#88: Is it normal to doubt your relationship? All your FAQs answered.

Hey, welcome to the Love stack. Here we are again. It's a little place where we get together, explore fresh perspectives, eavesdrop on juicy conversations to discover the things that really matter while having a little fun along the way. This is episode number 88. Well, and that's a really good point because, you know, we forget oft times that we can pivot in real time. The one the disappointment sets in or the reality of how things are going to play out contrary to the way that we thought it was going to go. It's really easy for us to make up in our minds what it is we have to do in order to react to that. And then we feel like off times. I know for myself and my clients, there's no other options, right? It had to go like this or there's no other options. There's no other place for this to go. And we can get ourselves stuck in what I call a cognitive or a confirmation bias on our thinking, where it has to be either this or either that. And when we are in this or that, it's a great tactic to use for manipulation. If you'll notice a lot of cells, you know, happening, and, well, are you in, are you out, or hey, are you going to move forward or not? You know, so anytime we find ourselves and we even do this to our lovers, you know, so what's it going to be? This or this? Right. Make a choice. And anytime we find ourselves in a situation like that as human beings, I want you to understand that that's manipulation. Right. There's a lot of options between this or that. And in fact, if we think about this or that in a color gradient, right? What's the difference between black and white? Like, how many options are there? You know, thousands, if not millions. And that's true with our opportunities, with navigating through the ups and downs of relationships. And as I teach my clients, you know, it's the ability, that's a practice skill, skill to go from, okay, I don't want this. This is not what we were hoping for. This is not what we wanted to do where we wanted to go, but what do we want to do now with the information that we now have? And let's move as quickly as we possibly can into a place of this is what we want. This is where we want to go. This is what we want to attempt to create and go forward with from here. So. Right. Yes. After we kind of, you know, express that for a minute and get, you know, very, very clear on what it is, we're not Wanting to create, that's the gift. Because if we just flip it, it's going to be, hey, we can create this instead, though. Or maybe this would even work better. And that helps us to get up and get on with it and navigate through the inevitable surprises that are going to come in life. Right. Unfortunately, there's a lot of risk in living right. Really is. It's.

And there's a lot of risk in love. I would say the greatest amount of risk comes in our most intimate and loving relationships. And guess what? People that are, you know, maybe giving you some guarantee or assurance, I would respectfully say that's just not possible. What you can get really good at is knowing how to clean up your messes and navigate the inevitable ups and downs. That really is the secret. That's our secret sauce.

Well, and. And there's a lot of freedom in that, believe it or not. To. To realize and recognize, okay, there aren't any guarantees. Really keeps us showing up as good as we can most days in our relationships. It also keeps us from taking our relationships for granted, which when we typically move in and we know that we're committed to creating a lifetime of love, we can get very, very complacent and we can stop doing the things that we used to do. Typically, the spending and focus of time, that starts to kind of wane a little bit as we think that now we can turn and we can shift our focus on other things like making money, growing a business and raising kids and building a house and. Right. Planning the summer home. And those are all really good things. But often what ends up happening is we lose sight of us, you know, our relationship, and less and less time is focused there. And I can't tell you how many couples get on the phone and. And that's one of their complaints. In addition to communication, it's taking the time to communicate, to address how everybody's doing, what's working, what's not working. And we never seem to get the conversation of what do we want, what do we want to do from here, where do we want to go? Let's spend the majority of our effort and energy on that, as opposed to deciding who it is that was wrong and, you know, going through the problem one more time and deciding who's to blame and whose fault it is. And we spend so much time there that we never get to any kind of a solution. So.

So I would. That's a great segue into our first question here is, is that why you would say relationships fail. Fail in the sense that either, you know, joined together through marriage or some type of a ceremony or commitment to each other. That's why they choose to no longer stay together.

It's not because we don't have solutions to the challenges that we face. We absolutely do. Any human being, if they're willing to, can put in the knowledge and information required to learn and then acquire the skills that are necessary to practice something different. We have the ability dynamically as a human being to do that. Why things go sideways is because we simply run out of emotional gas to stay in it, to keep working on it. We become depleted and we don't have any energy or desire in the tank, motivation in the tank, to essentially continue to look for those solutions. And we spend that energy, that precious emotional energy and motivation and longing for this to work in places that don't take us anywhere. And so we hang out there and we feel stuck, and we are. And the longer we stay stuck, the more we risk running out of what I call emotional gas. And then I, as we all are going to do as a human being, we throw our arms up in the air and go, I just can't do this anymore.

And so would you say the majority of clients that we work with, many of them have waited too long?

