Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Do you ever catch yourself falling into the same frustrating patterns in your relationship? Maybe one of you is avoiding tough conversations or trying to win every argument. Or maybe both of you have simply stopped saying please and thank you to each other. We all have habits that sneak into our relationships over time. While they might not have much impact in the beginning, as they become our new norm, they chip away at our sense of connection, our trust in each other, and even our respect for one another. So in today's episode, we're teaching you how to break bad relationship habits. In three simple steps, we'll unpack why these habits form and how you can replace them. Change is possible, so get comfy as we get started on breaking bad relationship habits.
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.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: We're a West Aussie couple who are living the life of our dreams. We don't entertain the word should or we think about the future as a field of possibilities and we let joy be our compass.
[00:01:02] 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.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: From living in snowy Japan to starting our own house flipping business, we've achieved some big dreams. And most importantly, we feel fulfilled and are having the most fun we've ever had.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Here, 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.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: These are relationship conversations for real people, by real people. So sit back, get comfort, whatever tickles your pickle, and enjoy living the team life.
So a few weeks ago, we were just nearing the end of school holidays and I was, I was sitting on the couch, I think the cricket was on, I was on my phone.
Generally, Kim and I, we try to put our phone away when our daughter's around at home, you know, one, so we can connect a bit more and two, just to, to model the, the.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Right behavior and because she tries to.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Steal it and try, because she's, she, she's a epic doom scroller herself.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: 7 year old doom scroller.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. I'm sure she's not the only one. Uh, however, in this moment, you know, we were a bit stressed. It was the end of the holidays, probably weren't being our best selves And I think, you know, when, when we are a bit stressed, when, you know, you're a bit antsy because we want to get back into, to work, into our podcast, you know, you know, you'll start to lose myself in the cricket and in my phone and what happened was you, you came up to me. I actually think this happened more than once, but I'll just use this example. And I actually can't remember the specific topic, but you wanted to talk to me about something or tell me about something. And it wasn't something unimportant, it was something that, you know, I can't remember the exact topic. But I, I do remember my reaction because I, I had a bit of a. I don't know if it was an out of body experience, but my reaction was like, oh, yeah, no, no worries, babe. That's great. Cool. Yep. Love you. Thanks. Bye. Thanks.
You know, I didn't really cover myself in glory. I really sort of lowered my colors in that moment. And as I said, I could actually see myself doing it and going, what are you doing? Like, this is something I used to do. I used to do a lot of this and it's called stonewalling. You know, it might be fobbing someone off, not paying attention, not being present, whatever it is.
And I've worked really hard to, to not do it, but I just found myself slipping into that, Slipping into that, I guess that bad habit again.
And, and I think it happened a few times and it happened more and more. I guess the longer the school holidays, the longer they went on.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess I, I'm glad you brought this today as something that you wanted to discuss because it, it does give us a great opportunity to talk about relationship habits and how you can break one.
From my perspective, I mean, the stonewalling is really at a, at a, like a, a deeper level is actually. You often used to refer to when people are in conflict and someone shuts down. I don't want to go any further. I've put a stone wall in front of you. Yeah, sort of thing. And whilst we weren't in conflict at that point, we were afterwards, the. I definitely felt as if you put a wall up to me and shutting you out. You were shutting me out. You didn want to engage with me and you didn't want to engage with the topic. And you, you had decided that you were going to shut me down and not pay attention to me. And to add insult to injury, you were going to keep scrolling on your phone while you were doing that and.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Watch the Cricket and watch the cricket.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: Sorry. That's right.
And. And from my perspective, it's a tricky one because it. You have such a good, strong history in the stonewalling department that it also triggers me a lot faster.
