12 Lessons Learned From 12 Years Together - Pt. 2

Hey there. I'm Vanessa.

And I'm Xander.

And I don't know if you remember, but this month marks 12 years that we have been together.

Holy shit.

So we decided to celebrate by sharing our 12 favorite relationship lessons that we have learned in 12 years together.

That's all we've learned.

That's all. It's amazingly exactly 12 lessons in 12 years. So we made a video last week sharing our first three lessons. If you haven't had a chance to watch that yet, definitely make sure you check it out. And today we are talking about three more lessons. So we decided to group these three together because they are all about communication. So let's jump into it with relationship lesson number four, which is to learn your communication patterns. So communication is definitely one of the trickiest things in a relationship, right? So many couples complain about this. And I think one of the reasons that it becomes so complicated is because we don't learn from our mistakes. We keep making the same communication mistakes over and over again. And we keep getting frustrated that we are having all these really difficult conversations. Then we don't really take that time to step back and take a look at, well, what really happened there? What are the patterns that are coming up over and over again? So I think that it's really important for couples to be able to kind of step back and really evaluate ourselves as individuals, our own communication patterns and tendencies, and then take a look at how they work together with our partners. And I think it's also really helpful to do this because it then becomes you and your partner talking about how you talk. So it sort of feels like it's the two of you. You're on a team, and we're talking about, okay, here's this big communication puzzle right here. How do we figure this out rather than me versus you battling it out in all these difficult conversations with each other. So step one is to identify your own patterns here. So we wanted to share a couple of our own patterns that we have learned in 12 communication.

Let's go deep.

So one thing that I've learned about myself is that I tend to clam up immediately after some sort of incident. So if my feelings have been hurt or if I'm frustrated, I get very clammed up. I'm pretty quiet, and I just need a little bit of time to, like, get myself out of that stuck space. So that's something I know about myself. I also know that after I've had a little bit of time, if I get a genuine apology from someone, I let go of things. Really quickly and really easily. Just hearing those words are important, but I am able to move on after that.

Just not if you're clammed up.

Just not when I'm clammed up. There's a fine line between when I need the clam time and when I can do the apology time. And we're still figuring that out.

I like this clam time. Hey, you. And clam time still.

Yeah, that'll definitely make me laugh.

You're just talking about talking. We're already figuring things out.

Exactly.

All right. So for me, I can tend to be a people pleaser, and that means that I can focus on trying to make Vanessa feel better or, like, fix a situation, rather than owning my own feelings or even really addressing or thinking about my own feelings. Also, I have a tendency to interpret Vanessa's statements as judgments on something that I've done rather than just listening to what she's saying for what it is. Like, maybe it's an observation, but instead I am thinking, oh, she must be telling me I'm doing this or that wrong.

And one of the crazy things about being in a relationship is often your stuff and your partner's stuff are just so terribly matched with each other. We've got a lot of good matches in a lot of ways, but sometimes our most challenging things really just come colliding against each other. So, perfect example here with us is that I take things very literally. I really think through what it is that I'm thinking and feeling before I share it with another person. And so when I talk about my feelings or my thoughts, that's exactly what I mean. The words are super important to me, and I'm very, very literal.

So I have trouble translating what I feel in my heart and in my head into words. And so what ends up happening is usually I end up just kind of figuring out what I'm feeling by talking it through out loud.

And this is horrible for me because Xander often shares some rough drafts of what he's thinking and feeling, but I take those super literally. Like, if the words are coming out of his mouth, that must be he means it, and that's just not the case for him. So it's just a perfect example of sometimes our stuff is just really, really challenging and triggering for each other, but we have to figure out ways to work around it. So one of the ways that I have worked around this tendency, because we've talked about it as a pattern, we both know that this happens is that now when we're talking about something that's really serious, or maybe we're talking about something for the first time. In my own head, I am constantly thinking to myself, zander is still working out what he's feeling. He's still working out what it is that he means. And so the things that he's saying right now might not be completely accurate. So I'm just kind of giving myself that reassurance, almost talking myself through that conversation, so I can know not to take every single word he's saying so literally.

So here's something for those of you who have someone like me in your relationship, a few things to think about. So, okay, give me a second here. So when you're learning a second language and you're, you know, let's say you're in another country, you're practicing, you're making new friends, you're going to make some mistakes in what you say. And, you know, the people in that country are going to know, probably by your accent and whatnot, that you're not fluent, and you're going to make mistakes. They're expecting you to make mistakes, and they are going to give you a lot of leeway and give you a lot of understanding when you inevitably mess up. So here's a good example from our own life. So we used to live in Germany.

Which we told you about last week.

We used to live in Germany. We have two pugs. The word for pug in German is mops, and the plural is mopse. So, yeah, it says that in the dictionary. Nowhere in the dictionary does it say that mopse is slang for boobs.

