Episode 60: Help! My Partner Hates Self-Improvement!

I'm either good or I'm bad.

Yeah. Either good or I need to improve.

Yeah. There's no middle ground. And there's. And there's definitely no shades of good.

Shades of good.

It's either like, I'm the worst or I'm the best.

Sander's gonna write erotica.

Fifty shades of good.

Fifty shades of good. Fifty shades of good. Enough. Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Xander Marin. I'm a sex therap with over 20.

Years of experience, and I'm just a regular dude. We share the ups and downs in our relationship while giving you step by step techniques for improving yours.

Make sure you subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. So, babe, I know you have a cold today and you're not feeling 100%, but I just realized that there is a certain intro style for our podcast episodes that we haven't done in a long time.

Okay.

Which is.

Does it involve me singing something? Because today's really, really not. Not the day. Not the day for that.

You can't bust out A Little Better man by Pearl Jam.

You know what? I'm actually not sure.

I know that song can be a better Man.

That's actually the only can be a better man. I've never. I've never heard that song.

No, you for sure have heard that song. Yeah, we might need to pause this.

I was never. I was never a huge Pearl Jan Pearl Jam man. I was a Pearl Jam Nam. Pearl Jam man. I do like. Like, whenever I hear Pearl Jam songs, I like them, but I think I just didn't quite get into popular music early enough. Like, young enough.

And why is that?

Oh, it's because I was only listening to the Beatles for a very long time.

Xander grew up in a cave. If you've never heard us talk about this before. Kind of raised by wolves.

Yeah.

Now, Xander grew up in a very rural area out in the country.

I did. I did.

Did not have a lot of exposure to pop culture.

I grew up in the boonies, literally. The funny thing is that people say, like, oh, you live in the boonies, you actually. Right. And I actually did. I grew up in a town. It's not even a town. It's a community called Bonnie Doon.

Also, I just have to clarify because I love my in laws and they're wonderful people. By saying you were raised by wolves. I'm not calling your parents wolves.

No, I was raised by wolves.

Just making a joke.

Two very nice people.

Nice loving people.

Very nice and loving.

Just very out in the country. Anyways, how do we even get into this? Pearl Jam. Yeah, I was not a huge Pearl Jam fan either, but I was just thinking, that song popped into my head about thinking about your wanting your part to improve, to work on self development, to be a better man.

Yeah, great.

I don't even know any other lyrics other than that.

Where do we go from here?

Okay, well, let's talk about self improvement.

Yeah, that's today's episode.

So if you're following us, like, you clearly are dedicated to self improvement, you know, you want to be the best version of yourself. You want to have the best relationship that you can.

Hell yeah, go you. That's something to be really proud of. We love that you listen to our podcast and obviously care at least a little bit about, you know, at least hearing us talk about self improvement, whether that's in your sex life, in your relationship, in whatever.

Yeah. We asked our community on Instagram, you know, is self improvement important? Do you think it is? 75% of people said yes. So vast majority of people think that it is important. But it can be really tough if you are committed to self improvement and self development and. But your partner isn't. Maybe they even refuse to, or they don't think they need to do any sort of work on themselves.

So, yeah, we went back to Instagram to ask, like, what is going on with your partner vis a vis self improvement.

Oh, vis a vis.

So only 33% of you said that self improvement is important to your partner. And on the flip side, 73% of you said that both partners in a relationship should be expected to work on themselves. So there's a big gap in the expectation versus the reality. You know, like three quarters of people saying that, yeah, we should both be working on ourselves, but only a third of you actually saying that self improvement is important to your partner. So there's a big gap of people that maybe should be working on themselves but aren't, or you think they should be working on themselves and they aren't. So let's get into that. Like, how does that happen? Why does it happen? What can we do to maybe close that gap a bit?

Exactly. So that's what this episode is all about. Today we're going to walk you through how to talk to your partner about self improvement and even specific scenarios that you might find yourself in. So this whole episode will help you get your partner on board with self improvement.

All right, but first, per usual, we are getting into the review of the week, so listen to them all.

Ooh, my husband.

Yeah, my husband and I will be married 10 years in December. I can honestly say that Vanessa and Xander are the reason we feel more emotionally and physically connected than we ever have. After having three kids in under five years. Sex was the last thing on my mind. Female face, palm emoji. I still remember sending their first podcast to my husband and holding my breath about how he would receive it. Wow. This is a very timely review for the topic.

It is. This is perfect.

Yeah, yeah, we're gonna talk about this in a little while. Like, how do you bring up something like as simple as just listen to this podcast or something maybe larger of like, hey, you wanna work on X, Y and Z and seeing how our partner is gonna receive it. So spoiler alert. All right, back to the review. Then we have a, like the emoji. Who would have thought talking about sex and what you want in the bedroom could make such a drastic difference in our overall relationship? Then what did. This is like such a nuanced face. Like, it's the. It's like the tongue sticking out, but it's. One of the eyes is bigger than the other eye and they're like. The head is tilted. I feel like there's probably like five different tongue out emojis.

Googly eyes.

Googly eyes, maybe. Googly eyes, tongue out.

How would you describe the emotion that this emoji is feeling?

