Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Have you ever thought to yourself, do they even notice everything I'm doing?
You're juggling a million things, keeping the house running, showing up at work, managing the kids, remembering all the little details. And deep down you just want to feel appreciated, maybe even just seen. It's one of the most common struggles in long term relationships. Feeling like your efforts are invisible, not because your partner doesn't care, but because somewhere along the line you're showing love turned into assuming love.
In today's episode, we're unpacking how to shift that. We'll show you how to get your partner on board and able to create real, visible evidence of love in your relationship. Not through big declarations, but through small everyday actions that say, I see you, I appreciate you, you matter to me.
If you've been craving more connection, more warmth and more I've got you energy in your relationship, this one's for you. And now let's dive in.
People were always telling us, you guys are such a team. And we began to realise this just isn't the case for most couples.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: But we knew from our own experience of turning our relationship into a team that change isn't just possible, it's inevitable. All you need is a little direction.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: So that's what we do on this show. We steer you in the right direction. We keep it simple. We show you why relationship struggles show up and how you can start changing your relationship today.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: And we bring the good stuff by turning information from leading relationship experts and evidence based research into easy to understand skills and tools that anyone can use.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: We also share insights from our own 23 years of experience together. And we chat with some incredible couples who offer their wisdom on relationships.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: If a better relationship is what you want, then get comfy in whatever tickles your pickle as we prepare to dive into all things team.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: We're Kim and Rogue and this is the Living the Team Life podcast.
So I did something for Roggie the other day.
Probably shouldn't have kicked off like that. I know that he enjoyed and I better say what it is quickly.
I organized a massage for him and he had a lot of back pain and I, I was watching him struggle and Rog just won't organize those things on his own. So I was, yeah, I was thinking about what can I do to help him to feel better, but also to show him love, to make him feel loved because he was really struggling. And so I just decided I'll book a massage. He won't do it for himself. He'll tell me he doesn't need it.
And that's what I did. And he was really happy about it.
And that's what we're going to talk about today.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Well, because I. I really did need it. I. I was. My back was.
My back was toast, you know, couldn't turn my neck. My, you know, bad shoulders and my. My shoulder had just seen seized up my. Our little one has been getting up at like 2am every morning, needing a cuddle to sleep. And she sleeps on my arm. So you just like, you know, get a dead arm.
And I was struggling and I was like, no, I'll run it off or I'll, you know, have a couple of beers. It'll make her feel better.
So, yeah, it made me feel really seen. It made me feel really appreciated because I wouldn't have organized it for myself. Just, you know, too expensive and too much time out of the day when we're busy. Because it was a proper one as well. It was like.
It was like dry needling and deep tissue, like 90 minutes, you know, not cheap either. So I was. I was cool. Like.
Yeah, I thought it was really special. And I think when Kim does little things for me, like make me a cup of tea or organize me a massage, it makes me. It makes me feel really good. Makes me feel really special. And I think it was almost. Again, we've recently talked, we had a tough school holidays. It was almost like an olive branch or a. Hey, I see you. I love you, you know, and I know it's an act of kindness or.
I don't know. It was a gift. It was.
I don't know. It was great. Thank you.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: I. I like that. I think it was a bit of an olive branch and a definite deliberate decision to show you my love. Yeah, that was the intention.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And it didn't have to be like an expensive massage with a third party, but that's what I needed. And you saw I was in pain. Uh, so. And I. You said, do you want a massage? I said, no, I'll be right. And you were just like, nah. And so when. And when I. You did book it, I went, thank you so much. So it was great. It was really cool.
And I. Yeah.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: And that's where my compassion.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that was it. That's. That's what you get.
No, no, no.
You know, I think we'll get to this later. But Kim and I definitely keep our.
Our love bank, our connection bank, full up for when times do get tough.
And I. That, you know, that's really what we're talking about. Today, how do you feel seen and appreciated when everyone's so busy? When maybe after the school holidays, maybe you had a school holidays like we did.
Maybe just in general you're, you're not, you're not feeling as not it's not just about even the connection with your partner, but you're not actually feeling like they, they appreciate all the things you do. You're feeling maybe a little bit alone.
And again like all these feelings, they seem to creep in slowly.
Each of you so much your energy goes to just life and keeping small humans alive. Holding down a job, paying the mortgage, managing friends, just staying afloat, it's non stop.
You're doing your best, you're trying to hold it all together and, and it feels like a grind, but it's that, that's just life in general, right? But the problem is you start to feel a bit alone. You start to feel like you're doing this by yourself and your partner's there and, and they're probably feeling very much the same way.
