Episode 42 – Bees in the Wild: Round 3

‘s Up, Bees?!

It’s that time again! I’m here bringing you another installment of Bees in the Wild.

I know that you’re curious about what marriage coaching actually sounds like in real life.

I’m not surprised if you’re wanting more examples of how this type of work might actually go.

Best news is – some of the Bees in the Defying Gravity Revolution have graciously offered to let you listen in as we sort out some of their stickiest marriage situations.

These are REAL conversations. No script. No editing. Just REAL women working together to find REAL possibility where only pain existed before.

Enjoy!

Candice: Hey, Gloria, what can I help you with today?

Gloria: Okay, so I was thinking about what I want coaching on with my marriage. And one of the things that, like, I’ve done work on it before, and we’ve gotten to a good place, but then I feel like it’s been popping up again. And so this is me being jealous of my husband’s hobbies.

Candice: Okay.

Gloria: I feel like, like, he loves them more than he loves me. Like, he’s always so excited to like go hunting, or go fishing or planning things with his friends. And I’m just like, why don’t you get that excited about, like, going on dates with me or, like, planning fun things together? And, like, part of me can see that it doesn’t have to be related. But there’s also a part of me, I think that is kind of holding on to this like hurt, or something that like, he enjoys these things so much. And he doesn’t love me as much as he loves them.

Candice: How are we gauging excitement here? Like, what’s the measuring stick?

Gloria: Um, like he, yeah, he plans things to do with his friends. Or, like he takes that initiative?
He talks about it a lot. Yeah, I guess those would probably be two of the main things.

Candice: Okay. How often do you plan dates and talk about them?

Gloria: I haven’t in a really long time.

Candice: Why is that?

Gloria: Because it just feels like life is so busy and, that’s hard.

Candice: Yeah. So not because you don’t love him? Or don’t like spending time with him?

Gloria: No.

Candice: Okay. Which is just good to figure out, right? It doesn’t mean that we have to dismiss your other concern at all. But it’s just possible that it might not be because he doesn’t like spending time with you.

Gloria: Yeah.

Candice: How does that land when I say that?

Gloria: Yeah, that feels, like very real.

Candice: Okay. So if it wasn’t about his level of interest in you and his excitement to spend time with you, what else might it be for him? Do you think?

Gloria: Like him planning those things?

Candice: Yeah like, why does he plan fishing trips and all of that and talk about it for a while?

Gloria: Do you want to pause the recording for a second?

*break in the recording*

Candice: Okay, so I just asked Gloria why she thinks it is – if it’s not about his interest, or it’s not about like his, his, like love for her – why does he talk about the fishing trips and plan them more? If it wasn’t about the love he has for you?

Gloria: Yeah, just because he enjoys it so much. Like, it brings something huge to his life. And he wants more of that in his life.

Candice: Okay, and what do we think? Is there room for him to go on dates with you and go on fishing trips with his friends or no?

Gloria: Yeah.

Candice: Okay, so why did we… Why did you bring these things and put these in competition with each other?

Gloria: Because I think underneath it is this fear that he doesn’t love me? So it’s like looking for?

Candice: Where’s that coming from?

Gloria: I guess I’m just afraid that this feels kind of crazy to say, but I’m kind of afraid that he that he doesn’t love me or that he like he didn’t know what he was getting into. And he married me. And…

Candice: What if that’s true? He did not have any idea what it was like to be married and have seven kids when he was however old he was when he got married to you.

Gloria: 19.

Candice: So at 19, he had no idea what it would be like to be with a gorgeous woman – for however long you’ve been together and have seven children with her. He had no idea at 19 what that was like, what if that’s true?

Gloria: Yeah, yeah very true.

Candice: So why is it painful if he believes, “Wow, I didn’t know what this would be like.”

Gloria: I guess just because I make it mean that… Like, I’m not doing a good enough job or I’m like wrong…

Candice: Doing a good enough job of what…

Gloria: Of like, being a wife or a mom.

Candice: Is there an instance where you’re like, “Oh, I might not be doing a good enough job and that’s why he doesn’t want to go on dates with me.” When do you think that?

Gloria: Um… I guess maybe because, like I have a lot of different interests than him. And so like if we have these different, like, wants, like if mine were the same as his, then he would want to hang out with me more.

Candice: I mean, maybe. It’s possible that he would want to hang out with you more or it’s possible It just might work out that way if you both liked the same things.

Gloria: Yeah, like…

Candice: Why don’t you ever go fishing and hunting with him?

