Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:03 Too many voices, even more opinions. Extended family can make relationships feel hard. On the outside, it may seem as though your partner is struggling to manage setting boundaries with your in-laws, but often they just haven't been taught how important it is to ensure their partner sees and experiences that they are now their number one. So we're diving in today on some of the issues that can show up with extended families, why these occur. And most importantly, how you can start to make a shift forward toward a place where the family you chose is now number one. Hey, we're Kim and Roger, and we're here to show couples how to get the best out of their relationship so they can start living their dream life together.
Speaker 2 00:00:46 We're a west Aussie couple who are living the life of our dreams. We don't entertain the word should we think about the future as a field of possibilities, and we let joy be our compass.
Speaker 1 00:00:54 We've taken the simple idea of working as a team and applied it to our marriage, and it's been a game changer, allowing us to work out what truly lights us up in life and to go after it together.
Speaker 2 00:01:03 From living in snowy Japan to starting our own house tripping business, we've achieved some big dreams and most importantly, we feel fulfilled and are having the most fun we've ever had.
Speaker 1 00:01:12 Pick conversations from inspiring couples, thoughts from relationship experts and tales from our own lives as we help you to gain the wisdom and skills you'll need to turn your relationship into a real team. These
Speaker 2 00:01:22 Are relationship conversations for real people, by real people. So sit back, get comfort from whatever tickles you pickle, and enjoy living the team life.
Speaker 1 00:01:38 Okay, so today we are talking about extended family. The reason we we've chosen to talk about this topic on the podcast today is because we have been getting quite a few messages from people. We've spoken about extended family a little bit in some of the other podcasts, and it seems to have raised quite a lot of stuff for people. And we just thought as a topic itself, it actually brings up a lot of opportunity in terms of relationship upskilling. And so yeah, we thought we'd dig into a little bit more today.
Speaker 2 00:02:10 Yeah, I think in general, most people feel that the influence of the extended family, whether it be in-laws or relationships, uh, with the brothers and sisters and how that can influence and impact the relationship or one of the biggest stresses or biggest reasons for relationship issues. So it's very important we talk about this. Uh, you know, we validate that this is an experience a lot of couples are having, but there's also a way out of it that works for everyone.
Speaker 1 00:02:42 Yeah, absolutely. So let's just jump into how some of the issues show up in the relationship and you might identify with some of these things in your own relationship. The first thing I would say is that something that often shows up is that the, a partner will share more information or share information first with the extended family, and that sense of breach of trust shows up. Uh, another way this can sort of show up is in the cultural expectations around family involvement. So if you raised with different cultural norms around how much a family can be involved, that can, that can be a a point of tension in the relationship. When families might spend more time together with their extended fa sorry, people, partners might spend more time together with their extended family. They might wanna involve their extended family in, uh, more day-to-day things, more special occasion things than perhaps their partner was used to from their own childhood. The other big way that we see this show up in relationships is different ideas around boundaries. So you often see this in things like uninvited opinions from extended families, inviting family over all the time, or the family inviting themselves over. So coming over without actually asking if it's okay, or even just dropping in without making any touchpoint beforehand to see if that was an appropriate time for them to drop in.
Speaker 2 00:04:13 Yeah, I think expectations is also a big one. There can be expectations from the family about your husband or wife should have this job, or your wife should be a stay-at-home mom, or your partner should be around more or, you know, isn't around enough. And I think those are things that can really, it's almost planting seeds of aggravation or doubt in the relationship. And those seeds grow into gross little weeds. I
Speaker 1 00:04:41 Think that's a great one to pick up because that's probably a little bit more of an insidious one in that you don't know it so overtly
Speaker 2 00:04:48 Sneaky seeds.
