Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Ever had that uneasy feeling in your gut? A sense that you and your partner just aren't clicking like you used to? It might be a sign that you're feeling disconnected. A common experience, but definitely not a pleasant one. We've been there ourselves, navigating these choppy waters and finding our way back to a stronger relationship. With the right tools, those feelings of disconnection can actually become opportunities for growth. Join us as we explore four key indicators of a growing rift and how we've successfully pivoted back to closeness.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Hey, we're Kim and Rog, 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.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: 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.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: 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.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: From living in snowy Japan to starting our own house stripping business, we've achieved some big dreams and most importantly, we feel fulfilled and are having the most fun we've ever had.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: 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.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: These are relationship conversations for real people, by real people. So sit back, get comfort in whatever tickles you, pickle, and enjoy living the team life.
If you're listening to living the team life, likely you've got a long term partner.
And, you know, maybe you're listening to us to level up your relationship, to become a team, to achieve your dreams. Or maybe you're listening to us because you want some support, you want some help. And one of the reasons you might want support and might want some help and something that we know we felt in our relationship before and talking to friends, seeing some of the comments on our socials, is that you might feel disconnected from your partner. Now, I think a lot of this can often come from a bit of a gut feel or something just doesn't feel quite right. And you know, Kim and I always believe you should trust your gut, but it's also good to have some, I guess, I don't know, watch points or evidence behind it. So, you know, once you've gone, hey, something doesn't feel right in my gut. Maybe there's a few things you can point to that will make you go, yeah, that. That sort of. That's what I identify with. I can see that. And maybe that's why I'm feeling disconnected from my partner. That's maybe why I'm feeling the. The way I am. So that's what Kim and I thought we'd do today, is actually we'd take you through four. Four signs that maybe you are disconnected from your partner. Whether you want to see these as red flags or warning signs, however you want to see it, we just think sometimes. We always believe that the more information you have, the better decisions you can make, and that allows you to also move forward. So not only that, are we going to help you identify for, I guess, warning signs that maybe you're disconnected in your relationship, disconnected from your partner. We're also going to give you some proactive steps on how you can reconnect.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a really good point, rog, that sometimes in the relationship, we get a sense in our gut or our intuition that something isn't quite right. But if we don't have enough information about what could be happening, if we don't have the skills or tools to be able to consider what's going, what's really underlying in the situation, we can make a lot of assumptions. And I think what we're trying to do today is empower people with more information and more tools to be able to consider what might be a gut feeling in a more informed way. If that makes sense, you know, it.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Totally does make sense. Again, information is power. So that's what we're here. We're here to give you the tools and skills to identify when things are going wrong and to correct them, because things can go wrong. That's okay if things go. If things go wrong.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Yeah. It's taking that negative connotation of wrong out as well. Do you know what I mean? Even as you said wrong, I was like, oh, wrong. Don't use that word, George, 100%, because it feels wrong when it's wrong. It feels hard when it's hard. And that's okay. Having hard moments. Having wrong moments is okay. It's about getting the information, the skills, the tools to pivot when things aren't going the way you want them to. And it is hard. And things that do feel wrong. So it's absolutely fine to be able to say wrong, hard, difficult problem, whatever.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: It might be, it's misleading to say, well, your relationship shouldn't have any ups and downs.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Things shouldn't be hard. Things shouldn't be wrong. You shouldn't get these gut feelings about being disconnected because I guess maybe the worst thing you can do is go, oh, I'm feeling disconnected. Well, that's it. There's nothing I can do or that's doom for us. But no, no way. There's a way out for sure.
[00:05:07] Speaker B: All right, on that note, let's kick it off with the first sign that you may be experiencing disconnect from your partner or you may be feeling disconnected from your partner. The first sign we want to raise with you guys is experiencing less curiosity in the relationship. So curiosity is obviously about wanting to know things. And in a relationship, we think about it in the context of wanting to know your partner, know who they are as a human, what's lighting them up, what's worrying them, what tickles their pickle, what drives them nuts, all of these things. And it isn't necessarily about the big stuff, you know, should I know what, what my partner's big dream is? It's not necessarily that big. It's also about the small stuff. It's about knowing the human in their detail. You know, what makes them laugh, what's going to support them when they're feeling down, little perks and quirks. Or as they said on that movie, good will hunting, the peccadilloes of your partner, which I absolutely love. That stuck with me so hard. I just totally digress here. But when Robin Williams, the therapist, says to Matt Damon, it's the little peccadilloes in your partner that you miss and that you love. And those are the things you need to know about them. What are the things that. That give them joy, give them reprieve, give them satisfaction, all of these little things. And to know those things, we have to be curious because when we stop asking these questions, we don't get up to date with our partner. We disengage, really, from a situation that is the relationship that is always evolving. It's always changing. Our partners are evolving and changing. And so when we show this lack of interest, we actually lose touch with who our partner is because our partners don't stay the same. Humans don't stay the same. We've talked about that in a change episode before. And what happens when we stop being curious is we actually reduce emotional intimacy.
