What’s The Episode About:

In this episode, Paul and Stacey will cover part three of busting the myths series, and talk about the “But my partner is …” myths, which are all about how one partner thinks that their partner is keeping them from having their desired relationship because they behave a certain way.

Whether you are an entrepreneur and your partner is not, or you are a vegan and your partner, or you are a fitness-focused person and your partner is not… We have heard it all and are here today to bust the myths! 

Key Points Discussed:

• Depressed spouses and the dangers of labeling (00:52)
• Everyone changes at different points in life for various reasons (02:53)
• Whatever comes after the statement “I am” is super powerful (06:31)
• Showing up differently in your relationship for your partner (09:05)
• Anxiety is just a pattern (12:03)
• The masculine dynamic wired into a man’s blueprint (15:19)
• The widespread misuse of the word abusive (18:27)
• Physical abuse is not a relationship issue (20:04)
• Everyone has a unique brilliance (24:49)

Where Can I Learn More:

Daily Inspiration for Relationship Transformers (The D.I.R.T.)

When Did It Air:

June 13, 2019

Episode Transcript:

Disclaimer: The Transcript Is Auto Generated And May Contain Spelling And Grammar Errors

Paul:               00:06 Hey Relationship Transformers! Welcome to the Relationship Transformer Podcast. Today, part three of this busting the myth series. Today we dive into, “but my partner is…” myths. All of the things about your partner that we think are keeping us from having the relationship that we want. So let’s queue up the intro and dive in.

Intro:              00:24 So the big question is this; How is it possible that one person alone can transform any relationship, save their marriage, create their unshakeable love, and unleash passion, divorce-proof their family, without needing their partner to get on board and do this with them, and yet still get to be happily, authentically you without compromise. That is the question and this podcast will give you the answer.

Stacey:             00:52 Let’s get to the other list of these myths that people think, “Well, my relationship can’t work, and it’s… here’s why. It’s because my partner is this, or my relationship is more difficult than another relationship. It’s different because my partner is this.” We get these questions all the time. Right? “Oh, does your program work if my partner’s depressed. Does your program work if my partner has anxiety? Does your program work if my partner has been diagnosed with ADD? Does your program work if my partner’s a narcissist?” And the list goes on and on and on, and let’s take these one at a time, and it doesn’t matter if you are, or your partner is, but let’s start with depressed. So, does your program work… does this process work if my partner is depressed. We want to talk about the dangers of labeling.

Paul:               01:39 Yeah. So, let’s imagine that you did something back when you were like 12 years old, maybe 13 years old, and once you did that one thing, at that age, for the rest of your life now, you had to wear that on your shirt. And everywhere you went, somebody looked at you, and you’re like, “Oh, that thing you did when you were 13.

Stacey:             01:58 Yeah. Let’s say that you stole candy from a store when you were 13, and for the rest of your life, you have to wear this badge on your shirt that says you’re a stealer,

Paul:               02:06 Shows you like, with your hand in the candy jar. So everywhere you go, job interviews, marriage, hanging out with friends, going to the bar, or whatever the case may be for you, you get to be judged by that moment in your life. This label was put upon you, “Candy stealer.” And now for the rest of your life, you’re a candy stealer. Is that fair? Did you change? Are you still that person? Does that… did you learn something from that moment that forever changed you? We’re… now you’re like the opposite. Like, I’m so against that. I see what was wrong with that. There are so many ways that life would be so unfair if we allowed one label of who we are to define us for the rest of our lives. And the truth is, and we’ve said it on previous episodes, no one stays the same. Everyone changes at different points in life for various reasons. Change is inevitable. So labeling anyone, in any form, is a self-defeating approach from the beginning, and it just holds everyone, again, stuck. It’s much like blame.

Stacey:             03:07 So, I want to share the story of the orange jumpsuit. And I don’t really remember where I saw this story published, but the story of the orange jumpsuit is, you know, they refer to the orange jumpsuit, like for prisoners, that when prisoners leave prison, because they’re an ex-con, everybody in their lives, everybody… they have to show it on every job report, application, every credit report, everything. Everybody treats them like they’re still wearing that orange jumpsuit even after they have left prison. And, there’s a massive return rate, I’m not sure if you know the statistics, and I’m sure not going to quote them, because I am the balloon, and I would be wrong, and my string here would look at me, and say, “We would have to get that at the study, in order to quote that.

