Transcription

• Speaker #0

  Whenever your partner is venting about anything they're going through, as long as it has nothing to do with you, I have the ground rule in your head that I cannot give them any advice unless they ask me. Unrealistic expectation is that if I fall out of love, it's over, which is untrue, because you can fall in and out of love multiple times with the same person over the duration of your marriage. Your partner is your biggest asset for personal growth, because they are the ones that see all of you, your strengths, your talents. and your growth areas and your blind spots.

• Speaker #1

  Welcome back to the show. Today we have Dr. Wyatt, who is a couples therapist, joining us. And he has his own podcast, which is highly educational. I've learned so much from him. And I'm so lucky to have him joining me today to answer a few questions about dating. and how to be successful in marriages. So welcome.

• Speaker #0

  Thank you, Zen. Thank you for having me.

• Speaker #1

  For the listeners who are not very familiar with you, will you share a bit about you and what you do?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. So I'm a couples therapist. I've been in private practice in Boulder, Colorado since 2004, and I just help couples resolve their resentments and rekindle their love. And that's kind of morphed through the years with how I do that. I've been married myself since 1999. And my own marriage has been to the brink of divorce and back. And so when I'm helping couples, I'm operating both from a professional perspective, but also a very personal perspective as well.

• Speaker #1

  Let's take a wild guess. How many people in the U.S. are currently staying in an unhappy marriage or unhappy relationship percentage-wise?

• Speaker #0

  You know, I haven't read research around that. And that's hard probably to get accurate results to because it's like a... you know, how many people are going to be honest, but I would say it's quite a bit. I mean, they say divorce rate, you know, is roughly 50% of those other people staying married. I would say at least half of those people are not happily married. And so, you know, a lot of people stay together for kids and for finances and other reasons, but they're not really connected. They're not really happy. Um, and so that's what I'm trying to do is help those people who are choosing to stay married to actually have a good marriage, healthy marriage.

• Speaker #1

  And in your podcast, you mentioned that compatibility might not be the most important thing. And I felt like I've just been lied to my entire life. Because if you were to seek advice from the elders and people who are, you know, happily married or whatever, how they present their marriage, they always say, you know, physical attraction is not everything and you cannot have certain standards that you don't bend. you have to really consider if a person is compatible with you or not. But it seems that you might have a different take on that. So why would you suggest compatibility might not be the most important thing in relationships?

• Speaker #0

  There is research that shows the more we have in common with a partner, the easier the relationship can be. So having shared values, you know, shared things that are really important to you can be helpful. And there's a funny joke that said, you know, opposites attract and then they attack. And so there is some relevance around like the more we have in common, the better. However, the majority of couples have significant differences. You start out and you think you're compatible and then you're together for a while and you realize like, whoa, we actually have some pretty key things here that are not similar. Now, what do we do? And in my view, our culture is way too obsessed with are you compatible? Are you not? And it creates this black or white dichotomy. But instead, the way I view compatibility is how willing you are to make compromises on your areas of difference. Even little things like one partner likes to wake up really early. The other partner likes to wake up a little later. And that creates friction. So what do we do about it? Like, well, how do we compromise on that preference and meet in the middle? And little moments like that, every time we can learn to be flexible and compromise, we've learned to become more compatible. And so if you think of it that way, the more couples create compromises meeting in the middle over time, they can become more compatible because it's a learned skill much more than an innate quality in my view.

• Speaker #1

  So one of the most important skill to learn in dating or marriage is the capability to compromise.

• Speaker #0

  Yes. Yes. And when I say compromise, I don't mean like compromise who you are as a person. It's not that. Partner A wants X. Partner B wants Y. now what do we do? Right? So that ability to flex and meet in the middle, share power on decisions, being sensitive of what you want, but also what your partner wants, and taking those two data sets to create some kind of blend that's going to honor both of us. That's the skill set that a lot of people don't have. And a lot of people will say, this is just who I am. Take it or leave it. And that's a risky thing to say because your partner may leave it. So instead, it's a matter of how do we blend your interests and my interests so we can somehow meet in the middle.