Speaker 1 00:04:49 It's a sneaky seed that can grow over time, right? Like you start having a doubt about something because mom, dad, sister, brother have been feeding you these doubts over time and and you're responsible for that thought for sure. But that, that is coming from the dynamic of the extended family
Speaker 2 00:05:06 And what, and what can also have is though those are the sneaky seeds that they're sowing, but there's also the larger expectations around what you should be doing. So, oh, well you you should be living here. Oh, well, you know, you should be having three kids. Oh, well you should be sending your kids to this school. And you start to then go, all right, so whose opinion do you value more? Do you value your value, your dad's opinion more than you value my opinion? Or Well, you know, yeah, your mom said that, but what about how I'm feeling?
Speaker 1 00:05:38 Yeah, absolutely. And another one that shows up is, uh, extended family depending on the person in the relationship as their primary support. So not understanding that that person has now got their own partner and most likely their own children given the age demographic that we talked to on this podcast. And within that, that they are now their priority, that their partner is now their priority. And so when mum dad sibling call and say, I need you to do something that is not gonna be their number one concern
Speaker 2 00:06:15 Yeah. When the, the the child. So you becomes an emotional dumping ground for the parent.
Speaker 1 00:06:22 Oh, that's another one. When they think you, you should be the place where they can drop all of their heartache and pain. And, and we are not saying, and we'll get to this, we are not saying you, you're shutting off your family at all. We we're saying how extended family interact with, with, in, with a relationship with a couple and an entity can be a real problem for that relationship. And so we're wanting to bring some awareness to that today and try a different approach offer at the idea of a different approach to, you know, what it's actually gonna improve. Not just the relationship, which is our main goal, but it'll also improve the relationship with the extended family because like all these things, when we get transparent on issues, it makes things easier
Speaker 2 00:07:02 A hundred percent
Speaker 1 00:07:03 After it's hard
Speaker 2 00:07:05 <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:07:06 Okay. So just talking about, people are probably wondering why do we end up with these strange or difficult dynamics where, where the extended family dynamic is, is a problem in the relationship itself. And a lot of this comes from really obviously the fact that we, the, the setup that we have as children, we are, we are raised by the, our parents, we are raised with our siblings, and we have a deep emotional bond and sense of belonging with these people. Now that doesn't, doesn't change overnight that that bond and belonging and sometimes those very deep rooted connections can feel more powerful, more dominant than the connection you have with your partner. You
Speaker 2 00:07:54 Know, it's also something that, it's the first, it's the first place we felt safe was with our family of origin. Yes. And it's really hard to grow out of that. And maybe if you're not feeling super safe in your own relationship, you are going, Hey, I I need to go back to my family to find that safety.
Speaker 1 00:08:14 A hundred percent. It is that nurturing that that childlike safety that you get. And you know, even to a point where for some people it can be emotional dependency, they can need that validation from their family of origin, from their parents and their siblings. They can feel that they have that need for their guidance and support in their life because that's the role that they've always played. And so they haven't, they haven't had a, an opportunity or haven't tried looking to someone else as their support system looking to someone else as their point of, uh, reflection their, their point of introspection the way that that that can someone that could support them on their o on their journey and, and that person could be their partner, but because they're so used to having the family of origin be that per be those people, it can be very difficult to let go of that dynamic that's been created.
Speaker 1 00:09:09 And another thing that can often pop up, which I'm, I'm, I know some people out there have said they are experiencing is that the partner defers to the parents as the holders of all wisdom. And I think this is a difficult one because when, when we are young, we're obviously and we come into a relationship or even if we're older and we come into our relationship, we're still always younger than our parents. So we can really look up to these people as the holders of wisdom. And they are, they are holders of a lot of wisdom. Age, age generally gives you more wisdom generally. That said, they are not the holders of all wisdom and they're not the holders of your relationship wisdom.
Speaker 2 00:09:55 Well, they're not living your relationship. Exactly. They're living their relationship and they're putting expectations of what they believe life should look like for you onto you. And the mistake we can make is by believing, oh, if I follow their path and do what they say, I'll be fulfilled and I'll be happy and I'll have a successful marriage. And I think we can all remember the day or the time where we realized that our parents were actually just fallible humans like us. It's quite a jarring experience. But I think that's important to note as well, is that yes, they have the experience of many, many years of, uh, of being married or, or maybe not of, of being divorced, but you as an individual have a different journey and different, a different life. So when you feel that what they're saying is, is the golden rule, um, instead of having the bravery to say, we, as long as we're in together, we can make our own mistakes, that's where you're gonna, that's where you're gonna see friction.
