How do you balance independence and togetherness in a new marriage? This episode dives into the art of setting boundaries that protect your individuality while building a thriving partnership. From managing family dynamics and finances to navigating digital privacy and emotional space, we explore practical tips, real-life examples, and the secret to healthy communication. Whether you’re a newlywed or redefining your relationship, this conversation will inspire you to set the boundaries that strengthen your love.
Tune in to see Boundaries for a New Marriage Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- How do I envision the balance between independence and togetherness in my new marriage?
- What are the most important personal boundaries I need to maintain in this new stage of life?
- How do I feel about discussing expectations with my partner, and what areas need more clarity between us?
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
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode #291 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello, this is Through a Therapist’s Eyes on 10 10 24, I enjoyed rating that date all day today.
John-Nelson Pope: I did too. Isn’t
Chris Gazdik: it fun?
John-Nelson Pope: Yes, it is. I
Chris Gazdik: have weird things about cool dates in my progress notes, like go 10 10 slash 10 10 slash 24. Yay, so fun! Yes. I don’t know, I’m a simple man, Neil. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: it was 10 10 10, just 14 years ago.
Chris Gazdik: I don’t remember having an affinity for writing down dates on my progress notes then or typing them in. It must have, maybe it’s been a new development. I don’t know. But now that we’ve lost half the audience shall we move on?
John-Nelson Pope: We shall move on
Chris Gazdik: All right. This is 10 10 24. We’re gonna be talking about boundaries in a new marriage So this is through a therapist eyes where you get insights directly from a panel of therapists car or in home Not the delivery of therapy services in any way We have the three questions that we’re going to be posing [00:01:00] today.
I want you to think about through the show, how do I envision the balance between independence and togetherness in my new marriage? What are the most important personal boundaries I need to maintain in this new stage of life? And thirdly, how do I feel about. Discussing expectations with my partner and what areas need more clarity between us.
Provocative questions.
John-Nelson Pope: Three very excellent questions because that’s what every marriage. Dealing with. Dealing with. Absolutely. In the beginning.
Chris Gazdik: John, how many stars are these people supposed to give us?
John-Nelson Pope: They’re supposed to give us five stars, and I’m going to say go twice and give us ten stars.
Chris Gazdik: Dude, I want you to know how well Victoria did that last week when you were out.
Oh,
John-Nelson Pope: did she?
Chris Gazdik: Dude, she killed it. No, she killed it. Neil’s shaking his head emphatically. Oh my gosh, he’s still shaking his head. Alright, I’m dramatizing that a little bit. He stopped, but yeah, man, she hit it. Five stars. She got it right. Good. She made sure that people know.
John-Nelson Pope: [00:02:00] And we’re not we’re not doing this for, for therapeutic reasons or anything like that.
Chris Gazdik: Delivery of therapy services. Right. So subscribe, click the bell, tell somebody about it. We really want to build up. The YouTube channel this year with YouTube lives. So contact through therapist eyes. com is the way to email us. And we interact with you. It’s cool that way. This is the human emotional experience, which we do endeavor to figure out together.
I need to start getting serious about book marketing and book mentioning because I wrote another book, John.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s right. And you’re supposed to say it seven times, seven times, according to Frank Luntz. Yes who is does a lot of polling and things like that. So, in other words, you need to name the title seven times in a, every time that it’s like, let’s say you do an interview.
Dang, through
Chris Gazdik: a therapist’s eyes, re understanding emotions. No, that’s the first volume. I gotta get it right. What happens when I screw it up? [00:03:00] Do I have to do it twice? Well, you got two of them.
John-Nelson Pope: One’s blue eyes and one’s green eyes. That was
Chris Gazdik: volume one. Volume two is. Through a therapist’s eyes re understanding your marriage and becoming your best as a spouse which Definitely applies to this particular episode, wouldn’t you say?
John-Nelson Pope: Yes, definitely So you need to make sure that that’s seen on camera
Chris Gazdik: We thought alike so youtube you can see the book now through a therapist’s eyes. It’s coming out december 17th I think it’d be a great I think it’d be a great christmas present But then someone was like It’s like, dude, I can’t buy my brother a Christmas present about marriage book.
Like, what are you doing? What are you talking about?
John-Nelson Pope: Are you trying to
Chris Gazdik: tell me something? Exactly. So, YouTube live, you got a good look at the cover. Yeah. Yeah, I think it looks pretty cool but seriously, I need to get goose goose goose up about this because it is coming fast and I’ve just lost track of time.