I don't know. Kind of reminds me of like, we got on. We got on like a very random YouTube hole, like a couple weeks ago watching all the old what's up commercials.

I was like, where's this going?

Which is. Which is a really weird and interesting thing to look at if you. If you know what I'm talking about. The, like, the Budweiser was Budweiser super bowl commercials. Honestly, the one thing I can think of is like, doing the WhatsApp and with like the tongue out. I don't know. Okay, all right, back into it again. We're more patient and understanding with each other because we are having more sex. This podcast is full of incredible, easy to try out tips that make your relationship a top priority. One last thing, because I could go on for days. No, you should. Is very clear that Vanessa and Xander deeply love each other. And seeing that passion and commitment towards each other is so refreshing. Thank you for all you do to help couples in and out of the bedroom. You guys are awesome.

Wow.

Touchdown hearts claps.

All right, excellent. Thank you so much for this beautiful review. We love hearing your reviews and they make such a big difference in the podcast, growing and reaching new people. So we really appreciate them and we do a giveaway every single week if you get featured as the review of the week, which let me just give you a little hint. If you put some good emojis in there or a riddle for Xander to figure out, you know, high likelihood that.

You'Ll get picked eventually, you definitely will.

And if you're the winner, you can DM us on Instagram enessamarintherapy, and we will give you a free mini personalized coaching session. So head over to Apple Podcasts, scroll down to the bottom of our podcast page, and leave us a little review. A rating, a follow. We appreciate it all. Thank you guys so much. All right, so let's get into the topic today. So first all, we wanted to get a sense of, like, what are we talking about here? What is it that people want their partner to improve, specifically? So we went over to Instagram, we put up a question box, and we got a ton of responses, as you might imagine. But there were three clear winners. Number one, far and away, was communication. You really want your partner to get better at communication. The second most common answer, I kind of created this bucket that I just called emotions. There were a lot of different subcategories within it, like being able to regulate their emotions. There was a lot of stuff about partners who get really angry or snippy or just have a hard time regulating themselves. There was a lot of stuff about, like, emotional intelligence, even understanding what they're feeling in the first place. And definitely a lot about expressing emotions, like being open, being vulnerable, creating that kind of emotional intimacy. So that was number two. And then number three was another bucket that I created around healthy lifestyle. So this included things like nutrition, exercise, smoking, or drinking less, I assume. Yes, I want my partner to smoke more. How do I get them to do that? No, definitely decreasing those things or eliminating them altogether. Seeing doctors or seeking medical care and stress management.

Otherwise. Beyond that, we had a number of responses in no particular order around stuff like time management, parenting, financial management, spirituality, sex and intimacy, self confidence, and cleaning up after themselves.

Yes, there were quite a few of those. My favorite of which was stop leaving crumbs on the counter. It's, like, interesting. That's a very interesting answer for what do you want your partner to improve? So we decided, I just Sprung this on Xander like, a second before we hit record. I decided we should each share with each other what's something that we would like each other to improve. So we don't know each other's answers. Do you want to go first or you want me to go first?

Sure. So, actually, the interesting thing is that mine does fall into that last category that I chuckled about a little bit.

Oh, the crumbs on the counter.

So it's not crumbs on the counter.

Where do I leave crumbs in the bed?

I think that we. We. We both leave crumbs around. Cleaning isn't.

We're crummy.

Cleaning isn't really either of our fortes.

No, I would say it's not. I mean, I would say we are overall clean people, but. Yeah, neither one of us, like, loves to clean or is super fastidious about it.

Oh, yeah. I mean, we've recognized that about our. We've outsourced much of our cleaning because it's something that doesn't bring either of us a ton of joy. And walking into a clean house does bring us a lot of joy.

Yes.

All right, so mine is. Mine is. It's. It's a small one, but it's a daily one. The buildup here, sometimes it's twice daily. All right, so have you ever noticed, Vanessa, that every morning and every evening when you go to brush your teeth, that the. So we. We share a Sonicare toothbrush. We have two different heads, and we have a charging base that has a. Like a cleaning thing, like an ultraviolet cleaning thing for the heads. Have you ever noticed how every morning your. The toothbrush is ready for you? Like, the toothbrush is in the charging base, your head has been cleaned, is ready for you to go?

I sort of have noticed that. Not really.

So 99% of the time I go to brush my teeth, the toothbrush is sitting there, but your head is still on it.

Oh.

And so pretty much almost 100% of the time, I take off the head of your toothbrush, I put it in to be cleaned, and I put mine on. And I wonder, it might be nice for, you know, for me to not have to do that step.

Wow, you have. That's. That's a brand new one. You've literally never brought that up before.

Well, isn't that what we're supposed to be?

I have one that you will have heard before. Toothbrush. Okay, I can get better at. So you want me to take the head of mine off, put it in the little cleaning thing, and then Put the base back on the charger.

Oh, you. You can put the head of yours wherever you like. I would. I would love to, when I go to brush my teeth, not have to take your toothbrush head off of the. Off of the toothbrush.

Okay, I will try that. I will probably forget, so you might need to remind me a few times, but I will try to take my head off the toothbrush.