Speaker 1 00:10:55 They have wisdom, but it's out of context. And that's where I think the missing link is for a lot of people. You can take the wisdom of others into your relationship. Absolutely. We all draw from different sources of information, but you need to put the relationship first as to how you absorb that information as to how it impacts you personally as a couple. That's where the difference comes in. You can't just car blanche apply the information to your situation because the relationship itself has its own dynamics, its own history, its own dreams, its own goals, its own everything. And so when you take wisdom from outside the relationship and bring it in, you then have to contextualize it within the relationship, which
Speaker 2 00:11:37 Is very hard for them to do when they're giving that advice. So while they might think that, yes, I've got your
Speaker 1 00:11:42 The extended family, you mean? Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:11:43 Yeah, yeah. So while they say, or they might feel that they've got your best interests at heart. Yes. And you might think, well, of course mom and dad have my best interests at heart. Well, more likely they're not, they're only seeing things from their point of view. And so as a result they're wanting to, or not putting themselves first and not you and not your partner.
Speaker 1 00:12:04 Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 00:12:05 Or they're putting just the individual first. So just the, their kids first.
Speaker 1 00:12:10 I think, I think that definitely comes up. I mean really none of it matters. The whole point is whatever the parents believe think opinionate over is is is just one part, right? That's that bit where it can be wisdom if you wanna take it, but you need to apply it to the relationship respectfully. And it's not apply as in plunk it on top of the relationship. You need to bring it to the relationship respectfully as an idea and understand that your partner may have different ideas and the ideas that you need to prioritize are the ones you agree on together, not ones that you brought from outside that you think dominate. It's an agreement. We wanna be finding unity. And that really brings us to the idea of how do we counter this situation where we are finding ourselves frustrated for whatever dynamic it is that we've just outlined or whether we've we've missed it. And you've got your own dynamic going on that's frustrating you in terms of your relationship and the way it engages with the extended family dynamic. How do we counter this situation? How do we improve our relationship with our partner and improve the dynamic around extended family? And the big answer we have to, that is that the relationship needs to be treated as its own entity.
Speaker 2 00:13:21 Instead of looking at your relationship as two individuals who have come together, you need to look at the relationship as being its own entity and having its own identity. Then it becomes a tangible thing. Just like when you incorporate a company. So a company's just a lot of people come together for a similar purpose, but once you incorporate it, it has its own brand, it has its own identity, it it has its own agency and that enables you to start to give it care to schedule, to bring it to the table to talk about as something that actually matters and needs to be looked after.
Speaker 1 00:13:59 I think also like a huge element of, of the relationship entity is the team component, right? Yeah. Because, and I love your analogy and I know we've talked about relationship entity before. It's so critical to what we are teaching in terms of becoming a team that we just have to keep talking
Speaker 2 00:14:15 About it and we'll talk about it again,
Speaker 1 00:14:16 If we think about things individually and we come at things personally, then we take everything personally. So if we decide that the idea or wisdom, for example, you might have brought to the table from an extended family member or from something you read isn't for the, isn't the best for the team. Okay, well it's not best for the team, it's not personal, it's just not best for what we want for the team. But if you decide that you're looking at it individually, then it sounds like you're saying, I don't like what you're saying, which is a different response to that's not gonna serve the entity at its very best. And that's what we're trying to do.