100%. Because it takes effort to turn things around and there's going to be resistance, right? There's going to be a wrestle inside of us that we've got to, to get over or through, shall we say. And if I'm already out of emotional gas because I've spent five years in the same place of low grade pain, knowing that my relationship and myself as a person is breaking down, breaking down, breaking down, breaking down. I'm losing all my emotional energy and motivation. And come on, let's be honest, I bet our listeners right now can take themselves to a place where you're like, man, I don't know if this is going to work. I don't know if I can do this. Not because I don't love you and not because I don't care, but because this is getting hard and I just don't know if I'm gonna make it. And we can do that in, in all kinds of chapters in our lives. But man, there's nothing that drains our emotional gas tanks like our relationships with our significant other does. It can drain us really, really fast. And, and on the flip side of that, we're not very good at knowing how to refuel it. I like to think of it like pulling up to the gas pump right on A tank of gas, it might take you 15 or 20 minutes to fill it, but it'll take you 4 or 500 miles. So it doesn't take long to fill it.

It doesn't even take 15 or 20.

No, honey, I'm exaggerating.

5. Because you don't ever get.

I know that's true. You always pump the gas, which is such a good. It's minutes, you know, it's minutes, but it'll take you a long, long way.

So you think about, I'm having some fun there, just a little bit.

I agree. And so we, we operate a lot like that as human beings. If we will be conscientious it a little bit to refuel our gas tanks and then it will take us a long way. Like a little bit goes a long way. But we don't have the ability to fill those tanks.

The clients that we've worked with and continue to work with, they've waited. A lot of them have waited too long. Do. Is there a common reason or share as to why they chose to wait the period of time that they did?

Well, it's where they acted. It really is the. You know, for many of us, because raising our hands and talking to somebody and getting help and support with our emotional pain, pain historically has been such a taboo and it's. It's not really all that great to think about going to talk to a stranger about the challenges and problems that you have in our most intimate of spaces. It's difficult and it takes a lot of courage to finally go, okay, I've had it. So a lot of us as human beings have to be pushed to the brink before we'll finally go, okay, I've. I've tried everything else. I know. I've. I've talked to everybody else that I feel safe with. Nobody can seem to give me the answers that I need. It's still failing. The pain is going up. So finally, okay, I'm going to risk it. What the heck, I'm going to jump in and just get some help and support. And unfortunately, yes, we have waited, you know, if not months and months and months and months. Most people wait years. And so we're pretty banged up when we get help and support.

And I know you're very passionate about also having people have a much different actual experience, you know, if they do choose to work with us about what it's like, because I do think there's a strong story and narrative out there. You know, this is what I say. We don't even share this to Our closest, oftentimes family that we're having challenges in our relationship. So I know you're very passionate to at say the end of a first session for someone, what is you would love them to have, what type of a response or an experience versus what they typically think going in.

Oh, you know, my goal is to first of all, right out of the gate, acknowledge them for the courage to book an appointment and come in and just explore it. Right. Let's just see how this is going to go. And I think that's such a moment for Yahoo. You did it. You're here. I mean, that's a, that's an accomplishment in an of itself. And then, you know, I'm, I'm really heavy and big on teaching and practice. And so it's not so much coming in about, you know, hashing your problems or discussing who was right and wrong or me playing the. Okay, now, you know, Sam, you need to let Melanie talk. Right. It's not that. It's. Everybody has a voice and everybody deserves to be heard. And it's amazing what we will explore when things start to make sense, which is why I'm heavy on learning and, and then we have a little fun. Believe it or not, this can be something that you can leave and it will put a smile on your face. And so my goal is to make sure that as you walk out of my office, out of that first initial session, that you have a breath of hope and fresh air right in, in your heart as you walk out and know, okay, wow, this starts to make a lot of sense. And I understand why we're here and I understand how we can practice and go forward and, and it gives me a tremendous amount of hope and joy. And so we intentionally refuel you. I don't want you to come in and feel worse when you leave than when you, especially after your courageous move. I want you to feel better, I want you to feel refueled. I want you to feel like you can walk out of there with some real concrete things to focus on and, and to start going in a brand new direction. And by the way, while I'm thinking about it, babe, I want to really give a shout out to our young people. I'm noticing that the couples that are starting to show up at my office are dropping in age literally within the last, you know, I would say two to three years. Young families, young parents. Right. 30 to 35, 40 years old. My. Our youngest clients right now are 23. And I just think, yes, yes, our young people are stepping up and they're raising their hands sooner rather than later to get hope, to get support, to learn. And I'm starting to see a lot of that taboo that you and I had when we were, you know, growing up and raising families and going through it, and the lack of support that we would reach out for is falling away. And our young people are really stepping up to the bat. So I really want to just take a minute and give a shout out to them for their courageous and bold efforts to say, okay, this, I'm going to, I'm going to tell the truth sooner rather than later. I'm not going to sit here and pretend an illusion at all. If I don't know, I'm going to raise my hand. I'm going to get some help and support, and I hope that we can hold it that way. You know, therapy or what therapies, getting help and support when things are not going well. That just makes sense when you really think about it.