Stacey:             03:51 But the re-entry rate on prison in this country is sky high. People commit a crime, they get out, and they go back. And a lot of it, in studies, has shown it’s because they are labeled with this orange jumpsuit, even when they’re not wearing it, treated like the convict that they are… were. And so, they identify themselves as, “Okay, I am this orange jumpsuit, and I’m going to act as this orange jumpsuit. I never actually got any other skills to not act as this orange jumpsuit, and so, I’m going to do it again and go back.” And, that is a very, very common pattern that we have. Now, there is a tribe of people in another country, and I… forgive me, I don’t know the… the… the tribe or the country, and I’m sure somebody listening does, that has a different approach when someone commits a crime. In this tribe, when someone commits a crime, the entire tribe gathers in a circle, and the person who commits the crime stands in the middle, and it’s not so that the entire tribe can throw rocks at them, or hang them, or anything like that.

Stacey:             04:57 What they do is this person is forced to stand in the middle of the circle and go eye to eye contact with every single member in the village one at a time. As each villager tells that person and reminds them who they really are, they tell them what a beautiful person they are. They remind them who they really are in their soul and they lift them up. And by the end of the circle, this person has elevated themselves to such a high level that they can never a vibrate again at the same level of the version of themselves who committed that crime. And they village considers that a rehabilitation, a shift for that person. Every single person on the planet has that ability. So as much as we have the best of intentions, when we label someone in our lives, and we’ll address a few of these specifically in a minute, so don’t, don’t worry and don’t get in an uproar about it, but just to consider this just for a minute, when we label someone in our lives as something are we not sentencing them to still present that way to us tomorrow, next week, next year, 10 years from now, how long are they going to be clinically depressed?

Stacey:             06:20 How long are they going to be someone who has anxiety, not does anxiety. He has anxiety.

Paul:               06:27 As if it’s like a, they came over them like a wet blanket and they can’t shake it.

Stacey:             06:31 So let’s just just put careful with the labels that you use and the labels that you’re using for yourself. You know, whenever it comes after the statement I am is super, super powerful because the strongest need, and I forget who said this, but the quote is, the strongest need in human psychology is the need for one to remain consistent with the identity that one has for oneself. So whatever you say, I am depressed, I have anxiety. Those things are super powerful and you taking yesterday and dragging it into tomorrow so that your past becomes your future. Now, if you turn it around and say, okay, well what else is there? Well, I am depressed right now. I’m feeling depressed. I can feel something else later. I can feel something else tomorrow, but I am depressed. Or, Oh, I’m experiencing anxiety. I don’t necessarily expect to experience anxiety later. I don’t know that I’m an experienced anxiety indefinitely, but I’m experiencing that is a whole different perspective. So do you want to talk about these?

Paul:               07:39 Yeah. One of them is true, right? One of them is true in any moment is in this moment I’m feeling anxiety or I’m feeling depressed. That’s a fact. That’s a factual statement. When you say, I’m a depressed person, I’m a person who suffers from anxiety all the time, whatever the case may be, that’s the story. That’s what we tell ourselves. That’s the label. That’s not necessarily true in any given moment is it? It will change. So there’s the truth, which is always consistent, which is I’m feeling depressed right now or I’m not feeling depressed right now. And then there’s that other side of it, which is the labor.

Stacey:             08:14 So if you, let’s say you feel like, okay, but my partner’s depressed so I don’t think there’s anything I can do to improve our relationship that’s completely and totally untrue. Your partner is depressed, which just means they are in a repetitive state of focusing on and believing the same things every day, day after day, and those things that they’re focusing on and believing lead them to feel depressed and they’re in a cycle of repeating that day after day, after day, after day after day and whatever you’ve been doing now, it’s totally not your fault. Please don’t think that I’m saying it’s your fault, it’s not your fault. And you are definitely a piece in that closed loop pattern where whatever you’re doing day after day after day after day in relation to them is enabling them to stay in their pattern that they’re doing day after day after day.