Speaker 2 00:14:53 Yeah. You know, think about it in a sporting context, uh, how many players would say I'd rather win a brown low medal than a premiership? Yes. Generally none. Most people who, who have <laugh> No,
Speaker 1 00:15:07 Got ahead of myself there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great football understanding
Speaker 2 00:15:12 <laugh>, what you'll find is that the brownlow medal winner will be unfulfilled until he wins a premiership. But the premiership or, or he or she, but the premiership medal winner who won the premiership as a team will be fulfilled even if they don't win a low. And, and that's also, that's because even though the people in the team are, you know, coming at things from a competitive nature because there's only so many spots in the team that they all, they're gonna get paid different amounts and there needs to be that internal competition. Well, what a being a team does and having its own own entity, the relationship entity, it takes the adversarial nature out of interactions. Mm-hmm. So as you were saying, instead of, you know, this is your time, this is my time, this is your way, this is my way, this is our time, it's a shared resource, this is our direction, it's a shared direction.
Speaker 1 00:16:03 Absolutely agree with that. And I think one of the connection points there we can make is that whether you have experienced it yet or not, when you partner with someone, you are agreeing to be a team. You are, that is how you partner successfully. It's, it's not negotiable whether you're going be a team, if you wanna be a success as a partnership, you 100% all successful partnerships operate as team.
Speaker 2 00:16:32 When you, you, when you're in a long-term relationship or you decide to get married, and especially if you have kids, you're making a commitment to the other person. So that commitment is also about putting the team first and creating that entity and create the safety within the relationship because you know that person's always gonna have your back. And so of course, if we're, we just talked previously about the fact that a lot of people stay in those, uh, put putting the parental advice first or that connection to your family of origin is because you felt safe there. You felt protected there. You felt your parents had your back. So it can be very hard to extricate yourself from that if you don't have somewhere safe to go. But if you've created a relationship entity and you start to build trust in that, and you start to build a safe environment because you know you're in this together, you got each other's back, all of a sudden you have somewhere safe to go and you can start growing, you can start being yourself, and you can start looking forward to the future without feeling that, oh, you know, uh, who, who has my back?
Speaker 2 00:17:36 You can, you can cut the, cut the apron strings.
Speaker 1 00:17:39 Absolutely. And it's a, it's a magical place because whilst you might've experienced safety and a lot of nurturing in your family of origin, that is a, a power imbalance in the relationship. You've never been on equal standing with the, your safety net.
Speaker 2 00:17:54 That's a great point.
Speaker 1 00:17:55 Whereas when you're in a relationship, you have the opportunity to be on equal standing with your relationship. And that comes back to that idea of being a team. And that is so powerful when you have someone in your life where you both are on the same level, on the same page, and getting to support one another and have someone who 100% has your back. It's, it's a dynamic you wouldn't have experienced until you're in a partnership. And it is super powerful for what you can achieve in life, which is ultimately what we are teaching here. We want you to live your best life. We're talking about the team all the time because the team is the way to achieve your dreams. But we're starting with the team right now. So I'm gonna go back to that. So what we're saying here is the, the critical thing, when you've got tricky family dynamics with extended family, really bring it back to the entity and the team. You want to become a team because you need to build the safety. We talk about this a lot in a relationship. You cannot foster other things like growing towards your dreams. If you feel unsafe, you're not going to bring your honest opinions to the table. You're not gonna bring your honest concerns to the table. You're not gonna bring your honest dreams to the table.
Speaker 2 00:19:07 It's a hierarchy of needs almost. You need to make sure that it does your shelter, your grounding, your, you know, you, your basic needs are met, which is safety before you can work on the, the other things in your life.
Speaker 1 00:19:19 That's right. Evolutionarily, we are just wired to attend to safety first.
Speaker 2 00:19:25 And the best way to build that trust and safety is to actually start putting the relationship first. We've created the entity, now we have to start putting it first. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:19:37 Ly you need to be putting the relationship, the entity of the relationship as your number one priority. You need to be treating that as the thing that comes first attending to its safety building of its safety, building the concept of trust around it. Because from there everything flourishes. Everything grows from there as a couple.