[00:05:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: Y. Triggers me a lot faster to being, like, hurt and. And, you know, jumping into that space, especially when we're tired. It's the end of the holidays. Every parent out there will empathize that the eight weeks of school holidays is a very long period, and you get to the end and you're both struggling a little bit. And it. You know, for me, of course, I jumped to the worst as well, because I've seen that so many times before. So I immediately. Hot on my. Hot off my heels. On my heels.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: Hot on my.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: I know I was hot.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: I know I thought my heels were hot. Well, you're right. You know, you. I. I'd fallen into an old habit. A bad. A bad habit. And then you'd. As a result, it's almost I drag you down with me. And so we.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: We got into responsibility for my own behavior.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: Yeah. But what we saw is it. It becomes a bit of a toxic pattern.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And it did just bring up. We did end up discussing it and discussing that that was a habit. We labeled it as why it's hurtful and all those sorts of things. And you did acknowledge that it was unfair what you were doing and that it's not how you wanted to behave. And, you know, especially when there's a phone there to ignore someone and. As if a phone has something more important than your partner when it definitely doesn't.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: There's definitely. Oh, definitely. There was nothing groundbreaking. I was scrolling on my. On my phone. It was probably like a Matt Preston recipe for dumplings or something like that.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: You better make it for me.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. But you can see how easy that it happens to. To fall into old bad habits or to even create new bad habits. And then. Yeah. That's why we've brought this to the table today. Like relationship bad habits.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And really, we just wanted to make it super simple and do a podcast on how to break a bad relationship habit in three easy steps. So let's jump into relationship habits and break this down a little bit for everyone.
First things first. We all have bad relationship habits that. They're these patterns, these repetitive patterns of behavior that emerge over time and they develop for different reasons. We'll talk a bit more about that in a minute. But they often start without us even realizing it. They sort of bad habits Are like a. I don't know, a bush that grows out of control. It grows over time, but you don't see it necessarily. And then one day you walk out into the garden and you haven't got any room down the path of the side of the house because you're like, oh, that bloody bush got too big. It was growing for the last five.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: Years, and it's a lot of work to trim it back as well.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: You got to trim it back or pull it out or whatever, and it's gotten a lot harder. So they build slowly over time, and in terms of as they build, that actually chips away at the bond over time as well. So as. As you're going, as you're continuously building these habits up, you are continuously eroding at the. The bond between two people, because the habit is not a positive one. It's not one that's giving to the relationship. It's one that's taking from the relationship. It's eroding trust, it's eroding connection, and it's eroding the sense of emotional safety. I think it's a really big thing for people to think about when bad habits pop up. Emotional safety very quickly, which is the sense that this person sees me and doesn't want to hurt me. They're going to take care of me. They've got my back. That very quickly flies out the window. Especially, for example, like in Roger's case when he referred to the phone. I felt like I wasn't worthy in that moment. That's my core hurt, is I'm not worthy of your attention. That comes from my own stuff. But that chips away enormously at the sense of safety I have with him.
I've blown that out a bit. I mean, that one occasion didn't chip away enormously, but over time, in the.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: Past, it's death by a thousand cuts. And we'll talk in a minute about, you know, the impact, the full impact it can have on a relationship.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. But the good news is bad habits can be identified, they can be interrupted, and they can be replaced with healthier behaviors.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Yeah, so. So why do we fall into these patterns in the first place? And, you know, the example, the story I told at the start was really about me falling back into a bad habit.
And that's because, you know, it was stressful and, you know, they are hard. You've got to work on them ongoing. But why do we have them in the first place? And, you know, research tells us that there's a few key reasons why so one and a big one for me, especially back in the day was it's often the path of least resistance. It's the easiest way to go about something. We've all done it and we know it's not healthy, but it's the easiest way to get from A to B. So it's a short term game, but long term it's not, it's not a great way to do things because in the end, you know, these habits are often, you know, they become habitual because they become subconscious. We just do them without even thinking about it. And the easier they are to do, the more we do them. And that just because they're easy doesn't mean they're healthy. In fact, it often can be the opposite. Another reason is seeking control. So we can often repeat behaviors where we're trying to, to grasp control of the situation. Or sometimes it can give us a false sense of security. You know, this is the way we got to go about it. This is the way it has to be in the relationship. Or this is my default mode. This is where I feel safest. And even though it might not be healthy, it turns into a habit. The fear of change is a big one as well. This is the way I've always done it. You know, anytime we have to put in effort to change a habit or something, we do, it can be quite scary because we, we might feel we can't do it. Change is hard and we don't have enough emotional capacity. We don't have time. We feel. Because as we will get to the how to do it in the end and we can make it simple, it still takes a little bit of effort, it takes a bit of support and it takes a lot of, I guess you've got to have the right mindset, you know, you've got to be brave to, I guess to change out of a familiar pattern.
We can also do it, I guess when we're emotionally reactive. So when our brains triggered a bit by, you know, for you, you, you said you fell back into an old habit after I fell back into an old habit because it triggered an emotional response of like, this is how Roger works. Well, bang, straight away your subconscious was, this is how I have to work to protect myself or to get what.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: I need to, that I would just.
