Rules for Your Spouse

Episode number 83, rules for your Spouse. Hello and welcome to the Fighting for Connection podcast. I'm Brett Niccolo, a husband, father and fun lover. Listen in as I share stories, tips and inspiration that will move you toward the connection that you want in your relationship. Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast.

I feel like I'm finally coming toward the end of what has been an especially busy stretch for me. Tomorrow my wife and I, along with all of our kids, are going to board a plane and head down to Florida, hopefully in the sun, down in the Destin area, and then after that I have just a quick little trip scheduled to Utah, maybe two weeks after we get back, and then I'm really hoping that travel slows down for a bit and I can focus on some things just here within the business and around home. Likely by the time that you listen to this podcast, both of those trips will have come and gone, because I've been working really hard to try to get ahead on my podcasting and recordings. I'm sure you can tell that my sister Janae she's kind of the behind the scenes girl, the girl that makes a lot of my content happen she's been editing and posting my podcasts. So what I'm doing is. I'm recording them, I'm sending them over to her, she's editing them and posting them for me and it's been a huge help during this especially busy time. But because of that I've had to get ahead of schedule, I guess, or maybe catch up to where I should be scheduled so that there's some turnaround time. In the past, oftentimes what I'd do is I'd record a podcast, I would hit stop on the recording and I would post it raw. I'd do some cuts and whatever, but by and large I would just post kind of the raw edit and that was that. But now she's taking a little bit more time and making it sound a little bit better and so I've done my job to get a month or so ahead of schedule on recordings. It's been nice for me just to not have like these hard deadlines. Like sometimes I knew that I had to post my podcast on Monday and I'd come into the office early to record it, or I'd try to do it on the weekend when I really want to save that time for time with my family and friends and to not necessarily be scrambling to get my work done. It's felt nice kind of being in this position.

Today I want to talk about rules in our marriage, rather rules that we give to our spouse in our marriage. It happens in many relationships and it doesn't always create difficulties to have these types of rules in our marriage or to share these rules with our spouse. But when these types of situations do create difficulties, I want to share with you a little tool that can help you through it. I wonder if you've ever said something like this to your spouse If you just could give me more compliments, I feel like I would feel so much better. Or maybe you say something like all you need to do is just help around the house, and then I would be happy. Or you know what, if you just would be less grumpy, then I would want to be around you. These are what I call rules.

We're establishing rules that we want our spouse to abide by so that we feel, or are able to believe, something within our relationship. Oftentimes it's like we feel like they care about us, we feel like they love us, we feel like they want to be around us. We're trying to establish a belief, so we're establishing a rule that we believe is going to help us experience that belief. The problem with this is that with these rules, oftentimes we can experience confusion in our relationship. It can leave our spouse feeling like they aren't understood or their perspective isn't seen, and it can put a pressure on them to keep you happy. So often when the pressure becomes intense, the natural kind of human tendency is to try to figure out how to get out of that pressure. And many times what I see in the relationships that I work with is that the strategy that the person uses to release the pressure that they're experiencing within their relationship is to not care to kind of numb out the sense that their spouse is unhappy with them. This isn't what we want to do. We don't want to create apathy within our relationship. Oftentimes with that apathy comes volatility, because the other person's trying to understand if that person has any feelings towards them. So they'll agitate the relationship, which causes more confusion, and you can see how this goes, and probably many of you guys are experiencing something like this.

Many people ask me well, what can I do to improve my relationship if we're in this situation? Because I want to have a good relationship with my spouse and I feel like I'm being very clear with them on what I need and what I want, and all that makes sense. But what I tell these people is that we really have to start by understanding ourself. And this is kind of a shift, because so many people are focused on their spouse, trying to figure out why their spouse is upset, trying to figure out why their spouse isn't responding in the way that they'd hoped they would. Trying to figure out what's wrong with their spouse, right, and then we even get confused within ourselves. So we're trying to figure out what's wrong with ourselves and we feel like these big emotions about ourselves. What we can do is just slow down, take a breath and take out a piece of paper and just start to write down why you want to establish these rules. Try to understand, like, what's underneath these rules. What are these rules going to help you feel and believe? Oftentimes, when we go through this process, we can establish new language, a new perspective and we can come up with a new way of helping our spouse see what's happening for us.