I mean, honestly, it's like. It's a small thing. I see it. I go, oh, that would be nice. And it's also so small that, like, I have never really brought it up. But, I mean, this is just. It's an interesting one. Vanessa, right before we started recording, was like, hey, what's something you want? And I was like, you know what? Guess I'll mention this. Why not?

You know, that's a really interesting example, because it's such a small and easy thing for me to do. Like, it's gonna take me a while to remember it, because I literally never think about the toothbrush ever. But it's gonna take me a little while to remember it. But this is, like, a very small thing that I can do to make what seems to be a pretty decent impact on you.

Yeah.

Like, this will literally take me one second to do. But you will feel good.

Absolutely. Especially because it's something that we do twice a day.

Yeah. I also needed to clarify that, because you were, like, once a day, sometimes twice a day, and I was like, I brush my teeth twice a day without fail.

Oh, let me. Let me clarify that. What I mean is that sometimes I don't brush my teeth. Sometimes I brush my teeth before you in the morning, pretty much at night. You always brush your teeth before me. But if we ever are in a pattern where, like I said, I've brushed my teeth after you in the morning and I brush my teeth before you at night, then obviously I will have a clean toothbrush to put my head on, because I've. Because I did it on both ends.

Okay. Now people know way more about our toothbrushing than they ever wanted to know.

Well. But the good news is that we no longer share ahead of our Sonicare toothbrush. We got a lot of shit about that for a long time from our friends.

You're sharing one of our deep, dark secrets.

I am. I went there.

Okay, confession. We shared a toothbrush for a really long time, and I didn't think there was anything wrong with it. We're gonna have to put up an Instagram poll about this. Tell us on Instagram, do You think this is gross or not? I did not think it's gross. I'm like, we make out all the time. Our mouths are on each other's genitals. Like, how is brushing your teeth any different than doing any of that?

Yeah, it's like, you don't use different bottles of hand soap or something.

Especially with having a Sonicare where it's like, you know, thing does get clean, so it's not just like, you know, I.

We. I don't know if we forever had the ultraviolet cleaning base like I. Eventually we were getting from, like, my friends.

We got made fun of.

We got made fun of, you know, because, like, we had like, a small apartment in San Francisco with maybe, like, one bathroom.

And so you like a tiny little sink.

Like, your friends. Your friends going to use the bathroom. They're like, what the. You guys just have one toothbrush. Like, come on. So then I think I got the. I got the ultraviolet base because I was like, oh, yeah, joke's on you. Because it gets sanitized every single time. But then. But I think it was really, honestly, only somewhat more recently when we realized that Sonicare makes two sizes of heads. Like, I have the bigger one and Vanessa. It's too big for Vanessa's tiny mouth. So now we have two separate ones because I like my big old brush head.

Okay. We have talked about toothbrushing way too much, but, yeah, we did used to share one. Now we don't anymore. I still don't really think it's gross.

But I don't either. Okay. I would happily share a toothbrush with you whenever we need to.

Thanks, babe. Yeah, I'm sure we're going to hear from, like, dental hygienists who are like, no, your mouth is full of bacteria. And the brush, it gets on the brush. I don't know what.

I sure hope the toothpaste kills. That is the whole point of brushing your teeth.

Okay, so here's the thing that I would like you to improve. I already shared this one with you today. That when we are working on work projects together, that I would love for you to take the initiative with, like, getting us to work on it or finish a piece of it more often. So I don't feel like I'm the one who's most often in the driver's seat having to, like, remind you and get you on board.

Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. And I am 100% on board with that. And, yeah, it's the. I mean, the thing that I acknowledge is that you Know, I'm. Even though it's been a while now, there's still that. You know, there's still that part of me that's like, oh, I'm stepping into this business that you created before me, and I'm stepping into assist on products or courses or things that you created initially. And, yeah, it can be easy to take a backseat sometimes.

You know, it's funny. I. I totally hear you, and I understand that this business was mine from 2015 to 2016, and it's been from 2016 to 2022.

Well, what I mean, though, is that like. Like, more partnering with you on content. Because for many of those years, from 2016 through whatever, maybe 2020, 2021, I was more in the background doing the operational stuff and not, like, not partnered with you on the content.

Yeah, no, I was saying that more from our perspective of, like, this is way more hours than it was ever mine.

Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I agree. When I talk about this as our business, I totally, 100% believe that and feel that, like, it is our business. I'm talking about, like, when it comes to creating courses, because for a long time, Vanessa created all the courses, all the content that was her zone of genius. And I did all the operational marketing sales stuff.

This one was an interesting example for me, too, because when I was thinking about it, literally just in the moments before we hit record, what also popped into my head was realizing, like, you take the initiative in so many other areas of our life. Like, we are in the process of moving into the house that we bought, which. Oh, yeah, there's another little. We're never gonna get to this episode. We're like, 20 minutes in, and we're just talking about other stuff. But, yeah, a little quick update. We bought a house. So there's been a lot of stuff that we've had to arrange, like, everything from mortgage to inspections and work being done on it. And you have really taken the initiative in the vast majority of that stuff. So it was nice for me to recognize. I think it' just so much easier for us to pay attention to the things that we feel frustrated about and the deficiencies in our partner, the things we wish they were doing. And it was nice for me that it was such a quick reminder of, like, yes, I do want him to take more of the initiative here. And at the same time, this is not a universal issue. Like, you take a lot of initiative in a lot of other areas of our life, and I just want to appreciate you and thank you for that because I see all the work that you've been doing over the last few weeks.