Stacey:             09:05 So if you don’t learn these new tools and strategies, what chance do you have for changing the relationship with them? You’re both stuck in a pattern, but when you learn these new tools and strategies that we have, when you start to show up differently in relationship to your partner, their response, their reaction to you, how stu change, they cannot keep presenting in the same way. When you consistently change over a period of time. Am I saying you can cure their depression? Although I’m not saying that. But you can change the relationship you have with them. You absolutely can. And this might be the best. And only way you can see when we say things like, my partner’s depressed so there’s nothing I can do for my relationship. What’s true is if I insist that my partner change to fix our relationship. Yeah, there’s nothing you can do because they’re depressed and they’re not going to do what you’re asking them to do. That’s true. Demand relationship will not work because you’re, you’re asking them to change and they feel like they can. But if you use relationship development where it only takes one person to make the change, uh, we might be the only hope you have because if they’re not willing to do anything or not willing to change, then you have to get new tools in order to make a change in your relationship.

Paul:               10:19 Yeah. And, and the patterns, like a really deep, just to show how making a change makes all the difference in the world. I forget where we learned this metaphor as well too, but I love this one, which is if you imagine you walk across the grass from the back of your house for example, to a back gate and you walk across the grass once you, you don’t really leave any mark behind. Right. And maybe some of the blades are bent over a little bit, but nobody would necessarily know that you walk up behind you. But if you walk that path every day, it’s just a matter of time before that becomes etched into the ground. And it’s very obvious that somebody is walking from the back of the house to the back gate over and over and over because there’s now a worn out path where the grass is not even there anymore perhaps.

Paul:               10:57 So it’s the same thing with the patterns that we rehearse everyday, day after day. We get so used to those, they get like basically burned into our beliefs. And when you as the partner is looking at them and consistently enforcing the fact that Yep, you’re a depressed person, let’s just use that one for example. You’re just further making sure that every time they go through a moment they’re just etching another path in the same old pattern like yes, that’s a fact. That’s a fact. However, everything is a choice. You could choose to walk a different path and at first it won’t make much difference, right? But You keep walking that different path and different path. Eventually you will have formed a new path, a new set of habits and it will change and that’s how it happens for us. It doesn’t happen in a moment and people feel like there’s, if you don’t see an instant change, like I’ll do one thing that, oh, this should have changed. Some of these things have been rehearsed for so long. Some of us had been rehearsing some of these things our whole lives. If you want to make a change, you also want to be committed to making that change for a prolonged period of time so that you do see the real results

Stacey:             11:59 And the same thing applies to if your partner has anxiety. Again, anxiety is just a pattern. We help people with these things all day, every day around here and you absolutely need tools and strategies in order to relate to somebody who keeps going into that pattern so that you can serve them, serve your families, and support them and move things forward. It’s the same thing for someone who has add or brain based conditions are, it doesn’t matter what people have

Paul:               12:29 is a way to relate to them. Yes, builds it up instead of creates a distance and a gap and some blame and some labels. There’s a way to actually have relationship then empowers the best to come out of them, enables them to get out of what used to be, um, with these new paths

Stacey:             12:45 and they may not change. Maybe they don’t become the person that you wish they would become. I’m not saying they will, but the only chance you have at rescuing and saving that relationship and taking it to the next level is to gain the skill set that actually does work. And then whether they do or do not respond to you the way that you want, you will be empowered with the skillset to actually bring out the best in someone, whether it’s this partner or your next one. But just saying this is unworkable because my partner has x, y, z. That’s, that’s not a sentence

Paul:               13:20 I often, you know, just to be fair to the amount of times that like somebody throws a label about their partner out there. Oh thanks a lot. And I will dig into it. Say Really? So tell me about that. Why do you say that? Yeah. And what you find out most of the time is the label they put on them was like this strong label, a total meaning, a total meaning. And when you get to the bottom of it, you realize it’s actually not

Stacey:             13:44 example of that. Please do. So a woman posted in our Facebook group once and she said, what do I do though? Does this work? If my husband is abusive, my husband is completely abusive and I want to know if this even works cause I don’t believe anything will work to change this. And so I did exactly what Paul said. I do not accept people’s words like abusive as a label without understanding what they mean. So I said to her, okay, can you describe the abuse that you’re experiencing? Tell me a little bit about it. I’m sorry for whatever you’re navigating. Tell me a little bit about what you’re experiencing and she’s like, Oh yeah, absolutely. Here’s the thing. Like my husband and I were fighting the other day, this is just one example. We were fighting and going on and on and on. It was, we was getting really, really heated, were arguing and then out of nowhere he’s like, that’s it.