I haven’t done a whole lot with it. Hey, miss Robert says or Cass says greetings Earthlings. [00:04:00] Greetings Cass. Good to see you back on. So, it’s just a cool book. Really volume two. I already wrote one. So, the second one’s always kind of, you know, you know, what’s kind of going on and I’m, I’m excited about this book project, John.
I think it’s going to help a lot of people really learn, have a deeper
John-Nelson Pope: understanding and this what we’re talking about is it’s right on point. It’s right on point.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. So, we will be mentioning it probably a little bit. Probably should’ve got chapters in there, but I didn’t. I didn’t have that much energy for it.
But we’re going to start off here today with directly some concepts that very much are in the book and they’re about marriage. And I think they’re so plat, the, the, the, the platform is so the foundations need to be understood. Before we even talk about that’s why I talk about EFT every time we talk about marriage because I feel like that’s so so big of a deal, but you have absolutely intrigued me, Mr.
John Pope, because you’re back. Welcome back. Right.
John-Nelson Pope: Thank [00:05:00] you.
Chris Gazdik: John Pope is with us. Victoria’s out a little bit under the weather, coughing up a lung. It sounded like earlier today. So
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, I didn’t want to get what she has. Yeah, we didn’t need you getting nothing, that’s for sure, because Because I was in the hospital for eight days.
That’s
Chris Gazdik: a long time, brother man. And, What he said that he’s going to share is something about a body bag, y’all. Like, I’m freaked out.
John-Nelson Pope: Yes. What are you talking about? Okay, here’s what happened. Okay, I wake up and this was the, the Thursday, which is when it first started raining so much before Helene.
And so I’m like, I can’t move. I could barely move. And I went up, of course, to go to the restroom. And the next thing I know is I’m, I’m kind of collapsing onto the floor. I can’t get up. So I managed to, to, to right myself once and then I headed back to the [00:06:00] restroom and the next thing I know is bang right onto the floor.
Ouch. Yeah. And it’s raining outside, cats and dogs and all of that. My wife sees it and she says, oh my gosh, oh my goodness. Well she used different words than that, but so, okay, so here I am. I’m white as a sheet. I’m perspiring. I am literally sweating buckets and I say, you need to call, uh, EMS. EMS.
EMS. Jim’s basically for Gaston emergency services. Well, I kind of go in and out and then the next thing Next few minutes Then I noticed that there’s firemen by my bed I’m in bed, which is good, and they’re checking, and the next thing I know is there’s EMS guys. Okay, now it’s really [00:07:00] raining. Cats and dogs.
Oh no! And they say, we don’t want you to get wet.
Chris Gazdik: Oh my
John-Nelson Pope: gosh. We don’t want you now Did you know
Chris Gazdik: this, Neil?
John-Nelson Pope: There’s, there’s the fire truck. There are three, there are three EMS vehicles out there. Okay. So I’m going out and I mean, they say,
well, we need to take you out and we don’t want to get wet. So they put a tarp over me and I have people in the neighborhood.
You’ve known my neighborhood. So they’re sticking their heads out like this and they’re at, and this is what my wife told me that they were doing. I mean, they were just, you know, they wanted to know what was happening, you know, and it’s lights are flashing and all of that. And so I’m in a body bag basically or a tarp, it looks like a body bag.
And so I ended up going to the hospital and I ended up [00:08:00] being tested. I had like 63, 64 tests. MRIs, CT scans with contrast, without contrast, and I was on telemetry and for, and then I was in isolation for four days, nothing, I’m not infectious.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: But I have some form of spinal meningitis. Right.
Trying to figure it all out. Trying to figure it out. But they don’t quite know. Right. Okay. So, there you go. So, I was the. Now I
Chris Gazdik: missed the part, maybe I tuned out for a second. We just got a text or whatever from, that we’re going to use for the show. So thank you, Adam. Did they use a body bag to cover you from the rain?
Is that what the deal is? Yes. So it was a legit body bag. They placed all over you, but they didn’t put you in the body bag. No,
John-Nelson Pope: no. They put it over me. So, so it’s this body bag that’s over me. And so I’m, and so they take me [00:09:00] in, uh, in, in the ambulance. And so I get, wow. Yeah. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: Well, John, I’m really glad you’re with us.