But when you do start to feel alone, you start to look to the person who's closest to you, which is your partner.
And when I guess the, the outward proactive appreciation and effort, you know, isn't there from your partner, it can make you feel very unseen. And it's not like you're like, I want a medal for all the work I do, you know, I just want to feel appreciated, you know. And then you start feeling, well, do they even notice the work I do?
Do they know how much of this load I'm carrying?
Would they even notice if I stopped? And does anyone like, let alone them, does anyone care?
Feeling taken for granted, not just in a relationship, but just in life. And I'm sure a lot of mums feel this way. You know, I think a lot of my mates feel this way.
You know, they, they work hard and they feel sometimes unseen. And I'm sure, you know, women feel this as well. You know, we're at work or at home, but with the kids, where definitely we know. The research tells us that women carry a lot of the mental load.
And then when life throws you a curveball so, you know, things get real, you then look back and go, okay, have I, where's my partner in crime? And so you start to look at evidence of your partner. Where's my where? I remember at the scene of the crime, something's happened, but I need to evidence that I've got someone who's got my back. And if that hasn't been recent, maybe that's okay because I can look back at past evidence and go, hey, yeah, I can see where they've had my back, where they've seen me, where they, where they've shown me what I matter, makes it has value to them.
And so you look at that evidence and you go, okay, I am loved. I'm going to be okay, so I can continue doing the grind.
But the problem is when you can't find evidence and over time, you look back and go, actually, I haven't seen much evidence in the last few years. And that loneliness and disconnection really starts to, I guess, drag you down and drag the relationship down.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I think something you said there that stood out for me, Rog, was taken for granted. Yeah, that sense of feeling taken for granted creeps in later in our relationship. You never feel like that at the beginning. If you do, you probably don't last long. No, no, you would never say, I've got a new partner and he's taking me for granted. Well, see you later, buddy. It's. It's something that you feel later on. And so the question is, why? Why does it evolve to be something where you experience being taken for granted or you have those feelings of being taken for granted? What's actually happening between the beginning and the later phases that are causing these feelings?
And what happens is we stop showing love, we stop doing love, and we start assuming it. And that is when people start to feel taken for granted. At the beginning of the relationship, if you think back, you don't feel taken for granted at all. You feel loved to the high heel because your partner is doing things all the time to show you love. Doing things, organizing. I mean, back when we were kids, it would be like a mixed cd, for example. We're not quite mixtape people.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I used to burn new CDs to listen to on the way to uni and stuff like that.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: And, and that was doing love. You were showing me love. We used to do little things for each other that were very much, you know, buy a ticket. I would buy a ticket to a comedy show and surprise you and stick it up on a pin up board and you'd come home and be like, oh, that's so great. It was doing love for each other all the time. Somewhere along the road, life gets very busy and you stop doing that so much. Now in the beginning, I will caveat. It's a lot easier to do love because you have chemistry working for you. And we've talked about this before. The, the love drugs, as we call them, which is what you get at the beginning. That n nice big fat hit of all sorts of hormones that make you feel like you want to do things. Unfortunately, those, those hormones, they recede, they dissipate over time. So you don't get them for free forever. After the initial phase of the relationship, when you head more into the enduring phase, the long term phase, you got to kick start those hormones yourself. You gotta, you've got to actually get the bike going yourself. And that's a lot harder. And that's where you have to do the work proactively. Think about doing the work because you haven't got all these lovely chemicals saying, buddy, you want to feel like that, Go and do that. You want to show that person love you? You actually have to think about it. You actually have to be deliberate in your thoughts to get there.
We as, as relationships go on, have another problem that contributes to this sense of being taken for granted.
And that is that we start assuming our partner knows we love them. At the beginning. We would never assume that because we haven't probably even said we love them where we're just, you know, we want them to know how we feel. So we do our best to show them how we feel.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like, well, I wouldn't be here if I didn't love you. Like, duh.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: But that's what happens later on, right? Where you're like, I obviously love you, I'm married to you.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: Yeah, we've got kids.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: But that is not obvious. No, having kids and running a house does not make love.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: Especially as time goes on.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: Right? Absolutely. And so at the beginning, when we want to show that person and let them know our feelings, we, we make the effort. And as time goes on, we assume our partner knows we love them. We assume they know we appreciate them. We assume that our day to day actions are obvious.
But these are all assumptions. And if anybody else went on Rotary Youth Exchange in 2001, they will know that. Assumptions make an ass out of you and me.