And obviously that has the knock on effect of creating distance in a relationship. And that's how you probably feel the lack of curiosity showing up in the relationship. You feel this disconnect from something someone and something to bear in mind when we're thinking about curiosity.
And I think this is a motivator, if you've got any sort of ego. Is that John Gottman, who is, I would say, the most renowned relationship psychologist in the world?
I say that because he has the most research under his belt.
He says that curiosity is actually linked to emotional intelligence, and having an emotionally intelligent partner in the relationship, two partners in the relationship is strongly linked to relationship satisfaction. So when you are more curious, you are more emotionally intelligent in the relationship, and that increases the satisfaction in the relationship. And it makes sense when you think about it, because curiosity is showing.
It's giving opportunity for empathy, understanding, it's giving opportunity for growth. And all those things relate to, obviously, emotional intelligence. And another thing that Gottman talks about is that when we think about the ever evolving state of our partner and the fact that we have to stay curious about them because they do change, we need to think about it in the sense of actually having a love map of our partner, which I really love the idea of, do you know where to find joy for your partner? Do you know how to find support for your partner? How to give that. What does their map look like? And being a visual person myself, I kind of imagine like a treasure map, because all these little bits you know about your partner are little pots of gold. They're little bits that are going to connect you to your partner. They're little bits that are going to grow and enhance your relationship. But you have to think about this love map, like Google Maps. So Google Maps constantly reiterates it updates because it has to, because the world is always changing. You can't use a UBD, which for those of us that grew up in the eighties, will be fully aware of what that is. That's what we used to use, a static map of wherever you lived. So when you would drive around looking for someone's house, if they had changed a street, you wouldn't know because the map hadn't been updated. So when we're thinking about being curious, we need to be thinking about consistently being curious in the relationship.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: Yeah. I used to work for a pizza company when I was, like, a little italian pizza restaurant when I was at uni. And we had it, I had a Ubd. And sometimes streets would change, and I'd be driving around for 30 minutes trying to find the right street. And it's the same with your partner, right, if you don't understand.
And the person would get a cold pizza in the end. And I'd get in trouble.
[00:10:13] Speaker B: You'd be looking for 32 trying to line them up. Yeah.
[00:10:15] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. 100%. And it's the same with your partner. It's like, don't assume that you know the directions to their heart from five years ago will lead you straight there now things will have changed. There might be a detour. Maybe they've put a roundabout in. A sexy roundabout. I don't know. Maybe it's a. It's an emotional roundabout. Maybe there's some speed bumps. Maybe it's a dead end. So that's, that's. I think I've taken the metaphor too far. But, you know, you've got to be an expert on your partner so you can stay up today with their love, Matt.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: Yes, good point. Okay, so how do you do that if you're not currently feeling like you're being curious enough in the relationship? One of the things we would suggest would be regular check ins. Set aside time each day or each week when you do have the time, but schedule it in to talk about each other's lives, thoughts, feelings. And this communication, this sort of open communication will enhance the connection that you have in the relationship. It will enhance your emotional intimacy.
Way you can proactively be more curious in the relationship. If you find it difficult to come up with questions yourself when you have set aside that time, find some prompter questions. There's lots of ways to ask prompter questions. You can find them. A lot of journals these days have prompter questions you could use. I'm sure you can google prompter questions.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: We've got a heap on our socials as well.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: Absolutely. Use our social prompter questions that are a great way for people that might be struggling to just get started, started in this space. Because once you get going, you will build momentum beyond the prompter questions and on a bigger level. I did say at the beginning it's not just the big stuff, but the big stuff is important too. Try a vision boarding session. We have an episode on that as well. How to vision board with your partner. I mean, that's going to really unpack some interesting stuff and allow you to be really curious about what your partner is thinking. Big, bigger picture that they may not be mentioning to anyone because it lives in their imagination, in their dreams.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I love what you're doing there, sweater. You're just adding a bit of structure in to help you. Because sometimes being curious in our busy lives, it can be tough or you're just too, I guess, introspective as opposed to that emotional intelligence. You talked about and having that empathy for your partner to want to understand more. And we've been there. We totally understand. So the second sign we want to highlight today that you might feel disconnected from your partner is that there's less playfulness and laughter in the relationship. Now. Kim and I play and laugh a lot. I think this is one of the hallmarks of our relationship. Not everyone, we were just doing it.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: Before we recorded it.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Not everyone's the same.
