Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hard truths. We often hold them in the back of our minds, but we don't necessarily seem to talk about them or even acknowledge them. Why? Well, because they are, as the name implies, hard. These truths describe a reality that is often challenging, that bucks our need for comfort and ease in life. But we're not here to give you comfort and ease. We're here to help you grow your relationship. So we're dishing out the truth today and hoping that its hardness will land in a way that may ultimately soften your path to a more connected and deeper relationship.
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 B: 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 A: 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 B: From living in snowy Japan to starting our own house stripping business, we've achieved some big dreams. And most importantly, we feel fulfilled into having the most fun we've ever had.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: 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 B: 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.
Relationships can be tough, especially when life is stressful and time is in short supply. During these times, it's easy to avoid facing the hard truths of life because we're often caught up in the daily grind and sometimes we just don't want to deal with more challenges. We've got enough on our plates already.
But the problem is, ignoring these truths can lead to bigger problems down the road. So today, we're going to confront four hard truths that, while uncomfortable, are crucial for building a strong and lasting relationship.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's. This is an episode of just awareness, is how I would say it.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: This is a hard hitting episode.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: Kim. It's not meant to be. It's not meant to be.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: These are hard truths.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Hard truths. Yes, they're hard truths in the fact that sometimes they're hard to accept or hard to acknowledge, but they're not hard truths in the fact that we're trying to say, you know, grow up, open up your eyes. This is the reality of life. We're saying. Sometimes these things are hard to realise and hard to understand or hard to accept. But bringing awareness to them is a really great starting point to allow the relationship to benefit from this knowledge and awareness, to allow the relationship to grow outside these truths and with the consciousness of these truths, that they exist in the relationship.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Yeah, so let's hit you with that first hard truth. Hard truth. Number one, love alone isn't enough. I think most of us enter relationships believing or hoping that love is going to solve all our problems. You know, we've all heard the sayings, love will find a way, or love conquers all.
But the hard truth is that love must also be coupled with conscious, relate with a conscious relationship.
Couples need to move their relationship mindset from one of being unconscious to conscious one, from being habitual to being purposeful.
You've heard us say this before. Love is a doing word. You've also heard us talk about Gottman's five to one ratio. Now, the five to one ratio makes sense, because what the Gottman's are saying here, through their research, through their decades of looking at couples and how they interact, and seeing which relationships work and which didn't, the couples who proactively did loved. And so for every five positive love interactions, only had one negative interaction. They're the couples that survived, they're the couples that thrived. For those couples that didn't keep that ratio in check and imbalance often were heading for trouble, and later on, divorce. And if you look at this, this is because every day you need to be doing something. Because if, as we said, life is tough and we bring our external stresses into the relationship. So unless you're doing that five things a day, to keep connected with your partner, to show them that you do care for them, to show them that you have love for them, and to really what you're doing built is build that emotional connection, then that ratio is gonna be out of whack, and those little negative things are gonna build up, and you won't have the counterbalance. Doctor Sue Johnson has this thing she calls as the acronym, a R E R. This is emotional accessibility, emotional responsiveness, and emotional engagement. She explains that while love is crucial to a bond, it needs to be nurtured through a secure emotional connection. And without these elements of the are accessibility, responsiveness, and engagement. Without these elements, love can wane, leading to emotional disconnection and dissatisfaction. Esther Perel herself highlights that love alone is not enough when faced with the realities of life, such as financial stress, parenting challenges, and the inevitable changes that individuals undergo. So she believes that by maintaining desire through that five to one ratio and fostering curiosity and embracing all the little intricacies of your partner in life, that's how you build emotional connection, by doing love.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: I think this is a really interesting one. I just want to touch on it for a second, because I think when we say love is not alone, and even Perel says it, I think it's the traditional idea that love just exists. That is not enough, isn't it? It's not. Because for me, fostering curiosity and embracing the nuances of intimacy, that is love.