Stacey:             14:29 I’m done with you. And he walks away. He literally walked away and was punishing me by not finishing this with me. He would not talk to me, he would not connect to me. I kept going up to him like, dude, we have to finish this. I can’t even function. I you. You won’t even talk to me about it. How are we going to solve this? And he would say, not now. He literally, Stacey put I hand in my face and said, not now. I’m not talking about this now and Stacey this went on for days. The next day I would say to him, we got to finish this, John, we got to finish this. We have to solve this, and he like, don’t talk to me about this now and the next day and the next day I’m literally crying myself to sleep and he doesn’t even give a shit. He is the meanest man on the planet and he’s literally, I cannot take this emotional abuse any more.

Stacey:             15:19 It’s beyond saving. And I said to her, I’m really, really sorry for what you’re experiencing. There’s no doubt and I see how hurt you are. I really do. My heart goes out to you and I want to tell you that unless you are going to be in relationships that are not going to be with men for the rest of your life, this is a reality. What you just described to me is a masculine man. You, what you’ve just described to me is when a masculine man reaches a point of intensity in a fight with a woman and he as Paul teaches, trips the circuit breaker and cuts it off so as to protect you from the level of intensity that he might escalate with if it was another man in front of him in order to protect you from that in order to not scare you when he feels his blood boiling, when he feels he’s getting too intense that you’re going to be able to handle, he shuts it down. As Paul says, take the sword for himself and has to let his bell ring out. It could take days, it could take longer than days depending on his skillset to get back to an internal piece within him before he can be with you without getting so triggered that he’s worried about what he might say to you. This is a masculine dynamic getting, and I know that a lot of female listeners or or or feminine listeners are listening to me like that’s crap. There’s no way that’s true.

Paul:               16:44 So I’m sure that the feminine energy out there is saying, oh, that was so wrong. And for you ladies, I’d say there’s a boatload of men equal in number who were saying, I totally get that. In fact, I probably did that last week at one level or another, whether she felt it or solid or not, I did it internally. It’s a dynamic that you think you can, you know, again, label is abusive, so of course there’s nothing for you to do is for the other person to fix. And you know, since we run to the end of our skillset, eventually this becomes one of those things where it’s like, that’s it. That’s why I have to leave. So I’m going to go find another partner who doesn’t do that to me. And then after the six months glow is over, you’re like, oh, he’s like that too.

Stacey:             17:29 So this woman literally labeled her husband is abusive when he’s literally playing out a masculine dynamic that’s wired into his blueprint and he’s not being mean to her. He’s not punishing her. All these meanings that she attached because in a feminine blueprint, if another woman did that or any other person that is brave beyond brutal, the feminine, we’ll talk about things until we’re blue in the face. We will talk until we resolve it. We will not abandon the other person and because we have a completely different blueprint than the masculine does, it’s not that one’s right and one’s wrong. Please don’t react. They’re both equal, but they’re completely different. And this woman was experiencing what is a regular guys blueprint. Not to say that a man cannot get skills and training to not react that way. He can, but if he doesn’t what you’ve just encountered as a dude and he reacted the way he would as a dude and you’re calling it abusive.

Stacey:             18:27 Now, I also will just say that, and I’ll get on my soapbox for a minute. I have a real pet peeve about the way people throw the word abusive around like m. And. M’s these days. People have created the word abuse to kind of be synonymous with a shitty moment like, ah, that was so abusive. It wasn’t abusive. It was Shitty, but it wasn’t abusive. You know, please don’t do that because it is a true, it’s just there are people every day who are afraid for their physical safety. There is abuse going on. People being beaten in, know, dragged across the street by their hair made to feel like they can’t escape, that if they do, their children will be hurt. There’s a real abuse going on out there and I’m going to say now what I always say, I’ve said it a thousand times. Abuse is not a relationship problem.