And I would even. Excuse me for interrupting, but what comes. I'm sorry, I had a real surge there. Even more, more important and more significant, and it's going to be a much better place, is to not wait. Meaning let's look at other areas of, of places where how many. I'm having a brain fade now because it's so strong. Look at other areas that we spend time and money that we want to know, improve. Okay, so I'm going to use. Stacy and I, we've just recently, over the last say, 30 days or so, joined our CrossFit gym. So I didn't go there because, I mean, yes, I haven't trained as hard as I have if you listen to the show for a long time. But nevertheless, meaning I go there because I want to improve and get better, not because things are breaking down. I, I, you know, Stacy and I, we got together later in life. So Stacy says, I gotta live 120, honey. Vigorously. 120 of vigor and vim. Yeah, but all. No kidding. No kidding. That's for real. So I want to do everything I can. So my point there and again, I'm sorry, that was very poorly put together. Rather than waiting, you could also step in. We have some clients now. This should be taught and, and practiced proactively rather than reactively. You know, I mean, so can't overemphasize that enough because again, like, oh my gosh, you must be having a lot of problems if you're going to have some help on your relationship. That's typically the response. If we have enough courage to Share that with someone in our circle. Oh, man. Like, that's always bad news. No, I just want it to be better.

Yeah.

How about that?

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah. We have a cute little client that was just in my office yesterday, and that was exactly what she said. You know, she's okay, I gotta go. You know, I'm meeting with my relationship, you know, specialist, and people go, oh, gosh, that you guys really struggling. Are you gonna be okay? Do you think you're gonna make it? And she's like, hey, guys, I'm going because I want to. I'm going because it makes me better. I'm going because it makes. Makes my family and my relationship better. I'm not doing it because I have to.

So that's really. Talk about passion. And again, that's. It was so passionate that I flubbed it, if you will. But that's really ultimately where we would like to move people and, like, look, you know, have it be because you want to show up and have it be the best version of yourself. Now for. If you're listening right now and think, okay, that sounds good, but that's not where I'm at. In fact, I'm right at a place where I really need to decide if my relationship is over or not. Mrs. Bartley, what could you share with that person right now? That specific person that's listening? What can. What could they wrap their arms around to give them some sort of certainty versus what you and I both know, because we've been through this. This just. Just. Just blah, just difficult place of. We call the land of maybe. What could you offer that?

Well, so the first thing I want everyone out there who's listening to my voice understand is that it's. It's only a matter of time before all of us, every single human being in a relationship, is going to question and doubt the relationship itself. That is very human of us, especially when we start to bump into challenges. And it's inevitable that you're going to bump into challenges. Like, that's part of the journey. It just is. And it's interesting. When it comes to relationships, we don't talk about that enough. Like, we need to normalize that conversation because it is very normal and inevitable that you are going to have challenges in your relationship. And instead we paint the. What I call Santa Claus story, that when you find the perfect person or you're the perfect person or somebody or everybody's doing it right, that there is not going to be any emotional pain or challenge in your relationship. That is a flat out Lie it does, does not exist, not in any relationship. And I don't care how it looks on the outside. That is just life. You would not expect to live a life physically without any pain or risk. And so it is with our emotional selves as well. There are going to be inevitable ups and downs, which puts us in a place where every person who is madly in love with their person is going to find doubt around the relationship, doubt within themselves. Can I pull this off? Can I make this happen right? Am I doing my part? Can I hang in there and doubt in their partner as maybe the partner goes through some challenges? Because there's nothing stagnant about relationships. As the years tick off, you are going to change as a couple, you are going to change as individuals, which is going to impact everything. You're going to go from being new in relationship to having some years under you. Many of us are going to have children or raise children, and then those children are going to leave and go off to college and then you're going to be faced with, you know, empty nesting it, as we like to say, and then what am I going to do with myself then? And then, and then we have, you know, a myriad of things that, you know, financially, physically, emotionally, mentally as we ride this. No guarantee, right? Lots of risk, life journey.

So someone is bumping right up against that, that, that place that we, you and I again, both know very well. Very difficult, most difficult place I've ever been in my life. Really, really questioning like, is this, is it possible? Is this thing over or should I just stick it out or I'm done and I'm leaving?