I was triggered emotionally and stayed in my emotional brain, which, you know, I didn't have that opportunity to access thinking through what I really wanted to do.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: That's right. And the other one is, and this is where much of it happens is you Know, the sort of model behavior from how we acted with our parents and our brothers and sisters when we were older or older adults in charge. And then, you know, the baggage we bring in from other relationships where we sort of hang that baggage on our current partner, even though it's something we did with our old partner, perhaps, or maybe like for us, for example, it's something that we did in the first 10 years of our relationship. We really worked hard to break through it. But sometimes we bring those behaviors from the past in.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: I think the why of the habits as well is, you know, as you talk about past behaviors or model behavior in childhood, we do these things sometimes to protect ourselves, often to protect ourselves, because as humans, we're always trying to predict a future outcome. We're always trying to prevent ourselves from suffering in some way. And so we think through what the possible outcomes are, and we quickly make a decision based on past experiences of what would be the best route for us to take in this instance. And so, for example, and I. And I'm not saying this was your childhood, but in that example you gave, say if you engaged, you might have felt overwhelmed, like, maybe you were given too big a conversation as children. You felt that the conversations were too scary or too whatever. And so you practice stonewalling to avoid those scary situations. And so you. Perhaps that's what you forecast onto what. What I was going to do. Is she going to. Bringing something up too heavy? Is it going to be too hard for me to manage right now? I'm struggling already as it is. And. And so we do these things in a subconscious sense of trying to protect ourselves as well, which, you know, is part of what habits are. They form around behaviors and experiences and environments that we have.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: So, yeah, looking back now, I think it was definitely my. Definitely. Maybe it was a. It was a fear of conflict, you know, and sometimes I feel like it's a fear like I just couldn't be bothered. Cbf. Like, but I think. I think so.
[00:13:55] Speaker A: A fear of work, a fear of.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Any, like, fear of doing any effort.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: I get that.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But no, probably, you know, deep down, you know, if you go back to your childhood state, it's. It was a fear of conflict.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: Okay, so why are these habits so damaging in relationships?
This. When they're small and they. And. And maybe you're starting out and it's early on in the relationship, they often don't cause major ruptures, probably because people are much more polite at the beginning as well. We hold a little bit of our selves back, we monitor ourselves a lot more carefully. We haven't had the opportunity to go through large ups and downs together, etc, but over time, as you do build trust with each other and build a connection and a bond, over time you also see a lot more variance in what life will throw at you. And these patterns start to build up as life gets harder. And that can be really, really difficult. Because when life's getting harder, you need to actually lean in on your best friend, on your teammate to help you not find that they're also, or have a sense that they're also working against you. So, you know, as the kids start to demand more from you from the day they're born, as you have more financial strain, work might be difficult. Aging parents, whatever it is, these bad habits are going to be or going to be experienced as even worse. Because as life gets harder, we really want that support system to be exactly that in those hard moments. And when they're not, it's like kicking a person when they're down.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: So what started as a minor behavior in the beginning when it wasn't such a big deal in the relationship because we're all focused on the good stuff, et cetera, can end up turning into a deeply ingrained dynamic in the relationship that keeps the relationship stuck in a certain state. Or it could be sending the relationship into a downward spiral.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah, those toxic patterns we talked about, you know, and this is what we're all about here today, is to talk about, you know, bad habits because everyone does them. And here are a few common ones. So obviously I shared with you at the top of the show my one about escaping conflict avoidance, stonewalling, where, you know, I, which again is a very common one for, for blokes and the Gottmans talk about this as part of their Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But stonewalling blokes do this. We, we're not emotionally available and so we just shut down, whether it be in a fight or a heated discussion or simply because we don't want to have to deal with, I guess, a bid of connection from our partner.
Yeah, well that was a pause for effect.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And it has, you know, as you describe it, is exactly how I experience it. The, the bit of connection is not, is not taken. It's not taken and you, and you miss that opportunity and then you have the knock on effect of feeling rejected as well.
So another common bad relationship habit that we, we wanted to talk about was the need to win an argument. So you just spoke about escaping conflict or Escaping even a bit of connection.