It's like titties.

Yeah. So, yeah. So anyway, let's just so you know, if you were trying to describe your life to someone, you say, we have two wrinkly pugs. What they hear is we have wrinkly boobs, and they look at you kind of funny, and then they realize that you're American and this is your second language, and you probably didn't know that. So remember this.

Bring it back.

For some of us, speaking emotions is like a second language. For me, it very much is. I'm still learning. I'm still figuring things out. So try to extend that same patience that you would extend to someone that's speaking a language as their second language, learning a new language.

A very, very good comparison. And that's something that I think I can think about, too, in the moment. I'll have my clam time and you have your ESL time.

All right.

Emotions as a second language.

Ooh, I like it.

So let's talk about how to make this tip practical. So the first thing that I recommend is you spend a little bit of time thinking about yourself, like, what do I already know about myself and my communication patterns or needs? So I think it's great to start thinking about ourselves first because we want to have that self awareness. Then next, get together with your partner and have a conversation where we talk about what do we know already, about how my needs and how your needs come together. What challenges have we already run across? See if you can look for patterns. Like, we always tend to get in trouble if this happens, or we're really good at talking about this or. So just look for any sort of natural patterns or tendencies that have already emerged. What can you already learn from? And then I think it's really useful to write down a list. You can make a little, like, user manual for your relationship, a communication guide, and sort of have some guidelines of if we have this in place, we can have really good conversations or we want to try to avoid these sorts of pitfalls. So the more you can just keep track of those things and really come back to them, learn from them, and do communication a little bit different, differently in the future. Okay, relationship lesson number five is to check your stories. Okay, so here's what we mean by this one. Typically in relationships, we tend to assign meanings to the things that our partner says and does. And then we respond to those meanings that we've created without sharing that meaning with our partner specifically. So we're not responding to the actions themselves. We're responding to the meanings that we're making of those actions. So we have the holidays coming up. So here's an example. Like, let's say your partner gives you a gift that you're not really in love with. So one potential meaning that you could make of that gift is my partner got me this terrible gift because they don't know me and they don't really care about me. So if that's what you're feeling, you're gonna, you know, approach your partner or receive that gift in a certain way that's really different from you just responding to the actual gift itself.

All right, so here's a real world example from Vanessa and me. This actually was just a few days ago. So I mentioned that I have a tendency to think that Vanessa says things, is saying things, because she thinks they're my fault, when in reality she's just trying to share information with me. So Vanessa sent me a text the other day as she was pulling up to our house saying, hey, FYI, the Back gate is stuck, and I can't get in. I had to go around the front. So I came running down the stairs, grabbing a bunch of tools to fix the gate, even though I was in the middle of some really important work. And Vanessa was like, hey, what are you. What are you doing? Why are you running around grabbing all these tools? Like, she was genuinely confused. And so I was. So I said, well, when I got your message, the story I had in my head was that you were upset that I hadn't already fixed it and you needed it fixed right away.

Yeah. So this is an example. You know, it wasn't something that was a fight between the two of us or anything like that. So it was a great time to use it. But you can definitely use it if things are feeling tense as well, if you're feeling all this stuff coming up between you and your partner. So what you want to do in this example is share the story that you have created in your head with your partner. So don't keep it stuck up in there. Let it out and share the meaning that you're making of their actions. And we really like using the phrase, the story that I'm making in my head is this. And what you want to do is share that story and then tell your partner, I don't know if that's how you actually feel, or I don't know if that's what you were actually intending. So I wanted to ask. So what's really great about sharing it in this way is that you get to share your own feelings or insecurities or thoughts or whatever it is. You don't have to banish yourself from feeling any of those things or pretend that you're reacting perfectly positively to everything. Like, you get to say, what I was feeling. This is what I was thinking. But you're cloaking it in this language. That makes it much easier for your partner to receive, saying, you know, this is the story that I'm making. You're taking responsibility for it, ownership over it. So it doesn't feel to your partner like you're like, this is what you're doing.

You're doing this.

Yeah, because, you know, we also, to the partner, like, nobody likes being told this is how you feel and this is what you mean. So it gives your partner a chance to explain what it actually is that they feel, what it actually is that they mean. And a lot of times your stories are going to be wrong. So it's so important to give ourselves the opportunity to check these stories, and then you find that that actually wasn't the case. You know, it wasn't that your partner didn't care. It wasn't that your partner doesn't know you. It wasn't that your partner is blaming everything on you and thinking you're responsible for everything. So it's just better to get this story out in a gentle way and let it be corrected, rather than keeping it inside and starting to. To feel really hurt and resentful.

Yeah.

All right, so let's cruise along into relationship lesson number six. We are always on the same team.

Big one.