Yeah, well, number one, we tend to react and make those decisions when we're in the heat of pain. So deciding whether you're going to stay or go is usually just pushed off and pushed off and pushed off till I'll make a default option in the heat of the moment and then I prevents me from really gaining all the benefit I can from what we've put in this and the experiences that we've had and acquiring what I call completion. We leave that relationship mad and angry, typically wanting somebody to pay or really feeling guilty and shameful and imploding on ourselves. And we've missed the opportunity to really learn, discover, uncover about myself and about how I show up in relationships and about how to navigate them. So it's so, so not about whether it works or not. It's more about, do you have two people who are willing to invest in it and learn and grow? In fact, I have three Questions that are pretty profound to give you, like a litmus test about, okay, do we have something to work with here? And the first one, and they are in order of priority, the first one is, do I want it? I mean, like, do you just want it? Not because it's going to give you financial gain or status or have anything to do with any side benefit, but you, you genuinely just want this. And you may want it for yourself or you may want it for your kids and your family. Right. Do you. You want this to go well, you want this to work out somehow.

That's question one, number one.

And number two is you're willing to attempt to let the past go. What we tend to do with our past is it becomes the benchmark of what's possible in the future. And so if we can't really acquire the ability to, and it happens in little teeny tiny steps, let the past go. It continues to be the benchmark of what we think is possible in our relationship. And we won't explore anything beyond it. When somebody proposes a new idea or a new way of doing things, it gets shut down by things like, oh, that will never happen. Oh, they'll never do that. Oh, they'll never go there. Oh, no way, I'm not doing that. And if you get stuck in that place of the past, you're right. You know, the good news is you're right, I guess. And the bad news is you're right, you can't move on if the past is the benchmark of what's possible. So if we can let that go and start looking strategically at, at and emotionally. Right, with the willingness and the motivation to plan beyond that, what's happened and to see if we can rise above it, then we can move the needle. And I just want to point out right here, this is what happens in new relationships. So, like, if you were to get out of one relationship and jump into another, the reason why it's such a wonderful magic carpet ride is you're allowing yourself to look at that dreamy future again, the one that you refuse to look at and didn't believe was possible in the old relationship. And so if you can get past, sometimes the past, right, like which. Which is challenging, is going to challenge you, absolutely. You could move forward in profound ways that you couldn't even imagine were possible. And then the last one is you. You've got to learn. You've got to learn some skills. You've got to understand how you arrived here. You've got to acquire and practice some new ways that you show up in relationship overall and for yourself and for others. And if you have those three things, like if, if both parties or are amenable to getting into a heck yeah, let's give it 30 days. And I don't like to go any further than that. Like, 30 days is about all we can wrap our head around when things are really in a place of struggle. And if you can get all in for 30 days, we can see what happens in 30 days in attempting a new way of showing up in our relationships. And then at the end of that 30 days, we can evaluate it and say, are we making progress? And if a couple's making progress, we go, yes, we did it. Yes. Heck yeah. I want to try again. Heck yeah. I want to look at the next 30 days. Let's see what we can do. Or I start to understand. Oh, I see. I understand why I'm not willing to show up and participate or my partner's not willing to show up and participate. It's just not available. Not because we don't care about each other or not because we wouldn't love for this to play out differently, but it starts to give us that place of understanding and completion. Right. So those three questions are really a great benchmark or litmus to say, yeah, if I can get a yes, yes, yes for myself and my partner can meet me there with a yes, yes, yes. Let's give this a try.

How about we got something, I think we have, you know, past clients and maybe even current clients. How about if one partner has three yeses and the other partner maybe maybe not yeses or maybe lukewarm. And then I know we're very, we're very different where we'll start working with one person in a couple, you know, one person in a marriage, one spouse, one partner. And many times that, that change, that behavior change in that partner that's working with us will be the incentive for the other partner to step in that maybe initially was hesitant. But how about if we've got one partner yes, three yeses, and the other one, three maybe so's.

