To the One in Trouble

Episode number 87, to the One who Is in Trouble Hello and welcome to the Fighting for Connection podcast. I'm Brett Nicolau, 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, and inspiration that will move you toward the connection that you want in your relationship. All right, welcome back to the Fighting for Connection podcast. And if there is anyone who knows what it's like to be in trouble, I feel like it's me Now. I can't say that I've been just like this, huge troublemaker for society, but I have found a way over the years, especially as a young child, to find myself in trouble, in mischievous trouble, or I suppose I was somewhat emotionally dysregulated as a kid, so I was often finding myself in a position where the people were taking care of me and weren't so fond of me in the moment. That being said, I did stay out of trouble today out on the golf course. For the most part, golf season is in full swing and I'm enjoying that. I just got off the course trying to stay out of trouble and knock off some work here and just enjoy a good, solid weekend with the family doing summer, things like swim in the pool and work on the yard. So, looking forward to that, I've been really enjoying these quick little hitters lately on the podcast, mostly because I've had to be efficient with my time. That's why they've been as short as they are and, who knows, maybe you guys are enjoying just a little bit more efficient podcasts. I've been tight on time because I'm in the process of making some pretty significant changes here at Pivotal Approach. What I've found is, with these kind of significant changes, they always take a lot of time and a lot of energy, and so the time in between my sessions is largely chewed up working on some of those other projects. I'm excited for what is to come and I can't wait to bring you guys what I think is going to be a pretty awesome tool that I really believe you're going to be able to use for the lifespan of your relationships. Stay tuned.

Today it'll be no different than the last few quick little hitters, and this one, as I said, is for the one who is always in trouble, and I think you know who you are. You know you're never affectionate enough, you're never helpful enough, you don't say the right things at the right time or maybe worse, you say the right things at the wrong time, you try too hard, you don't try hard enough. As my clients have described it, you're the nail that just seems to get the hammer right. There's always someone there kind of coming after you, and it's frustrating, it hurts. You know, maybe resentment builds, maybe you just stop caring. And for most of the ones that I've talked with in this position, it feels like if your partner would just let up a little bit, would just give you some grace, some space, maybe things could have the possibility of turning around. And here's the deal. Maybe that's true. It could work out that way that if they just cooled their jets a little bit and saw the good that you were doing and focus less on the things that you were missing, maybe things would turn around. But if they're sitting there waiting for you to figure it out and you're waiting for them to figure it out, here's what I figure. I figure that both of you will be figuring for a long time. If you don't really like what's happening in your relationship, then you better figure something different out.

The way I see it, here are your options. You could stay committed to the long game, wait for them to do their work to make this relationship better for the both of you, or my friend, you can take this on. It's a challenge that I have for you. I know that you likely like a good challenge. The ice bucket challenge. I don't know if you remember that that was a thing maybe five, 10 years ago. That's the thing of the past. I haven't seen people really do those as much on social media. It seems like cold plunges are the in thing now. But maybe you remember those ice bucket challenges. Let's not try ice out our partner, right? Let's not try to outlast them, outweigh them. Rather, let's take on this challenge and let's lean into the trouble. Rather than running away, rather than defending, rather than blocking out the things that you're doing wrong, lean in. The worst thing that could happen is you find out that you actually have been in a lot of trouble and whip into shape. But if you feel like you're a good person, if you feel like you care about your partner, if you feel like you want them to be happy, lean into the trouble. If you are in trouble, then let's figure out how to get out of trouble. All right, I want you to just spend some time to see if we can change our natural response to our partner coming after us. For the most part, what we see is a pattern over time becomes fairly entrenched. What we're going to work together to do here on this podcast is just to break that pattern, to see if we can create a different result for our relationship.

If your emotions are in the camp of being upset, angry, defensive, resentful, shaming or blaming, it's time to kind of take a step back and really, before we do anything, just kind of pipe it. We got to stop ourselves at those emotions and we have to do our work to figure out what those things are about and to find language that is more productive around those emotions. The feelings of anger, frustration, defens, defensiveness, shaming, blaming, resentment those things come from within, and to communicate those things in a relationship oftentimes doesn't go as well as we would hope that it would. So rather than trying to explain those things better and staying committed to those emotions, let's slow down a little bit, do some work and find a more productive emotion. The emotions that I would choose to put on in these situations are care or curiosity, and if you can't just pull those things out of your back pocket and put them on, then there's some additional work that you need to do to be able to find those emotions.