The need to win an argument is something that plays out in a lot of relationships, especially when a couple has become more adversarial. We've talked about this a lot in the past. You can either work as teammates or you can work as adversaries. And whilst you might not say, I'm not an adversary with my partner, that's my spouse an adversary, it's more sinister than that. It sits underneath the top layer of the relationship. It's really about that sense of it's you versus me, as opposed to us, and that sense of having limited resources and vying for those resources against your partner. So instead of us versus the problem, it's us versus each other. And I definitely have been guilty of the need to win an argument. Bad habit. It probably comes from some. Some modelled behavior and a fear of being wrong.
A need to be right was certainly a thing for me growing up.
I think everyone in my family likes to be right. You can imagine how the arguments went.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: It was definitely modelled behavior.
[00:18:30] Speaker A: And so for me, coming into the relationship with Roggie, I definitely did, over time, have this sense of a need to win an argument and something I used to deploy employee to do. That was language that I knew was niched to my. The fact that I have a master's degree in counseling and have worked as a counselor, that he didn't necessarily have that language, for example.
So I would use language that I knew would be overwhelming and feel convincing, which is completely unfair. Uh, but that was something I did in that bad habit of needing to win the argument and be right. And over time, this definitely created a sense of defensiveness in. In. In Roggie until we got to a place where we could break this apart and really see what was happening. And. And, you know, the resentment built and definitely emotional exhaustion on your part. I used to see you shattered in an argument and. And you told me one day you labeled what I was doing with the language I was using. You didn't. We didn't say you need to win an argument, but you said, you're trying to overrun me. You. You're not. You're trying to just win and be on top and be. And just that sense of, like, there's no option, but your option.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, I. I think definitely that's something that we've struggled with in the past. And it's not like I'm sitting here like, Mr. Perfect. Well, maybe now, but not back in the day. It was more that, you know, like, I had all the answers Or I was right. Like even if perhaps I was wrong, it's like you couldn't see, you couldn't see my side of things. And so even if I just felt that I felt sometimes I was like, why should I bother trying if no matter what I do, I'm going to be wrong? Which I know people, guys and girls have felt like in a relationship and it's not being sort of all always me, because I don't believe in that either. I believe in, you know, making sure you take accountability. But if everything's always on your shoulders, if you feel that this isn't a two way street, it's like, well, I'll just put my hands up then, you know, and that's not what you want to do. It needs to be, there needs to be both people in, in the, in the argument. There needs to be both people around it.
So yeah, I think that was a great example. And you know, you were quite vulnerable then, Kim, so I really appreciate that. Another common one, you know, that's, you know, so nice.
Another common one is also, you know, you know, those were quite heavy habits and a lot of people bad habits and a lot of people do have them in their relationships, but there's also some, I guess not, not as heavy ones. And they can be simple as not saying good please and thank yous to your partner. Like this is almost like a basic lack of courtesy or, and, and, and it really, what you're doing is taking your partner for granted. So saying please and thank you is a simple act of kindness. You know, it can make your partner feel really seen and heard and appreciated when you do it and it can do the opposite when you don't do it. So it can make them feel unseen, it can make them feel unheard, it can make them feel underappreciated. So showing your gratitude is really important in a relationship. And, and it could definitely be a bad habit where we feel that, well, that's their job, they should be doing that or well, I do all this, so I'm not going to say thank.
[00:21:53] Speaker A: You because then that's another real adversarial mindset showing up again, isn't it? As opposed to us, we're working on this, we should thank each other and help each other along like a team would. You don't say, oh, well, my teammate's just done, you know, what he should be doing on the footy field. Give him a little tickle on the bum.
[00:22:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:22:09] Speaker A: Say great job, mate.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: So that, and Kim and I are all about the Bum tickles. So look. And so when you do that, it can erode that, that reciprocal goodwill, which I think is really important in a relationship where you're both giving each other bum tickles.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Yes, that reciprocal. I like that. Reciprocal goodwill. I think reciprocity is such an important thing. And we've talked about this in the relationship. What I do for you creates what you do for me. And that's part of that ecosystem. My impact, my behavior knocks on to you. And so if you want to have a healthy environment, be in a great ecosystem, kick it off yourself. It'll come back at you. It's like a rebound effect. It comes right back at you. And if you want to have a more difficult space to live in, well, you can kick that off yourself too, and you'll feel the effects of it.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: Yeah. What you put out is often what you get back.