Ofttimes what happens is the process will start because the person that's really in and says, yes, I want to go for this, needs to have that experience of really doing all that they can to see this through, to work on it so that they themselves can be complete. That's important. And as the other person comes along, right, or shall we say, is feeling a bit drug along for the ride there, one of two things happen. I've seen both they get motivated and all of a sudden get all in and they're more impassioned about the process than, than the person that brought them in, you know, their spouse or their partner that brought them in. Or they continue to realize and get more and more clear of like, yeah, I can't do this, you know, this. The ship has sailed for me and I just can't enroll myself or motivate myself to get back in and do what I know needs to be done to turn this around. And you know, if we could, as disappointing as it is, that's going to be an, a natural part of relationships, the ebb and flow of relationships. Like I were saying, you know, we all have different places that we arrive at with inside of ourselves. It's so much more an individual journey in relationships than it is a co creative effort. And yet we lose sight of that intend to focus on what our partner is doing and not doing, and lose complete sight of myself, which is the only thing I can bring to the table. And so how I like to describe this is we feel complete when I know I've done the very best I can at making sure I'm doing my part and showing up at what I call the relationship table. And then I get to see if my partner can meet me there. And if they can't meet me there, it doesn't mean that it will. You know, everything that you've created or the experience in and of itself was all for naught. It wasn't. There is no wasted experience in relationships. Every experience becomes a byproduct of who, who you are now and the understanding and growth of us as human beings, right? It's going to contribute to who you are now and who it is you're becoming. And so much more of it is about knowing that you've done your piece, right? And taking an ownership and responsibility for that. Even if it is you get to the table and you realize, I can't do this anymore. That's an honoring of self. It's very difficult to lay that card on the table. But so much better to do that than to continue to live in the pretend and illusion. Because we all know that you're not there anyway, right? I mean, emotionally we know that you're not as in to the relationship as we would love you to be. And how freeing that is to some degree when all of a sudden what you're saying and how you're showing up becomes congruent, right? Instead of this, this disconnect where you're saying one thing but you're doing something else or you're showing up in a different way.

Let's have some fun then, and let's jump to the other side of the relationship journey. How about if someone is listening right now and he or she is like, and I think I've met the one. In fact, we're thinking of a family member right now that that's. That's possible. That's a wonderful story. So how does one know when we have found the one?

Well, you know, I mean, I. I think it's fun to tell the story. Let's tell the story a little bit without violating any confidences. Dear family members later in life, who ended up having the opportunity to meet another wonderful person that we've all known for many, many years in the family. And there was literally a moment where we didn't know if they were going to allow themselves to explore it. Like, there was a ton of conversation that went into, oh, no, I can't do that. I can't allow myself to go there. Although we could all see that there was this moment of attraction, and it was so precious when finally our family member mustered up the courage to just try. You know, so much of that is just try. Our heads shut us down so often. They really do. It's more of a head game than it is, right. An actual playing out of circumstances. And so he finally mustered up the courage to go see, and of course, in a matter of weeks, fell madly in love and now can't even remember or wants to remember what his life was like before he met this beautiful soul. And it's just so fun. And Tom and I have been living our first years vicariously through them, and that's what love does, you know, that's why we love to see kids enjoy Christmas, for example. You know, we all get to read, relive those moments for ourselves. And so as we step in, you know, the yes. The conversations quickly turn to, okay, how do we keep this going? How do we keep this feeling that I'm having right now alive? And that's a fun place in the journey. I love to do premarital stuff. I love, love, love that work. Because everybody is so excited and delighted. It's not like pulling teeth, you know, or convincing them that it's okay to. To get help. They're wanting to get help because they want to keep this fresh and alive. And there are things that we can do to keep it fresh and alive. But even in that space, you're going to have doubts. Even in that space, you're going to question the relationship. And it's not about not having those fears and doubts because it's going to be the case. It's about how we handle them that makes the difference. It's about not taking them out on each other. Like, if there was one cardinal rule for relationships, it would be you don't get to take your pain, your frustration. Right. Your disappointment out on your partner. We have to wrestle with those things ourselves. And the difference maker, just so you can see the very subtle but very, very important nuance that I'm speaking to here, is the difference between me saying, I can't believe you just did that. I can't believe you just said that. You've crushed me. This is all your fault because I'm hurting. The other option is to say, my feelings are hurt, I'm feeling sad. I want you to know, would you help me with this? I'd like to do this instead. And we can still talk about this, the things. But I don't get to just. I don't get to push you away. I don't get to punish you for the, the pain and the insecurity that I'm feeling with inside of myself. I'm, I'm taking responsibility for that. And it doesn't mean that I stand there and I take it and take it and take it and take it. That's not what I. If that were the case, if somebody is coming at you, you know, some version of, hey, I want to hear what you have to say, but not like this. I'm not doing it. You don't get to do this. You don't get to treat me this way. So there's, there's places and skills and, and emotional practices or what I like to call an emotional pushup that we can learn and do that keeps us in a position where we can talk about the tough stuff without taking it out on each other. And I think that's probably, if I were to point to anything that we do a lot of and help cultivate couples do, it's that.

So, so we've met this special person. In these initial periods. We're having a lot of ease in navigating. Maybe the first bumps is that maybe one that's like, oh, gosh, okay, that, that's a, that's a fun, different experience than maybe what I've had before. I mean, so what's that kind of. What was it for you and I, you know, that we had this certainty knowing that we thought we had found something quite special that wanted us to continue the path.