In those moments, typically, what we find is if we can put some language to why we're angry, why we're frustrated, why we're defensive, why we're shaming, why we're blaming, then we can put some language to why we're angry, why we're frustrated, why we're defensive, why we're shaming, why we're blaming. Then we can put on these emotions of care and curiosity and we can even share in a much more clear way what's happening within us, without describing our anger or frustration or our resentment or any of those emotions. So if you can find that in these moments you can feel care, you can feel curiosity and you'll know it when you actually feel it, you'll be able to just drop into like a really loving, caring space, your tone will change, your body language will change. If you can find yourself there, then it's time to move towards your partner, towards what they are sharing about you. Here's the deal Whatever they're sharing isn't about you. It's really about them and what they're experiencing, and I think you can handle whatever it is that they have to say.

And in these moments I love the reflective listening process for this. I've talked about this on previous podcasts. It's as simple as repeating back to your partner what you heard them say, and it kind of sounds like this hey, I hear you saying that I'm always late. I can see that that has hurt you. I know I haven't been able to show you how much I care at times, but I want you to know this, that you matter to me and sometimes I worry that I won't be able to keep you happy or I'm just not adequate enough for you, and I want to work with you to stay close and connected. I want you to give that a shot, and I know that's maybe a lot of words that you've never said before, but saying the same words that you've always said is going to just produce the same results, I believe. So try to find new ways to share what's happening for you and to manage these situations.

It won't be the cure-all, but if you can say something close to what I just described there, from a caring place, from a curious place, I do believe that you are on a good path, a well-worn path to success within relationships, meaning that there's clarity and we're at the highest level of possibility within that relationship or at a higher level of possibility within this relationship. I say that because I don't believe that we can have the relationship that we want, and anyone who says that you can have the relationship that you want, I think either they're fooled and they're trying to fool you or they're just trying to fool you. But here's the deal. I think that you're going to have to choose the relationship that you're in. You're going to have to choose the relationship that's possible for you If you're committed to your partner. You're going to have to figure out what you can do to create the relationship that's possible for you and the partner that you're with.

This process takes consistency. It takes persistency of you staying committed to changing your part of the pattern, of changing the way that you respond to that hit from the hammer, and if you can do that, then you'll produce the results that are possible. But I hope you take this example as inspiration that you really do have options in your situation and an option that you can take is to practice responding differently than the way that you've responded before, to respond from a different emotion, an emotion of care, an emotion of love, an emotion of curiosity. Here's what is interesting to think about that you can respond in a loving, caring way, no matter what your partner says or does to you. This is an idea that I think many people fail to even recognize that even if your partner doesn't stay committed to the relationship, you can stay committed to the relationship. You can stay committed to your partner, and your partner doesn't have the ability to prevent you from being committed, and they don't have the ability to prevent you from being caring, to prevent you from being loving. And it doesn't mean that you have to take any sort of action or behavior from them without protecting yourself, without kind of putting up some boundaries Again, you can do these things with an emotion of care and love, not from a place of anger.

For those of you who feel like the nail that gets the hammer, who fear that you're inadequate, who fear that you won't ever be enough for your spouse, who wonder if your spouse will ever be happy or content with you or your relationship, I hope that you can know this. You have everything that you need to be a good spouse. Just make sure that you don't lose sight of being the person that you want to be in this relationship. We're the best at knowing if we care, if we love, if we are the person that we want to be, and I think it requires practice so that when things do get heated in our relationships which they are going to, whether it's friction that shows up on the outside or if you and your spouse are really good at friction that is felt within the relationship, we just kind of stuff it down and manage it differently than the person who might go back and forth in an animated way. If we can practice these skills in the good times, then you can remain loving and caring in your words, in your actions and in your emotions, which is the most important.

And when you do miss, when you do find yourself out of alignment with who you want to be, it's important that we learn how to ask for grace, how to ask for forgiveness from our spouse, learn how to repair, learn how to say that you know what you're right. I'm not showing up how I want to be and I don't know why, necessarily, that these things happen, but I want you to know that you are important to me and I want these things to be addressed so that you don't lose sight of how much you mean to me, how important you are to me, and in this way, even these kinds of moments of conflict can be times of connection and reassurance in the relationship. You can do it. I know that you can. Let's do it together. All right, have a good week everybody. 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.