Speaker 2 00:19:56 It means not putting the advice your parents give you first ahead of the advice your partner gives you. Not putting their opinion first. You can still take it on board, but not putting it first, not putting the time you spend with your parents or your siblings first, putting the time you spend with your partner first.
Speaker 1 00:20:15 Absolutely. It's having their back when someone says something. Yes. From the extended family about your partner, it's making sure that you share information with your partner first, so that when the mother-in-law or father-in-law rings, the partner's not shook. Why, why wasn't I in that safety bubble first? Why thinkt? I get told first.
Speaker 2 00:20:34 Exactly. If you are thinking, hey, if I, if I do something that's gonna, a, either upset my partner or B, upset my mum and dad, well the choice is B, you need to upset your mum and dad instead of your partner. Now again, that doesn't then mean that you need to be rude or ignore or have a bad relationship with your family. All it is saying is that you need to put your partner and the relationship above everything else.
Speaker 1 00:21:03 Look, I will say at this point, because I know this is gonna come up, we, what we are explaining here is setting a new precedent, right? We're setting a new precedent in the relationship we're saying to the family. So if you currently have issues and the dynamic isn't working and you, you listen to us today and you say, right, I am gonna put the relationship first because I love my partner, I want us to live our best lives. I want us to have our best relationships. I'm going to start setting some new precedents as to how I interact with my family. And it's actually gonna look like a boundary because it is a boundary. I'm gonna set boundaries. And there definitely will be some pushback. It's, this is a two-sided situation. Yes, their extended family impact your relationship, but you also impact your extended family.
Speaker 1 00:21:51 And so when they feel that pull away, when they feel that boundary go in, it's, it's going to ruffle some feathers. You are gonna have to go through some discomfort to get to the other side with this. I just think it's really important to raise that so that when it does show up, you just hold it. And you know what the beauty of this is? If you've gone into the entity, if you've dug into that and agreed on yeah, we're putting the entity first, guess who's gonna be in your corner when that discomfort shows up, your partner, instead of saying, oh, well that's your typical family member. Oh well that's what they're gonna be saying. You know what, I'm so grateful to you because you're putting me first, we're building the entity. Talk to me about it. Let me be an ear for you. I understand it's going to be a rough time. Let's work through this together. And there you go. Building that trust, building that safety, building that connection, building that communication. It all starts to work together.
Speaker 2 00:22:42 Yeah. And you're taking a lot of pressure off your partner as well, because really the truth is the onus is on you to, I guess, manage the expectations of your family and tell them, like, mom, dad, you know, um, sister Dorothy, I, I, I love you, but I put my family, my partner and my kids, I put us our entity first. And you can understand that. And you'll probably find that they do the same with them. Your dad probably puts your mum first and vice versa. Or your sister puts her husband first. They just have opinions and feelings of how you should live your life and what you should do. And all you are saying is, Hey, I, I'm, I'm a grownup now. I love my partner. I put them first. And do you know what we can, we as a family, as a entity, as a unit, we love you and we're gonna be there for you. If you need us, we're gonna come to Christmas. We're gonna ado all this, but you know, if you guys don't
Speaker 1 00:23:37 Work or not come to Christmas, don't
Speaker 2 00:23:38 Work or not come to Christmas. If, if that's what works, um, we'll definitely do an episode on that.
Speaker 1 00:23:43 Look, I think that's a really great point, Roger. And I think what, what I hear when you say that is taking responsibility for the situation, you, you said responsibility. And I think it takes a huge amount of stress out of the relationship when the partner shows up and says openly, I'm, I'm putting my partner first. I'm putting the relationship first, the entities coming first and therefore here are the new boundaries and I'm gonna set them with my family because it's my responsibility. I'm the one that's brought the dynamic in. I'm going to set the new parameters and I'm gonna take that responsibility on. It's very reassuring to a partner to watch a partner take responsibility for something that is hurting them. Yep. And
Speaker 2 00:24:25 I, that creates that safety and that trust again.
Speaker 1 00:24:27 A hundred percent.
Speaker 2 00:24:28 You've got my back.