Why I think for, for most couples, it's, it's. I feel comfortable with you, I feel safe with you. I feel like you get me, you know, I, I feel like we're going in the same direction in. And that's big.

I would say too. Excuse me. I would say creates an environment to bring a better version of yourself when you're with that person. I mean, I always say, you know, Stacy created our lease option contract for love, you know, to go to continually challenge me to bring my A game every day, meaning that piece of paper. Again, we're not anti marriage. We're married. But before we got married, first couple conversations Stacy and I ever had, you know, 11 years ago. I just want you to know I never have any intentions of getting married again. Is that a deal breaker for you? I said, no, it's not. So. But you know, the lease option contract for love is something that, you know, again, she says, I don't. Not interested in having a relationship based on obligations, you know, so I had done that.

I had done two marriages based on obligation and knew that that wasn't the way to happiness. That, that actually suffocated me and it suffocated my partner and it, it just didn't last the long haul. That, that was like the quickest way I could. I, I was aware of. To break down. And that was long before I started studying human behavior.

And, and so, I mean, so does this relationship and these, these, the people involved, you know, help bring a better version of yourself? I would say that's a good, that's a good indicator. I know that's what I've always felt with you. It brings a better version. It challenges me to bring my best, you know, behavioral game, best integrity game, best everything game.

Yeah. It's a place where, when we fall in love, it's a place where I, I so want this. Like, there's just something about it that I can't stop thinking about that I can't stop dreaming about. And, and I just know, right, we get to this place where emotionally we just go. I just know that this is going to be incredible. And then it starts to play out and, and that's where it can get a little interesting, where we're gonna bump into surprises. Those, those are going to be part of the deal.

Well, that's a great. How about this one then? As we start to kind of wrap up our frequently asked question episode again is how about jealousy?

Is jealousy.

So how does that, Is that a normal. Is that a healthy health? Is that healthy? Is that normal? Is that abnormal?

And jealousy is actually a fear and an insecurity within the person. So jealousy is something that shows up and that I attempt to control, to manage my own fear and insecurity that's playing out inside of myself. And it can wreak havoc for sure, not only on the person that this is being taken out on, because think about what happens. I'm trying to control the person so that I can feel better, so I can feel at ease. Don't talk to those people. You can't go there, you know, can't go out in that. Don't wear that. I saw how you were looking at that person at the party, you know, I saw you, you know, engaging. Don't you tell me any different. Those are all examples of fears and insecurities that are being acted out on the person who's feeling that fear and insecurity with, inside of themselves. And it's, it's not going to go well because you're going to find as the person who's jealous, you can't control a person enough to manage that. In fact, almost the more you start to control them, the worse it gets because it didn't take away the emotion with inside of yourself. Right? They start complying and going along with. And then there's another thing that you've got to control and another problem that you've got to address and another thing that's playing out. And so you find very quickly that there's a. There's, there's no amount of control and monitoring that you're ever going to be able to do with this person that you care about to, to keep you from having those feelings. So those have to be addressed by the person who's feeling the jealousy and insecurity. And, and it can, and it absolutely is doable. And, and it's hard sometimes for the person to take responsibility for that because they want to continue the illusion of thinking that if I just control and manage this other person, it's going to all work out for me and then I don't have to look at myself, I don't have to take responsibility for it. I don't have to address it. You know, I'm just going to try and control and monopolize you and we can live lifetimes in that place. You know, if you are by chance somebody who's trying to comply to somebody who's jealous, if you play along with it, it's going to simply escalate it. If you play along with, right, the demands and Such so that they can feel better. It doesn't play out well. And so jealousy is something that we, we, I would say is not healthy in a relationship. It's probably going to happen. There's going to be some jealousy happen because we care and because we start to have our own fears and doubts that come up inside of ourselves. It's how we handle it that is, is going to have the impact on the relationship.

So what's a, what's a. Give us a super tip for someone out there that might be navigating jealousy right now. What would that be for him or her?

Well, how about if I tell a story? Okay, a real life story from me. I remember very early on in our relationship. Why is it this one I don't have the answer to? Why is it that when you get happy, you start to put on weight conversation for another time?

Is that the freshman 10?