That's the lesson.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: Was that your motto? That's a random motto for a trip away?
[00:12:13] Speaker A: Well, no, because you were going to foreign countries. And so they were trying to prep us for the fact that we didn't know culturally what was coming.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: It Wasn't like tour 2001, assumptions make an ass out of you. And on the back and me, actually.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: I'm surprised they didn't put that on the rotary blazer. But you know, so, so what I'm saying, and a lesson I learned many years ago is do not assume.
Assumptions mean that you're not sure of what's actually happening. And we want to be really sure. Because when love isn't shown, it really becomes invisible. It's not there. People don't just automatically know it's there. And over time, love that isn't showing actually becomes love that isn't felt. And that I want you to think about that. If you don't show it, they're not feeling it. So your partner, if you think when you hear this, oh, my God, I don't know if I've been doing much love lately, that means your partner really isn't feeling that love lately. So it is super important to be doing love in your relationship.
We know that's hard. We know the love isn't gone, but we need to be more deliberate about it. And that's what we wanted to talk to you about today.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Yeah. So I love what you said there, sweetie. Love that isn't shown becomes love that isn't felt.
And we were talking about assumptions before because as we said, life gets busy. It gets in the way of everything. And so we just go, it's like, we got married, we had kids, we love each other, okay? Full stop, let's kick on with life. And it just doesn't work like that. And the research tells us this as well. So I think the one piece of research we've cited, maybe more than any other research on this podcast since day one, is not only just John Gottman, but the five to one ratio, the love bank, where you need five positive interactions to every one negative interaction to maintain a strong, loving relationship.
And the love bank for me works really well because it's like, okay, I can figure out whether I've got credit or whether I'm in love debt.
And again, this isn't big gestures, grand gestures, holidays away, expensive nights out. This is kind words, moments of gratitude, a kiss on the cheek, heating up a hot pack, making a cup of tea, going like putting on a movie you know they'll watch even though you think it stinks and not being a dick about it, which is something I sometimes do, you know, because you're building up your love bank, you're building up your love credit because it depending on the ebbs and flows of life, you know that inevitably the negatives will come every way. So every time you snap, criticize, go off your blow off your handles or ignore them, whether it's you meant to or not, it just happens, right? And that's a withdrawal. And so if you haven't built up Your credits, you're constantly just withdrawing. And this is what we talked about the evidence before.
If your partner looks and they look at their. They're really looking at like a bank account record and they're going, geez, like, you know, we're in love debt here. Like, you know, all we. We seem to see is this negative interactions as opposed to. Well, yeah, you know, we. We did a bad job sniping at each other the other day, and, oh, I didn't feel really good. But, man, I can look at this. I can look at this love bank statement. I can see that we just build up a lot of love credit over time. We're always there for that. We're generous people to each other. We say pleases and thank yous, even for stuff that we assumed would get done anyway.
You know, I think. And I think this, again, it's the evidence you fall back on when you are in tough times that gets you through those times.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: I think this is, at its core, the key to our relationship. Yeah. Because we experience so much stress in our lives, as everybody does, and there are, as you say, inevitable down periods. You just cannot avoid them. The stress just gets too much.
And when we go at each other because we're struggling and we forget to work on the team and approach things as a team, it is absolutely the.
The credits that we have and the balance that we have that we draw on in that period to stay afloat and stay connected. Yeah, it. It's.
For example, I just, you know, you were saying you put on a movie. You took me to Bridget Jones last term.
[00:16:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: Now, this is not your fate.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: I think I booked it for you.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: You booked it?
[00:16:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I forgot. I.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: On that Rotary Youth Exchange year, actually. There you go. It's really finding its way through this podcast, isn't it? A little woven tangent.
I. I saw Bridget Jones for the first time as a. As a young woman and in the cinema. In German with.
In German. In English with German.
What do you call it? Lip reading people. The dubbing. German dubbing.