Thanks.

You're welcome.

Hey, thanks.

All right, let's get into it. So we want to share a little. I guess we call it a little bit of a caveat at the beginning here. So obviously we are fans of self improvement. We have a whole business around it. This whole podcast is all about that. But we want to make something really clear. You don't always have to be trying to improve. Like, I think it's very easy for self improvement to turn into perfectionism. Like, we feel like we always have to be working, always have to be improving, always have to be getting better.

Yeah, it's like the dark side of self improvement.

Yeah. And I mean, you hear the word optimization a lot like, oh, I want to optimize this and optimize that. And it just, you know, I think it can honestly get a little bit maddening if you feel like you're just constantly having to change and improve and grow. And it can lead to this feeling of, like, never being satisfied or happy or even proud of yourself because you're always go, go, go on to the next thing, trying to get better.

Yeah. And I think it can be challenging, too, because a lot of the examples we see, you know, in, I don't know, on social media or people who have been really successful at self improvement, oftentimes we see a little bit of that. Those perfectionistic tendencies or, yeah, that. That sort of hustle culture. And so if self improvement is not something that we immediately resonate with or we immediately. We don't. We don't see that person, and we're like, hell, yeah, I want to be like that person. It can be really easy to polarize and go, like, you see all the problems with what they're doing. You see the dark side, like, oh, this person's never happy. They're always working on something. I don't want to be like that. So I think self improvement can be a polarizing topic where, you know, you're either really, like, excited about doing it or you're like, oh, God, I don't want to do that, because if I start doing that, I never going to stop. I'm never going to be happy.

Yeah, there's like, never any end goal that you, like, get. Like, now I'm the perfect actualized, optimized person, you know, so it can be a little bit frustrating. So again, like, we're huge proponents of self improvement. It's like, we get this one life. We're put on earth for this Limited amount of time. Like, why not try to be the best versions of ourselves and have the best versions of our relationships as we can? But it's totally okay to have restful seasons of life, to not have some sort of personal project that you're working on, on, or even just a period of life where you're just content with where you are, you're happy, you don't feel the need for anything more or anything better. And it's okay for your partner to have those seasons of life too.

I mean, just hearing what you just said about, you know, like, why don't we want to be the best versions of ourselves? Maybe there's even an opportunity to rephrase that a bit and just say, like, why wouldn't we want to be a better version of ourselves? Because best is a superlative. Like, you're saying that that is. That is actually implying that I am the very best. I'm the most fully optimized. I can't get any better. And that is what kind of drives us towards perfectionism.

Yeah, no, I like that simple word shifts that make a big difference.

All right, so if you do want your partner to work on their self improvement, the first step is really asking yourself why? Just I want you to work on yourself. That's not really a reason. Like, why do you want your partner to work on yourself? And this is going to be really, really helpful in making this request later. Because I think very often when we have requests, we just kind of like make the request without any rationale behind it, any context. And you know, when. Think about times when someone asked you to do something and you had no idea why, like, did you want to do it?

Yeah, probably not. Yeah, I mean, I think something that comes up pretty often when we are working on our self improvement is that we want company in it. It's like, you know, it's hard to get yourself to commit to something or get really excited about it. And it can feel a lot easier if you feel like your partner is doing it too. Like, maybe it keeps you more motivated or it feels just logistically easier. So I think it can be really beneficial to ask yourself, like, is it really necessary for my partner to do this? Is it necessary for them to be involved? Is this kind of more about me than about my partner?

Yeah, it's like, do I feel like they need to be doing this so that I can feel better about myself doing it?

Exactly.

Like, is it more about you or is it about them? All right, so let's talk about some reasons why Your partner maybe isn't working on themselves right now. So maybe they grew up in a family where personal development or therapy just weren't really valued. Like, they might have even seen these things as a sign of weakness. I think a lot of families, a lot of people have this idea that, like, therapy is for losers. You know, like, psychologists are called, like, shrinks. That's kind of like not a very, you know, not a very nice. Nice word.

Yeah. I mean, a DM that we get a lot from people is like, my partner says that they don't believe in therapy. You know, there's just. Yeah, there's a lot of negative thoughts about therapy that get passed down through families.

Yeah. I think we even got a DM recently that someone said that they were disowned by their mother.

Oh, yeah.

Because they were in therapy. And I was like, oh, my God.

Yeah.