• Speaker #1

  Earlier I said, when I break up with somebody, I'm not coming back. And I think that is because there are certain things I'm not willing to compromise. And the reason why I sometimes have a hard time to compromise is because I feel... the things that I have to compromise would hurt my pride or in a way break my identity. And I'm just not ready for that. So hypothetically, if me and my partner go into your office and my partner is like, well, this person is not willing to change. And I'm like, you're right. This is who I am. You just have to deal with it or we can break up. And I would say like, what if I were to be able to use those words, I'm ready to walk away. And I would not think about the consequences until maybe like a year later and I regret it. But that's way too late. So what would you say to somebody like me to help me see things from a bigger picture?

• Speaker #0

  It partially will depend on the example. It depends on what you're referring to that if I had to compromise that, I'm compromising my identity. So it would depend on kind of what that is exactly. But it would be a matter of like, OK, well, how can we protect and honor? You know, this piece that you feel like is tied to your identity while also honoring what your partner is looking for. How can we create a win-win here that's going to honor both of you, not just one of you? Because often there are solutions, but we get in this, you know, black or white push-pull. It's either your way or my way. And often there's a third way, which is our way.

• Speaker #1

  Okay. So collaboration is key.

• Speaker #0

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Collaboration is really key. Some of us give up our power too quickly in relationships and we... are passive and we just kind of defer and then we can lose ourselves and the others of us are too powerful and too rigid and we want things our way and we don't budge and so a lot of us lean one way or the other and so it's a matter of like how do we how do we somehow not take up too much power and not give up our power too much but somehow you know meet in the middle between those two extremes maybe i'm not willing to compromise because i haven't met anybody who

• Speaker #1

  i care so much about that. I'm okay with adjusting who I am to a certain degree. And I feel there's so many unrealistic expectations that I have versus when I talk to people who are married, they're like, this thing kind of sucks, right? Depending on who they are. So what are some of the realistic expectations that it's good to have? And what are some of the things I should just start getting rid of them today?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one realistic expectation. that's good to have is, you know, marriage can be very fulfilling because we are wired for connection. We are wired for intimacy. And when we're not in a close committed relationship, you know, for a lot of people, they can feel that ache and kind of that loneliness because we are wired for that closeness somewhere with someone. And so, you know, relationships obviously satisfy that and they fulfill that. So that's a realistic expectation that if I'm in a relationship, it has the potential. of making me feel close and connected with another human being and there's something very satisfying about that the unrealistic side is more of it's going to be easy and this is where hollywood comes in right and disney where we just see couples fall in love and kind of drive off into the sunset and we think okay so if i if i find someone and fall in love it's going to be easy it's not going to take work if it takes work then i must have met the wrong person or I'm with the wrong person, because then it's not love. Another unrealistic expectation is that if I fall out of love, it's over, which is untrue, because you can fall in and out of love multiple times with the same person over the duration of your marriage. So it really comes down to, are we both willing to keep working at it? And as long as your partner and you are willing to keep putting in effort, relationships can come out of winter and go back into spring. And so that's another way to think of it.

• Speaker #1

  What makes marriage so hard when it comes down to the work? What blocks people from wanting to continue to work on their relationships?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, I think one of the biggest challenges is you have two imperfect people side by side, day in and day out. So feelings get hurt. Needs are not going to be met perfectly. And then when we get injured, then we don't handle those situations very well. And that can lead into the bickering or the resentments and the conflicts. And then when those things aren't handled well, now we start walling off. and now we start feeling like roommates instead of lovers and that's what makes it tricky and then you're married and so it's not like you're just dating and you can just like break up as easily, especially now there's kids involved and now your finances are merged. So things get more complicated and it's harder just to like step out of the relationship. And so a lot of couples get stuck in these commitments and these marriages where the bottom falls out, like they're not really connected anymore. They're not in love anymore, but they're staying together for these other reasons. And that's, you know, the 50% of marriages I was talking about within the 50% that are... not getting divorced. So yeah, so I think within marriage and any long-term committed relationship, it's how do we learn to stay sensitive to each other's needs and be thoughtful? How do we work through conflicts constructively? How do we make sure we're opening up our communication and not stuffing down resentments or areas of discontent? Those are the skills that we're not taught. So it's a, you know, they say having kids grows you and transforms you, but so does having a long-term partner. And this is a whole nother thing. Your partner is your biggest asset for personal growth because they are the ones that see all of you, your strengths, your talents, and your growth areas and your blind spots. But we don't have, most couples don't have a mechanism for how do we give and receive this constructive feedback in a way that can be beneficial so we can grow each other into better versions of ourselves. So instead we either aren't communicating on what we feel or we're critiquing and both of those don't go well.