Oh, man, I love that movie so much. I have watched that movie. How many times, Roger? Maybe 40 times. Maybe 50.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And you. You were, I think, taking the lead on a project and you'd been really stressed, and I think I just booked it for you and said, this is what we're doing on next Thursday. We're gonna go see Bridget Jones together.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: I just. It was such a joy because I have always loved that movie. It's like a little piece of my happy Soul. And it makes me laugh. And it is not at all Roger's cup of tea. He does not like a rom com on the best of days.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: It wasn't too bad. It actually wasn't too bad.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: It was good. It was. It was good. It was great. I loved it. You came out. You said it was really good.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I had low expectations, so my expectations were. Were blown away. It was great.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: But. But it made me feel so loved. And I do remember after that when we had a little. Hit a little bump in the road, and I thought to myself, you know what? He really loves you and he's really trying hard. And I thought back to that movie and what you'd done for me. That's. That's the credit right there. It just lived there in my brain. That. And you won't even think of the exact moment. Sometimes you just feel that sense of, you know what? We're in credit, though. It's okay. Yes, we've had a little slip up, but we're well and truly in credit. And it keeps you connected in those moments that are more challenging.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And I had to go and do it. Right. Like, I had to not. And it's booking a ticket. You do it on that line these days.
But I actually had to go.
I saw it, and I can. I saw the movie was out. I connect to the fact that I know this is one of Kim's favorite movies. And then I connected to the fact that this is something I could do for her. Instead of going, why don't you go see? So I could have said, why don't you go see it with one of your girls one night? But that would have just added stretch. Okay, we're gonna have to organize this. When's our daughter gonna go down? Will my friends be able to get off at the same time? So, again, it's not like I'm some sort of, you know, romantic God who can do these amazing things.
Like, sometimes it is hard, and I just had to put in the effort.
So. And there's this great quote from Terry Real, who's a renowned relationship psychologist, and he talks about this. He talks about love as a doing word. And he says, love is not a feeling, it's an action. You don't want to wait for the feelings to motivate you. You behave lovingly, and the feelings come.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: I love this quote. I think it speaks to an idea that some people might not have really thought about before, which is if we want to have a feeling or. Or create a feeling, we can actually do that through action so we don't have to say, I want to feel more love and just wait for that feeling to come. We can create that feeling through our own action.
It's.
It's very hard in life to wait for feelings to just appear. They. They really are quite fleeting and waning.
So by doing the action, we encourage ourselves to head towards that feeling. And it works on many levels because obviously when you do the action, you also start to build momentum in life in a certain direction, but you do in, in the interim as well, create that feeling. So what he's saying is, don't think, oh, I'll. When I feel loving towards my partner, I'll act on it, because that's, that's what a partner should do. I should wait till I feel inclined that way.
Just do it because we've told you it'll work and you will feel more loving afterwards. And I think it's a really interesting one for people to wrap their head around and use it as an experiment. Test what I'm saying. Yeah, test what Terry Real saying, don't wait till you feel like doing something for your partner. Do the thing and see if the love comes afterwards. Because, like, Roggie did. I don't think you necessarily booked the ticket for the movie for me because you were feeling super loving. You wanted to feel more connection at the time you saw I was struggling, you did the booking, and we felt more love and connection afterwards. Would you say that's fair?
[00:21:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I wanted, you know, this podcast is about how to start feeling seen and appreciated from your partner again. And I wanted you to feel seen so, you know, by doing something that had a connection to you, not just, oh, let's go out to dinner, let's do this. It was something very specific to you. You love that movie.
Like, you, like, whenever you're having, whenever you're really down or something like that, you'll. Bridget Jones will be one of the first movies you put on.
So for me, in some ways, it was an easy win because, oh, look, it's, it's up. But. But in other ways, it was really me just seeing, saying, hey, I know you like this, and it doesn't matter how I feel about it or, you know, I don't generally like to sit through these movies. I want to go and enjoy it with you so we can spend some time together doing something that really means something to you. And again, it wasn't really effort on my part, but I think what we're saying is that you do need to see to get outcome, you need to see effort. Now, we also talk on all our podcasts that will actually, and we've given a lot of examples away in the past of these are small little gestures you can do. So they're not massive, massive gestures that, that have to be done. They're not insurmountable, and they're things that should really happen every day. And that's what the Gotman's 5 to 1 ratio was all about.
And on that note, we want to give you the tools and skills to make change in your relationship so you do feel more seen, so you do feel more appreciated. And you're obviously listening to this podcast, but maybe your partner isn't and you're wondering, well, how do I get them to follow the five to one rule from Gottman? And even once I talk to them about the five to one rule, what does it even mean with to say I need five positive reaction interactions. For every one negative interaction, you know what you really want to see is it just happening.
So you want to get your partner on board. You want to get your partner to start doing love so you feel seen, so you feel appreciated, and so you feel valued because you deserve it.
And that's the real challenge. Right? You know, and that's what we're here to do.
So right now, we're going to give you three strategies to help you and your partner start doing love again. And again, this is not a big emotional speech. This isn't we need to talk crisis moment. Don't worry.