So it's like, it's like Tom and I move in together and I'm, I'm so happy and I'm so grateful to be in this new place and to have this opportunity to build a life with him. And all of a sudden I were getting ready to go out to dinner one night and my, my cute little dress that used to zip right up, up, doesn't zip so right up anymore. And it was just a particular day where I had a lot of fear and insecurity about myself, right? And I wasn't feeling, you know, as beautiful as I had. And so we're going to this fancy place and I'm feeling a little down about it. And, you know, you start to wonder, do you love me as much as I love you? Like, because I love you. I love you so much, you know, and, and that's a normal doubt inducing thought that we will have. The more we care, the more we start to go, man, I hope I'm not in this by myself because I really love you. I hope you love me. And how do you vet that out? Right? So here we are sitting at a table with my dress that's now pulling at the seams, and I'm thinking, oh, gosh darn it. And I look across the table at Tom and I see he's looking through me. Not at me, but through me. Which of course is just going to add evidence to my doubt and my fear that, oh, gosh, see, it's happening. You know, he's becoming disinterested in me. Maybe I'm not enough to hold his attention, which is all my fear and insecurity. And I Turn around. And of course, as you could probably guess, there's a beautiful woman standing behind me in this gorgeous dress. Long, beautiful. I mean, she's just stunning. And I turned back, and I remember the flood of options that, like, nano. In nanoseconds flooded through my mind. Okay, you can get mad and say, okay, I'm gonna leave now. I'm going out to the car, that this dinner's over. I know exactly how you feel about me now, you know, Or I can go to the bathroom, excuse myself and maybe cry, you know, in the toilet paper for a minute and try and pull it together, you know, see if I can do that. Or. And then the thought came. Maybe you could just be courageous enough to, like, work through this with him and disclose what really is true for you. And that's thankfully what I chose to do. And I looked up and said, are you. Are you looking at that beautiful woman? And, Tom, thank goodness you said yes, because I don't know what would I have done if you had a lied or tried to, like, negate the fact that you were looking at her when I absolutely knew you were. And so, thankfully, you said, yeah, I. I am. You know, she's a beautiful woman, but so are you. And I said, as. As I reached across to hold his hand, I am feeling not so beautiful right now. And could you reassure me that you love me? Could you reassure me that you want this? Right? And. And. And that we got this? And of course, as Tom does. And Tom, style, looks me right in the eye and says, oh, my gosh, yes. You know, I love you. I love us. I'm so excited for our future. And then I said, okay, I want to put this on steroids. Like, I really want to shut this down. Can I come around to your side of the table? And as you hold my hand, can we check her out together? And he's like, yeah, that's a great idea. Come on over. And so there we were in this restaurant, checking out the beautiful woman, and. And Tom's like, gosh, stage, you got a dress like that, you know, why don't you wear it? Why don't you put it on? I love that dress. Oh, you do your hair like that, and I bet you got a pair of shoes like that, et cetera. And this conversation that started out as fear and insecurity and, yes, a slash of jealousy quickly turned into the best night and the greatest sex we had. Like, we came home and just had a great time. And so I want you to see that fear and insecurity can be worked through like that too, as long as we're willing to take responsibility for it. And instead of I, I could have, you know, shamed him or taken it out on him and then remembering, no, this isn't about him, this is about me. And it's coming up because I care so much and I'm needing to be reassured that he loves me. Well, let's just ask for that. Let's just go there instead of all the other things that we do. So. Okay, I guess we need to wrap this up and maybe take a quick break and come back for a little bit of fun.

And I would just add you. Absolutely. And if, if you, if you or people in your circle of influence, family members, you know, neighbors, colleagues, are navigating some of these very difficult questions, I would encourage you to share our, share this episode with them. With them. And also if you want to know how we help people going through these very difficult places and sometimes not so difficult great places, they want to keep it great, just go right to our website and the Work with Me page and we'll explain exactly how we work with our clients. And yeah, we'll take a short bracket and we'll brack break. Holy cow. Tongue tied today. And we'll be right back. Foreign.

Hey babe, did you know that the average couple spends only two hours a day with each other and the majority of that time is spent eating, watching TV and surfing social media rather than connecting with each other. And if children are involved, my gosh, it's even less time than that.

I know, babe. That's why you created our conversation cards for connection, because they're the perfect conversation starter. So the next time you're sitting on a couch rather than turning on the TV or grabbing having your phone pull out a card and get ready for some good old fashioned laughter and loving connections.

Yeah, you can get your cards@stacybartly.com get your daily dose of Variety Alternative Talk 1150.

Welcome back inside the love shack. And what do we have? What's fun? What's, what are we doing for fun?

Okay, so we've talked about refueling today. This is why we do this segment. We, this is opportunities that we give you so that you don't have to get, get so creative on your own side. We, we feed these up to help you refuel your gas tanks and to give you ideas of bringing some.