[00:22:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: You know, you, you know, I've, we've both experienced how easy it is to fall back into old patterns and old habits. You know, where my. Stop me with my stonewalling and, and you with the, you know, the always trying to win, you know, especially during times of stress. And I Love this from Dr. Stan Tactin. Dr. Tactin talks to this when he says when couples are in a state of stress, fear or conflict, the primitive brain takes over, triggering a flight, flight or freeze response. These reactions are trying to help us and might feel like self protection, but often they lead to bad relationship habits that create more distance instead of connection. What are your thoughts on this?
[00:23:36] Speaker A: I think this is such an important, important statement that he makes.
I think to break this down for the audience, to take something out of this that's really helpful is when someone does something or when we've got a lot of feelings going on, a lot of stress going on, whatever it is we can jump into, fight, flat or freeze. That's a stress state. Right. And, and the stress state for us can show up really easily because this crazy world throws a lot of stresses at us these days. You could pick up your phone and just see that someone sent you email and you know that email is not what you want and bang, you're stressed.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: So that's how quickly you've put yourself into a stress state, depending on where your system's at. But a lot of people will experience that as stress and that fight, flight or freeze, if you jump into that state. Right. It's stressful enough. It, what it's telling us is that if you're in that state, that emotional response state, you're not in your rational state. This is the bit I want people to understand.
When we want to create good habits and do things the way we believe in, in we want to behave. So that's about following our values. That's about living the way we want to live. We have to be in our rational brain because our emotional brain is, is that state of just survival. It's not thrive. And we want to thrive in our relationship. So what this statement to me is saying for the audience to take out of this is we need to take a moment. The only way to get to the part in our brain where we're not going to be able to decide what habit we want to put in place right there is if we get out of that fight, flight or freeze. And we just need to pause and take a moment. And the amazing thing for humans is you can get out of that, you can get out of that with just five deep breaths. That's how simple it is. Or take a moment, walk away, go away, come back later. And if you do that, you then have the opportunity to decide what habit you're going to pick up next when you re engage your partner, whether it's going to be one that upsets them, that erodes the relationship, or whether you're going to try, for example, a new relay, new habit that you're trying to do because you want to be a better partner, because you want to have more of a team.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: I love that. Sweeney. So while often our stress can trigger, I guess, emotions in us and our body and minds can take over. And so we fall into bad habits that we had in the past or create new ones. We have the power within us to change that. We just have to access that rational part of our brain.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: All right, so let's go through these three easy steps on how to break bad relationship habits.
What we're going to do is we're going to go through these steps and then use just the examples Kim and I did about, you know, the stall walling or always trying to win.
So you can understand, I guess, in action how they actually work. So step one, identify the bad habit and what triggers it. I think most of us know our bad habits not right in the moment.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: Or our partners do, or our partners.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: Have told us about them. And if it's your partner's habit. So, for example, sometimes when they're in the moment, pointing it out isn't always going to work. But if you can come at them with a bit of empathy and as a team, you know, like saying, hey, when this happens, I feel this instead of, you always do that. You always do this. There's a good chance that they'll take that on board. And, you know, like, everything realizing, identifying that there is a bad habit and what actually causes it is. Is the first step we're talking about here. So awareness is the first step, and by the fact that you've actually noticed that you're already ahead. So for me, you know, one of the things with the Stonewaller was actually this was brought up in our. In our couples therapy. We did maybe what, 15 plus years ago.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:34] Speaker B: And, you know, that was really helpful, and it was a safe setting for us to talk for Kim to tell me about something really powerful. And I. I think I knew I did it, but I guess I. I didn't have the broader context and didn't understand the impact it had. And of course, you know, I understood. We were in couples counseling. You know, things had to change. We had to get better. And so I was like, this is something I can do. This is something I want to change.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It was a. I think that's a great example because it's outside of the stress of the moment in a very safe space in that instance. And you took that on really well. And we then were able to discuss why you felt like that was happening, what was behind it, why were you worried to engage all of those sorts of things, which not only helped us to. Or helped you to amend the habit, it also helped me to have more empathy for you when the habit did show up.
[00:28:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: Okay. I know Roger's struggling here. It's up to us to work out of this habit. It's not on you to change your habit. It's on us to. To change it.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: Yeah. It's not just because I'm a massive dick. It's. I can't actually break free of the habit, but I want to break free. And I think that's a huge first.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: Did you want to sing that I'm.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: A massive dick or no?
[00:28:51] Speaker A: What song is that.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: Rog? Top 100.
[00:28:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: Should have. Should have broken out into it. I want to break free.
