In this episode, we dive into a crucial topic that can quietly erode marriages over time: resentment. We explore how lingering feelings of anger, bitterness, and unmet needs can lead to emotional distance, communication breakdowns, and even impact family dynamics. Through three key questions, we guide listeners to reflect on the sources of resentment in their own relationships, understand the lasting effects of unresolved conflicts, and discover actionable steps to address these challenges. With a focus on open communication, empathy, and rebuilding trust, we offer practical advice to help couples reconnect and strengthen their bond.
Tune in to see Resentments, a Marriage Killer, Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- What specific situations or behaviors in my marriage have led to feelings of resentment?
- How have these unresolved resentments impacted my relationship and communication with my partner?
- What steps can I take to address these resentments in a healthy and productive way?
Links referenced during the show:
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/marriageandfamily
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
Audio Podcast Version Only
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Episode #288 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Through a therapist’s eyes, a day after September, the United States is something that we still recognize. So off the get go, for all of those affected, Which is pretty much, maybe, all of us in America and around the world. So,
John-Nelson Pope: boy. I remember to the day where I was. Absolutely. Yeah. And there’s still people dying from the carcinogenics that were in the, the destruction of the Twin Towers.
Yeah, it’s a big deal. You know, it’s a big
Chris Gazdik: deal. It’s a big deal still continues to be but we’re in a brighter mood today I think hopefully it through a therapist eyes Where you get insights directly from a panel of therapists in your home or car But knowing it’s not delivery therapy services in any way.
We’re gonna be talking about a marriage killer. How’s that for a provocative title? Mr. John Pope is hanging out with us
John-Nelson Pope: I think that is it is provocative. [00:01:00] I kind of think of the Death Star from Star Wars. I’m a Star Wars guy.
Chris Gazdik: I love that reference.
John-Nelson Pope: Star Wars. Nothing but Star Wars.
Chris Gazdik: I don’t think that’s right, Neil.
Okay. Is that wrong? That’s wrong. I think that’s the first time you ever screwed up. Like, that’s not a Star Wars song.
John-Nelson Pope: It was from Saturday Night Live parody of Star Wars. Oh, I didn’t know. It’s where Bill Murray plays a lounge singer. And when Star Wars came out, and he, He was doing a lounge act.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Mr. Bill Murray in star Wars. I don’t know that I like that one, John. I don’t like that one a whole lot. It’s
John-Nelson Pope: a
Chris Gazdik: real thing. The questions I’m going to have you ponder today while we’re going through the show are what specific situations or behaviors in your marriage have led to feelings of resentment?
How have these unresolved resentments impacted your relationship? And communication with your partner. [00:02:00] And what steps can I take to address these resentments in a healthy and productive way? We’re going to hopefully give you some guidance and help through all that because this is a very common reality in marriages and one we deal with a lot.
In therapy and thought it was cool to build off of our conversation last week about resentment. So if you haven’t heard episode 287 entitled resentments stop and go back and listen to that. Cause you’ll get more out of this. I am going to review a little bit of what we talked about last time, but, but we took a deep dive on just resentments and you’ll understand specific specificity to marriage a little bit better if you hear that one in depth.
So definitely listen to that one. Then come back and hear this one. Maybe this is on the way to work You listen to the other one and on the way home you listen to this one. Anyway See us on Apple Podcasts Spotify all those good places if you like our show and you enjoy the content it is free for you But we ask you to please tell somebody we want to grow we need to tell [00:03:00] somebody five stars and John wants Five stars when you rate it.
You’re so calm when you do that, but very serious. Every time I’m very serious, you mean it contacted through therapist eyes. com guys, this is the human emotional experience, which we endeavor to figure out together. So John, what do you parlay from our conversation? I gave you some notice too, by the way, you did, you did.
I’m going to try to do better. I heard your comment. I think it was last show on air. You’re like, well, when you give me a few hours, which,
John-Nelson Pope: excuse me, which means I didn’t I didn’t prepare.
Chris Gazdik: Well, I, I kind of just say, you know, I mean, I knew
John-Nelson Pope: it was in the back of my head.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I let these guys kind of have genuine, you know, responses and reactions and conversation.
Cause we have a conversational format and we’re, we do with this stuff all the day. So
John-Nelson Pope: [00:04:00] resentment. is different than envy. I think I mentioned that
Chris Gazdik: last. You did.
John-Nelson Pope: You made a big point out of that. Yeah. And envy is, is saying, I’d like to have that from another person. Perhaps an authority or something that’s a partner or a friend, family member, but it also but that is not resentment.
Resentment says, I want what they have. And I don’t want them to have it. I think I said that. I think that’s accurate. That’s
Chris Gazdik: pretty, pretty appropriate. I mean, you know, to review And if you, okay, we’re not to review, but yeah, you took us into a little, what we talked about last time. And if we make that specific to marriages, you can kind of use the same concepts and it operates the same way.
Cause of course we have resentments for all sorts of folks, all sorts of situations in relationships. Right. But when you look specifically into marriage, you know, within a marriage, it refers to lingering anger or bitterness. [00:05:00] You know, really resulting from unmet needs, unresolved conflicts maybe repeated frustrations, chronic boundaries, chronic tendencies.
There’s, there’s different things in this specific close attachment that people, I mean, I don’t know, man, go to battle, go to war. There was a movie
John-Nelson Pope: with Michael Douglas and what was, she was was a War of the Roses. Okay. Yeah, do you remember that? From about 30? I didn’t watch it. But yeah, it’s
Chris Gazdik: classically referred to I’d be Kathleen Turner was the other one.
So tell me about the movie because I’m, I’m, I had never watched it.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, they were a couple that were headed for divorce and they got very territorial. They had, they had everything. They had money, they had the kids, they had all the things. Danny DeVito was in it, but one of the things was that they, they, Kept saying, this is mine.
No, [00:06:00] that’s mine. And they basically killed each other by accident by, because of their battle. They got to the house and they basically had a chandelier fall on them. Dear, like died, died, killed. Yeah. Died, died, killed. Yeah. And it was a, it was a little morality play.
Chris Gazdik: Wow. Yeah. Both y’all screwing up. So both y’all died.
Hadn’t seen it in 30 years, so, you know. Yeah, I, I’ve, I’ve heard that many times actually. And I, and I’ve never really fully realized. Mm-Hmm, , you know, the, the depth or involvement on on what? Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: they actually died. They actually died. The characters actually died,
Chris Gazdik: and that’s
John-Nelson Pope: the end. That’s the end.
That’s the end. And with a voiceover by Danny DeVito. Wow. Well,
Chris Gazdik: We probably should have qualified what do you call it? When you forte, huh? Spoilers. We should have given a spoiler alert. Thank you, Neil. Oh, [00:07:00]
John-Nelson Pope: that’s a brutal end to a movie, man. Wolverine and Deadpool turn out.