It's actually just three simple ways that you can build that evidence. Love bank, build up your love credits together.
And again, we've shared hundreds of simple ways to do love on our socials, and our subscribers get this in their email every couple of weeks generally. Or access to our relationship toolkit, where there's literally hundreds upon hundreds of different ways you can use the five to one Gottman rule.
But we're gonna talk you through these three ways that you can make love a doing word in your relationship.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: So I think the first point we want to make, or the first way you can start the step one, I guess, is to ask your partner to listen to our podcast. Now, this is not a shameless plug.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: It is a shameless plug. Kim, send them the link.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: No, this is about if we think about wanting to make change in the beginning of trying to make change in any situation we want to. People are mistrusting of change. Let me start there. People are mistrusting of change.
So we start with a little bit of mindset support. We want to support the idea that this is a shift in mindset. We don't want to move too far away and get them to do the action already. That's, that's a big ask. What would be smaller would be giving them the space to consider a different approach. Giving them the space to consider their own mindset and how it might look different if they took a different angle or approach to something. So ask them to listen to our podcast because we are giving the information then and it's not, it's not under duress, it's not under pressure for change. It's just information that they can take or leave. That's a really nice way for people to start a cycle of change.
It's a soft entry.
So, you know, on a, on a run, in the car, doing the mowing, doing pilates on the tools, wherever you can suggest to them, you know, that, that they might listen to this podcast and, or even episode 25, Love is a Doing Word, which was our. Actually our second most listened to episode ever, which really goes through this in. In with a slightly different approach and in really full detail around the 5 to 1 ratio.
But you can say something like this to your partner. Hey, I listened to this podcast by Kim and Raj and they had some ideas on easy ways to connect even though we're both so busy.
I'll send you the link and no pressure if you get a chance, maybe when you're on a run or doing some jobs, you could have a listen. And I think when you open that door for your partner and give them the space to listen in their own way, it's a really nice soft entry into change, as I said.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I do feel we've missed a trick here, sweetie, where I think step one of all our solutions should be listen to the Team Life podcast.
But no, in all seriousness, like, send this, send this podcast to your partner. We do hear our friends often say to their partners, have you listened to Kim and Rogue? We've heard that quite a few times.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: Usually precedes a slight argument.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
So, you know, the first way was to send them the podcast as a soft entry. The second way you could try if this works better, is to actually sit down and do this together. You know, find 20 minutes on your next date night during dinner, over a wine at the end of the day and just plan out how you'll do Love together. You know, again, look at the resources on our socials, in our subscriber emails and actually sit down with the list and Go through the list and pick one or two examples. And why this works is because it shifts the dynamic from you're not doing enough. Go show me more connection. I need more connection. I need more this, I need more that. I'm not feeling seen to. Let's build something together. I'm going to do this, we're going to do this.
And so it also takes, I guess, the stress or the pressure off them because they know that, hey, this is something we're doing together. And often I think some guys can struggle, you know, with this where they don't have the, the emotional, you know, language or the tools in the toolkit.
And I think this approach really brings them along from the ride with no shame or pressure.
[00:28:23] Speaker A: Taps into that entity mindset, doesn't it really? That it is an us issue, not. Not a you issue. I'm not blaming you for this. And, and all relationship stuff is an issue. If you want change in your relationship, you can't say, I just want my partner to change. You want the relationship to approaching it as an us issue. We're both going to be working on this.
That is the true entity team mindset.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right, sweetie. And I think again, sit down with your partner. Carve out 20 minutes if you have a chance.
I'll give you a quick, I'll give you a quick five that you could use and you can pick one or two of these. So saying please and thank you whenever they do something, no matter how big or small it is, high fiving in the morning before you leave for work or you part ways or whatever it is you do when you first get up in the morning or just before you head off to work or at breakfast. Ask each other, what can I do to support you this week?
Leave a sticky note somewhere just telling him you love them or a little joke. Or send them a text while you're at work or while you're at out with the girls thinking of you. Thanks for doing A, B or C. These are five or six little ways that you can show your love to your partner and build up that credit in your love account. Again, these are small things, but they're things that still take a little effort to do.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And if you are struggling and you're thinking, oh, I'm never going to remember this. This is so much effort.
Just think back to the beginning of your relationship and think about that for sure. Right. Like what, what I was saying before, Think about the little things you did. Okay, you can't make a mix CD right now. But you can make a playlist for them.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: And say, I thought you might enjoy this on your run. How nice would that be?