I wish that
John-Nelson Pope: I was the, I was the healthiest sick person in that hospital.
Chris Gazdik: That’s what they told you. Yeah. You pride yourself in your health, but seriously, welcome back. I’m glad you’re doing well. We’ve, we’ve spoke of several times, you know, this last week or two. A few at least and, and I know that was scary.
I didn’t know the body bag part, but you didn’t want to tell me that part, did you? I don’t want to do this again. Okay. Yeah, man. I’m just glad you’re doing well. We have great doctors, great doctors. We’re here for you. Whatever you need.
John-Nelson Pope: Thank you. And nurses.
Chris Gazdik: It’s two, two Lombard punchers. We’ve got contribution from the co host, actually.
Okay. All right. We’ve got texts, and he’s got an idea for a show, so Adam’s all bangin I hope you guys are doing well, Miss Adam and Miss Julie. Miss Adam. I said Miss Adam, didn’t I? Mr. Adam. He says, Boundaries of a new marriage. Anything that bothered in the [00:10:00] previous marriage should be voiced. If you ever thought I’m not putting up with that again, then it needs to be a boundary.
I am curious what you think about that, John.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s interesting, isn’t it though? Yeah, because I’m thinking that maybe there’s this sense. And, and I don’t know if you can say it entirely because if you’re in this new marriage, would that be an issue? In the same way. I think you
Chris Gazdik: gotta be careful with that a little bit, don’t you?
Yeah. It’s, it’s interesting. I’m glad that you sent in that, Adam, because it’s an interesting angle I hadn’t thought about and I wasn’t going to cover in this episode, but, cause I’m thinking more first time new marriages, but. We probably need to realize of course a lot of people are in their second marriages that are new marriages And it’s an interesting.
I mean, that’s probably a whole show in and of itself because it’s a different flavor for sure Than just a new [00:11:00] marriage relationship as your first and young love so, you know I don’t know. I would need to think about it more, but my first reaction is those things might be really just about you and your own.
Well, that’s great. Go ahead. Do you agree?
John-Nelson Pope: I agree. I agree. Go a little further. Well, I’m, I’m thinking that that might be some of your stuff that, that you carried on. And maybe the
fact is the reality is, is that there were. Difficult things in your first marriage and they, the former spouse did not handle it well or, or, or whatever.
And so it’s not to blame the, you can’t bring that to the new one. You can’t bring that to the new one or that, that you have to say that this is, we’re beginning again, a new, yeah. Are you new? Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: That becomes the question and yeah, [00:12:00] it’s There’s there’s some stuff there. I think we need to process that one.
That’s probably a good show idea Yeah to spend good time on that. So so let’s go. Let’s get let’s get in here. We we’ve hopefully yeah We need to we need to bang at it. So I do have a book on marriage that I finished Mentioned it in the opening and there are some themes in there that I thought You know are just foundational that I want to make sure that as a part of this conversation, just because I think it’s so, it’s so fundamental.
You know, the one is EFT overview. I’ve gotten good at an elevator version, quick and dirty. So I want to throw it out there so that people can hear that in this session. You’ve heard it before. This is a good review. I hope that you’ve heard it before. If you’ve listened to any of these shows, Like, you know, when you hear it, it’s so crucial.
So and you know Gottman’s stuff, right? Do you use it a lot? I forget what you said when we did the panel on it.
John-Nelson Pope: I don’t use him a lot, but I I have been using him more because [00:13:00] guess who? Guess what?
Chris Gazdik: It what?
John-Nelson Pope: You influenced me. Oh,
Chris Gazdik: okay.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, the, the youngster taught me. Well, I tell
Chris Gazdik: you, every dog gets a bone every now and again.
That’s right. It’s good stuff, isn’t
John-Nelson Pope: it? It is good stuff.
Chris Gazdik: It’s really, really powerful and absolutely awesome. I’ve
John-Nelson Pope: been using a lot of Lerner and, and Satir. Okay. Virginia Satir is
Chris Gazdik: cool.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Well, Gottman came in and what he did guys is he, he, he took thousand couples or more 10, 000 and whatever and put them all in the love lab is what he called it I think and he put science to it.
So he measured everything and Heart rate blood pressure tear ducts whole nine yards and what he saw is when people get elevated in some sort of emotional way He really dialed down like what’s going on in this conversation. What’s the topic? What’s what’s going on? What are people experiencing? And ultimately he identified that people are in operation of one of two specific in, in security States.