Chris Gazdik: What do you want to spoil that one too?
Like if you spoil Inside Out 2 for me, I’m going to be really angry. I won’t. Cause I haven’t seen that one yet. Okay. I won’t. Have you seen that one? No, dude. I’ve been waiting for 10 years to watch that movie. Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. I’m going to see it at some point. Where do we go with this, man?
So, so how do you, how do you parlay this in your mind when you think about, you know, resentments that we talked about in depth last week and then getting specific on to marriage when you maybe have a new couple coming in? I mean, do you think, how do you process in your clinical brain resentments in marriage?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I just recently had a couple that I had to refer out several months ago, actually. And there was so much [00:08:00] resentment in their marriage, they couldn’t talk. There was no way, and I, and there was a
sense that they were so, they were entrenched in thinking the therapist was taking one side over another, and that was both of them.
Wow. Right. Both of them are telling. So I knew I was doing something right. But at the same time, it was like, they didn’t want to, they didn’t want to hear
Chris Gazdik: they, they, let’s do a little behind the scenes real quick with that’s an interesting statement. You knew you were doing something right through a therapist’s eyes.
What does that mean?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, when both of it’s when both don’t fully agree. I mean, they say, you’re not taking my side. It means I’m being, I’m being I’m being neutral and it means that I’m looking at things objectively and I’m not perfect at that because, you know, I’m a guy, okay. I [00:09:00] have a guy experience, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t step away from that enough that we work
Chris Gazdik: hard as therapists to be objective,
John-Nelson Pope: objective and neutral.
Yeah. Yeah. And, and maybe even to do a gentle confrontation. and and do that. So it’s that the, it was, I felt like I would have liked to have done better with them, but you know, they’re, that’s not where they were.
Chris Gazdik: Why did you refer, please feel free to not answer this question, but it’s still through a therapist’s eyes in that scenario.
I can imagine people being curious. Why did you refer? Because one, one
John-Nelson Pope: of the, one of the couple was, was adamant. Okay, one wanted to. One wanted to. Okay. And I, so I referred them out. [00:10:00] So you respected the ethical responsibility of a right to self determination. Right. Okay. Right. Even though I felt like we were able to, we could do, we could do good work.
We could do good work. And so there was a lot of stuff from both of their backgrounds that, that just kind of reinforced there was substance use. Issues on one, and the other one was neglect and, and not being able to, to relate well to, to males.
Chris Gazdik: Which is an interesting comment because we will not probably tonight spend a lot of time on this reality, but I’m glad this comes up, you know, Kind of on the front end because whoa, I feel like one of the things you’ve really got to realize is all of the Psychological and emotional things that come into your current emotional experience.
[00:11:00] Yeah. Okay. It’s never And I use that word carefully because it’s a permanency words, but I think it fits maybe to say that it’s never really just exclusively the situation or even the person in front of your face. When you’re dealing with these resentments, it has a lot to do with life experiences, life’s relationships, all the way from the beginning to now that are ongoing.
All part of your psychological system that plays into all that you’re experiencing. And when you, yes, never is that word too much? No, that’s
John-Nelson Pope: not too much. In fact I think we make a mistake when we think we can enter into something like a, a blank slate, a tableau Ross Rosa. You can’t, it doesn’t work that way.
You’re carrying generations of stuff in your experience. Generations even generations.
Chris Gazdik: What a big statement. And it’s true. [00:12:00] Intergenerational reality with your emotional life experience with these relationships and events are impactful, right? Yeah, so there’s a lot going on when you’re dealing with what is provocatively called a marriage killer by me, I guess, today.
And I think aptly so to that in a moment. So, There’s so much that goes into that with your experiences in life that we can’t think of it exclusively, even though we’re gonna talk about it a little bit more exclusively today.
John-Nelson Pope: My, I argue like my mother and father did. Oh, you do? And my wife argues like her parents did.
There you go. And we’ve developed our own style, and so my kiddos will probably argue with their spouses in a similar way.
Chris Gazdik: It’s something that we create. I, I, I, I’ve, I’ve heard it said, and I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that the space between you and your spouse is [00:13:00] almost I think of it as sacred space that needs to be protected and managed, but in that space, those two people are creating the energy and the, the dynamics that you create together.
And so I love that, you know, yeah, your wife has her life experiences, you have yours, and then we create together.
John-Nelson Pope: I’m going to use the word that you use. May I be so bowed. Absolutely. To say that if you don’t have arguments in your marriage or with your partners, you’re not actually doing the work that needs to be done.
That is a bold statement.
Chris Gazdik: Yes. Back it May I be so bold? Back it up. Why do you say,
John-Nelson Pope: well, I, I think that if you’re if one person is not, let’s say one person is a dominant personality in the, in the relationship and that other person doesn’t say anything and, and just sort of takes it and it’s not expressing himself or herself, [00:14:00] then the, the marriage is just one sided.
It’s not a give and take. And so, cool. Part of the dance is to have sometimes have arguments. Yeah, they’re normal, normal. They’re necessary. It’s when it becomes screaming matches or whatever. Yeah, I do that sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Not good.
Chris Gazdik: Not. Right. Not good, but, but you’re answering the second question, but you’re being honest.
Yeah, absolutely. And you know please don’t put us on a pedestal , just so you know that. No, no.
John-Nelson Pope: Joy and I have,
Chris Gazdik: we still argue. Yeah, right. I mean, it, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a part of living and I’m right. Huh? And I’m right. , he’s usually right. Yeah. So he says, I would imagine Joy might have something different say about that.
But you’re answering, you’re answering a little bit of the second question. How have these unresolved resentments. Impacted my relationship and communication with my partner. You just laid that out for us in a big way. Inequality gets developed because, you know, you feel the injustice and all the things we talked about last [00:15:00] week.
You know, that, that, well, we’ll talk about in a second, common causes. I’m going to review that because it, it, it,
When it gets internalized, and it just gets held, It whatever resentment you might have whatever hurt you’re harboring whatever, you know Lingering anger or bitterness that you have You know, whatever unmet needs that you may not even know are there, these all contribute to this state of mind that you get into that’s a marriage killer.
John-Nelson Pope: One of the things that happened early on in my marriage, and I’m sorry I’m using my experience, but was that when When my wife and I got into it a little bit and she said or seemed critical or I felt like I wasn’t being heard and I remember from my childhood and in my prior relationships, even during adolescence, sometimes [00:16:00] I didn’t feel heard felt the same way.
Yeah, I felt the same way and I felt ignored. But I will not be ignored
Chris Gazdik: like that humans don’t like that. Yeah, but thank you for that. I mean, it’s a really good example I’m I guess I’ll return tort then because you know One of the things that I get going on is is you know Really feeling like you know a little bit of the people pleasing thing not wanting people to be upset with me like that’s terrible That’s bad.