• Speaker #1

  Just before we started filming this morning, I was thinking, I am 33 years old. I'm not changing. I'm done. Okay. I have been through five years therapy sessions. This is it. I don't want to change a single thing. You go to therapy. You change. I'm over it. Apparently, that's not going to happen if I want to have a long-term relationship. However, I would say to this day, there's still some triggers that would trigger the shit out of me. So when you work with those couples, do you also have to work on their childhood trauma or like their personality in order to shift the dynamic?

• Speaker #0

  Somewhat. Because I'm working with a couple, my client is their relationship, not either of them individually. And so I don't see them individually. And when I'm seeing them in my counseling room, I'm thinking their relationship is my client, not partner A, not partner B. So when there is trauma involved, usually it's a matter of how does the... me trying to help the couple process through the trauma in a way that keeps them allies instead of adversarial. Because what happens is if partner A gets triggered, they shift from you're my allies, you're my adversary. And then this partner feels innocently attacked and they respond in an adversarial manner. And now we're having tension and friction when it may have had nothing to do with the relationship at all. It may have just been a trigger. Usually it's a little bit of both. Usually if there is trauma. in one's past. Usually it's my trauma is getting stirred up and my partner is doing something that I wish they would make an adjustment on. Usually it's a little bit of both. But the best phrasing around that is, I just did a podcast episode on this recently, is I'm starting to feel triggered. I'm not sure if it's you or my past. Can we explore this together as a couple to see what adjustments we can make that would be helpful? That right there is a huge growth area when you of a trauma background. Because instead what happens is you get triggered and then you come out guns a blazing, right? At your partner that they're the enemy. They're doing this on purpose. They're doing this to hurt you. And that's assuming negative intent because you've been hurt in the past, right? So it's easy to assume negative intent or a partner, but then they feel attacked. They get defensive. We feel invalidated. And now we're getting nowhere.

• Speaker #1

  Wow. This work is hard. I'm not even in your relationship. I'm already struggling. Even just thinking about it.

• Speaker #0

  It can be hard.

• Speaker #1

  I couldn't breathe for 30 seconds when you were saying these words. All right. We'll definitely be seeing you soon. So you also talked about emotional intimacy and connection. So you said we get rewarded quite a bit in a long-term relationship. So what is emotional intimacy and how do we make it last?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. I think of emotional intimacy as knowing your partner's inner world and then knowing yours. and A lot of it is a skill deficit. Some of us, we're not very good at being good listeners. And so the way we show up and try to listen actually shuts down our partner. Because maybe when they share struggles, we try to fix it instead of providing support and empathy. And they don't like to just get the solution. So then they share less with us because they don't feel like we're a very safe place for them to share. So that can happen. Another thing that can happen is some of us aren't very good sharers and we keep things in. and we're not really aware of what we're feeling and we haven't really done much inner work. And so when our partner wants to get close with us emotionally, they ask us, hey, how are you? How are you doing? How was your day? How was this? We don't have much to share. And so then they can't really get close to us. And so it's really a bi-directional learning curve for a lot of couples is how do I learn to become a better listener and how do I become better sharer? Because those are two skill sets. The way you, and I know in the question that you sent me before this, one of the questions was, how do you stay emotionally close over time with someone that you feel like you know so well? And the way that you do that is, even though you may know the basics of your partner pretty well, like their background story, their upbringing, their challenges, their scar tissue, but despite all that, we're always evolving day to day, right? Every day, there's highs and lows within all of us. Sometimes we're not aware of them, but they're there. And so the way you stay intimate emotionally is you learn to share daily of what's going on inside of you that day. What are the highs and lows today? And how can we both learn to feel safe enough to open up and share those things day to day, create an environment in our relationship where that feels welcoming, because that's how we're going to stay tight emotionally and stay connected.