That is one abandonment. We mostly know what that is. You know, feel like fear of being alone, not being respected, [00:14:00] you know, that type of thing. But the other one is a fear of engulfment, which is a little bit of a weird insecurity. I had to look it up at first engulfed by water or engulfed by flames.
You’re overrun. You’re overtaken. By the other person. So a fear of So the boundaries
John-Nelson Pope: are crossed.
Chris Gazdik: The boundaries are crossed and you’re, you’re fearful of being controlled. And being criticized and being overwhelmed, overrun. So ultimately the abandonment stance operates under a model of pursue and the engulfment stance operates under a model of withdrawal.
So you have a pursue withdrawal pattern that typically happens because you have three possibilities. One is two engulfment people, which is kind of weird. It doesn’t happen very often. It’s parallel lives. You’re not really connected to. Abandonment people, which is a lot of clash love fest when it’s good John But when it’s not I think we used to call that a high conflict marriage, right?
Remember that term, right? I think that’s what a horn conflict marriage. I think so and I
John-Nelson Pope: have I have [00:15:00] worked with people like that and it’s I
Chris Gazdik: have to it’s very
John-Nelson Pope: difficult. It’s challenging
Chris Gazdik: very difficult An overwhelming majority of the time people operate from opposites attract and you get a pursue withdrawal pattern where to gain emotional safety.
That’s that great Paula Abdul song. To gain emotional safety, the abandonment person will pursue, want to be close, talk, talk, talk. The engulfment person to gain emotional safety. We want to pull back and withdraw and shut down and put up walls. And whenever one does their thing, the other person gets triggered.
So that’s the quick and dirty. Neil, you have a thought.
Neil Robinson: I want to leave a producer note here. He only said engulfment was weird because he’s an abandonment person. Oh man. So just so you know, engulfment, just because you’re engulfed doesn’t make you weird. Chris just doesn’t understand it because he’s an abandonment person, just FYI.
What I said
Chris Gazdik: was weird for clarification, producer, is that the withdrawal, [00:16:00] withdrawal. engulf people together. No, when you when you
Neil Robinson: clearly stated that when you’re talking about abandonment was one way and engulfment which is weird is this way. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, okay. Well, I said that because it’s a weird people don’t know what engulfment even means, man.
Yeah. That’s fine. Okay, I’ll take it. I’ll take that. Nicely done. Nicely done. Alright, moving on though. Any comments on that though? No. Yeah. No. I think that’s so the golden egg, you asked a question.
John-Nelson Pope: Yes. What is the golden egg,
Chris Gazdik: right? It’s in my book and it’s it’s my own concoction of a thought and I just called it I probably could have come up with something cooler But I’ve always thought of it as the golden egg and to me the golden egg really refers to like that space in between two people That is really a kind of a sacred space.
Mm-Hmm. . I mean, what we are creating together in a marriage is, is, is dynamic. And what we’re really, really trying, which is very, very elusive to get to, is this space that I call a golden [00:17:00] egg. It’s golden because it’s very special. Eggs are kind of special too, I feel like. Mm-Hmm. , you know, it’s represents birth and, you know fertility, something new, right?
All of that. And so. The golden egg in my mind refers to the amount of safe space Emotional safety is crucial. You should see his face on youtube live y’all He’s gonna have to describe the face here in a second What the face means because that is such a powerful and elusive and important thing to create Is that emotional safety?
For one another and I find that people struggle with that Well,
John-Nelson Pope: and, and I think they struggle with that over throughout a marriage oftentimes. And it’s not a one and done space. And, and if one does not have a safe space in a family growing up, it’s going to affect negatively and impact their partnerships or their [00:18:00] marriages afterwards.
when they’re in their own relationship with, with another person, significant other
Chris Gazdik: spouse. That’s a very important factor that goes, I mean, that’s where therapy kind of comes in. So yeah, honestly, if you are considering getting married or recently getting married, or you’ve been married for 20 years, and this applies to you, you’ve had chronic realities in your marriage that very much are related, you know, I’ll throw in substance abuse families especially, because of course that’s not safe.