The world’s gonna end so I have to and we’re therapists for great. We want everybody to love us Well, of course, you know, but I mean, I’m, I’m better with that now. And in, in, in a lot of ways, cause you have to do work on these things, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, you’re, you’re going to experience them.
And the big thing that I’m saying here is that if they remain unresolved, if they remain, just put down to support your statement, if you’re not having some arguments, some problems that you’re working through, you’re not doing the work you need to do. And I think that’s a true statement. I really think that’s a true statement.[00:17:00]
So what do you think about the title marriage killer? Is that not too much? Or is that, you know No, I think,
John-Nelson Pope: I think resentment is the quintessential marriage killer. And you resent your spouse. Well, you’re adding a word. I love that. Quintessential.
Chris Gazdik: Marriage killer. Marriage killer, yeah. I, I, I, I was doing show prep and thinking about what we wanted to do.
And I, I kind of really liked our conversation last week. And I thought, we haven’t talked about marriage in a little while. It’s been a minute, I feel like. Yeah. And it, it, it It just felt like it was the right follow up because we see it so
much. I mean, we see this all the time Arguably in any couples counseling session a therapist does Probably needs to be aware of what is the lingering resentment?
What are the lingering problems? Where does this bitterness come from? What has been unmet needs? How is this couple communicating? These are questions we [00:18:00] ponder in our mind behind the scenes in our brain to kind of get assessment going. How are we going to help this couple? Because that’s probably a good go to space to explore.
You will likely find new therapists or even experienced therapists, I’ll tell ya. You will likely find this stuff there. You know, every time, in some form, fashion or another. So what are the common causes? From last week, real quick re review. This is just any relationship. So we said common causes, betrayal in relationships, romantic friendships or family, unresolved conflicts, unmet expectations or perceived injustice.
That’s a big one. You’ve got an imbalance on me. You are, have been in just unjust towards me. Boy, that’ll get you holding on to past wrongs without resolution. Those are the things we talked about, but if you think about. What are, what do you find, is always a fun question, John, the main [00:19:00] conflicts in marriage?
I mean, I’ve got a few written down there, but I’m curious off the cuff. Don’t look! What, what do you, what do you think the main marital conflict areas tend to be? Well,
John-Nelson Pope: For me in my practice, it’s been money, money, money, one of the big ones infidelity, betrayals. Yeah. Yeah. Sex, money, sex, not having enough and not intimacy.
So it’s not just sex. It’s the intimacy. There’s a better way
Chris Gazdik: of saying communication, which a lot of people go to intimacies. Different in a part of that, but yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: yeah, but the communication is, is that you go to someone else for your emotional support as opposed to,
Chris Gazdik: well, that’s emotional or physical affairs.
Yeah, right. So, I added one more family dynamics with extended family. Oh, yeah. Cause, yeah. Sex, money, child rearing, parenting, [00:20:00] is part of the biggest. If you
John-Nelson Pope: have an in law that does not like the spouse, female, an in law, who does not like the spouse. Oh, man. In other words, a father or mother in law, usually a mother in law, sorry, I’m being sexist.
Yeah, I don’t know about that statement.
Chris Gazdik: I’m glad you caught it. Cause father in laws can be difficult too. Father, yes. It isn’t just the shows on TLC with crazy mother in laws. Or crazy
John-Nelson Pope: father in laws. That’s what I just said. Yeah, you’re
Chris Gazdik: right. Right? Like, it creates, I mean, Look, even if you think of being newlywed, like, okay, well, we do Christmas this way.
I’m with my family every year. Like, you’re married and you’re coming to my family’s Christmas events, right? What about my family, says the other person.
John-Nelson Pope: We do. Right? It took us 20 years, but we figured out that we go to Joyside as a family for Christmas Eve, and my family for Christmas.
Chris Gazdik: You know what I started to do?
What? [00:21:00] We started to take Christmas Day trips. Huh. Vacations. Huh. The four of us. Oh, that’s good. Right? It was just, we got to a place where, you know, that was good for the boys. And, you know, it was good travel. It was a good break. And, and, and we did that like four or five times now, actually. Good. Our families
John-Nelson Pope: are both in the same town.
And that’s
Chris Gazdik: not for any particular reason out there. It’s just what we started to do for, to be different. But
John-Nelson Pope: I don’t wan
Chris Gazdik: It’s kind of cool. Not, not on the road, but you’re, you’re in a city like we were in Savannah and it was so chill. Huh. It was a great trip. Was
John-Nelson Pope: there a McDonald’s open?
Chris Gazdik: Well, you know McDonald’s is always open. No, we cooked in the Airbnb. It was nice. It was good. It was very cool. Yeah, it’s it’s usually offseason And so you get like we went to wear
John-Nelson Pope: a sweater and a and a stocking cap.
Chris Gazdik: I did not but we did go to a [00:22:00] Very cool Extremely cold my god when we were in Savannah.
It was the best Frigid. It was also frigid er, if that’s possible, when we went to Snowshoe, West Virginia. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Oh, I’ve been there. That was cold. Dude, that air was blowing super hard at five degrees, making it wind chilled low. Maybe below. It was bad. You didn’t want this air to stay. So,
John-Nelson Pope: in other words, family trips.
Really work for you.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, we really got into enjoying them, right? So there’s different methods different things again You’re creating what you create together in this in this family unit. So if we look a little bit different on What are the common causes for all this? In marriage relationships were naturally landing on some of these things that I brainstormed.
You mentioned an unbalance. If somebody is internalizing, that’s tough because you internalize you numb out, which [00:23:00] we know from emotion focused therapy, that’s usually one of the two people, if not both very rare, but at least one. So when there becomes to be an imbalance of division of responsibilities or emotional interaction, that’s Tough.
Let’s just go slow for each one of these things specifically for marriage. What do you think about the division being unbalanced for various reasons? How, how, how does that work? Like what kind of balances are we looking for or what kind of unbalances do you think
John-Nelson Pope: occur? Okay. So are we talking about, let’s say, household activities or chores, or just, or that one, one of the spouses feels like she or he is doing a lot more than the other.
Chris Gazdik: I got a good moment to share that demonstrates this. It just occurred to me.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay.
Chris Gazdik: When I was a young man, we were not [00:24:00] newlyweds, but our kids were little. And I had a moment, cause I was probably stressed at work, I don’t know, it was a long day probably. Cause I came home, John, and I walked in the foyer, and I had my bags, I usually set them down, and I immediately go change my clothes, cause that armor needs to come off, it’s one of the ways that I mentally take care of myself, and get into my home clothes, and get into the evening, and leave everything at work at work.