Gorgeous. Like, there's so many little things you do at the beginning of a relationship that would be lovely to bring in, down the track in the relationship to continue to do what you wanted to do in the beginning, which was show them that you feel this way.
[00:30:31] Speaker B: Yeah. How many times when you were younger, you were like, oh, I'd never go get a drink or something from the shops or anything without asking my partner what they wanted. And how many of us these days do that? You know, that they actually go, oh, I'm getting a coffee. Do you want a coffee? That we again, we assume yes.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: It's definitely something I see for the women out there at the bar when we're in a group with our mates that you boys will go and get your own drinks from the bar and then one of the wives will inevitably be like, hello, I'm just sitting here with the child. Don't worry about me.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: So boys know exactly what they're gonna get from the bar. It's generally a beer.
Girls will sit there and they're still talking, they're still trying to figure out.
[00:31:16] Speaker A: Anyway, I don't want to have that conversation. You don't want to ask the question that you know is going to be like a five minute decision making.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: I don't want that extra five seconds gap between that beer touching my lips and right now.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: Why don't you prep me before we get to the pub and say, babe, I'm just giving you your 15 minute heads up on choosing your drink.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure I've done that before. I do that with dinner. I do that with pretty much everything. And you go, I, I, I can't understand, I can't decide.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but again, this is something that I think to your point, sweet. Where do you, you do it when you were first going out with them or you know, again before you got married and have kids, you do all these nice little things just because the love drugs are working for you and now the love drugs, drugs aren't working for you. You've got to get them going again.
[00:32:05] Speaker A: Yeah, that's that action causes the feeling versus the feeling causes causing the action.
All right, so step number three that you can take to start creating a greater sense of appreciation in your relationship and, and try to reduce that sense of feeling taken for granted is to actually model what you want to receive. You'll notice all three steps we've spoken about today are absolutely within the team and entity mentality. This is not telling your partner, I want more of this. You're doing it wrong. This is about how you guys work together on having more of this in the relationship. So model what you want to receive.
This can be hard. I acknowledge that it can be really hard when you're frustrated and feeling like you're not getting what you want.
But it's, it's kind of like all good things in life or one of my favorite quotes, Michelle Obama, which is, when they go low, we go high. Now, I'm not saying your partner is as low as some of the people Michelle was referring to, but the reality is if you want to be your best self in the relationship, you do need to go high sometimes. And you need to think, I'm doing. If you're too annoyed at your partner and you're too frustrated with them, say, I'm not doing it for them, I'm doing it for us. Because you do want a great relationship. And so don't, don't think about the individual. If that's too much of a stretch, think about the team and say, this is what I want for the team. And that's why I'm going to model what I. What I want. So why, why does this help modeling it?
You can't really ask for visible love or doing love if you're not showing it to. It needs to be clear to your partner what exactly you're talking about. And, and also when we do things in a relationship, the energy gets mirrored. So we live in an ecosystem. When we've spoken about all your actions knock on to your partner, your partner's actions knock on to you. Your behavior, your energy, your thoughts, everything. I mean, you can't get away from this. We're all interconnected. And so being the one to actually start doing what you want, more obviously being the one who's deliberately making an effort to do love you, that knock on will happen. Your partner will pick up on that energy, even at a subconscious level, and start mirroring that back to you. And that's really what you want to see. That natural ecosystem where you're both trying to do love in the space.
It's, it's not about keeping score, it's about setting the tone in the relationship. And as I said, being the one that is standing up maybe in this particular moment and saying, I, I really want this for us. I really want this for the entity. And one of the ways I can support that is by modeling what I want to receive.
So now if your partner says to you, why are you being so lovey?
[00:34:53] Speaker B: Yeah, what's this all about?
[00:34:56] Speaker A: Don't panic. You can just say, I've just been listening to Kim and Rog. They were talking about how couples need five positive moments for every negative one in their relationship. And I want us to have that. I want us to have those five positive moments. So I love you and I'm trying to build towards that. I'm trying to build up the love credit and have five positive moments for every negative one that we have.
No doubt this will generate a few questions from your partner. Great. You've started the ball rolling. Because that is a pretty obscure sentence in itself. In a relationship, unless you're used to.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: It, it is hard to lead. And if your partner does notice but is like, what's going on again? Send them the podcast. Talk to them about the research, the fact that you're telling them, hey, I want us to feel more connected, so I'm taking charge. I reckon they'll step up.
You're amazing. You've just spent quality time on your relationship.
[00:35:54] 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.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: And if you liked 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.
[00:36:13] Speaker A: Until next time, keep on living the team life.