Yeah. So this can come up really often for men in particular, because in addition to that dynamic of, like, oh, we don't do therapy for men, there can often be this added dynamic of, like, we. It's not okay to express your emotions. It's not okay to cry. I know. I. I got messages. I did not get messages like this from my parents, but I got them from everywhere else in growing up at school, from friends, from tv. And so oftentimes for guys when we're raised like this that we can't seek help when we need help. And we're not allowed to express any emotions other than maybe like, anger or release emotions in places anywhere other than sports, maybe, or something like this. What very often happens is that we end up feeling super ashamed whenever we do find ourselves having emotions that maybe we do want to express or seeing signs that we do need some help. Because, like, what else would you feel? You're like, I need help. I can't ask for help. I'm supposed to be able to do it myself. I'm obviously not able to do it myself. Like, something must be wrong with me.

Another possibility is that your partner might think that personal development means they're not good enough. Like, you know, them having to improve means that they're not good as they are now. Love, they're not accepted. You know, a lot of people have a hard time even wrapping their heads around the concept of self improvement.

Oh, so it's like a total binary. Like, I'm either good or I'm bad.

Yeah. I'm either good or I need to improve.

Yeah. There's no middle ground. And there's. And there's definitely no Shades of good.

Shades of good.

It's either like, I'm the worst or I'm the best.

Sander's gonna write erotica.

Fifty shades of good.

Fifty shades of good enough.

Fifty shades of Great sex.

Okay. Another reason might be, like, mental or physical health issues. Like, maybe they're just at capacity. They don't have any additional space to work on self improvement. They're focused more on survival at that particular season in life. So there are a lot of potential reasons that could come up, but these are just a handful of them.

Let's say that you have maybe some empathy now for what your partner might be going through and. But now you want to bring it up. So how can we bring this up in a nice and a positive way and set ourselves up for success in sharing with our partner that we might have something that we would love for them to work on? So we alluded to this earlier, but after you've thought about why you want them to be working on themselves, why this particular aspect of personal development is important. Like, share that with your partner. Share the why around why personal development is so important to you.

And I think you could even start with it in a more broad sense. Like, especially if you have a partner who thinks that self development means that they're bad or doing things wrong. Rather than going immediately into this conversation of, like, here's the thing that I want you to improve, talk about the concept of self improvement in general, and, like, why is it meaningful to you? What kind of relationship do you have with it? What insecurities might it bring up for you? So it's kind of like this bigger picture conversation rather than a specific ask.

First, share your own joy or excitement around improving in this particular area. I mean, this is kind of like how we talk about talking about sex. Like, start by talking about positive stuff. You don't go into talking about sex with, like, okay, Here are my 10 complaints for you. Yeah, I mean, maybe Vanessa and I didn't do the greatest job opening this up by sharing. You know, we kind of went straight into sharing with each other things that we would love the other to do. I could have talked about how excited I would feel, you know, to put, like, my fresh, clean hat on my toothbrush.

No, I mean, I think you and I can take some shortcuts in communication sometimes because we've built up such a great foundation of goodwill and trust. And we were also in a neutral moment, which is a tip that we'll share in a second.

Oh, yeah.

You know, it wasn't like we were in the bathroom, and you all of a sudden are like, I really need you to work on this. This is a. You know you're doing such a bad job, right?

Yeah.

But I did give you a compliment after I shared mine, which I could have flipped it around a little bit, but. Yeah. So, yeah, let's talk a little bit about how to make a specific suggestion. So you've got the specific thing that you would love your partner to work on. You've had that more big picture conversation. So we definitely recommend having a conversation when you're calm. It's completely separate from any sort of fight or disagreement about the thing. Like I was just saying, you can start with the positive, like, share things that your partner already does in this area or a related area that you. You appreciate, so you make them feel seen and loved. So there are a couple of different elements of what you want to share with them. First, you're obviously going to need to share the, like, what it is that you would like them to explore or to improve upon. And we have a quick tip for you here. We recommend not using the phrase work on because that makes it feel. It makes it feel like work.

Right.

Like, I want you to work on this thing.

Yeah. And I think very often someone might hear that and go, I'm already working on enough. I'm working my ass off at my job. I'm working my ass off doing this. It's very easy to deflect that by just being like, oh, I'm already doing this. I'm already doing that.

Yeah. So you also want to share with him why it would make an impact on your life. So Xander shared this. When he was making his request of me, he told me how good it would make him feel. Just this tiny thing that I could do. And if you go back and replay that conversation in the moment, I actually got a little excited because it was like, oh, my gosh, here's something that will literally take me one second. But I can have a surprisingly big impact on him. So just sharing that impact can be really motivating for your partner. Another piece of this conversation could also be sharing what you are doing to work on yourself. So sometimes when you go to your partner with a request, it's easy for your partner to feel defensive or put on the spot. But if you can share with them, like, hey, I'm trying to improve too. If it's related to the specific request that you're making of them, that could be extra powerful. But it just helps your partner realize, like, it's not that they're being singled out. Like, this is stuff that you're willing to put effort into as well. It's even an opportunity to go back to the, like, the joy or the excitement that you feel around self improvement. And as a part of this conversation, you can also ask your partner for their perspective on this topic. So just because this is something that you think your partner should or could work on in their life, that doesn't mean that you're right about this. Like, this is making me think so much about our hygiene episode. So go back and listen to that if you haven't. I think it's important for you to allow your partner the space to share how they feel about whatever particular thing, whether it's finances or parenting or whatever it is. So, you know, remember, they may be in a different season of life, so they may share with you. Like, I just don't have the capacity to do that right now. Or this thing isn't important to me in the way that it is to you. And they're allowed to have their own experiences. Again, like, just because it's something that you want doesn't mean that it has to be that exact level of importance to them.