So I come into the foyer, and I walked into the kitchen, and, Dude, the kitchen was a mess. I was just fit to be Todd, man. I was just like, look, this is ridiculous. There’s freaking cookie crumbs all over the counter, or whatever kind of breadcrumbs, dishes in the sink, like, leftover food, I’m like, dude, this, in my mind, do I have to do everything?
Like, what am I doing here? Like, this is not right. This is imbalanced. This is unjust. I was stinking thinking. You heard that term before, right? Oh, yes. I was stinking thinking, but then it [00:25:00] dawned on me. It’s like, wait a minute. Doing what am I thinking? This is ridiculous Christopher. That’s why I called myself Christopher.
Stop it That’s what my mother calls me. So when i’m getting myself in trouble, i’ll do that Right and i’m like your cleaning level Standards are like At a seven. Okay. I like a clean house and whatever don’t get me wrong Maybe a six john i’ll be honest hers are like an eight or a nine. Okay, so it dawned on me Wait a minute if she’s at an eight i’m at a six You And this is driving me crazy right now.
Boy, she must not be feeling really good about this. And it’s this way because she’s tied up with all sorts of other stuff. We have two little kids running around everywhere. Division of labor. Right. So I cleaned the daggum kitchen up, put my stupid stinking thinking aside, and got into the evening and, far as I recall, it was a great night.
Right? Right. I mean, I feel like that was a good moment. That’s a good [00:26:00] resolution. And I resolved it.
John-Nelson Pope: And so you Internally. And you were empathetic at the same time. And then I
Chris Gazdik: developed compassion.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You could turn it around when you feel yourself going into a state of mind where these resentments for any one of these reasons that may cause this to come out.
And switch it off, but boy John that’s hard to do I don’t think people do that really very often and maybe i’m jaded because of what we do But how successful do you think people generally are? At handling something like that now i’ve screwed up many at times with my resentment states, by the way That was a good moment that I shared.
So there are many others where I just didn’t but How how what do you
John-Nelson Pope: think? I I agree with you on that. I I You I, I don’t want to betray any, anything with my couples, but there are times that a [00:27:00] spouse will feel so unappreciated and so unloved because the, the, the other spouse doesn’t really contribute emotionally or in terms of showing, they get checked out.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they’ll go away and do their weekends. And yet the spouses left to 10 with the kids or and that’s not just females, that’s males and females that do that. Yeah. Yeah. Girls take girl trips. They take, sometimes they take a lot of girl trips. Right. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: They’re checking out. So. You kind of touched on this next one lack of emotional intimacy or support.
It’s funny. I don’t even Make the comment as much I think anymore over the last several years to qualify intimacy I used to feel a big need [00:28:00] to qualify that because you say intimate people go to sex I probably should get back to quantifying that a little bit because that’s not what we’re talking about here, John, right?
Obviously. Un Do you care
John-Nelson Pope: about the other person? Intimacy. Yeah. You share your heart. You could be intimate with with with friends. That’s and not have sex with them. It’s it’s basically you’re sharing your heart and maybe Gary and it’s it is scary and cause resentment when somebody shares their heart with another person but not with the significant other.
The spouse
Chris Gazdik: and you know why I think people tend to avoid this or have to low levels of this intimacy, closeness. Very closeness. Your marriage is the closest attachment that you will have in your life. Truly. Period. It’s terrifying. [00:29:00] It’s easier to talk to people when you have less skin in the game. You have the most skin in the game with your spouse.
So when they’re not sharing stuff with you, it’s because they’re terrified. They’re insecure or struggling. This is super hard to do. You called it right. Yeah. Very, very, very hard. But when you. Don’t fight through that. As you say, you don’t have arguments, or you don’t have fights, or you don’t work through it.
You’re struggling to get the things done that you need to do.
John-Nelson Pope: One of the things that, I, I have a client who is, he’s, he wants to tell his fiancé everything that he ever did. I’m kind of thinking that’s not necessarily
Chris Gazdik: You can go too much too. Too much too. You have to have a filter. That’s an interesting turnaround, and that’s usually the other person.
And that’s my, my game. Mm-Hmm. , you know, I’m, I’m, I’m on that side of the fence. I’ll just like rattle off all these thoughts and it’s like, [00:30:00] you know, and it’s like way too much.
John-Nelson Pope: And that might be too much for the other spouse or partner to take. Can I say that? Usually it is ,
Chris Gazdik: at least in my experience.
Because you can’t just rattle off everything. You have to be purposeful, you have to have a filter, but you can’t shut down, and you can’t just internalize. You have to have a balance. And that’s hard, hard, hard to do. Financial stress and disagreements. I’ll tell you, one of the things that’s a part of my trifecta, when we look at this being one of the things that makes this so difficult, or common causes, you know, Financial Peace University, Dave Ramsey stuff, it isn’t really Super technical about money, financial management.
It is good for budgeting. Those of you that don’t budget, you can learn a lot from that, but running a budget is not like super complex. Do you know what’s super dynamic about the financial peace university that I [00:31:00] found? Do you ever take it by chance? You know anything about it? Yes. Okay. It is absolutely
on point to get the man and the woman or the two partners for same sex marriages or whatever.
To actually sit down and have conversations about budgeting money
John-Nelson Pope: instead of going and throwing like your tax returns Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: or going through hell every time the month comes around and you figure out where your money is going what you’re doing And you’re just battling each other. It’s just that program facilitates conversation objective Healthy helpful.
You mean people are in the
John-Nelson Pope: same team.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah Wow. It’s possible. It is possible. And that, that program really teaches people how to do it. Here’s a big one, unresolved conflicts or grudges from past mistakes.[00:32:00]
You will have conversations with your partner and you will make a point in the conversation and there’s a natural desire born probably out of being right, solidified by a probable resentment. It’s But invariably and inevitably, I am sure you, you listening, you have done this. with your partner where you’ve made a point and you bring in all of these past events.
One event, two event, three event. Cumulative. It’s a cumulative argument where you’re going way back years ago sometimes, and you’re And this isn’t a nagging wife, by the way. This is us dudes do this too. Honestly, I think it’s the abandonment side that has the tendencies to do that more so. But I think we all want to demonstrate what we’re trying to convey.
And it’s really out of resentments. [00:33:00] Unresolved conflicts. It comes out. And it usually comes out pretty ugly. Definitely. It’s not a pretty, calm, and helpful thing to do. But it’s very natural. So, unresolved conflicts, resentments and grudges from past mistakes. Don’t you feel great when somebody brings up all your past failures, John?
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, just makes me feel so good. It’s warm and fuzzy,
Chris Gazdik: it facilitates a conversation and really helps you get your point across, doesn’t it? Yeah, it’s a knife in the
John-Nelson Pope: gut. That’s more realistic. Yeah. It’s not comfy. Or the knife between the shoulder blades. It’s not cozy.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. It is almost offensive. And I know that’s a tough point to say because I just said we all do it.