You know, I think when we talked about our couple communication styles a month or so ago, it showed that some couples are very different. But that's okay, you know? But having said that, there really should be a bit of playfulness and laughter in most relationships. And they are key indicators of comfort and connection in a relationship. And if there isn't any or there's been a significant decrease from what you usually see, that could suggest that your relationship is under stress and maybe becoming a bit too routine. Hence the disconnect. The funny thing is, this is also a bit of a catch 22. It's a bit of a catch 22 because, you know, shared laughter and. And I guess playfulness can be a tool to reduce stress. But if you're already feeling stressed and there's less playfulness and laughter, then it's. You can't use it as a tool to reduce the stress in the first place. So you do can find yourself in a bit of a vicious cycle, then. But of course, there's ways to get out of it. The research also backs this up, that laughter and playfulness are really important in a relationship, and a lack of it could mean that perhaps there is a disconnect. Prominent psychologist doctor Laura Kurtz from the University of Carolina studied the impact of shared laughter on relationships and actually found that it's a strong indicator of longevity in relationships and quality.
You know, you might actually also recognize this in other couples. I'm sure you've all been on either double dates or group dates or been out with your friends, and you've just sort of noticed a couple that is like, super playful, super laughing, and you just sort of go, oh, gee, are we like that? Are we missing a bit of that? You know, and it does become more obvious when you notice it in other people, and you might not notice it in your own relationship.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I love this one, obviously, because I think it's so integral in our relationship to diffusing difficult situations, and that keeps us connected. So the risk for us would be that when we rupture, which we rupture lots, because we are very opinionated people. We are very outspoken people. There's nothing wrong with that. We work well together in that space. And that's actually one of the things we were laughing about this morning, because we both had completely opposite opinions on something and we battled it out verbally, but we had a laugh, we made a joke at each other. Both of us had a laugh, a cuddle, a giggle, and we just kept going. And I actually said, I'm so glad we have these opinions, these robust conversations, because it does help to shift the perspective.
Without the playfulness, though, in that conversation, it just would have been a tense.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: Conversation, it would have been an argument. It would have been instead of a debate.
[00:15:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And instead of a nice moment that we shared, like, we actually enjoyed that conversation. Both of us came out with a bit of a giggle and it was a great reprieve. So I see a lot of benefit in the playfulness and laughter, in building connection in the relationship.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: Well, I thought we learnt a bit about each other as well because we were debating something where we had a difference of opinion. And as we worked through it in a playful way, it allowed us to get curious. So it allowed us to learn a bit more because laughter can often be an accessible way to deal with tough conversations and tough matters.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Oh, I love that. I completely agree.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Oh, good.
So again, we'll take you through some proactive steps if you do feel there's a bit of a lack of playfulness and laughter in your relationship. Look, Kim and I actually went out and did an activity this morning. It was a bit of a walk around a suburb we don't usually go to.
And, you know, that was part of the debate. Without getting into too many details, but we planned to do it. We knew we're recording today, you know, so that's work. And we were like, okay, well, why don't we get out of the house, go for a walk, get some fresh air and talk, and, you know, that's a simple activity that we could do together that led to a lot of laughter and ease and not just walking. If there's any other hobbies that you believe you can do together, get out, get active, you know, plan it in as well. I think if you feel that you're not being spontaneous with your laughter and playfulness, then planning will help you do that. Just like when we said curiosity. Just like when we said that if you need to get more curious in your relationship, you might need some prompter questions to help you and give you some structure. It's the same with playfulness. You can structure play and it doesn't make it less playful.
And, yeah, so active dates that maybe are a bit more fun than a walk, like mini golf, darts at the pub, a quiz night with some friends, or just rocking up at a random friends, actually friends themed quiz night, which were all the rage a few years ago, just the two of you rocking up and saying how you go, you know, that sort of stuff can just add a bit of spontaneity and laughter to your relationship.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: All right, onto number three. The third sign that might indicate some disconnection in the relationship is experiencing, or in yourself, or noticing in the relationship in general, less generosity. And I think generosity is one that can be quite hidden. It can be a difficult one to sort of tease out, because it's not as overt as being generous with gifts or physical or material things. It's about a generosity of spiritual, a generosity of kindness. And sometimes when we're under pressure and we're struggling, we can feel like we're giving all we've got, which is not a lot, and feel like we're being generous, but it might not be generous enough because the relationship needs more than the bare minimum. So it's working out. How do we go that. That little bit extra? Sometimes these things can be. These sorts of little extras can be called an act of service, something that your partner might really, really enjoy or something that you're doing out of service to your partner and the relationships relationship, deliberately. So. When we're not being generous, it's usually because we're trying to preserve that energy for ourselves, and we can't stay in that mindset if we want to be in the team mindset. The team mindset is about what's doing best for the team.