Yeah. But if you see your partner really struggling in a certain area, it can also be really important or really valuable to share the impact that they're struggling in that area has on you and also share with them what you think they deserve.

So this is also something we talked about in the hygiene episode.

Yeah. So definitely go back and listen to that, because we go into that in. In a lot more detail. But you could say something like, hey, it's really hard for me to see you being so hard on yourself. Maybe you could even share a time that you were really hard on yourself about something and the impact that had on you and how you got through that. Also, you could say something like, hey, you deserve to treat yourself with love and compassion.

Absolutely. Another tip that we have is to make this a part of regular conversation in your relationship. So instead of this, like, one big, heavy conversation where you're laying out for your partner all the ways that they need to improve and work on themselves, this should be a topic that you guys talk about often. So a really practical way to do this is to have a weekly meeting in your relationship where you might talk about things like, you know, hey, here's what we did really well this week, and here's how we could be better teammates to each other next week. So you're talking about making improvements and changes in Small, gradual ways, rather than, again, this, like, one big, heavy conversation. And as a part of that, it kind of also ties into this reminder that you are going to need to make repeated requests. We have an entire podcast episode about making requests of your partner. And that's what I shared with Xander, like, around the toothbrush. It's going to take me some time to remember it. I am not going to be perfect at this right off the bat.

Yeah, I think this is such a huge one, because if I look back on our relationship, I think one of the mistakes that we made and obviously, Obviously hindsight is 2020 here, but I think that often when we would kind of get into arguments about self improvement, it would happen at a time in more of, like, a crisis moment. Like, something, like, I really dropped the ball at something, or something bad happened, and it was like, oh, my God, we got to get better at this, and you got to get better at that. And I would be like, yeah, I got it. I got to improve in this. I got to do this. Okay, here. I'm going to do this, this, that, and the other thing. And in that crisis moment, it feels really real, like, yeah, I gotta make a change. And then that crisis moment passes, and things start to go back to what feels like normal and life resumes. And very soon after that, like, 24 hours after an extreme crisis, you can already be getting back into that vibe of, oh, we're back to the way things were. Things feel normal, they feel sustainable, and it can be really easy to lose that momentum.

Yeah.

And, okay, so you had all these plans 24 hours ago about something that you were going to do, and a couple days go by and you don't actually start doing anything because it's like, oh, I got to call so and so and make an appointment or whatever. And very quickly, just like, the lack of continuing to communicate about it turns into almost this, like, justification for, oh, I guess I don't really need to do this because. Because we're not talking about, you know, my partner's not bringing it up. We're not in a crisis anymore. Everything must be fine. So maybe instead of a big change, I'll just try to make a little change. And then a couple weeks go by and you've totally forgotten about that. I know. That's how it was for me for a very long time.

Yeah.

All right, so our last tip is invite your partner to follow us on Instagram or listen to this podcast and just get engaged with our content in whatever way they can. Because the reality is we strategically post content for skeptical partners. If you are listening to this podcast because your partner told you to listen to it, we will, we occasionally post on Instagram to try to convince you, the skeptical partner, to be less skeptical, I guess. But you know, we hear, we hear so often from people who tell us, just like in the review that we shared earlier, that just the simple act of getting engaged with our account, maybe just discussing it with your partner every day, every couple days, like, hey, I saw this story. What do you think about this? That can be a way to show your partner that you are working on your relationship and that all this stuff can actually be fun. Like, it doesn't have to be this big crisis scenario that I just kind of laid out. I know I've been through so many of those in my life where I, you know, in the moment I had all these huge plans for, okay, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to therapy, I'm gonna start doing this, I'm gonna implement this project management system and blah, blah, I'm gonna stop doing this. And that's, yeah, that's not very fun. And you don't end up doing it because it's really hard. So yeah, there's actually a lot of, you know, just doing little things like listening and talking actually can make a really big difference over time and be a lot of fun.

Okay, let's get into some tips for different scenarios. We have a couple of different things that we wanna walk you through. So the first one is you want your partner to take the initiative themselves or like be to able excited about self improvement. We hear from so many people who say, like, my partner never thinks about this. They never do anything on their own. Like, I want them to get as excited about it and take those first steps without me.

Sorry, not gonna happen.

Oh yeah, sorry. I mean, there are a lot of different reasons why like, so not everybody thinks about self improvement naturally. It's not front of mind for a lot of people. They may also be dealing with, you know, a lot of negative thoughts or feelings about self improvement like we discussed earlier.

Also you can just think about, there's probably areas where your partner does think about certain things naturally and you don't. Like, that's very often how we end up in partnerships is that we each have different areas that come to us more naturally and they complement each other exactly.

So yeah, I mean, when it comes to self improvement or relationship improvement, there usually is one partner who carries much more of the mental load with like checking in on the relationship, suggesting Changes bringing resources to the relationship. And it's definitely not fair that that is the case. It's. Of course it would be great in an ideal world if both partners were excited and took the initiative, but, you know, we're all about just being realistic and that's just not very likely. Like, relationships aren't perfectly fair or perfectly balanced.