We fall into this trap, but we want to really talk today about how to avoid these traps. Differences in communication styles. Leading a lot of times as we say as well [00:34:00] with betrayals. John, I don’t think we can talk about communication without emotion focused therapy. If you haven’t heard a show on EFT emotion focused therapy, we talk about it on our show all the time.
It’s my go to. It’s my standard. It’s my staple. I think it’s absolutely on point from John Gottman’s material. I like to tell people John when I do a couples counseling session and I usually love to see the reactions, you know, be through therapist eyes, right? I’m honest with you. I get a jolly out of this one.
I will tell the couple, it almost doesn’t matter if they’re like warring parties in my office or just frustrated and angry or struggling in some way, I’ll be like, I don’t think you have a communication problem at all.
You should see some of the reactions I get when I make that statement. But I do it on purpose, not for my jollies. But I do it on purpose because emotion focused therapy demonstrates the engulfment, Withdrawer, the abandonment pursuer. You take on a role where you withdraw to create emotional safety, or you [00:35:00] pursue to gain emotional safety.
Pursuing. People want to talk about the problem immediately, now for a long time, hours sometimes, whereas the withdrawing person wants to shut down, pull back, create safe for themselves, and not discuss things.
John-Nelson Pope: Now, that’s going to happen, that’s invariably, invariably it’s going to happen. My wife and I did that the other day.
Right. Yeah. And we’d been married 43, 42 years. Yeah, 42 years and we’re still doing that. We’re a lot better, right? Yeah, we’ve gotten
Chris Gazdik: them so much better because the person that wants to pursue learns to chill the hell out. Shut your pot hole and relax. It doesn’t need to be done right now. And whereas, yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: good.
And if you keep trying to do it right now, that person is going to, you will push them further away. [00:36:00] And that is the hardest thing for some of my couples to hear. And
Chris Gazdik: because we need to talk about it, John says us the abandonment side, but the we’re drawing side needs to like, Hey, show the heck up, sit down, have a conversation, discuss something through.
Now that can be usually 15, 20 minutes. We don’t want to do hours, by the way, guys, 30 minutes. Like, you know, we want to have a shorter conversation, more like a skirmish. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. Have skirmishes, not battles. You have limited ammunition here. We’re only going in with one bullet. We’re having a duel.
No, that’s bad. That’s, I like your skirmish better. Yeah. We
John-Nelson Pope: don’t,
Chris Gazdik: we don’t want anybody to get wounded. We don’t want dueling. Dueling is bad. Okay, let’s move on though. But this, this gives you a little bit of an idea of where this comes from, where this goes, how this operates specifically in marriages, how does this impact in marriages?
We’ve talked about this a little bit, right? Like, you [00:37:00] know it’s come up naturally in our conversation, emotional distance. We just talked about communication breakdowns. And again, I have a different take on this with the EFT thing, right? Like I don’t think communication breakdown. Happens. I think communication breakdowns after as a result of one or both folks are not handling those primary insecurities of abandonment or engulfment very well at all internally, back to that little example, for example, that I actually did a good thing internally when it came home and saw the kitchen, a wreck I could have very easily and probably many times have gone this route, unfortunately, instead of saying.
This is a problem. We need to fix this right now. March in and find my wife and have a conversation about the kitchen and like You could have been a tyrant. I could have rolled right through her, rolled right over her, and criticized unfortunately and been just [00:38:00] pushy with like, hey, what’s the plan? Can we have a clean kitchen?
And that sounds a little bit ridiculous of me, I know. And I’ll say, like I said, we did that, I’ve done that many times unfortunately. This time I did it really well by canceling out my own insecurities, canceling out my own stinking thinking
I’m doing more than her. She’s not doing enough. That’s crap. And I beat it out of me.
I got rid of it and I just cleaned the kitchen, but many times over, we’re not having a communication problem. We’re having an insecurity problem and then we’re behaving badly on it by either shutting down, saying nothing, numbing out or blowing through, blowing up, blowing out. We want to balance. We want to learn how to give and take, give and take, choose your battles, flexibility.
Not taking them personally is a big deal. [00:39:00] Like, we want to learn how to cope with that, right? So yeah, communication breakdowns. I see that a little bit different. This is a big one. Let’s pause here on the erosion of trust is a huge factor specifically on marriages when resentments are very active. What do you think about that, Mr.
Pope? By the way, random fact, Miss Victoria’s not here, right? Yeah. She had a childcare thing, guys. Sorry. That’s a erosion of
John-Nelson Pope: trust. .
Chris Gazdik: It is not. I have not erosion. You’ve lost trust in her. I did not. That’s not true. Yeah. I don’t think any of us do. But she just had a childcare thing. She had to care. Yeah. So what do you think about the erosion of
John-Nelson Pope: trust?
Well, I, to me that’s one of the biggest things is, is, is erosion of trust would be. Is, let’s say this, one of the spouses or partners is show shares an intimate [00:40:00] photograph with another person on their iPhone. It’s a horror show. It’s Well, and they get past that. So let’s say they can’t, they can’t, we can’t temper, or they say they get past it, right?
Yeah. And, and it comes up like, like you had mentioned earlier, goes back for a long way. There’s clients that have struggled. In couples that have had pictures sent, intimate pictures or texts sent, and it’s brought up time and time again because for years, for years, and sometimes one of the clients doesn’t engender that.
Well, I could stay on. social media, or I can stay and, and Snapchat still or didn’t. And the problem is that person is not engendering trust in the, in [00:41:00] the other client and the, and the partner that’s been, I would say more aggrieved on, on, on that case. Or the betrayed partner, the betrayed partner, betrayed partner.
On the other hand, a client could keep his nose clean or her nose clean for a forever. And, but that other partner cannot let go. And still accuses that person
Chris Gazdik: of that. I think you’re absolutely on point. Of course. I want to quickly change off of that though, and stay on the trust topic and highlight how obviously there’s going to be major trusts.
problems when you’re recovering from even just an emotional affair and not to minimize that over having actual an affair and sex with somebody because they’re all, it’s all horrible experience. It’s traumatic. It’s traumatic. It is absolutely traumatic. Because
John-Nelson Pope: you’ve made your, your ultimate trust and care in this other [00:42:00] person and whether or not they’ve has a traditional definition of marriage or a relationship, it’s still there.
It’s ingrained in us.
Chris Gazdik: But it doesn’t have to be in that circumstance Follow me for a minute trust operates. I like to point out to people on two different planes One plane is trusting the person’s intent The other plane is trusting the person’s ability. Okay. Trust also is on a full scale, a whole continuum, the first and the second plane, both at the same time go from zero, which you kind of can’t trust somebody at a level of zero.