And I know that can feel hard, but think about it like this. Generosity, according to the Journal of Marriage and Family, is actually often a predictor of marital stability and satisfaction. They're pretty big things. If you want to have a stable, satisfying marriage, you're going to need to be generous in that space, in the way that we've described. A generosity of spirit, a generosity of self. You're going to need to think about things from a team mentality, not from a solo mentality. And doctor Brad Wilcox, who was the director of the National Marriage Project, actually talked about the knock on effect of generosity in the relationship, in that it fosters a positive cycle of love and support in the relationship. So not only do you get that moment of generosity and what it brings to the relationship and to your partner, you actually, when the more you give to your partner, the more you want to give to one another. So it naturally feeds a positive cycle in the relationship, a positive cycle of emotional connection and physical intimacy. So once we start being generous, we see those knock on effects, and we actually came across generosity in our interview with Nikki and Pat. For those of you who have heard that interview, which is a beautiful interview, and they talked, they actually raised the concept of generosity and the power of generosity in their own relationship as one of the big, big things, I guess, that was so successful for them and that they gave the example of receiving enjoyment from seeing the other person do things that made them happy or improve their wellbeing. And I just. We both love this concept, this idea that by giving to your partner, being generous of your own spirit, it actually gave to you as well. And so I think thinking about generosity not just as a. As a sacrifice, but as. As a cyclical good, an all round good, it. It just makes everything in the relationship better when you come at it from a team mentality.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I totally get that. Because if you're not taking the team approach and being less generous, then your partner's going to see that and they're going to feel the same because they're like, hey, I'm trying to claw back time. I'm trying to claw back energy. You know, I don't have enough for me. But if your partner sees you giving more of themselves, even though we know we're all busy, we know we're all stressed, the kids want more of us, our work wants more of us. If they see you do that, then they're going, I'm going to match that, or I'm going to go one better. I'm going to be generous, too, because I know I'm going to get and receive in return.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: I think that's a great point and something that we, or I definitely notice in our relationship when I see you do. For example, our daughter loves to strip the bed as an activity, repeatedly in the afternoon, and strip her own bed, and she'll do it multiple times. And come bedtime, we are so exhausted. And if I'm in giving her her bath, you will go in and make the bed to have it ready so that when we walk out, she's good to go. And I really appreciate that generosity from you because it helps me to be able to just take that little moment and not feel so much pressure or so much exhaustion. And I remember it then when I come to bed and I want to be generous towards you. What do you need out of tomorrow. How can I help you? What can I return that generosity with?
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I think you feel seen, as in, like, you're doing this because you can see I'm busy and you can see I'm at capacity, or you just see me and you want to do something nice for me, and then of course, you're like, and I see you. I see you for doing that, and I see you for your needs as well.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: Oh, nice. Nice summary. All right. Some of the proactive steps towards improving generosity in the relationship or learning to practice generosity. A great way to start being generous is actually with gratitude, because gratitude is a very simple way to be able to be generous in your spirit, in your kindness towards your partner, rather than just expecting things to happen or expecting them to do things. Be generous in your gratitude. Say thank you for their efforts. Tell them what was so great about what they did. You know, thank them for mowing the lawn, go out there and have a look. Make an effort. Show them that it matters to you. It's a generosity of spirit, as I keep saying. And that can be a really easy one, because we know, we all know, we've all practised gratitude before we were raised saying thank you, please. This is not complicated stuff. So starting with that one can be a really good beginning place.