• Speaker #1

  I don't think I have a problem with that. I share a lot.

• Speaker #0

  Okay, good.

• Speaker #1

  I would say my area of improvement, if I were to decide to improve myself in 10 years, it would be listening. Because I do feel when I listen, my brain already think of the best way to respond rather than staying present and hear what the other person are saying. So it is more solution-based rather than, I guess, empathetic-based.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, yeah. that's common. Yeah. Yeah. That's good awareness. Yeah. It's, it is, easy, especially for males, you know, not always, but a lot of males are more problem solving, you know, kind of oriented. And so when they hear their partner venting or sharing, like they want to help their hearts in the right place, but what comes out in a solution, have you tried this? Have you thought of this? Maybe you should think about it this way. And, that may work at sometimes, but other times that's going to rub your partner wrong because The way I think about it is if your partner is sharing about something hard for them and has nothing to do with you, they're coming at it from their heart. And if you start sharing solutions, you're coming at it with your head. So there's a disconnect. And so instead of coming at them with our head, we need to get down to our heart. And one good reframe, I think, is instead of thinking of solving the presenting problem, if you instead think, I'm trying to fix them feeling alone in that problem. And the way I fix that is through empathy. And so I'm still fixing, but I'm just. fixing a different target. So sometimes that's helpful.

• Speaker #1

  But sometimes things happen so fast, even though you have the, you know, the skill set and you want to do it. There is a pattern of how we usually do things. And it's not as easy to implement a lot of skills, right? That you learn from the therapist's office or you learn from a podcast. What would be... One thing that people can start doing today that can set them up for success in the long run to become more, I guess, heart related rather than brain related when communicating to their partner.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, I would say one thing that anyone can start practicing today in your romantic relationship is whenever your partner is venting about anything they're going through, as long as it has nothing to do with you. have the ground rule in your head that I cannot give them any advice unless they ask me. Just have that in your head. I cannot give any suggestions, any advice unless they ask me what I think. That ground rule will change the way you interact when your partner is venting. And so it forces you to explore other ways to respond. Like, okay, I guess I need to look into giving, just summarizing what's happening and giving them some empathy around what they're probably feeling. Maybe ask them questions to understand it further, what they're going through. But if you have that ground rule in your head, no advice once asked. That's something very practical that can shift the way you're interacting from the head more down to the heart.

• Speaker #1

  I love it. But what about if it is about me, can I retaliate right away?

• Speaker #0

  If it's about you, you need to say, I'm all ears if we use a tool. And that's where the tools come in. So there's multiple tools.

• Speaker #1

  Okay.

• Speaker #0

  that are really helpful for couples when they have a constructive complaint, like a critique. And the biggest, one of the biggest mistakes couples make is I'm going to give you a critique and you're not going to see it coming, right? It's just like a random critique. Something has been bothering me. Something has been frustrating me. And I'm just going to like blurt it out. I'm just going to tell you what it is. And you get caught off guard. You start defending yourself. Now I feel invalidated. Now we're having a fight. And that's like 99% of couples out there. And so I'm a huge advocate of tools for that, where you have to divide in your mind what's coming out of your mouth. If I'm just talking about life, I don't need tools, right? Because my partner's not going to feel threatened. They need to work on being a good listener. I may need to work on being a better sharer. But if I have this other category where... I have a critique, a complaint of my partner. That's a different way. That's a different content that I want. I'm wanting to communicate. And for that to go well, I need to use a tool because if I just randomly share that, it's not going to go well. And that's not what I want. If I'm the person with the complaint, what do I want? I want my partner to hear me. I want them to empathize with what I'm feeling. I want them to make some adjustments. But the likelihood of that happening, if I just randomly tell them a complaint or critique is very low.