That’s a little bit difficult. But you can get pretty low or a hundred and everything in between and you also can’t trust somebody on a hundred I don’t care about your healthiest relationships that are out there You do not have that high level of trust people will talk about I trust you or I don’t trust you [00:43:00] That’s not accurate enough.
It’s it’s a scale and it’s trusting the person’s intent John. You’re a great guy
John-Nelson Pope: Thank you.
Chris Gazdik: If I fell out on the floor though, and I couldn’t breathe And you came at me with a pen and a knife, and you grabbed my head, and you went for my throat? I’m gonna tell you, like, no! No, no, no. No! I trust your intent to help me, brother.
So I
John-Nelson Pope: was gonna trick you! Yeah! I was gonna save your life!
Chris Gazdik: Bro, I do not trust your ability to put a pen and a knife in my neck to save my life. I’m scared, so go call 911, okay? Yeah. I trust the paramedics ability much more than I try I wasn’t
John-Nelson Pope: gonna I’m not gonna let you pass either.
Chris Gazdik: Okay Well, I’m gonna pass out and then you’re gonna do that because I’m not gonna stop you.
Yeah, right So I trust your intent wholeheartedly in that situation, but I do not trust your ability now think about that Mm hmm when you have an ongoing chronic kind of You know, reality between you and your spouse, you very well might trust their [00:44:00] intent to I don’t know What can I think of a mild conflict area to to be good with money?
I said money is one of the big areas I trust that you want to be rich with me to create an empire to work together and Make our retirement and our life great but You also like to buy stuff John and my trust in your ability to be balanced frugal and With me on our financial goals is low Yeah Because I know you’re spending money is gonna go and then you’re gonna go for more money and get more stuff that you want To do because that’s what I’ve watched.
I don’t trust your ability Right. Now, I’m obviously making this up. But it’s accurate. Are you? Are you? I don’t know you well enough to know how you spend money. I think you’re very appropriate with everything you do, John. You’re awesome. But thank you for playing along.
John-Nelson Pope: All things in moderation, including moderation.
Chris Gazdik: Yes. Yeah. Okay. I like that.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: But look, this goes on with [00:45:00] finances. This goes on with parenting. I trust that you want to be a great dad, dude. You’re But I don’t know that I see your ability because I see how you interact with the kids and I don’t trust you badly with
John-Nelson Pope: your ability. Well, this is a real life experience because my wife and I have had a different experience raising kids and I, I think that was, that was an area that, that she questioned me sometimes on my type of discipline and and I did the same thing because I questioned her lack of discipline.
And the truth is, is that we were both doing a good job. Right. But it was the perceived lack of ability. It requires a whole
Chris Gazdik: lot of grace. Oh yeah. Talk about that, because I know you love that topic.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, well, I think that’s, well one, one is, is that some, there’s [00:46:00] self grace too, because you can say, well, maybe I lost it.
Fair enough. I did, I did that. The other is, is that the person, that may be reliving their own childhood experience with discipline might perceive what might, the other partner might be doing is too harsh when in fact it wasn’t. But the and so that person has to reflect and say, okay, I’m going to have grace for my, my partner.
Now I’m not talking about anything. It’s not personal necessarily, but it’s something where if you’re not having some sort of disagreement in parenting and how to do that definitely something wrong, something wrong.
Chris Gazdik: Definitely something wrong because parenting has so many, but grace
John-Nelson Pope: is something that self grace and grace within the marriage.
So in other words, it’s grace for your part, grace for yourself. Grace for your [00:47:00] partner, grace for the marriage, or the relationship together. Give yourselves a break. bottom line. Yeah. Give yourselves a freaking
Chris Gazdik: break.
John-Nelson Pope: Be
Chris Gazdik: kind. You, you, you have so many pressures in the world around us and we’re going to add to them.
Like Grace says, relax, get through the moment, the day, the event, the deal, and you know, patient,
John-Nelson Pope: slow down. One of the best things, and this is, and not everybody has this, but in my view. My wife and my own experience, both parents the in laws, were very supportive and never interfered with how we parented or how we took care of our children.
Chris Gazdik: Mm hmm. It’s a big factor. Actually, you’re right. You took me back to a moment in Florida. We get to compliment my my in laws Little kiddo was Running across the lanai. They have a pool and [00:48:00] boom he tripped skydive chin planted into the ground Bleeding not quite as bad as you were bleeding yesterday, John Thankfully, but it was scary.
I mean he was like five, you know, well, my father in law’s looked at his wife Stop don’t Don’t do that. Don’t help. Don’t fix because he knew that, you know, his daughter and I needed to tend to our son Needed to you know, do the you know the process that’s good parenting. It’s absolutely good grand parenting.
Yeah Right? Yeah. Because that factors into that level. Are we going to move on a little bit of physical and emotional intimacy? That’s sex and closeness in that case is kind of, I think what I mean by again, how are the impacts? Physical and emotional intimacy is huge. It gets lost, it gets limited, it gets sometimes destroyed impact on Children and family dynamics.
We just don’t have time to kind of go into a hole.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s actually something we might [00:49:00] want to look at. At another time with minutiae and some of the family systems therapy. I like that. Absolutely. Because because sometimes parents will, will actually, uh, make an alliance with a kid against the other spouse.
Chris Gazdik: That’s called triangulation. If you want the cool word, right. What makes these things resentments hard to let go of? So feeling. Justified this is from last week any resentments Okay Again, if you didn’t listen to the show last week you want to tune it in because you’ll get more out of what you’re listening To even though you’ve gone pretty far by this point definitely when you turn this off go back and you’ll get more about this on a deeper level because We talked about what makes them hard to let go of feeling justified having a sense of justice about what comes on to Holding the resentment your fears fear drives A crap ton of [00:50:00] this resentment stuff.
Fear is a marriage killer. Okay. Drives out love. Definitely, you know, suffocates it. Suffocates it. Lack of resolution or closure to things. Feeling a need to be right. Trying to control things we cannot control. Fear of change and poor self esteem. Boy, it’s hard to do any of this stuff if you don’t feel good inside about yourself.
To even start. Okay. That’s what we talked about last time. We took a deep dive on that. What makes this specifically hard in marriages? Unmet expectations.
And feeling unappreciated. We’ve talked about that a little bit naturally in our conversation.
John-Nelson Pope: Mind
Chris Gazdik: reading. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Forecasting. In other words, you should know.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Which doesn’t work usually. Yeah. Fear of vulnerability. History of unresolved conflicts. We talked about some of those. Let’s center in for a moment on what makes this so hard to let go is a cycle of blame. [00:51:00] John, how much do you see in couples counseling the blame game going on?