I think the word is everything. It's about the fact that traditionally we've thought that love just is something that exists. It's, it's, and it's, it's really that idea that love is about doing it. It's not about just allowing. But I love her. But I. But, well, what does that mean, you have to do that, love? Right.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: Well, love doesn't fix all the problems in your life and your relationship. You need to proactively fix them. You need to proactively show care.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: That's love, though, isn't it?
[00:06:40] Speaker B: Well, that is love. Yeah. It's a verb.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: Exactly. That's what I'm saying.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: It's a doing word.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: So maybe, and I don't want to undo what you've just said, but maybe love is enough if you do it.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: Love is enough if you do it. But you have to do love for it to be enough.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: Oh, I like that.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: Okay. All right, let's kick on to hard truth number two. Hard truth number two is that a woman's needs and priorities shift after having kids. And women will know this. They'll feel it in their heart. I certainly feel it in who I am, because after having a child, there's no one on this earth that matters. And I love Roger more than anyone, but there's no one on this earth that matters isn't even the right word.
That even though our relationship is our priority, she is the person I'm here to keep safe. And that's a different level of protectiveness and engagement with the child. That's a different level of needs towards the child, what I need to do to support her. So doctor Luann Brisenda, a neuropsychiatrist and author of the Female Brain, explains that a woman's brain actually undergoes significant changes during pregnancy and after childbirth due to hormonal movements. And these changes shift that focus towards the baby and actually alter her emotional and psychological needs, which might make the partner feel or might be experienced by the partner as a stark contrast to the way that she engaged the partner before motherhood. And it is clear that many men struggle with the transition to fatherhood because of this issue, because they perceive that their partner's attention has shifted primarily to the child, and they're no longer the number one person that that person places their love and affection and attention and efforts and energy on. And this can lead to feelings for men of neglect or jealousy, especially if the guy isn't prepared to share the emotional support spotlight. And, you know, there is a whole darker side to that, but I'm going to stay in the general zone right now. So the arrival of children often marks a really critical point in relationships. And I think women certainly are caught sometimes, I would say not caught. Women are challenged enormously with all the changes that happen. And men are also caught off guard is what we're seeing in the research by how drastically their partner's priorities change and their partner's attentions change, and the fact that the relationship's taken on a new dynamic, that the mother is now divided with, really her primary focus on the child. And as I said, this can really create a tension with a father that just hasn't adjusted his expectation. And that's why we're saying this hard truth. And, you know, all of this makes sense if we just sit back and think about it. From an evolutionary perspective, the primary goal after childbirth is the survival and protection of the offspring. And this is what I said from my perspective. It is this, this urge inside me to protect and. And allow my child to survive that is, like, my purpose and being on earth. And it, this deepness drives this significant biological and psychological change in women post pregnancy. And we are just rewired to focus on the needs of the child and to focus on their safety and survival above everything, including, including our partner.
And this is how our kids live. This is how evolution is. Mothers keep them alive.
And I realized these days, that looks different, but that was the reality. The mothers would be caring for the children and they would be keeping them alive. And this is how we've evolved as a people. So when we experience this hard truth and men do not themselves have this same change in hormones, nothing really shifts for them. And so they just experience the fallout of this hard truth.
This can create a lot of conflict in the relationship. And this is why we've brought it to the table because the reality is men need to understand this hard truth. They need to equip themselves with more information around what happens to women when they have children, what happens biologically, what happens psychologically to them. And they themselves need to work on their mindset because the women can't change what evolution has created in them, and nor would we want them to because we want our children to survive. So it really is this hard truth is one for men. It is going to be there. The change is going to happen. How can you go out and upskill yourself with knowledge and support for the woman who is, let's be honest, when they're rearing young children, doing the hardest job on earth, and needing additional support in that space, not someone pulling harder at their absolutely depleted resources.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: I love this, because what you've done there, sweetie, is you've told us a hard truth, which is a woman's needs and priorities shift after having kids. But as often happens in life, is many other hard truths then come out of that. And so the hard truth here is that, guys, this is mother Nature talking. And it's not the woman who needs to change. It's you that needs to change your mindset to step up and understand that when you have kids, you are no longer the most important person in the room. Your little ones are. And if you want a better life and to create a better future for them, and you want a harmonious relationship with your wife, you need to change your mindset to understand that you're there for the family. The family's not there for you.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: I think I just want to be clear because we talk so much about the relationship being the priority, even above children. I just want to make that distinction clear for people that are saying, well, hang on a second, you guys are saying the opposite of this. Your partner does is your priority. Your relationship is the priority in terms of the functioning in the household. But what we're saying is biologically, women will be wired to pay more attention to the child's survival. That's what we're saying, especially in those first years, and so need more support. And that comes from you making the relationship a priority and discussing these issues and working out how to support the team through this situation.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Not sitting there going, hey, what about my needs and what's going on here? You can bring them to the table, but they have to have equal, if not lesser weight than your partner's needs. Understand that she's carrying the weight of that biological drive to protect the kids at all costs.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: Okay, so hard truth number three. Oh, I love these hard truths.
