Episode 51 – The Sneakiest Enemy of Marital Success

‘s Up, Bees?!

Have you heard?

After three years of dedicated focus on my GROUP marriage coaching offer (the Defying Gravity Revolution), I’m opening up limited opportunity for 1-1 marriage coaching.

Why?

Because there’s a lot of pain in the world – and many of you have told me you feel a tiny bit hesitant to discuss your deepest, most raw pain while others are listening in.

If that’s you, I get it.

It’s natural to worry about “airing dirty laundry” as my mom would say – to an audience bigger than just you and me.

I know you might be dealing with your husband’s anger issues, his addiction, betrayal issues – whether they be sexual, financial or emotional – and it makes sense to me if some of what you’re dealing with feels too sensitive or personal to share out loud with the Bees in the Defying Gravity Revolution.

For that reason, I developed the Marriage Moxie Movement – a personalized VIP coaching experience that will take all the tools I introduced in the Confident Companionship challenge last week and help you incorporate them into your daily life until they become as natural as brushing your teeth.

We’ll start with setting your Confident Companionship vision – because you deserve to believe that you’re walking through life with someone who will see your side and have your back. Always.

We’ll then dial in your goals using the Things over Themes formula – so it’ll be easy to measure progress, identify places for easy in-the-moment adjustments and laser in on opportunities to celebrate – because celebrating makes everything more fun.

From there, we’ll jump right into the Advocacy Adventure process – which is where you’ll be spending most of your time from now until happily ever after.

The Advocacy Adventure process trains your brain to naturally attune to possibility where only pain existed before.

Using that process will help you see and create options for yourself EVERYWHERE in your marriage because options = freedom and freedom = wild levels of marital satisfaction.

How do you get in on the Marriage Moxie Movement?

Glad you asked.

Go to the show notes for this podcast episode to set up a 1-1 call with me and we’ll go over everything before deciding together whether the Marriage Moxie Movement is a good fit for your marriage vision in 2024.

You can stop this podcast RIGHT NOW and go set up our call.

The reason to do it now rather than waiting til later is two fold:

First – if you’re anything like me, sometimes “I’ll do it later” turns into “Aw, man! I missed that???” and you deserve way better than missing out.

Second – when you join the Marriage Moxie Movement by Friday, December 8 – you’ll also get bonus access to my most popular webinars like: How Judging your Husband will Heal your Marriage and What to do with your Husband’s bad mood + my most beloved challenges like: Confident Companionship and Lucky in Love + 75% off regular retail price for my 1-1 coaching package.

My mission in life is to create more stable homes where women are spending WAY less time wondering if they married the wrong guy and are instead enjoying the marriage they imagined when they said “I do.”

Because all of that is my heart’s passion – I’m tossing all my best resources + a deep, deep discount at the first 15 women who want to join me in the Marriage Moxie Movement in 2024 to create a marriage that is unrecognizable in the BEST possible way.

Go. Click. We’ll talk VERY soon.

Can’t wait.

Okay… go that done?

Now on to today’s topic – the sneakiest enemy of marital success.

It’s not what you think.

At least probably not.

The sneakiest enemy of marital success is your death grip on agreement.

Your chokehold on being “understood.”

Now… before you take offense… know that I am ZERO PERCENT making fun of you.

The only reason I know that this is the sneakiest enemy of marital success is because I fell victim to chasing agreement and demanding understanding for YEARS.

Like years and years. Years and painful years.

Husband and I have been in MANY, MANY circular arguments that lasted well into the night as we nit-picked each other’s perspective and tried to get each other to adopt our side.

If you’ve ever been in the same boat, I get why.

It really can seem SUPER important that you agree with each other.

Because if you don’t see the problem exactly the same way, then… are you even working on the same issue?

Agreement seems like the best foundation to build on.

And it is… until it isn’t.

Take this story from one of my clients as an example.

She is convinced that her husband has a crush on his front office manager.

She doesn’t think he’s cheated or that he will.

She just believes that he’s attracted to her and that sometimes his interactions with her flirt with the edge of… well… flirting.

My client works in the same office with the both of them and, as a result, has LOTS of opportunities to interpret their interactions in painful ways.

And she usually does.

Because her nervous system is set to high alert. So of course she’s constantly scanning for danger – and because of the lens she’s looking through, she usually finds it.

Let me be clear – there’s NOTHING wrong with her for being vigilant. She feels threatened, so her brain switches to hypervigilance. It’s biology.

Nothing’s gone wrong when that happens.

Until… her vigilance becomes a wedge between her and her forever guy.

And her vigilance only becomes a wedge when she takes a chokehold grip on her story and demands that he agree with the way she’s interpreting what he’s doing.

That wedge becomes especially divisive when she draws a hard line in the sand.

When she REALLY wants him to admit that he’s twitterpated with the front office manager.

Why does she want that?

Because she thinks his admission is the only way to guarantee that the problematic behavior stops.

She feels VERY committed to ensuring that they are focusing on resolving the SAME problem.

And that problem is HIS crush.

At face value, that makes sense… right?