John-Nelson Pope: All the time.
Chris Gazdik: All the time.
Isn’t it? I don’t want to look at myself. I don’t want to Challenge myself or confront myself and manage my fears and deal with my insecurities. Oh my god That’s so hard. I don’t have to do that. John if you would just get the freaking kitchen straight projects They’re gonna project. Yeah. All right. Now you gotta go with what’s projection?
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. The projection is, is that your own feelings of inadequacy or anger at yourself or that things aren’t working out, you put it on to your spouse and blame your partner or spouse. I’ve never seen that before. Right. Happens all the time.
Chris Gazdik: I said that sarcastically. Yes. I know it. It’s brutal. Noted. It’s so easy to do.
You know, I mean, I think most people are, you know, Aware [00:52:00] of themselves and and most people are kind of balanced in trying to assess ourselves in our private thoughts We, we, we, we try to correct ourselves. I think we’re constantly trying to grow and that’s part of the natural journey. You
John-Nelson Pope: find that, but go ahead.
No, with people that enter into therapy, they’re more likely to be, have that self reflection.
Chris Gazdik: That’s an interesting. Statement. Question. I’m actually, I think I’m gonna say no. I mean, a lot of times yes, but not always. Honestly, and I know that might surprise you, but I think a lot of times people come in I really want therapists to hear this statement.
I think that we have a teaching role that is Way underutilized because a lot of people come in and want information. They want to understand themselves and they know something’s up, but they can’t really figure it out. And I think they’re very tepid. [00:53:00] In the beginning, often times, it’s hugely difficult to come to a therapy session.
In fact, sometimes I think, John, they might be more shut down and afraid to kind of engage this. Somebody might have told them to come. A problem might be wicked obvious and they don’t know what to do about it but don’t really feel comfortable dealing with it. I think, you know, there’s different things that, you know, go and play into that that I I don’t I don’t I don’t know that necessarily.
They’re not
John-Nelson Pope: necessarily unlocked. Yeah, no, I think they’re locked up a lot of times. Well, I, I would say that they would be primed to unlock if they are asked to come or in a sense, they’re acting out, perhaps outside, perhaps they’re working and it makes them come. Mm hmm. But. But they’re also just demonstrating that cry for help.
So I, I think it’s a balance. I don’t disagree with you, but at the same time they, they may be effectively locked, but they just, you’re the WD 40 that, that [00:54:00] will,
Chris Gazdik: they’re already lubricate the process to be able. Yeah, I think that’s a big part of what we do. I think that’s a big part of the art side of what it is that we do to facilitate that process.
And if you’re, you’re struggling with doing that because they’re very resistant or whatever might be the case it, it makes the process of recovering longer. But I want to say, you know, primed. I totally agree with that part. You know, I don’t think we’re totally disagreeing because, because you’re right, people that come to therapy are primed.
They want help. So that’s, that’s certainly a big factor as well. But it’s not this hard, man. I think even though you’re interested in getting well and coming to a therapy thing that it doesn’t mean it is easy just to release out and let go. I mean, well, now people tell me things in therapy that they’ve never told anyone else in the world.
I just had it today. Right? Yeah. So talk about primed and
John-Nelson Pope: yeah. And yeah, but it’s, It took over a period of two months [00:55:00] working with that person. That person had to learn to trust, right?
Chris Gazdik: The, the rapport development that the therapeutic alliance, all that stuff is
John-Nelson Pope: poured out through heart. And it’s usually the last 15 minutes of the session.
Isn’t that
Chris Gazdik: the, isn’t that the truth, man? I had that just today. Somebody who never tries. I mean, it was wrecked and I’m like, holy crap. We got 15 minutes to go. Like, how, what are we doing here? You know, like we’re going to have to manage this. And it was, it was fine. It was very, very good. Cause you get to a good working place, but that’s sometimes why I think, you know, what the best therapy session would be, John, you meet, greet, have coffee and breakfast.
Yeah. Do an opening therapy deal. You take a break, you do some therapy, you have lunch. Yeah. You do some therapy, maybe take a walk, continuing what you’ve started to engage on, make further progress, have dinner together, wrap up, and go home. And I’ve never [00:56:00] done my ideal therapy session. Huh.
John-Nelson Pope: I had, I had he was a social worker, by the way, in Florida, and he had me walk with him.
Yeah, I’ve done that. Yeah. Yeah. That’s really good. You, you go out sometimes.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely, brother. I can’t wait to have my walking therapy session sometimes going down to see the Catawba River by our office. It is
great to do that. Although not until now, because until now it’s been way too long. I come back like dripping.
So it has to be it has to be fall. Yeah, sometimes winter in this area I can do that. But okay, how do we manage these dang things these dang resentments these darn Marriage killers these horrible experiences because man resentment suck to hold don’t they? You know as they say by the way resentments hurt the person holding the resentment They do not hurt nearly as bad the person you’re resenting.
So when you’re doing this stuff, I understand ma’am You’re doing this to yourself. I understand sir. You’re really doing this to [00:57:00] yourself You And it’s painful. So how do we resolve these things? How do we get these things dealt with? What do you, what says you off the cuff?
John-Nelson Pope: I think that one has, again, it’s a religious term, but it’s a it’s a spirit of forgiveness, of letting go, letting go of the resentment and letting go of the hurt and saying that it’s not such a big threat to, to not have to be 100 percent right 100 percent of the time.
Chris Gazdik: I think I got you trumped.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Okay. Mr. Trump.
Chris Gazdik: Whoa, not Mr. Trump trumped as in trump card. So what do you because what just popped in my mind when I asked that question out loud was Knowing that you have the resentment in the first place.
John-Nelson Pope: Acknowledging it.
Chris Gazdik: Right? Yeah. I feel like that is a huge piece of managing it because how many people have resentments and don’t even know that they have the resentments in place?
[00:58:00] So, in other words, your eyes are
John-Nelson Pope: opened. Right. The scales get ripped off your eyes. The scales fall off your eyes. Again. It’s almost a spiritual, religious kind of thing. Can be. Doesn’t have to be. But it is something that is letting go. Right. And in other words, letting go of what you’re holding on to so tightly that you don’t know that you’re holding
Chris Gazdik: on, you can’t even begin to do that.
John-Nelson Pope: And if you can open your hands and let it go, you can actually see things as they actually are.
Chris Gazdik: And you might even be able to give your partner a hug when you let go and their hands are open.
John-Nelson Pope: Man, I really hate it when she comes up and she wants to kiss me and hold on to me. Yeah. Yeah. You’re worked up because I, you’re not ready for that.
No, I’m not ready for it. Yep. But she does it. Yeah. And you know what? I love her
Chris Gazdik: for it. All right. Wow. You get through it.
John-Nelson Pope: I get through it.