• Speaker #1

  Over all those years, of practice, what would be the top three most hurtful thing you can say to your partner in the heat of moment?

• Speaker #0

  And the heat of the moment, like in an argument, some of the worst things I've seen people say, and that can be said, things that really attack their character, like you're, you're just a failure, or you're, you don't have what it takes, or you're never going to make me happy, or you're... you know, you're just a fill in the blank, like name calling, slander, things that really attack their character and their personhood, those kind of things really cut. And I've seen people where those kind of comments had been made 20 years prior in their marriage, and they're still like, it's still in the back of their mind. So yeah, I think just targeting like their personal character and who they are as a human being are some of the worst things.

• Speaker #1

  Before we start recording, apparently I thought a lot. So one thing I also thought about who I am as a person was that I'm currently going through a relationship breakup. And I feel sometimes I'm not very forgiving on the things that whoever said. But I start to think about why am I so unforgiving in this one instance. I'm pretty chill 98% of the time. There are 2% where I would never let it go. And I think it's because I felt disrespected. I still feel disrespected. Even though the words were not like, you're a failure, to which I would have flipped the table. But I feel like the way how this person conveyed a message made me feel belittled, as if I'm an idiot. And I hold on to that. Do you think that's healthy? Or do you think I should move on? If I truly feel my character, not my character was assassinated, but if I feel attacked as a person rather than the situation alone.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. And you're saying, should you move on or work through that if you're staying in that relationship? Or if you're staying in the relationship, you definitely need to work through it. If you don't work through it and you're trying to stay in the relationship, it's going to create a wall. And so it's going to be very, very difficult to reconnect. This is what happens for a lot of couples is. things have been said or patterns of behavior and and i'm holding on to it because it's like a resentment now and now i have walls toward you and so we're not gonna be able to connect emotionally or physically and so the continual goal for couples needs to be we need to take like a self-assessment on a regular basis of do i have any walls toward you do i have any resentments toward you if the answer is yes we need that's our first order of business because nothing else is going to progress um once we when we have those hurts and those resentments inside of us. So in that kind of situation, if you felt disrespected, let's say that's what happened, it has to be processed through. And it can be processed through both within yourself and together as a couple. Within yourself, you want to, I mean, if it's like a deep resentment, you got to think through, these are steps that can be helpful. One step is, what about my partner's upbringing may have contributed to their behavior I felt was disrespectful. Was there anything with that? Second thing is, anything in my partner's circumstances beyond me that may have contributed to their behavior that felt disrespectful? Just to think about it. Third thing is, was I doing anything that may have contributed to their disrespectful behavior back to me? Did I somehow influence it? Doesn't mean it was my fault, but did I influence it at all by words and actions I was having? Maybe or maybe not, but I need to think about that. And the fourth thing to think about is, When I was on the other side of feeling disrespected, did that remind me of anything I've ever felt in my own past? Because if it is, I might be having a trigger, like, right, an overreaction, even though their behavior is still hurtful and I don't like it and I want it to stop, but is my past influencing my reaction? So if you think about those four pieces, my partner's past, my partner's circumstances, was I doing anything that may have contributed and is this stirring up my past? Those things broaden the scope. And it just makes you think about your partner's behavior in a broader way. And it often cultivates more compassion around the behavior, even though you still want it to stop and you still need to address it. So those things can be helpful. And then when you address it with your partner, which you need to do if you want to stay in that relationship. They need to respond in certain ways for it to be healing. And then there's a whole series of steps that they can do as well that can help facilitate the healing process.