Yeah. Like, I mean, it's also not fair that Vanessa is a foot shorter than me and it struggles to take the trash out, like physically. Like, you know, the trash bins were. Are almost as tall as Vanessa is.

Hey, that sure.

You know what? I feel like the trash bins we have at this house that we're renting, the trash bins in Carpinteria, they're pretty large. They're bigger than the ones we had in la. Oh my God.

I'm gonna need to get our social media.

We're gonna have to take a picture of Vanessa next to the. The recycle bin is huge. The actual trash bin is shorter. Strangely, the recycle and the yard waste are, are massive.

I want her to make like a graphic of a trash can and then me like trash can sized.

But yeah, it's not. It's not fair. It's not fair. I have to do it.

Thanks. Yeah, your trash can sized wife. Okay, walk us through the next one.

All right. So what if you feel like something is an issue but your partner doesn't or. Or vice versa. Like, these can be super tricky situations. So one example might be you really want to eat healthier or exercise more, but your partner really doesn't.

Yeah, these are very tricky situations. So our first recommendation to you is going to be to turn inward. So this might just be your own personal thing going on that you need to address. Maybe it relates to what we were talking about earlier about sometimes we just want company in this. But like, it's not your partner's responsibility to go on a self care or self improvement journey with you just because it's something that's coming up for you. So it really may not be as much about your partner as your own development. So if you are really honest with yourself and discover that like you just get started on your own and you can do it on your own, you don't need to have your partner keeping you company with it.

But oftentimes this really can be a serious relationship issue where one partner is actually stonewalling the other partner. So like, you might be really wanting to learn how to fight more fairly, but your partner refuses to go to therapy or they won't read a book or they won't listen to a podcast with you, and it's just like, they're just shutting it down.

Yeah. So these can be really complex and nuanced situations. As we were preparing for this episode, we started thinking, like, ooh, we could really do a part two of this episode where we go through specific examples of, like, I want my partner to work on this or to change this. And we could walk you through, like, what our advice would be. So if you're interested in something like that, definitely come on over to Instagram Vanessa Marin therapy, and shoot us a DM and let us know. But we do have, like, a. Like, a good rule of thumb in relationships should be that if something matters to one of you, it should matter to both of you. So, so often, you know, we'll hear from couples who will say, like, well, I really want to fix this, but my partner says, I'm happy. I don't care. I'm fine with things the way that they are. And that can be a really frustrating and challenging kind of situation. So we like to say, yeah, if it matters to one of you, it should matter to both of you because your partner is your teammate. They're in life with you together. Like, it should matter to them. Now, matter doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to want to make the exact change that you do or change at the exact time that you do. But I think if you start from this baseline level of respect and empathy for each other, that can make so many of these situations feel easier. You can feel like, yeah, you're being considerate of each other's needs or desires. You're acknowledging, like, it's important to you. They see that it's important to you, and it's important to them because they're your teammate. So, again, it may not be that they want to do the exact thing that you want to do, but if you feel seen and validated and acknowledged, that can make these kinds of situations feel a lot more manageable, just easier. So let's also talk about, though, like, if your partner has straight up refused, so you made a specific request of your partner, you feel like that was a reasonable request, you shared with them the reasons why, and they're not feeling.

Like it's important to them because it's important to you.

Yeah. So they just straight up refuse to get started with anything. So our advice here is gonna be for you to get started on your own. So go to therapy, read the books, listen to the podcast, work on changing Your own behaviors. Like, sometimes this is the only thing that you can do. And these are, you know, can be really, really challenging situations. It can be so hard to get started on your own, and there are gonna be a lot of situations where you can't do all of the work. But I think if you're willing to, like, take those first steps and start working on, you know, your side of the street, it's gonna feel better for you. Your partner may just need to, like, see you taking that first step or see you being the example, and, you know, maybe they get inspired to participate in it as well.

But I do just want to validate the fact that this can be a really painful experience. Like, by going through this, starting to work on something, you know, without your partner, you might just. You might find out that you have drifted too far away from your partner, and that's a really painful thing. I think that stops a lot of us from trying new things or doing new things because we are too scared to find out that, oh, if I start doing this and get better at this, then, like, there is going to be this gulf between me and my partner. But the bottom line is that at least you have that knowledge and clarity. You'll have that knowledge of, oh, I started working on this, and it's been really good for me, and it sucks. It's really painful to see that this is not important to my partner and it' exposing this gap between us. But at least you know that, and you can make a decision about what to do next, you know, from a place of clarity and understanding rather than a place of fear and, like, not knowing again.

Yeah.

All right, let's do a couple listener questions. He says he has the right to be accepted and loved the way he is. True. But shouldn't we all evolve?

This is a really interesting question. It seems pretty simple and straightforward, but it definitely is not. Yeah. Do we have the right to be loved the way that we are? I mean, it makes me think of unconditional love. You know, I think a lot of us, we think that relationships, romantic relationships, should be about unconditional love. But I think you and I both agree that love absolutely is conditional. Like, you know, your partner, There definitely are things that they could do or could not do that would mean the end of a relationship.