And this is where you typically, you know, sign off. You know, that's okay but you know, I encourage you don't I would challenge you actually. That's Even better, don't sign off. And again, we take an important number of minutes because novelty and play, it's proven scientifically and it's typically, you know, maybe you should confirm this with me. It's what goes out of our relationships as soon as the problems start. All the not think about, was it Tony Robbins? I think paraphrase. If we did what we did in the beginning of our relationships, there would not be an end.

Yeah. Well, the time starts to wane as we talked about already, and our ability to create moments that light us up or that are delightful or fun or nonsensical or silly. Right. Those are the things that refuel us. And think about last time you did one of those. You know, if you're one of our regular listeners, I hope you're saying, right, I just did it last week. But this is one of my favorites. I love this. I call it an acknowledgment ceremony. And what I'm going to invite you to do is walk through your house and pick up everyday ordinary objects that remind you of the qualities you love and admire about your person. And then I want you to put them in a present type of form, wrap them up, put them in some special paper in a special bag, and invite your partner to do this along with you. So they're going to go through the house and they're going to choose things that cause you them to think and remember you in all the ways that they appreciate what you do or acknowledge some of the qualities.

We're talking, you know, maybe three or four items, right?

Yeah, three to five. Three to five items. Wrap them up and then plan a special afternoon or a special evening when the two of you have some privacy. And it doesn't take long if you've got small kids, you know, 30 minutes, 45 minutes is all it takes. But man, are you going to come out refueled and you're going to alternate and take turns unwrapping, you know, your gifts that you've chosen for each other. And as the person unwraps the gifts, you tell them why you chose that for them. Like, why does it remind you of them? Or what is it the quality of their character? What is it that gets sparked with this item? And to give you some examples, I mean, Tom and I have done this on a number of occasions. But. But it was things like oranges and coffee and his gratitude journal, you know, that were selections from me to him. And the reason why, those are characters that I love about him. You know, he can, he can See the bright side of anything. Tom's very, very grateful and has a very, very robust practice of that. That's one of the things I love and admire about him. Right. Coffee is a beautiful time that we, we really intentionally set aside, and we've gotten really, really bougie with our coffee. But, you know, it's, it's a part of our relationship that is so fun and, and to acknowledge that and to cherish that and to give thanks for that, taking the time, because everybody has to choose into that. It's worth acknowledging. Yeah.

For my. I remember I, I, I. One of the things I remember I gave Stacy was a, Was a fam. A picture of our family, because family is such an incredible part of our lives. You know, we have a large family between us, and it's important. It's foundational to what we do. And so, And Stacy's commitment of, of serving and loving on our family is. I sometimes don't know how she musters it up. So that was one of the, one of the gifts I remember giving you as well.

And so here we are sitting on our bed, you know, pretending like it's a picnic blanket, and just one by one alternated who opened up the packages. And it was an incredible experience. And it will refuel you. It doesn't take time, a lot of time. Doesn't take any money to put together. It just takes a few minutes to put the items together. You know, let's say 10 or 15 minutes to find the items, wrap them up, and another 45 to. To share them, and you'll come out feeling so, so good. And if you feel like this isn't something that you can access in your relationship, well, that's a, that's a really good sign to say, hey, maybe we do need to get some help and support and kind of create a bigger, brighter future for us. Maybe we're using events of the past as that benchmark that holds us down. So just want that to, to be something that you consider. As we step into picking our song today, we have Phil Collins with us. I can feel it in the air tonight. And when we have challenges in our relationship, we can feel it in the air, can't we? Like, it gets electrifying. Like, oh, man, where are we going? Right. Brace yourself. Hold on. And this song says it best. And, and it was a song that was really popular when I was going through a really, really challenging time of being a pregnant teenager back in 1980, 81. And I remember this song playing, and I used to just pull over and. And just when the drums would start to play, I'd think, okay, okay, okay, I'm gonna do this. Just hold on, hold on. So hopefully that will inspire you like that today, too. This is why I chose it for this episode. And you can find all of our songs for each and every episode. Episode on our website and. Or on the Spotify platform by going to Love Shack Live playlist. Okay, so we gotta land this. Any final words for us?

Well, I would just say, remember, life is going to throw you curveballs even when you least suspect them. So rather than being triggered and just kind of throwing in the towel, you know, just take that pause. The most powerful thing we did, we took a pause and we had our engineer, Eric. Thank you, Eric. We just asked him for a little bit more space and we went to plan B, you know, so. But you do that through practice. It doesn't just happen overnight, but it's going to happen. So the sweet spot is, is take that pause, get resourceful, you know, recalibrate.

Think about what you want, and then get up and go again. Right? It's been a pleasure to be here with you this week, as always, right here in the Love Shack. We so look forward to being here with you again soon. Until then, have a wonderful, wonderful week. Bye. Bye for 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 Stacy Bartley.