Big one. Yeah. So we really like to remind ourselves, and we definitely recommend that other couples do this to remind each other that you are always on the same team.

This was in our wedding vows.

It was in our wedding vows. That's right. You know, we're always trying to think about. We are working on our problems together as a team rather than against each other. Very similar to what we were talking about earlier with the communication example. So it's not that, you know, I'm not the problem. You're not the problem. It's sort of like our problems are here.

The problems are the problems.

The problems are the problems. They're over here. And it's you and I, as a team, working on tackling them together. You know, it's so important for us to take this perspective, because conflict is inevitable in any relationship. You are always gonna have fights with your partner. Well, not always.

It's natural.

You're gonna have fights with your partner. It's n. It's normal. It's something that we all go through. So it's really important for us to develop a healthy perspective about conflict. And if you can take that step back and really be able to view the problems as the problems, it's going to make it so much easier for you to solve those problems and just to have a healthy and happy and connected relationship, too. So this is something that we turn to, you know, when we're in the midst of a challenging moment of a fight between the two of us. And Xander, in particular, is really good at reminding me, hey, we're on the same. Same team here. We're partners here. So we had a recent example with this of we were having some awkward situations with our neighbor. And hopefully our neighbor is not watching this video, but we had an awkward situation with our neighbor, and we were having a lot of conversations between the two of us about how to address this situation because neither one of us wanted it to be there. We were both just feeling awkward and unsure how to Proceed with it. And. And it ended up that we had a couple of conversations that got a little bit heated, and we realized between. Between you and I. Yeah. Not between us and the neighbors. Between Xander and I. And we just.

About how to handle the situation with the neighbors.

Yeah. So Xander had some ideas, I had some ideas, and it actually ended up feeling like it then became a conflict between the two of us, like Xander saying, well, no, I think we should do this. And me getting defensive, well, no, I think we should do this. And, you know, I'm feeling judged that you think I should do this, all that kind of. Of stuff. So it was really helpful for us. And I think you definitely did it in this circumstance to step back and say, hey, look, we're on the same team here. We both want to resolve the situation with the neighbor. Neither one of us want to be having this situation in the first place. And it was just such a good reminder that helped pull us out of that tension in the moment. And recognize this isn't about a fight between you and I. Like, this is us both feeling frustrated at a situation, but we can tackle it better as a team.

Yeah. But even if it is like a fight between the two of you or, you know, it is a real issue between the two of you that you're talking about, it can be super helpful to still remind yourself that you are on the same team, because your ultimate goal is to keep each other happy and to love each other like you're. You know, you didn't get into a relationship to fight like, you got into a relationship to love each other. So.

Yeah. So even if it's in the middle of something that feels really tense between the two of you, if one of you can remember to say, hey, we're on the same team here. We want the same thing, that can be a great way to diffuse some of the tension.

Yeah.

So let's talk about how to make this one practical. We're sort of saying it already here, but another couple of tips that I have. One is to think about the specific language that feels good in your relationship. So we really, like, we're on the same team, but maybe there's a slightly different phrase that feels better for you. So it might be like, something like, you know, we're on the same side. We're in this together. We're teammates. We want the same thing. But just have a quick conversation with each other about, like, what would feel the best to hear in that particular moment. If things are getting heated, like we already said, definitely just use that phrase in the moment, whoever can think of it first, please just say it. It can be a great way to just help alleviate any tension or difficult feelings that are coming up in the moment. And then another tip is to celebrate being on the same team in the good times, too. So you can call that out when you guys do together that you're really proud of, like, hey, great teamwork there. Maybe we give each other a high five, little slap on the back or something like that. But, you know, might want to be doing, like, celebrations, like, hey, let's do a team celebration tonight. Let's go.

Yeah. When you're. When your favorite sports team wins, they go out and celebrate, right?

Yeah. So if there's something that you guys did that you feel proud of each other, like, hey, we had a really tough conversation. We watched one of these videos together. We put some of these together to use. That can be a great opportunity to just call each other out and say, great teamwork.

Go celebrate, people. Yeah.

So, yeah, I think we just did a great job on this video.

Yeah.

Thank you, teammate.

Thanks. You're a great teammate.

Thank you.

I love working with you and playing. I don't know, I think teammate, like, game.

Playing the game of life together. All right, well, we hope you enjoyed these three relationship lessons that we have learned over 12 years together. Like I mentioned, we made another video last, so if you haven't gotten a chance to watch that, definitely go check it out. And we will be making two more videos this month as well. So if you haven't already, definitely make sure to subscribe to our channel so you get a notification when we release that video. And definitely head on over to vmtherapy.com to subscribe to our email list. We send out free weekly emails with all kinds of fun tips and advice, and we would love to connect with you over there. All right, thanks for watching today.

See you later.

Bye.