Chris Gazdik: You really gotta have that balance, man. I [00:59:00] mean, you know, you do have to be aware of them and I agree with you wholeheartedly. Forgiveness and letting go mindset is, is, is, and, and I’m going to say, I’m going to use your thing from a little bit ago here as well and say, you know, you start by forgiving yourself,
John-Nelson Pope: right?
Chris Gazdik: You know, so many times you’re angry at yourself, your self esteem is low. And so to get well, we have to kind of deal with your own internal insecurities, your own internal anger, forgive yourself. Then you can forgive them. You’re talking
John-Nelson Pope: about patience too. Aren’t you? Oh yeah. I hate that word because
Chris Gazdik: I suck at
John-Nelson Pope: it.
Because you’re saying I don’t anymore see myself credit. It’s a process. It’s an unfolding. And so it’s part of our natural growth. Yes, yes, yes. If we’re, and I know that sounds all kumbaya and all that stuff
Chris Gazdik: definitely sounds therapeutically from a therapist, but it’s
John-Nelson Pope: true. Yeah, it’s true because it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a journey.
And I mean, we’ve used that term a lot to ad nauseum, but it’s, it’s, [01:00:00] how would you know you’re holding on to a resentment unless you began a process of letting go of one of the other resentments that you are aware of,
Chris Gazdik: which gives you a little bit of hope to John and occurs to me, even as you say that when you do this successfully once, maybe you have a successful cookie crumb moment, like I did in the kitchen years ago.
It’s easier to get the second one. It’s easier to replicate that. You know how they did that. You can do that again. And you can look at, well, what else do I got to let go of? And it begins to be fun. Oh, cause it feels great, like, I’m, I’m freed from this pain. Listen to what I said there. I’m unburdening, yeah.
I’m free from this pain. Your other partner might not even know that you went through anything. Yeah. Because it’s an inside job. Okay. Active listening, managing internal emotional experience, enabling objectivity. Actually is what I just said. That’s actually active listening. What? Active listening. People talk about that all the time.
I hear what
John-Nelson Pope: you’re saying. Active listening.
Chris Gazdik: Right? But managing [01:01:00] internal emotional experience. enables you to be objective. Therefore you can then engage in active listening. I would argue that you can’t do that without that. People don’t really think about that in advance. Alright, empathy and compassion we actually mentioned.
John-Nelson Pope: Again, we talked last week about humor a little bit. I’m, I’m seeing that being able to have humor about yourself. Why so serious? You know,
Chris Gazdik: We don’t have time to layer into it, but we’ve talked about on the show that fits right there with your statement. John is the skill and ability to not take things personally.
Wow, that’s hard. Setting realistic expectations. We talked about making agreements, then you can have expectations, but setting unrealistic expectations where you don’t even have an agreement. Rebuilding trust and emotional intimacy. We could do a whole show on [01:02:00] being purposeful about that. This is a really, really, really good reason to get counseling.
That’s how you manage these things. This is really, really hard to do internally. As a matter of fact, chapter one of my book that I wrote on marriage is that the best marital counseling is pre marital counseling, right? So, you know, Even in a healthy relationship, it would be really beneficial to kind of get tune ups, to get objectivity from somebody else, to kind of pick up some skills, you know, like, Don’t hesitate, man.
You get a little bit sideways, go. But, unfortunately, people wait until the ninth inning, down by three runs, and have two outs, and they expect us to kind of make miracles happen. Right, John? Right. We see that a lot too, right? Don’t wait so long. If you feel a little edgy, get there.
John-Nelson Pope: That it’s not when I’ve done weddings before, and let’s say the groomsman comes in and he’s drunk and he’s kind of being [01:03:00] forced into doing the marriage, it’s probably not a good time to get married, you know,
Chris Gazdik: I’m sure your brain has been.
Buzzing more than once when you’ve kind of seen some of the situations because I know you’ve talked about it before it’s like Boy have you ever told someone not don’t do it Yes, you have. Yes, I have. Oh, wow. Stopped
John-Nelson Pope: it right before I did it. Oh, man Does that happen very often? No. Yeah, fortunately not I’d very rare if I do premarital counseling I would say that the great majority of marriages that I’ve done over 44 years as a Pastor.
As a pastor. More so, yeah. Yeah, has, has succeeded. I mean, I hear back sometimes, but if I do the premarital counseling and we do it to over a period of six to eight weeks, there’s a, there’s a higher chance of [01:04:00] succeeding.
Chris Gazdik: That’s got some juice, my friend. You need to develop a program. Yeah. Mental note, let’s get together.
Shared responsibilities, creating purposeful time together. The apology forgiveness cycle that we actually did a whole show on most recently boundaries, everyone talks about them, doesn’t know them very well. I would argue we’ve done whole shows on that. And then as you pointed out, reconnecting through fun and play, but I reserved the power of gratitude as a bit of a mic drop as we need to wind up a little bit today.
Right? Yeah. Great gratitude list. Being grateful. Highlighting. Not naively. The issues with your spouse, because we don’t want to be blowing things off and internalizing and, you know, domestic violence. Yeah, it’s not denial, but being able to be grateful and focus on the things that are working in what you have, you’ll find an entirely different mindset that you can more freely do.
As you said, let go [01:05:00] and have that emotional piece rake over you. And it’s wonderful when you’re able to successfully do that. It’s just, Oh, so such a relief. Right? Right. So, marriage killer, resentments, we’ve got you hopefully thinking about some things to get out of that space because it is a painful place.
John-Nelson Pope: I, I, I’ve been thinking when we, when we leave, Neil can add some music from the killers. Oh no, what is
Chris Gazdik: that? He’s going to, he’s going to put on, he’s going to put on a song. What is this?
John-Nelson Pope: One of the songs from the killers. Have you? I don’t know. I, I, I was just.
Chris Gazdik: Neil just got, Neil just got interested. His eyes went open.
He’s like, Oh, I’ll look it up, man. Let’s do it. Let’s do this. Alright, listen everybody. We’re gonna get out of here. We appreciate you hanging out with John and I. Marriages are tough. They take purposeful effort. They’re never perfect. You’re not striving for perfection. You want to really have some grace for yourself, for your partner, and then letting go and [01:06:00] forgiveness is what we seek.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s like in you, you see in AA, it works if you work it. So I mean,
Chris Gazdik: that is a phrase that we use there.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Yeah. So in marriage, maybe it’s not all the time, more, but. It works if both parties are working it.
Chris Gazdik: Ooh, got to be both.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s got, it can’t be just one.
Chris Gazdik: It’s got to be
Yeah. Yeah. All right, guys. Listen, thank you, John. Thanks for helping us out and teaching us. I think it’s a really important topic. Stay well, take care and we’ll see you soon next week.