It’s like a Torture chamber in some ways, or even just divorces that have happened or difficult parents or family dynamics that really created us an experience or families
John-Nelson Pope: where there have been multiple infidelities and, and, and that sort of thing in which there is a marriage. And yet at the same time, one spouse bri
Oh, God, the children see that. Right. Right. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: What a brain [00:19:00] F that is.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. There’s one, one kid that was sleeping in his bed and his his mother had her lover over and and dad didn’t know, stepdad didn’t know and stepdad came home. And so the, the, the, the other fellow that, that she was having an affair with went in the bed with him to hide.
And that’s, Oh God. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Chris Gazdik: Really? This is a case you had? It’s a real case. Oh my gosh.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. And little wonder he’s having a little trouble with his marriage now.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Not a shock because it definitely is going to impact your attachments. Like how do you cope with these types of things? Yeah.
It’s, it’s, it’s powerful. There’s a lot of reality there. So, you know, I guess one of the things we’re landing on highlighting here. You’re helping us to understand that John is can we say or extract from that when you’re really looking at a new marriage a new Relationship like that. [00:20:00] You’ve really got to do due diligence in your own psyche Your own emotional attachments previously in life.
Do not make the mistake the complete naivete thinking that that All is in the past and doesn’t affect you now it does
John-Nelson Pope: a lot of times people unfortunately, they’ll, they will leave a a conflicted household and we’ll go and and get married as soon as they can find somebody that will take care of them.
And in fact, they, they end up in the same spot that they were
Chris Gazdik: rushing it alone too much, getting your emotional needs met by dating and all of that is definitely not a good idea. In a destructive way, I guess I should say, because obviously you want your partner to meet various needs, of
course, but emotional and physical, but yeah, you have to be careful about what those needs are, where they come from, for them to
John-Nelson Pope: fill up the emptiness that they may have.
Yeah. Emptiness
Chris Gazdik: is not something to [00:21:00] have thinking your partner is going to fix that. Yeah. It’s not going to happen. I think that’s a fair statement.
John-Nelson Pope: I think, I think it’s absolutely a true statement. It’s almost like,
Chris Gazdik: if I’m unhappy, I’m going to have a child, and that’s going to make me happy. Like, oh my emin, no.
I will make you love me. Right. Yeah, there’s a lot that goes on there with that. Okay, that’s been an awesome little unanticipated segment. I wanted to highlight expectations because I feel like we’ve done a whole show on expectations and what you’ll find with our conversation today is it has a lot to do with boundaries.
All kind of boundary issues. It’s almost pretty much what we got enough time to highlight. Is spend time working with today talking about the boundary that changes in the boundary developments and all of the things that happen with a new relationship. I mean, you know, the boundaries of a new marriage is the title, but there’s so much goes on in a new marriage.
[00:22:00] Like we just took time. We’re talking about, but it’s all about boundaries. I feel like in the new first part of relationships that sound. Yeah. And so expectations, we did do a show Neil, I really should have researched the, the number for that. If you have a way to see what show that was, that’d be great.
On what expectations are how we deal with them how that we work with them And I really feel strongly that i’ve come to in my work with people fairly recently in my career honestly the last few years believe it or not i’m really feeling like the The the only healthy way you can get to have an expectation Oh, yeah, I put it that way say it again the only healthy way that you can Be allowed to or that you get to have an expectation of somebody is when you’ve had conversations and you formed agreements Right, you have to have agreements in place [00:23:00] When you make an agreement together, then you can expect that the agreement is upheld.
So that’s an
John-Nelson Pope: emotional
Chris Gazdik: Covenant. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, right. But when you develop or have an expectation about your partner and you haven’t ever even had a conversation or made a staunch agreement about it in specific terms, you’re doomed because the other person might not even know you have this expectation.
Right? Precisely. It’s a mess! Yeah. T total and complete mess. And you who are newly married, either second, third, fourth, or first marriage, you’re raging with these expectations and it’s dangerous unless you have agreements or long term norms. And the way I always use an example for that, John, is if we’ve had brunch on Sunday every week for 73 weeks here in about three days.
It’s Thursday. Today, I can expect that we’re going to have brunch at 2 o’clock and sit down at the table is Sunday, but that’s because [00:24:00] we’ve done it 72 times in a row. So, you know, you can, you can. Be relatively safe there. But those are the way that we deal with expectations. Make sense. Anything to add?
I know we’re flying quick. Cause these are just concepts I wanted to get to the golden circle is the last one that I have written in the, through a therapist’s eyes, re understanding your marriage and becoming your best as a spouse, I have to do that five more times, five more times, really? Yes, it’s a lot.