Stacey:             19:20 I’ll, I’ll share with you a post that, because I say this all the time as a post that someone posted in our Facebook group the other day. She said, hi, I’m new. I’m trying to wrap my head around if this is a realistic help for marriages where there’s been abuse that’s escalated to physical violence and other very serious forms, would it be naive to hope a marriage could heal from that too dangerous? Who has been in a marriage where you were terrified of your spouse and this actually helped? I’m going to read you my response to her because this is the same thing I say a thousand times over. I said, I’m so glad you came to this community. We help people navigate abuse in many forms. Here’s the most important distinction I want to offer you. I’ve said this many times and I’ll say it again. Physical abuse is not a relationship issue.

Stacey:             20:09 It is a violence issue and violence issues require solutions for violence. Getting away from the person who’s physically hurting you and your child is absolutely the first step. We do not offer solutions for violence here. We only offer relationship solutions. There are agencies that can absolutely teach you how to protect yourself and your daughter. That said, there are times when the violence has stopped. When you need to heal after having been through the violence. Then you need a relationship solution and we absolutely provide that solution within our, it is absolutely not naive to think that a marriage can heal after violence has stopped. It absolutely can. I’ve seen it happen many times. Please just remember that there is no amount of relationship work in the world that can solve a violence problem and if anyone tells you otherwise, I beg you not to listen to them.

Stacey:             21:11 We’ve helped save over 10,000 marriages. Our program has a 1% divorce rate. I’ve helped people repair marriages and start a new after violence has ended. I’ve also helped navigate families to safety when the violence was not over. There is no relationship solution to a violence problem. Being physically beaten is not a marriage problem. It’s a finance problem. Please get to safety and take action to protect yourself and your family. When you’re ready for healing, please come back and please start one of our programs. Let us help you come back to your wholesale, your whole self. For you and your daughter. We love you deeply. We’re sending you lots of love. Physical abuse is not a relationship challenge, physical abuses of violence problem. The other things that we’re talking about are not the same level as physical abuse. We have never and will never tell somebody to stay in a violence situation, but please, please do not throw the word abuse around when someone is mean to you or what you’re perceiving as perpetual meanness, which very often is just a complete misunderstanding of how people are wired differently, how people don’t see things the way that you see them, how people don’t show up and do and say things the way that you say them.

Stacey:             22:33 It is really important that you get clear on these differences and have an understanding for the people in your family and just please don’t throw that abuse word around

Paul:               22:43 and goes for the others to like depressed. Just because they’re not bubbly doesn’t mean they’re depressed and this is kind of stuff we see. Or narcissists. Yeah, maybe they have an ego, does not make them a narcissist. And yet we see this coming up time and time again where people throw these labels out there and they’re like, oh, this is just a fact and this is why it won’t work and this is why I can never work. Well, as long as you want to hang onto that. Yeah. Cause you’re the one who’s holding it up.

Stacey:             23:07 Yeah. Narcissist is another one that’s being thrown around a lot right now. And really people are using narcissism to be synonymous with selfish and self centered. Well there’s a lot of selfish people around right now. There’s a lot of self centered people that doesn’t make them narcissistic, narcissistic as an actual condition. Um, but not everybody is narcissist. Just because you read a book that says how to know if your partner is an artist and you’re like, oh this is everybody in my life. This is my partner, my mom. This explains so much. No it doesn’t. You’re not off the hook. Just by blaming everybody and labeling them as selfish. There are tools and strategies and skills to having relationships with people. You still have a marriage, you still have a family. It’s real life and we still need to be able to navigate our relationships with people in real life.

Paul:               23:58 Wow. This episode is getting really long.

Stacey:             24:01 This is a big topic and it’s really important to free people because any limiting belief that you have around my partner is this. And that’s why it can’t work. My mother is this, and that’s why it can’t work. It’s just that people have run to the end of their skillset. They don’t know how to have a great relationship with someone who is experiencing depression. We’re has add or any of those other things. But that’s what relationship skill sets are for. We’re not here to just teach you how to relate to people who are just like you and happy all the time and never have a wedgie and don’t ever burp or Fart like these are, this is real life. You need to be able to navigate real life with the real amazing, genuine people that are here on the planet right now.