Hard truth number three, you can't. You can't pick and choose where you turn up. So this is really about consistency. This is about trust.
This is about safety. Gottman has this concept called sliding doors momentous, which means in every interaction you have with your partner throughout the day, there's an opportunity there. And that opportunity is to either turn towards your partner or turn away. To engage or to disengage, to show up or to not show up. And if you're someone who consistently chooses to turn towards your partner, that builds trust, that builds emotional intimacy, and that builds safety, and that builds a strong relationship.
If you inconsistently show up, if you inconsistently aren't there for your partner, emotionally, mentally, physically, that's when trust is eroded. That's when there is emotional disconnection, and that's when relationships start to struggle. That's when a divide occurs, when someone doesn't turn up all the time or comes in when it suits them. They call this selective engagement. Selective engagement is highly corrosive to a relationship because it can lead to feelings of insecurity and abandonment from the other partner.
This is because relationships not only thrive on consistency, but they thrive on reliability and predictability. I think sometimes when we talk about, or relationship experts or you see online people talking about novelty and things being new, that's great. You need that in your relationship. But the core, the foundation needs predictability. You need to know your partner's always going to be there for you. You don't need someone who's erratic, who shows up on a whim, or who's there. Maybe sometimes because you don't want to be in a situation where you need someone and you're in the back of your mind thinking, is my partner going to show up today? Because, really, all we can do with our partner is believe the evidence that they've shown us over time. And that's. That's really tough. Where it's really positive is that if you do stuff up, you know that you have an opportunity over the time to come to be consistent and to build trust and to show your partner that you can be there for them.
Because inconsistency, whether emotional, physical, or psychological, it creates instability and it creates anxiety between the partners. And also that's when the mistrust steps in. Well, if I. I'm constantly stressing they're not going to be there, and. And I can't trust them. So I'm gonna start to move away. I'm gonna start to disconnect or I'm gonna start to try find trust somewhere else. I love Brene Brown's twist on this. She actually says that building true trust and connection is about being present even when you're stressed, even when you're tired, even when it's uncomfortable, even when it's hard, even when you feel your partner doesn't deserve it or you've got nothing left.
All right, that was hard. That was heavy.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: That was. Well, yeah, it was, but it's got some great information in there. I think the idea, this selective engagement, you know, unpacking why people might be doing this and what impact it has on the relationship and even putting that vulnerability lens over it is really interesting stuff and helps you to understand how it impacts the dynamic in the relationship and how important it really is to be consistently showing up in that relationship, because the knock on effects when you're not can be very severe. So you're right, it is heavy. It is a heavy, hard truth, I guess.
All right, moving on, though, to hard truth number four. And that is your partner cannot meet all your needs.
