationships. I look forward to being together with you inside the love shack.

We look forward to having Eric with us inside the love shack as well. And it's so spot on. And as we talked about messes today, betrayals, messes that we all make and to be mindful of them. And it takes courage to clean.

Well, I was going to say that you're not going to be able to clean those betrayals up unless you do have courage. And I love what he said in there. It's a skill that can be developed, you know, and. And it's going to make our armpits sweat, as Stacy likes to say. We're going to get sweaty doing it because it's scary.

Mm. Yeah. So we want to. After we've stimulated your thinking and taught you a few things right, maybe challenged your thinking about what you think you know about relationships, hopefully added some new perspectives and thoughts into your experience. We also want to create a moment where you get to feel. Feeling is so important to us, and it is such an important element of being alive. Sometimes we can forget that in our effort to not feel emotions that we don't want to feel, we also miss the feeling of being alive. And we also. If we're going to shut down the bad ones, the ones that challenge us, we're also going to shut down the ones that make us feel good and happy and joyful and excited about what it is we're doing and looking forward to in life. So the feeling part is really important. And so for that reason, every single episode that we do, you can look forward to us attaching a song, because there is never anything for me that creates the experience of emotion and takes me places like music does. And today's song we have specifically chosen for our conversation around betrayal, It's Jonathan Butler. And he's. Yes. A wonderful jazz. What would you call him? Soul musician.

Yeah. Very talented. Very talented musician. How about that? But Yeah, I mean, he's, he sings.

A song called, called do you love me? And isn't that the question that we're always asking, especially when we're experiencing some of these subtler forms of betrayal in our relationships? He says, fill a little fear a little, but I'm ready to get all in. I just need courage for the journey. And I thought, wow, okay, if we got to clean up a mess, it's going to take some courage if we're going to say what we need to say, if we need to, to catch ourselves and ask for a do over. If I need to disclose I love you and I want this to work. Those are all incredible places.

And, and I know. Excuse me for interrupting. I know I say this every time, but there's a. On, on our StacyBartly.com podcast page, every episode it will list the song. And I always say, you know what, check out the song first and then maybe that will give you an experience of what's to come and then you can listen to it. It might be fun to try that. But yeah, as soon as I wake up, I'm usually get up a little bit before Stace, you know, our little music box comes on. And once I know Stacy's up because I don't want to disturb her, I mean, we, if, if we're home, there's music playing, I mean, because it's, it's, it does it, it moves you, you feel it, you know, and it's really important. That's why we have a lot of fun, Stacy and I, thinking about, well, what would be the most appropriate song that's in our sphere of influence that we know of that would add a feeling moment to this episode.

So you can check out this week's song along with all the songs from our past episodes by going to our website and clicking on this or any episode. And in the show notes, you'll simply choose the Love Shack playlist. It's a Spotify playlist created and designed just for you and to enhance the feeling component of every show that we do. So, babe, I guess this is it for this week's episode of Love Shack Live. And if by chance you have a conversation about love, sex and relationships that you, you would like to hear us talk about or a question that you would like us to answer, please reach out to us. We are dedicated to talking about the things that you want to listen in on. And I also want to extend a special thank you to Eric Winders for spreading some of his love around with us today. Indeed, courage is necessary for a thriving relationship. Come on back next week and join us for some additional ways to improve your sex, love and relationships.

And if you found value in our in our episode and in our show, please help us spread the word. Share it with someone in your circle of influence that you know. And if you have questions for us, always reach out. Thanks to our awesome engineer, Eric Ryder, extraordinaire at the at the spaceship kknw. And we look forward to connecting with you next time. Excuse me, Same time, same place next week?

Yes. And we encourage you to also check out all the many wonderful things that we have available to you, help you on your relationship journey. On our website, we're doing everything we can to help smooth out the bumps and make them speed bumps instead of major disasters, major roadblocks. So have a beautiful week. We look forward to being back here with you next week.

Bye bye now.

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 gotta 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 Stacey Bartley.