We have to identify the culprit to solve the problem. Of course we do.

That’s why the main question at the scene of any crime is “Who did this?”

AND

Marriages aren’t typically crime scenes. If they are, that’s a different podcast entirely.

For most of us, we’re dealing with hurt feelings and shaky loyalties more than broken laws.

Since that’s the case, I suggest that you look at the dynamic between you and your guy as the enemy rather than seeing your husband (or yourself) that way.

Most clients I work with tend to fall in one of two camps:

He’s the enemy, the culprit, the problem because of the bonehead things he’s doing or saying…

OR

I am the enemy, culprit, problem because I’m having trouble being accepting and unconditionally loving… no. matter. what.

And what’s true is that neither of you are the enemy.

You’ve possibly set up and entrenched a pattern of behavior that isn’t working and that pattern, those behaviors – THOSE are the enemy.

Not either of you.

And when you can identify the pattern of behavior as something to conquer together –

something that’s outside of either of you –

something that’s no match for the bond of companionship you two have together…

that’s when you’ll see the changes you want to see.

Back to my client…

As I said, she’s spent the better part of this last year trying to get him to admit that he’s got butterflies for the front office manager.

He’s spent the better part of this last year denying it all while getting increasingly angry at the accusation.

So far as my client and I know, her husband has not cheated in any capacity.

No late nights. He always comes home to sleep.
There have been no suspicious charges to the credit card.
No mysterious text message alerts at odd intervals or weird hours.

He’s repeatedly told her that he’s only got eyes for her.
AND
He’s repeatedly told her that he’s tired of talking about this alleged “crush”.

My client thinks the enemy in the scenario is his denial of “what’s really going on.”

Her husband thinks the enemy in the scenario is her “obsession” with an inaccurate theory.

They are both right.

And both wrong.

Both right because his denial and her obsession are the fuel that spins this unhealthy dynamic round and round.

Both wrong because the real enemy is the commitment to the dynamic, not the dynamic itself.

It’s okay for her to want him to back off on the friendliness with the front office manager.

It’s just not so useful for my client to require her husband to admit that his behavior is fueled by a crush that he says he doesn’t feel.

So… instead of her approaching the issue from a place of “you need to listen to me because I know more about what’s going on in your heart and head than you do…” or “you need to stop lying to me about the burning passion that exists deep in your soul…” or “you just don’t realize what a womanizer you are…”

She has opportunity to say something more like: “When you joke with her, it’s hard for me to not interpret that as flirtation. I would like it if you would stop doing that because you want it to be easier for me to believe that you’re all in on me. I know that I can believe you’re all in on me regardless of whether you joke with her or not and I DO trust you. I’d also like your help with all this if you’re willing to give it. What do you think?”

Then she gets to listen to what he says.

If he blows her off and dismisses her concern – that’s useful information for her to have as she makes future decisions regarding their relationship.

But… what’s more likely is that he’ll agree outright and reassure her…

OR

He’ll offer a counterpoint and they’ll collaborate their way into a compromise that feels acceptable to them both.

Either way, the most helpful assumption to make is that THEY are a solid team and the behavior dynamic (her accusing, him denying) is the enemy.

They don’t have to agree about why the behavior dynamic is happening, they can simply agree to adjust it for reasons that make sense to each of them.

She’ll stop blaming because she wants to be a wife that gives her husband the benefit of the doubt – NOT because she’s a judgmental shrew who needs to stop being so paranoid.

He’ll stop with the jokes because he wants to be a husband who respects his wife’s boundaries – NOT because he’s a traitorous lech who wasn’t savvy enough to not get caught.

See it?

In YOUR marriage, you’re allowed to speak about your pain and hold your husband accountable for behavior that you don’t want as part of your relationship.

Just know that process is likely to be a LOT more effective if you don’t require him to admit ill-intent or agree that he’s the problem.

Remember, the behavior dynamic is the enemy.

His personal character isn’t.

Neither is yours.

You can work on the behavior dynamic together – which will be easier to do when you BOTH own your contribution to it.

Because all of us play a part in the relationship dynamic of EVERY relationship we have.

That’s not meant as a call out and doesn’t have to feel like bad news.

It’s simply meant as an opportunity to harness your power in a useful way.

By learning about your triggers and becoming familiar with your attachment style.

By figuring out your personal boundaries and why you are or are not enforcing them.

By doing the work on YOUR end to make it easy to sit on the same side of the problem as the guy you chose to spend forever with.

Not because you’re bad or your choices are a problem.

Just because personal awareness is power and non-reactive acceptance of how things happened lays the clearest path toward long-lasting, much-desired change.

If you’d like some help with that personal exploration in a private, super safe space – be sure to set up your 1-1 exploration call with me to discussion whether the Marriage Moxie Movement is the right choice for you in 2024.

Set that call up TODAY because the 75% discount + the giant bundle of extra goodies are only available until next Friday, Dec 8.

Go to the show notes for this episode and click the scheduling link.

I’ll talk to you soon.

Choose courage, Bee and keep on flying!