Another proactive step you can, you can make towards being more generous is offering unsolicited kindness. So this is the acts of service I mentioned before. And when I say unsolicited, I mean doing things without being asked and no.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: Expectation of anything in return.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: And I think that's what you do when you make the bed. You literally just make it. You don't say anything, you just make it. You close the door, you set everything up, ready to go for bedtime, and then you just walk out and it just is such a lovely thing. It's so. It's just so giving. It's so giving in that, in that moment. So small gestures can have a really big impact in this space. And at the beginning, they're probably going to feel like they take a lot of energy because we are all so stretched. But as you practice them, they will get easier because of that cycle that we talked about, because you're giving and your partner's then giving back, you feel a reprieve from the return of giving, and so when you go to do something else, it gets a little bit easier.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: They're awesome tips, babe. So let's move on to our fourth sign that there may be a bit of disconnect in your relationship. And that is that you feel that there's less pleasure derived from being with your partner. And I'm not talking about the nookie or the hanky panky, although that is also a small sign as well. I'm actually just the pleasure of being around your partner, wanting to spend time with them, you want to spend less time with them. You don't feel like you can talk to them. And then, of course, as we. As I mentioned, there's a physical disconnection as well. Maybe you're a bit bored around them, maybe you're a bit uncomfortable around them, or you just have a preference to see your friends or to be alone and not see them at all, which I guess, you know, that would feel really crap. It would feel like it sucks. So a study in the Journal of Psychological Science suggests that one satisfaction in the relationship is actually closely linked to the pleasure they derive from joint activities. So if you don't find pleasure being with your partner, you're less satisfied with the relationship and whole. I love these studies. They make common sense, but it's good to get data behind it. So, obviously, if you're feeling this, that you can obviously feel a massive disconnect if you don't want to spend time with your partner or feel uncomfortable around the partner. Yep, definitely. It's not just your gut there's a disconnect, but there are heaps of ways that you can feel that pleasure again, because you did love your partner once, you probably still do love your partner, but the stress of the world has gotten the way, and you're just not feeling that same sort of pleasure that you're used to. And maybe this is part of the bonding chemicals, which, again, you always have to be proactive to ignite. So some proactive steps on how you might get those bonding chemicals going again and start receiving more pleasure. And wanting to spend more time with your partner is maybe doing something novel and exploring new interests. Kim and I spoke recently. We just picked up golf in January.
We've played a few times before separately. And for Christmas, I got her a golf lesson for the two of us with a pro together. So we've gone and done that, and that's something we do novel together because we spend a lot of time around each other. And even though we love spending time with each other, when you work with your partner, when you do podcasts with your partner, and then you're raising kids with your partner, you know, sometimes maybe it becomes a bit rotary as opposed to a bit novel. So we always make sure we inject novelty into our relationship. And not only that is we make sure when we are together and we do find the moments together, that we have real quality time. So in the mornings, when we go have a bit of time to ourselves and our coffees, we make sure we have prompter questions. We make sure that we do talk about stuff that matters. We make sure that when we go out, we put our phones away and we talk about things, or we go for a run, or we. We do things that are very uniquely us, or we do. If we're going to go out to a restaurant, we go, hey, let's go to a restaurant we haven't been before.
[00:28:50] Speaker B: All right, Raji, there are our four signs for people to just have more awareness around, just to be able to look out for in their relationship and hopefully give them a little bit more of an idea of ways that they can try reconnecting, try finding more connection in the relationship in not massive changes with not a huge amount of work. I would say it will feel heavy at the front end, but it's actually not a huge amount of work. All of these suggestions are very simple and a really great way to see if you can start to build that connection back into the relationship.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: Yep, 100%. So, on that note, what was your golden nugget for today?
[00:29:32] Speaker B: Oh, I think my favorite part of today was the generosity part for me when Nikki and Pat spoke about it.
It's something that never, ever gets talked about, in my opinion, that word never gets used, a generosity in the relationship. And I think it is so powerful to think about being generous towards your partner, to being generous towards the relationship, because it is the essence of being a team. It's about putting the unit up as such a priority for you that you want to give to it, you know, that giving to it will build the health and wellbeing, and so much so that you enjoy the giving. That's what generosity is. You get to enjoy the giving. And the more you give, the more you enjoy. It's just such a joyful concept for me in relationships. What about you, Reggie?
[00:30:35] Speaker A: Mine was that I think we always talk about planning as freedom, and even though a lot of these proactive steps that we gave you, you feel, oh, but, you know, if I want to be more playful or more curious, more, you know, more pleasure, more generosity, well, shouldn't that be spontaneous? Shouldn't that. That just come naturally? I was like, no, that's the problem. It's not coming naturally. So plan put in structure. The more I plan, the sexier Kim thinks I am 100% right.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: It's true.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: It's true. So and not only that, a lot of these proactive steps. We've done episodes on. We've done episodes on active dates. We've done episodes on how to start a conversation with your partner. There's heaps of episodes on prompter questions and on our socials. So the information. We've done one on vision boarding. So there's, the information is there? Put some time aside, put some structures in place, and go have fun with your partner.
You're amazing. You've just spent quality time on your relationship.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: Feel like you're on a roll. If you want more living the team life, relationship insights and conversations, head over to kimandroj.com where you can find all the show notes as well as tons of other relationship goodies.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: 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.
[00:31:59] Speaker B: Until next time, keep on living the team life.