Speaker 1 00:24:29 You've got my back and cuz it's, and you care about how I feel.
Speaker 2 00:24:32 Yeah. And it is very hard for one partner to go, Hey, you need to start setting boundaries with your mum and dad or your sister because you feel attacked if someone tells that to you. So we're saying yeah, ta take accountability of your family. Yes. Because it is very hard for your partner to do that for you because they will feel that they're attacking you and attacking your family because we still always hold onto that little family of origin and that defensive nature because we do love our families. So again, we're not saying ignore them, we're not saying being rude to them. We're saying understand that you putting your relationship first and then as a couple you can decide, yes, we are going to prioritize our families. Especially maybe, you know, when the proverbial poop hits the fan, you know, and something happens as your parents get older or something happens as a family emergency, you guys gotta have each other's backs and go, okay, what can we do to help create time or put a space time and effort to help our families out together?
Speaker 1 00:25:30 I love that as the unit, as the unit, as the relationship you're agreeing to. And then you come with more power and support to the extended family as well. You come as a powerful unit. Yeah. You've made that agreement. So you are a hundred percent on board together. There's no push pull or that one partner's gotta negotiate the partner and the need of the parent or the sibling or whoever's in distress. It's, you guys are coming at this together. And I just, I think that's such a beautiful example of how powerful it can be when you do create the entity and, and have an agreement around what the relationship will be with the extended family. And that brings us to, if you're wondering too, just too little hints we have, we don't wanna overwhelm people because we know this topic is a big topic, but two hints for ways to start to change that dynamic.
Speaker 1 00:26:18 So start to build the i the entity and, and start to shift the dynamic or relationship you have with the extended family. So the first thing we would suggest is just talking to your partner about the relationship entity. If you haven't done it already, we've spoken about it before. It's, it comes up in a few of our podcasts. Just talking to them about the idea of focusing on the relationship as its own entity. You can use the analogies that Rod use of a work team or a sports team and how those teams really engage in their activities and make their choices and agreements and rules according to what's best for the team.
Speaker 2 00:27:00 Yeah. And talk about how if a situation arises or if you're, when you're talking about your lives, how does this impact us? How does this impact Yes. The team, how does this impact Team Smith?
Speaker 1 00:27:12 Yes. I love that. Yeah. And you don't, you start to take on a different identity, don't you? And we certainly feel that compared to the first decade of our lives, we never would've identified in how things impacted us as a we.
Speaker 2 00:27:25 No. It was always the individual. How does this impact you? Always? Yes. How does this impact me? Oh this is, you are taking my time or you know, or you are doing what you want to do. Not like, hey, we are on the same page, we are impacted by this. How are we gonna work through this? Yes. Even if it is something that impacts one of you, you work together to figure out how you can uh, breach that, breach that gap.
Speaker 1 00:27:49 Yes. So talk to the partner about the idea of the relationship entity. Start to start to get some agreement on that, some conversation around that. And then the second thing that we would suggest, once you've, once you've got across that and you're feeling comfortable, you're feeling like you both are on the same page. And this could take a while, you know, these are new ideas, things don't land and just get absorbed straight away for most people. So you need to give people time to get their head around things. The second idea would be to talk together around setting just three really simple agreements. I call them relationship agreements around how you would like the relationship to engage with the extended family from a perspective of maintaining trust and safety within the entity. So it's really sitting down together and just having a chat and saying, what would be good for you? What, what would I, what do I think would be good? Okay, let's look at the ideas that we've both got. The agreements that we think could benefit the entity and now work out together. What's critical for the entity? What do we really think the entity needs out of those ideas.
Speaker 2 00:28:56 If you are, if you're listening to this podcast and, and some things are triggering you a bit, especially when we talked about the ways that families can be impacted, have a think about how you, you know, and your relationship with your parents and how the impact they have on your partner and your relationship and what are some things that you guys, you could do with your partner working as a team that you could agree on. Write it down, put it on some paper, put it up on a board or send an email to each other that you can just refer to every now and then and say, Hey, we, we've made these three agreements. One is that we don't do drop-ins on the weekend without a call from both sides. You know, for example, they're simple agreements you can put in place and that just gives you a bit of strength, a bit of backing for when this does happen.