• Speaker #1

  I love how objective you are because I'm just like, well, let's just move on. I don't even know how we're going to address this. I just separate for now. To which, let's see. I don't know. I might keep you updated on. my decision. I think for me, when something like this happened, I just don't want to talk about it. And like, I just want to like, I'm just, I, I would say, I would say, you know, I do have a conversation with myself on, do I think the relationship is worth saving? And I think that's the first step, the decision I make. And if I do decide it is worth saving, I will work it through whether with whoever or with myself. But if I do decide, like, there's no more contribution or anything, any benefits added to continue dating somebody, I just, I just walk away.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. That can happen. Right. Sometimes that is the decision like, oh, there's just not enough to keep me in this relationship and keep working at it. So I'm going to walk. But a lot of couples don't have the experience of working through the hard things. And when you have, when you kind of build up your reps with working through the hard stuff, the hard conversations, when you've been hurt or your partner's been hurt, That can help give you more merit or more reason to work things out as well because you start realizing, okay, this is part of long-term relationships. We're going to have hard moments where I'm hurt or they're hurt. And the more we can have emotionally corrective experiences by working through those, that might help me view the relationship different in and of itself. Because it might make me feel more hope. Like, wow, we can actually do this. We can actually talk through things. And now I see their perspective more and it wasn't as they weren't. intentionally trying to hurt me as much as it felt like they were and things can move. So, but a lot of couples, again, without the skill set around that, it can be really challenging on how did we work through resentments when we have them? Because usually we have resentments, we can't talk about them with things escalating.

• Speaker #1

  Well, I'm hopeful now, but speaking of not being hopeful, I do have a friend, this is truly asking for a friend, is that some people are just hurt so many times and they're like We don't want to date anymore. We don't want to love anymore. Secretly, obviously, we are human beings and we want connection, right? So the question is, when we are repeatedly being hurt so many times, how do we reopen the door of dating or receiving love and accepting there could be a good relationship out there?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think starting out, you want to work on yourself, right? So if I've gone through a breakup, or a couple breakups first of all i need some increased self-care so i can kind of soothe and heal and part of that might be i need to increase my community with friends and family members so i'm feeling connected and loved while i'm kind of walking through this pain of these breakups and that's step one step two would be let me reflect on these breakups and see if i contributed at all even if it was 10 because i may be thinking it's all these other people and there's probably a a lot of truth in that. But what? what part of my playing in these breakups or do I have a tendency to do this or a tendency to do that or this expectation or that expectation? Like what are the pieces I can be gleaning from these breakups to improve me so that I can become a better version of myself? That's step two. And then I would say step three would be, you know, what are the lessons I've learned with who I'm choosing for my partners through all these breakups? Like what are the red flags I'm missing? What are the things I need to, I've. I need to be learning to look for or not look for based on these partners I have been choosing in the past? Like what are some lessons from that? And then fourth, if I choose to start dating again, you know, how can I, what would those steps look like? This is just like to explore in your mind where I'm slowly allowing myself to get close to someone, but maybe at a different rate, maybe a different pace. You know, what are the qualifiers, kind of markers I need to look for of, let me make sure I don't open up. too far until I kind of see this happening in the relationship or I see this about their past or their integrity. Kind of like having some markers look for that. influences how quickly and when I'm going to slowly start opening the door of my heart again.

• Speaker #1

  I would definitely pass on the message. And speaking of the things that we can work on, in your podcast talked about bickering could erode relationships. How is that even possible? I'd love to bicker.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. You know, John Gottman, who's the godfather of marriage research, he said that happy couples have at least five positive to every one negative interaction. And he also said really happy couples have like 20 positive to every one negative interaction. And most people would probably say bickering is not a positive interaction, depending on how they're raised. But most people would probably not put that in a bucket of, oh, that was very positive. That was a positive interaction. Most people would say that was a negative interaction, right? We are antagonistic. We're arguing. And so the more you have any kind of negative interaction, it just erodes the positive feelings you have toward your partner. And underneath those bickering. those bickering interactions are some frustrations you have, right? And so it comes back to, I have frustrations or I have, my feelings are hurt or I'm feeling neglected. How do I communicate around that stuff that doesn't lead into an argument? Because if it leads into an argument, it probably is not going to create progress. It's just going to create more frustration for both of us, more hopelessness. And again, that's where the tools and the skills will come in because we've got to learn how to communicate around the hard stuff when we're... hurting when our needs aren't being met. How do we do that in a way that's going to be constructive instead of destructive?

• Speaker #1

  I guess when I talk about bickering, I don't personally perceive them to, I perceive them to be fun because I feel like it's smart. It's fast, right? It's funny. But I guess not everyone thinks that way.