So Doctor Esther Perel talks about this in her book, the State of Affairs. That expecting one person to fulfill all of your emotional, social, intellectual and spiritual needs is this relatively new idea and is largely just unattainable. She talks about the healthy relationships, allowing space for both partners to seek fulfilment in different areas of their life. And we talk about this as well. The idea of prioritising the relationship is not that you two become a world unto yourselves. It's that you two support each other and encourage each other and provide safety and security and love and attachment, so that you can each go out into the world and be the best versions of yourself. Things you do together and things you do solo. It's not this idea that you morph into this. And we talked about this, this codependent relationship, which is quite different from a relationship that is healthy and very engaged together. So codependency we talked about recently on a show about interdependence. Codependency is where. Where one partner relies too heavily, they're dependent on the other partner for emotional support and validation. And what we're saying is that that's not what is actually a healthy relationship. A healthy interdependent relationship acknowledges that there's an ecosystem in the relationship that you can affect your partner's, your partner's emotions, you can affect your partner's state of mind, and you need to consider the interplay between the two of you, but you can't be dependent on your partner. That is codependency. Dependent on them to provide you all your emotional support. So when we say your partner cannot meet all your needs, that really is that codependency. You can't have codependency. You can't expect them to give you that validation, everything you're going to need. Because while it's important to be emotionally connected with your partner, you have to take responsibility for your own happiness and well being as well.
This is where the healthy couple bubble comes in. You lean into the strength of the relationship, and you pivot straight out of that into the things that you want to do in life. What is it that I want to do? I share that with my partner. They support me to go out and do that. They give me the space, the time, the care, the concern, the love, the backing. That's what that healthy relationship looks like. It's not at all that your partner gives you all of the answers and all of the validation you need. You can find that in other parts of the world. And really, this is such a beautiful idea because it says that there's so many places we can find support, connection, emotional validation. All of these things that we seek as humans and couples in themselves really need to develop a balance between getting connection in the relationship and having their autonomy. And Perel really talks about a lot, ongoing, this interplay between those two, this real tension. I think she really likes to describe it as between connection and autonomy, because you want the connection, and you can use the connection to create even stronger autonomy, more powerful autonomy. So it is really important for individuals to work on their own self awareness in this space, their own self compassion. You need to understand what it is that you, as an individual, needs and, and how you can fulfill your own needs through various aspects of your life. If you're not aware of what you need or what's possible to fulfill those needs, you might stay more in that codependent space. You might just lean into what's right in front of you, which is your partner. But if you grow your awareness and take responsibility for learning about yourself, what's going to make you happy? What do you seek in life? What are you driving? Share that with your partner, have that connection that Perel talks about, and then use that to pivot into really healthy autonomy and seek the things that bring you joy and the variance in life and the fulfillment from, from different angles. This is how you have a whole life.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: This is how you live a really holistic life that leans into friends and family and hobbies. And, you know, understanding that, you know, all the things that you. Maybe you want to knit, maybe you want to make music. Who knows what it. What it is that you want to do. But you need to take responsibility to figure that out. Lean into the relationship for the parts of connection and bonding, and then pivot straight out into out beyond the relationship to the other parts of the world that exist that can give you so much as well. This is about living your fullest life, your fullest relationship and your fullest life of autonomy. Because both coexist. They're both true. You want them both to thrive. And that's why we say your partner cannot meet all your needs and nor should you want them to because you would be missing a huge part of life.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: All right, babe, what was your gold nugget from our episode on four hard truths.
[00:22:54] Speaker A: I think you can't pick and choose when you turn up, which you spoke about. I think it's a hard truth, but it is a foundation for relationships. It's so important that people understand you have to show up consistently.
If you want to have a great relationship, you've got to make it safe. This is number one. You got to make safety a priority. And how do you build safety? Like you said, you build a history of consistently showing up in the relationship. It's a really simple equation. You do that and you guys will ride through the ups and downs of life. You'll manage it. It's.
For me, it's just such an important truth. You can't pick when you show up. You got to show up all the time. What about you, Reggie?
[00:23:40] Speaker B: For me, you know, this wasn't supposed to be a Debbie Downer episode or a judgment episode or anything like that. These hard truths are there because I think office often we know them. And if we didn't know them well, now you know. And it's about understanding why.
Why they're hard. But how once you get through that hardness, that difficulty, they're often huge opportunities for growth and connection with your partner.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: Oh, I love that.
[00:24:12] Speaker B: You're amazing. You've just spent quality time on your relationship.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: 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.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: 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.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: Until next time, keep on living the team life.