[00:29:00] Speaker B: That's definitely getting deleted.
Okay.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: Okay, step two. Okay. Step two. We jump straight over, swap in a healthier response. So stopping a habit is really hard, as we all know you will have heard before that it's easier to replace a habit than. Than just nix it, because nixing things is difficult. And you're going to come up in these situations where you've got to respond Somehow, to someone. So if the. If. If you want to create a new habit, you need to think about a more productive response and a great. Again, this is a really lovely opportunity for you to have a great conversation with your partner and say, I've been thinking. I would really like to change that habit. Or if the partner initiates and says, I would really love for us to find a better way through these situations because it's hurting me. When you're doing A, B, and C, could we talk about that together and work out a way as a team for us to change the script and change the habit here? So one of the things that can really help you to work out or stay committed to a new habit is actually just thinking about why you want to change it. Just that simple one. So when you have that connection conversation with your partner to discuss what a healthier response might look like, you can talk about why I want to be a great husband. I do want to listen to you, or I want you to feel seen. You know, for me, I want you to be able to converse with me. I don't want to dominate you. That's not fair at all. I want to be an equal partner. I want you to feel like you've got an equal say in things. And I certainly don't want to be a schmuck that is overrunning you, because that's just utter arrogance and ego. It's so unfair. That's not the human I want to be. So for me, when I talked about this with Rogers, you know, I knew I wanted to be a teammate, and that really helped me to stay committed to replacing the habit of wanting to win with wanting to hear Roger's side.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: Yeah. So instead of, like, you know, I. I need to win this argument. Otherwise, I'm losing. It's like, what. What. What is the win. Win for the team here?
[00:31:13] Speaker A: I need to win. Hear this. I need to hear this argument because I want us to be a team. That's what I changed to the script in my head is I need to hear this because I want us to be a team.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Step two is really important. You know, I guess all three steps are important, but step two for me makes sense because, you know, for my stonewalling, for example, if I just said, okay, I can't stonewall Kim, or, okay, when Kim's talking to me, I've got to listen. That's more conceptual. But if I'm like, when Kim comes and talks to me, I put down my phone and I turn my body towards her or turn My face towards her. That's a step that my brain goes, I can follow.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: And you do that so beautifully.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: You really do go, me?
[00:31:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: So, all right, so the third step, after you've identified the habit with your partner with a lot of empathy, you've figured out what you can do instead of that habit, a much healthier response, is to actually reinforce the habit. So that's doing it again and again and again, and then noticing and celebrating that you have done it just internally with yourself and also for your partner. So if in a moment I'm sitting on the couch and I turn towards Kim, Kim would go, you know, thank you so much for listening, you know, thank you for turning towards me. Thank you for, you know, go put the cricket on. I'll go get you a beer. You know, that's great. Thank. You know, you know, it's. Your partner can really support you with this because this is a bad relationship habit. This is not just like picking your nose. This is actually a bad relationship habit which impacts both of you. Yeah.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: And our brains love to get positive feedback. We love to be patted on the back and told we're doing a good job. And when it hears that, it says, oh, I want to do that again. You know why? Because it feels good. So it's like, let's get that feeling.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: I'll do that again next time.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: I'll do that again next time. And then that feels really good.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: That becomes subconscious, and that's how you form a new habit. And, yes, you'll slip up, but it's about catching it sooner and then resetting when you do.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: And I just think when we're thinking about all of this and if you've listened to today and you're like, yes, there's something I'd like to work on, or, yes, there's something I'd like to discuss with my partner to work on together as a team.
Just keep in mind, breaking habits takes time. Don't be hard on yourselves.
Small changes. Working as a team together to break that habit. Don't try and jump in and make it perfect each time. In every stressful situation, have the stressful conversations outside of the stressful environment. Find a nicer environment for that, and then slowly work together. Reinforce what your partner's doing. Give them the pat on the back, you know, help them come up with the healthier response or suggest your own healthier response. If it's you and you want to change your habits, say, can I discuss this with you? I'd really love to know whether this would sit better if I responded like this, whether that would help us. The best relationships aren't perfect. They're just people showing up and trying over and over again and working towards becoming a team.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: You're amazing. You've just spent quality time on your relationship.
[00:34:14] 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.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: And if you liked today's episode, please hit subscribe or let another couple know where they can find Find us. It'll make them happy and it'll make us really happy.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: Until next time, keep on living the team life.