• Speaker #0

  It depends on how your bickering is. I mean, if it's like lighthearted and good natured and we're just kind of giving each other a hard time and it's comical like you said, it's funny. Like if that, if both partners feel that and that's like the nature of it, that's different compared to if we're bickering and we're like angry and we're hostile and we're rude and we're disrespectful and sarcastic, that kind of bickering isn't very healthy.

• Speaker #1

  So we have to check in with a partner and be like, do you like this?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. Yeah. And determine, yeah. Which of those two kind of bickerings are you doing? Is it, is it the first kind where it's like lighthearted, like, like good natured? you know we're just kind of ban it's like banter or is this like i'm kind of upset with you and i'm frustrated and i'm irritated and i'm you know i'm not being very kind with my words during this bickering that kind of bickering probably is not going to go well and definitely check in with your partner and see what their experience is like too okay i guess i'm a little confused about you

• Speaker #1

  know dating well in a relationship and while maintaining your own identity i guess to what degree of spending time together and caring about the other person's feelings and feedback is healthy amount versus unhealthy almost to codependency. There's a fine line between it, but it's very easy to overdo it or underdo it. How many hours we should hang out? Like how many times we should check in with each other per week?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. Yeah. So I normally recommend trying to spend a good 10 to 15 hours a week together, if possible. The minimum is six hours. I mean, that's just like to survive, like to stay somewhat connected. But if you can get up to 10 to 12 hours, 15, like that's amazing. Obviously, if you're raising a family and you have kids, it's much harder. And that's why that six hour minimum works. If you're raising a family and time, your time is very difficult to find. And normally that breaks down, the six hours usually breaks down to four days a week. we need to carve out at least 30 minutes of connect time. And then there's some connecting rituals I recommend during those times. Let's try to have a once a week date. That's a good three hours if possible. And then a once a week meeting, a marriage huddle. And that's just for communication purposes and getting on the same page. And that's usually 30 minutes to an hour. So if you put all that together, it's around six hours. And that's actually pretty good. I mean, if you can pull that off consistently, more power to you. If you can do even more than that. then that's even better. As far as your question with like, how do we make sure we're being a sensitive partner but not losing ourself in the relationship and being codependent, one great analogy I like is one eye in, one eye out. And so the way I think about it is, if you're two eyes out and you're only thinking of your partner, what's best for them? What do they want? How are they gonna feel? And I'm not even thinking of me at all. Some people may call that selfless, but that's too far. Because then you can lose yourself and you get kind of lost in the relationship and you become dependent on your partner. The other extreme, though, is some of us are two eyes in where all we think about is me. What's best for me? What do I want? What do I need? And we don't even think about our partner. We're not even considering them in our moment-by-moment decisions. That's also toxic. So the goal for all of us, whether you lean two eyes in or two eyes out, is becoming one eye in, one eye out. And that just refers to I'm tracking me, my feelings, my preferences, my needs, while I'm also mindful of yours. And I'm letting those two data sets influence my decisions in our relationship moment-by-moment. And the more we strive toward that, the more amazing partners we become. And that's a growth area because some of us, again, lean two eyes in, some of us lean two eyes out. But striving toward one eye in, one eye out is really the key.

• Speaker #1

  So much knowledge, too little time. I'm so appreciative of all the things I've learned. I'm going to spend this weekend just process everything you said. Before we go, if the listeners want to work with you, besides finding your podcast, how can they find you?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. Yeah, listening to my podcast is definitely one of the best ways, the Dr. Wyatt Marriage Podcast. I do have a live call-in on Tuesday mornings, and the phone number is 303-578-0618. And so people can call in with their questions, and I'll respond back. And my website's drwyattfisher.com. And so I have a lot of resources. I have a blog on there with lots of articles and resources. And then on social, I'm on all the major social platforms at Dr. Wyatt Fisher.

• Speaker #1

  Thank you so much for joining us today. And I can't wait to have you back. Thanks, Zen, for having me. I appreciate it. Apple Podcasts and Spotify are linked below. Until next time, stay sharp, stay intentional, and be good.