John-Nelson Pope: People, I swear to you that people will buy your book
Chris Gazdik: if I say through a therapist’s eyes Re understanding your marriage and becoming your
John-Nelson Pope: best because spouse that’s right because they will know They will learn that and they will hear it and they’ll it’ll it’ll show up Seven times and that’s no, not magic.
It’s just that
Chris Gazdik: psychology, I got to figure out this marketing psychology crap. I say crap. Cause I don’t like any of that. Just tell all your friends is my marketing strategy, psychology, [00:25:00] psychology. All right, the golden circle is in there and that’s another concept that I have kind of created thinking about marriage and I wrote in it I wrote about it in the book Which which really just kind of relates to like I think how we want to try to relate Circularly with each
other to where we’re accepting each other boy Is it easy or hard to accept your spouse just as they are?
John-Nelson Pope: I think it’s very hard Sounds good It sounds perfect.
Chris Gazdik: Oh yeah, I do that all the time. You’re fine. It’s just as you are. I love you. Everything about just as you are.
John-Nelson Pope: The Billy Joel song. What’s that one? I love you just the way you are. So
Chris Gazdik: you didn’t really sing it though.
John-Nelson Pope: No, I’m not going Billy Joel. I’m not going to Billy Joel on you.
So you rock and roll with me.
Chris Gazdik: It’s another one. So we accept each other. And it’s an important part that starts the [00:26:00] process. Then we express what we need to express. So you have got to non verbally or verbally, by the way, we express a lot of things, non verbally might want to get some verbal in there that confirm what you’re expressing non verbally.
So, but we accept each other and then we express, and then we convey. So it isn’t just about saying something you want to get into a place, into a, into a cyclical thing where you’re conveying what you’re. What you’re meaning and so the word convey. What does that mean to you? That’s different You might be a better wordsmith than me.
John-Nelson Pope: No convey is in other words You you’re you’re able to not just express it which would be saying this or or this or that right? This or that but convey is actually an active Exchange, it’s an exchange. It’s right.
Chris Gazdik: I want to make sure that you understand where I’m at with this So So you’re, you’re, you’re accepting the person, they’re accepting you, you’re expressing, they’re expressing, and we’re [00:27:00] conveying back and forth.
And then we move. So
John-Nelson Pope: it’s like a conveyor belt. So in other words, something’s going back, there’s a, there’s sort of an intersection.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. It’s going
John-Nelson Pope: somewhere. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And I want you to get the whole package. Then we receive. So if you’re open, you’ll receive what’s being conveyed and then you turn back around to acceptance.
So the whole circle is except express. Convey, receive, and you’re back to accept. And then you express, I can accept that. And you convey nicely done. So, you know what I’m saying though? I mean, I’m sure you’ve never heard this cause I created this in my head. I’m really curious what you think about this golden circle.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I like that because it’s, you know, we usually see circles as sort of a negative thing because you’ll say in terms of relapse of, of substance, you said thinking circularly. Yeah. Yeah. But in this case, it’s sort of an exchange of gifts and receiving of gifts, [00:28:00] and so it is that conveyor that built itself.
It builds a relationship. It builds history. It builds continuity. It builds builds strength on strength. And I think that’s why you called it the Golden Circle. Right. It’s like a golden ring.
Chris Gazdik: That’s really cool. Yeah, I hadn’t thought about the ring, but you’re right. Yeah. It’s a wedding ring in a circle.
It’s
John-Nelson Pope: eternal. You turn on.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, very cool. So you’re like this
John-Nelson Pope: diamond ring I love that.
Chris Gazdik: That’s right. So this show shows out on by the way episode 290, you know Why do people struggle so much to say no? victoria and I Spent a deep dive on on that. It was a good conversation John to really highlight like that’s hard to do So go back and listen to that one honestly and come back to this because they really purposely on my part sort of play off on each other in a Specific with specificity to marriage, [00:29:00] but you know saying no to anybody and is a difficult thing, right?
You out there thinking that’s wrong. Come on now. I know you struggle I know that you have difficulty when somebody really wants you to do something for you to say no to them. I like to think that I say no well as well. I know that’s psychologically hard, John, right? It’s hard for me. Yeah. It’s always been hard.
I’d much rather say yes than no. And receive the smile that you’re going to give to me and then say no to you and receive the
John-Nelson Pope: I want to receive approbation for what i’m doing and say yeah, you’re you’re a really good guy. John nelson Right and yeah pat on the back and Approval, so you want to be the good guy?