Paul:               24:47 Every one of them has a gift

Stacey:             24:49 and everyone has a unique brilliance. And a lot of the times the things that we see in ourselves that we think our deficiencies were truly our best gifts all the time.

Paul:               24:59 And if we let go of Einstein and said he’s a hopeless case because he won’t talk different,

Stacey:             25:06 we think that he has a learning deficiency. So here’s the thing. If someone tells you that you know, this won’t work because of their this or you’re saying in your mind this won’t work because she’s this, they’re just at the end of their skill set. You’re just at the end of your skillset. Because Paul and I, we handle these things all the time with people. It’s real life. You still need to have your marriage, your family, even if it’s not this marriage, you have a family and it’s going to be forever. Um, and I’ve helped people navigate things all the time where they’re like, oh, he’s a narcissist. This won’t work. Or She’s abusive and this homework I’m like, have, have you considered what it will be like when you divorce that person?

Stacey:             25:47 And now your concern, you’re concerned that you have different parenting strategies when you’re married and so you’re getting divorced. How are you going to navigate parenting when you no longer have the leverage of being married? Are you thinking about what it will be like when your children are in your partner’s house and what that’s going to be like without you there? What about when they start dating someone new? Are you concerned about that? Like it’s a fantasy to think that if there’s something different about my partner, I’ve labeled my partner that that’s my excuse. Like I can’t do this anymore. I’m not happy. There’s no fixing it. There is. There is a solution if you want to be happily married and in love. There’s always a way if you get real solutions that work.

Paul:               26:30 There’s a quote that we really love and it’s by Rumi and it says your task is not to seek love but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Stacey:             26:42 I love that and I really think that it’s the perfect way to capture everything that we’ve shared. Nobody says that you have to stay in a relationship. Nobody says that you have to put up with stuff that when you’re not happy, but until you’ve really taken the action to know if you’ve really applied all these skills to show up differently and transform that relationship. These are not excuses to stop. So let’s talk about action steps. What can they start doing now?

Paul:               27:09 All right, so the first thing you have to do is catch yourself, right? Everything we’ve been doing that we’ve brought up today that you may have been doing, that you see yourself doing first step is catch yourself, right? What were the things that you’ve told yourself are the reasons why your relationship is so hard or your partner’s just not the right one for you? Again, in air quotes, that’s the first ones. Catch yourself. Number two, what if, what if you were wrong? What if you just didn’t have the skill set to appreciate the differences that they bring and the benefits of those differences? Number three, imagine. Imagine if your partner was applying that same rule set that you’re applying against them to you because you obviously have a difference from them. Number four, take action. Take some kind of action because if you don’t change how you show up, if you don’t change something in your life, what will change for you?

Stacey:             28:04 Amen.

Paul:               28:04 Not anything that’s welcome. You’ll just kind of drift and see what happens to come your way. So take action by decision. Take some action to get a new perspective. Tools, skills to help you navigate your relationships differently to get a different, better result. All right, so in the next episode, Stacey and I are going to share the truth about why the passion fizzles in a longterm relationship and what you can do to reignite it. This is about creating an unleashed passion, hotter than it’s ever been, and people often think, oh, that can’t be, oh, I promise you it can be. And this is a big one. You deserve all the passion in the world. Passion is an amazing thing. Imagine living every day with passion versus where are you may be everyday right now. Right? So on the next episode we’ll expose the number one reason why passion fades in longterm relationship.

Stacey:             28:54 Awesome. Thank you so much for listening to this whopper of an podcast episode of the Relationship Transformer Podcast. Hey, if you got a benefit from this, take a screenshot of your phone, share it, spread the word, let people know, and if you can rate and review the podcast, that also really, really helps us to reach more people, because remember, together we are changing the way relationship is done.

Speaker 2:          29:21 Hey, would you like to get big results in your relationships in just 10 seconds a day? If so, then subscribe to our daily inspiration for relationship transformers or [email protected]/dirt.