Yeah, I mean, I think acceptance also is conditional in certain ways. Like, it's conditional upon us doing things that are societally acceptable, that are within the law and stuff like that. Like, I mean, this is an extreme example, but it's like, if you are, if you murder people, you don't have a right to be accepted as a murderer. I, I know that's, I know that's really extreme, but it's like within. Within reason. Yeah, you have a right to be accepted. I, But I agree, I don't think that you have a right to be loved the way you are by your partner.

The phrase like you have the right, that feels kind of entitled to me. I think this is more about, like, yeah, like, of course we all want to be loved and accepted for who we are. Like, that's what being in a relationship is, right? That we have this person that we can let our walls down and show them, like, this is who I really am and feel seen and loved and appreciated and respected. Like, of course we all want that and that is what relationships are all about. But there definitely are limits to it as well. So we could get like, so philosophical about this question and go on and on. But if we talk about it on a more practical level, what I hear in this man is like, that he's just wanting some of that acceptance and love. Like, he's wanting to start with, I love you, I accept you, I value you, I treasure you. And you know, I would also love to see these things from you. So I think maybe phrasing the request in that way from the person who's, you know, writing this question in, that could be a better way to like, get through to him where it's not about. I mean, this sounds like he's probably one of those kinds of people who thinks of self improvement as meaning he's not good enough as he is. So to really make that clear to him.

The thing that comes up for me when I read this is that, okay, yeah, assuming that this person is not a murderer, you know, that, yeah, of course he has a right to be accepted for who he is. But I think the flip side of acceptance is that if you are accepting your partner for who they are, like, you may need to accept the fact that, that you are not able to love them anymore. Or it's, you know, you are not okay with living the rest of your life with someone who does certain things or thinks in a certain way or is not willing to work on whatever. And so like, you can absolutely accept someone for who they are. That does not mean that you have to love them for that.

Absolutely.

Next question. How to explain to your partner why it is important to you self improvement so they don't take it as critical criticism.

Yeah, I mean, this question feels in some Ways similar to the last one. Like, I think it's all about starting with the positive. You know, sharing with your partner what it is that you already appreciate about them, what you already see them doing or the person they already are. So really framing your requests in that sort of way. And you can even specifically say this line when you're talking to your partner. Like, if you know your partner well and you know that they tend to interpret all things as criticism, you. You can say that to your partner. Like, I know in the past when I've shared things with you, you've gone to this place of, like, really blaming yourself or feeling like you weren't good enough. And so I want to be really clear right now, that is not what I'm saying at all. Like, I think you're a great person. I see you doing X, Y, Z. So sometimes just like, explicitly saying those things can be really beneficial. And then the other part of this is talk about your own personal reasons. That's why we shared finding your why a few times in this episode. Like, what is the impact that it has on you? Because, of course, if you're talking to your partner and, like, here are the things that you need to change, and you're not good enough in this way, and you need to fix this, and you need to be better than that. Like, of course that feels so personal. It's very easy to get defensive when you're hearing that. But if you share with your partner, like, if I could experience this, if I could see this, like, here's the impact it would have on. On me, then that makes your partner feel more motivated because it feels like something for you, right? Like a way that they could step up and. And make such a big impact on you, rather than a way that they're bad or wrong or not good enough.

I think the other part of this that I want to touch on a little bit, because we hear this so often from partners of, like, how can I make sure that they don't take it this way? How can I make sure that they don't feel emasculated? How can I make sure they don't take it as criticism? I think it is important for you to focus on delivering the feedback as constructively and as positively as possible. But at the end of the day, I do think it is very important to acknowledge that you can never control a hundred percent the way your partner is gonna react to something. And if your partner is predisposed to making things about themselves, you cannot fix that for them. That's actually Something they need to work on on their own. And so. So I think very often in relationships we can get into this almost like, caretaking place of, like, it's my job to protect them from this dark side of themselves. And the unfortunate reality is that that is something that they do need to work on themselves. You cannot work on it for them. You can do everything in your power to, like, Vanessa mentioned this metaphor earlier, like, keep your side of the street clean, but you cannot clean the other side of the street, you know, from your side. It's just doesn't work that way.

Absolutely. All right, so we've talked a lot in this episode about how we want to make the concept of, like, working on the relationship feel more fun and lighthearted and playful. And a great starting point for that could be learning some new techniques and skills in your sex life. So working on your relationship can be super sexy.

Fun and sexy.

So we have tons of step by step guides over on our website@vm therapy.com we'll link to some of our favorites in the show notes. But you could do the foreplay guides, the sex position playbook, our dirty talk guide. There's a lot of stuff to explore. So that could be like just a really fun, playful way to introduce some self improvement into your relationship.

Great idea.

Thank you. I'm glad you're so excited about it, Xander.

Approved. All right, well, that's it for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week when we talk about how to role play another fun thing that you could do together to do some self improvement.

Role play. Being a better man. Roleplay being a better partner to your.

Yeah, why not? You can role play anything. All right. Can't wait. We'll see you next week, Sam.