Speaker 2 00:29:40 When someone just pops over at 3:00 PM on a fri on a Sunday and you are just like, oh, we are just getting the kids ready to school, we're trying to tidy the house, we're trying to make the meals for the week and you just have to go then, okay, it's my, my dad or my mum, I'm gonna go have a chat them say, Hey, we love it. We, we love it when you do see, see the kids and two, but let's just give us a call next time. Or maybe we can schedule something in because when you drop in it disrupts us and we love you. But that's just something that we've decided on together. So again, it's not just the partner, it's not just you are, you know, Roger doesn't want you dropping over cuz A, B and C or I or I don't want you drop. It happens and I don't want you dropping cause ABC like we feel we don't, so that it creates a buffer. I love that. And also creates a team approach.
Speaker 1 00:30:27 I love that so much. When you make these agreements and you approach the extended family as a we, they also, you're also teaching them this is what what we're, what we are agreeing and this is how we're gonna engage in the future. Yeah. We come as a team. If you've got an issue, you've got an issue with the team and my number one priority is my teammate. Yeah. So you, if you've got a problem with them, you've got a problem with the entity and we are gonna work through it together as an entity. You're not gonna split us. We are an entity. I absolutely love that.
Speaker 2 00:30:59 I think, again, most families aren't trying to drive a wedge in you. They, they accidentally have those sneaky seeds, but some families do want that power. They do feel that they should be, uh, that they're nosy. It, it just happens. And you know, by showing that united front, by creating and saying to them, Hey, these are our rules, these are our agreements. We're adults. That's what adults do. They create band where they create agreements. You will get a bit, you'll get a lot more respect for that. Especially if you don't go, you know, Roger said this, or Kim said that we said this, we believe this. It becomes concrete, it becomes a show of strength
Speaker 1 00:31:35 And at the end of the day, most importantly, you'll build your relationship. Yeah. That's what this is about. Yeah. It's actually not about the extended family, it's actually about yeah. Building your relationship.
Speaker 2 00:31:47 Yeah. And most parents will be pretty proud that their kid is in a loving, trusting, and safe relationship.
Speaker 1 00:31:53 I agree with that.
Speaker 2 00:31:55 So Kim, what was your golden nugget from today?
Speaker 1 00:31:59 I think for me, the flipping this on its head and understanding that when we, when we set, set this intention to be an entity and we become the we and we engage with the extended family as the we, that, that whilst there might be a period of discomfort as you reset the boundaries, basically, I completely agree with what you just said. That the families want you to be in a loving relationship, even if they struggle with the parent, child or sibling dynamic for a while. Our loved ones, most of the time they really love us. And I think ultimately they will come to that. And that's not the point of this, this podcast, this podcast is about the relationship, right? But that for me is an added bonus. And I like that. So that's for me. What about you?
Speaker 2 00:32:46 When, when you grow up, you, it's important that you, you know, follow through on commitments and you know, by committing to to be a partner to someone to get married and to have kids, you are committing to creating a safe space for them. So by creating the entity and putting the relationship first, you are creating a safe space. And then by having that spa safe space, it allows them to break away from their family of origin because they do feel safe. And then I reckon nine times outta 10, you're gonna have a longer term, stronger relationship with your extended family. You are amazing. You've just spent quality time on your relationship,
Speaker 1 00:33:32 Feel like you're on a roll. If you want more living, the team life, relationship, insights and conversations, head over to Kim and roger.com where you can find all the show notes as well as tons of other relationship goodies.
Speaker 2 00:33:42 And if you like today's episode, please hit subscribe or let another couple know where they can find us. It'll make them happy and it'll make us really happy.
Speaker 1 00:33:50 Until next time, keep on living the team life.