Gloria: Cuz I do not enjoy it.

Candice: What if you said to him one day like, “Hey, I want to go fishing.” What would he say?

Gloria: He’d probably fall over dead.

Candice: Because why?

Gloria: He’d be like, “What happened?”

Candice: But would he be like, “No way! Ew!”?

Gloria: No. He’d probably be like, “Okay, let’s go.”

Candice: And he’d be like: “Look at this lore, and I’ve got this fishing hole. And it’s pretty amazing. And now you can see it!”

Gloria: Yeah

Candice: Because why? Because you and the activity he’s doing are not in competition for his love. Maybe. Tell me what comes up when I say that.

Gloria: Can you repeat it?

Candice: Yeah. So you and your, like, percentages, his wife, are not in competition with his love for hunting and fishing. Like there’s love enough to go around?

Gloria: I guess that just like, grounds me.

Candice: It doesn’t mean you have to go fishing with him if you don’t want to. But you just remind yourself “Oh, the reason I’m not spending as much time with him is because I don’t want to go fishing and he doesn’t want to do yoga.”

Gloria: Yeah.

Candice: It’s not because of anything to do with the love we have for each other not.

Gloria: Okay. Yeah, I like that. Okay. And so that just makes me think that like, this really isn’t a problem. And that I can, like, we can just make it more of a priority to do the things that we love to do together and have our own separate interests.

Candice: And that’s gonna be so much easier when you’re not worried about maybe he doesn’t love me.

Gloria: Totally.

Candice: If you just assume he totally loves me. Our marriage is awesome. Been together for a long time, we have all these kids together. Clearly, we’re in this. Of course he wants to spend time with me. If you start from there, planning and doing stuff with him is going to be so much easier to carry out than if you’re like, I dunno, this might not have been what he expected.

Gloria: Mmm-hmmm. Right.

Candie: And this might not have been what he expected and that’s a problem versus this wasn’t what he expected and lucky him that he got all this stuff that he didn’t even know is available.

Gloria: Mmmm-hmmm. Yeah.

Candice: So what’s gonna happen is like, you’re gonna go for a while without a date, probably. And your brain is gonna want to tell you, it’s because he’s not in love with you. And you’re just gonna want to be onto yourself about that and be like, I mean, that could be true. But I don’t… when I think it is, it just makes me pull away from him more, which is not what I’m going for. So I’m just going to assume that he does love me until I have his words out of his mouth coming my way that say otherwise. And maybe not even then. But until something like that happens, I’m just not going to entertain that thought. I’m going to remind myself: Nope. We’re going to start from the place of assuming he loves me. And then just see where that goes. See where that takes me to planning dates and experiences that I want to have together.

Gloria: Yeah, perfect. I love that. Especially like not even entertaining that thought because, like, I think I just let my brain go there a lot more frequently than I would like to. And so I could just be like, hey, there’s a line in the sand right there now.

Candice: And not like, You’re forbidden to go over there. It’s just like, that’s painful over there and dangerous. And we don’t even know if it’s true. So it’s equally likely that he does love me. And when I think – probably even more likely that he does love me – and when I focus over there, we create more love.

Gloria: Yeah.

Candice: Like you don’t let your kid run in the street. It’s not like, they’re not being naughty, necessarily. They’re just kind of like not paying attention. Maybe. And that’s the same thing here. You’re not paying attention to your brain. We just want to remind it Oh, we don’t play in the street. Come over here.

Gloria: Yeah, awesome. Yeah. Thank you.

Candice: Thanks for being here today. It’s good to talk to you.

Gloria: Same bye bye.

And there you have it – that’s exactly what we do in the Defying Gravity Revolution: We choose to believe that we are deeply loveable and we find evidence – on purpose – of how that’s true.

We listen to ourselves about changes we’d like to see and pep talk ourselves on purpose to do the work that brings us the marriages we really love to live in. We know that love is available and we stay busy making sure we always get our share.

We are BEES and Bees don’t care what humans think is impossible.

Keep your ears out for every 12 or so episodes for more sneak peeks into what it’s REALLY like to be a Bee in the Defying Gravity Revolution.

We actively choose to live as women supporting other women by spreading these messages of empowerment and freedom. Every. Single. Sunday.

Be sure you’ve subscribed to and shared this podcast so that won’t miss a second of the love we are spreading.

All of us here in the Defying Gravity Revolution Hive thank you for helping to create a world where more women stop caring what humans think is impossible.

Choose courage, Bee and keep on flying!