It’s
Chris Gazdik: natural.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: it’s like a normal part of living and I’ll tell you One of the things I always like to tell new couples, [00:30:00] now in just my personal life, I was sitting at a bar, I was talking to somebody, having some sushi, and somebody was newly married, and I told them this, I’m like, one of the things that’s so important to be able to try to do, kind of playing off the golden egg, is being able to, To say anything.
And I mean that word, I don’t use it very often. Being able to say anything to your spouse that you need or want to say. And that’s a tough standard, but sometimes you need to be able to say no. And you almost feel like I already tied the knot. I can’t tell this person. No. When you’re newly married, you know, maybe you second and third married people like no, I’m gonna tell her no, you know But there’s an weird expectation.
I’m supposed to be agreeable to everything that you want, right? Yeah How am I supposed to tell my new husband? No figure it out because you need
John-Nelson Pope: well [00:31:00] I’d say about year two and our marriage my wife said no to me sometimes and I needed to hear no Because I needed to be able to actually be aware of her needs.
And she, she grew up in a family where you never said no. Yeah. Right. And so it took a lot of guts for her to, to say no to me. Because I, you know, I’m, that’s, I was a preacher boy.
Chris Gazdik: Those are always the scary ones. Yeah. You’re the ones we have to look out for. Oh yeah. No, I was like, give me that chuckle. You do.
No. So, so there are some episodes. You got that one by chance yet, Neil expectations. Just expectations. Okay, because we got episode 288 resentments are [00:32:00] marriage killers Definitely listen to that one if this show is interesting to you and then episode 289 the danger of losing yourself Codependency, parenting, caretaking role, and we talked about marriage burnout, if you remember that, John, right?
Yeah, I remember. Right? The danger of losing yourself is also something very important in these boundaries of a new marriage. You are not, let me tell you, you are not no longer an individual. That’s a double negative, isn’t it? Well, I understood. You’re still an individual person when you become one with the other.
The two become one, but you’re still two. How about that for a confusing reality,
John-Nelson Pope: John? Well, it’s as old as the, as the hills. I’m thinking as old as scripture, it’s in Genesis, the, the second chapter Genesis, you know, [00:33:00] where you become one flesh. And so, but then you reveal more of the image of God in that sense and in relationship.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. But you’re still an individual entity. You’re
John-Nelson Pope: still an individual entity. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: But it’s the, so John, explain to me. How can the two. How can one be one when the two are two and you become one? How are you still two? And while you’re at it, why don’t you just tell me about how too much. All right, come on, man.
How is that? How is there a God, a Jesus, a Holy Spirit, and they’re all different entities, the Trinity and it’s all one. God in three persons. Like what? You know what?
John-Nelson Pope: You know what I do when I do premarital counseling. What? I talk about. You tell them to. And I do it in terms of, of, of my perspective. Now if I’m, I’m have a different approach, if I’m doing premarital counseling in a secular here in the office, here in the office, but if it’s for for a couple of from church or something like that, I talk about [00:34:00] that they’re a reflection of the Trinity and that, that God is, is a triune God, but he also gives
us a triune nature in the sense that God is is the, is the is the founder of our relationship and that we interact with each other and we become more human and more the way we’re supposed to be in his image by being in that relationship.
I’ve thought about that many times. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You eloquently just put that. I mean, I think that’s, that’s pretty deep and important, but let’s move on to what are the boundaries in marriage, John? I mean, what, what are, what are some of the things we’re really kind of talking about that are pivotal or important to understand early on in a marriage?
What the boundaries are that we’re dealing with.
John-Nelson Pope: I think one of the big problems is people don’t necessarily respect their personal space in a marriage. The time, [00:35:00] alone time, that even in a marriage you have to have alone time. Yeah, you engulfment folks need to be alone. Yeah, I’m an engulfment person. So, engulf and devour.
No, no,
Chris Gazdik: that’s what we do. That’s right. We tend to say, Oh, well, we’re together now. We’re together every day, all the time. Right? Like we’re connected at the hip. Right. Well, that might be a balance that you come to if both people are agreeable. You know, those couples that never see one without the other, right?