And once we go through this process, what can happen is, rather than saying, if you just would compliment me more, you would become more aware to communicate something that sounds like this Sometimes I worry that you don't notice my effort and I even feel sometimes like I'm not doing enough for you and I worry that if I don't do enough and I can't do it right for you, then you may never see me as the guy that I want you to see me as. When you've complimented me in the past, I've really felt reassured and I like when you do that and I just want you to know that I love you and I want to be your man. Okay, so obviously there's a lot more communicated there and it may seem simpler just to say give me more compliments. But when we say give me more compliments, oftentimes the other person really feels like they're doing something wrong and they get lost, kind of, in their own insecurities. And what we're doing right now is we're trying to figure out why we want this compliment, why that compliment is so important for us, and what we'll find underneath it so often are these kinds of worries, these kinds of insecurities, these kinds of fears that are underlying this, and we can just communicate that right. So instead of saying if you just would compliment me more again, I'll say it in a more clear way, which is sometimes I worry that you don't notice my efforts and even feel like sometimes I'm not doing enough for you. I worry that if I don't do enough and I can't do it right for you, you may never see me as the guy that I want you to see me as. And just to let you know, when you've complimented me in the past, it's felt so good, I felt really reassured and I like when you do that and I just want you to know that I love you and I want to be your man. Okay, this can really come when we slow down and notice what's happening within us and the people that I've worked with when I've really really dug in and figured out why it's so important that they establish these kinds of rules in their relationships. It's always come from something like this that there's a deeper, more emotional longing that's in play here.

You can do this process with any of those rules that we talked about before, that often we try to communicate to our spouse and you can find the why of why you want to communicate that and you can put it into language and share it with them. And if you notice, in the example that I just gave, where I shared the why rather than the rule, there's no request, there's not a rule that's actually placed there. It's just a simple communication of what is really happening within me. Now, because that is happening inside. It seems really simple just to tell my wife to compliment me more and it'll all be dandy. But so often if I say all you have to do is just compliment me more, it's coming from a place of frustration, it's coming from a place of anger, and my wife so often gets lost in her own experience and maybe she feels like she can't keep me happy or I'm not happy with her and that's scary for her. So we want to do our part to try to prevent that. You'll notice that when I say something like hey, all you want to do our part to try to prevent that, you'll notice that. You know, when I say something like hey, all you need to do is just give me more compliments.

More often than not, when I hear people communicating rules, it comes from like frustration, anger, resentment, defensiveness, things like that, and what you'll notice is when we can communicate those more vulnerable emotions, our tone's going to change. Oftentimes, my clients that I work with, when they really communicate what's happening inside, they're moved to tears, they're more vulnerable, they're more emotional, they're more raw, and it's so powerful to be able to do this within our relationships. So, by really slowing down and understanding what's happening within you, then you can communicate what's happening within you to others, namely your spouse. You can communicate what's happening within you to others, namely your spouse, and you can really help them understand what's happening within you. But you first need to know what's happening within you to be able to communicate that.

What happens? When we're able to communicate what's happening within us, our spouse is more easily able to understand us, and what happens is when we truly understand each other. I believe we naturally have love and compassion for each other, and if you find yourself in this kind of a situation where you're struggling with all these rules in your relationship and oftentimes it feels like rules beget rules and couples are just stacking rules on top of each other for each other, and that's not a fun. Couples are just stacking rules on top of each other for each other, and that's not a fun relationship to be in. And so if you find yourself in that type of a position or you're experiencing any challenge in your marriage, I would love to coach you. I can teach you the essential tools that you need in your marriage and help you apply them to your unique situation so that you can have clarity and remain curious enough so that you can understand what's happening in your spouse.

And what happens is. That allows us to see the love that is in the relationship. It allows us to develop love within a relationship. It allows us to feel more close, more connected, have higher levels of emotional intimacy, have higher levels of sexual intimacy, and these things are such amazing gifts that we can work towards and we can discover in our relationships.

Obviously, it's not always possible for everybody, but I really believe that there's so many situations that are lost in confusion and they have these gifts within their relationship, but they just don't have the tools to figure out how to uncover them. And that's what I do. The work that I do ties nicely our emotions to logic, so it works for those that feel deeply as well as those who think deeply. I can't wait to meet you and show you how you can be the change that you need in your marriage. Have a great week, everyone. Bye-bye. This has been the Fighting for Connection podcast. If you've enjoyed this podcast and want more content like this, check out my Connected Couples Campus, which can be found on my website, wwwpivotalapproachcom, and become the difference you need in your relationship. Thank you.