Right. You know, that might not be the way your spouse wants to live their life. And if that’s the case, you, sir, need to respect that. Or you, ma’am, need to respect that. Understand, your spouse may need that time to recharge. They may need that time literally away from you so that they can be closer to you.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s right. That’s your key. And that is so that you could be more available right to the, to the other [00:36:00] spouse. When you have that alone time, you recharge your batteries. I’m one of those people that needs, I need an hour to just sort of go. And
Chris Gazdik: unwind and John, that’s very different for me. I don’t need an hour.
I want to go home, take my armor off. That’s my professional clothes. I go put a ball cap on shorts and t shirt like, all right, babe, let’s go to the deck. I need deck
time. I want to talk to you. Like that’s five minutes after I get home. That’s ideal for me.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s an hour later for me, right? Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: There are differences.
With you and your spouse that you need to honor and respect and
John-Nelson Pope: learn But you know, it’s good about my my spouse. My wife is that she respects that. Yeah, but it wasn’t always the case You may not have been at first right? No, we had to learn we had to have some conflict. Yeah
Chris Gazdik: No, boy. Yeah, can you have an early marriage without conflict?
John-Nelson Pope: I don’t think you can have a marriage without it. Can [00:37:00] we
Chris Gazdik: say, if you have an early marriage and you’re a year in and you’ve never really had a major fight or disagreement, that’s a problem?
John-Nelson Pope: I think that’s a problem. I think communication, I will say this, is that one of the things they told us at seminary, when in our pastoral group, Counseling courses was that they need to know that you’re human and that you’re a real couple.
And so if you’re going to have an argument, throw up your windows so that the people passing by can hear you argue. And of course, you’re more careful not to argue loud. But yeah, but part of that was the humanness. of, of, of that you share each other’s wants and desires. And sometimes you don’t have an articulate way of expressing it.
And so the voice gets raised in the hot, the pitch gets higher.
Chris Gazdik: And it gets elevated, right? We get triggered. Gautman would say we get into our abandonment stance or [00:38:00] our engulfment stance and the cycle starts. Pursue, withdraw, pursue, withdraw.
John-Nelson Pope: But there’s, but healthy marriages are people that they learn that style, yeah.
Chris Gazdik: There’s a lot of learning. And don’t think that you want to move in with each other and do this learning. Or that we’ve been dating for four years and we know this stuff already. Look, when you are a day before marriage, I don’t care any of the pre circumstances. And the day after your marriage is completely different.
John-Nelson Pope: In my premarital counseling that I’ve done, from religious or secular points of view is that I am amazed at how many people have not ever talked about finances. They have not, or they actually live together. And so they for, for time for years and haven’t even talked about it. Haven’t considered some of these things and they [00:39:00] think, well, we’re going to get married and it’s going to be the same thing.
Something there is about marriage, that contract, that covenant, people start thinking differently. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And you’re right about all these different things, you know parenting, religion. Finances is one of the big ones that marriage struggles are wrapped around.
John-Nelson Pope: You might find a person that is let’s say from the Jewish faith or Islamic or let’s say Catholic or even Protestant, but, or, or LDS.
And it’s interesting, the guy’s never been to church in faith. 10 years, 20 years, and as soon as they get married, boom, boom, you need to come to my church. Okay. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Do we get to talk about this? No.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: That’s a lot of times. Yeah. I was going to play it out with you. Yeah. I mean,
John-Nelson Pope: no, you have to [00:40:00] do exactly what I want.
Right. Yeah. That’s what
Chris Gazdik: my church teaches. And to play that out, like, I went to a different church. Yeah. I don’t subscribe to that, right? Like, how do we manage this? Huh. You know, my brother and his wife, I don’t think you would mind me saying, th
He does the whole Catholic thing, which is smells and bells. Yeah. Yeah. Smells and bells with Catholicism and, and she does whatever she does. I don’t know what that is. Denomination that is I’m just realizing that but it’s different. I think it’s Methodist, but she she just goes to her church He goes to his church and they’re okay with that
John-Nelson Pope: and I’ve known couples like that but they had to make that agreement and discussed it and then say how we’re gonna raise the children and right and I think a lot of times people I think it has, I think that’s one of the areas that is very important that, that people don’t talk about [00:41:00] is what are we going to raise the children at?
Or where are the children going to go? Where are we going to go for Christmas? Or Thanksgiving, you know, who’s parents, who’s family.
Chris Gazdik: I’m amazed at the family culture realities with holidays in new marriages. Dynamic. We’re got the holidays coming up. We’ll probably talk about that then because we’ll revisit that.
We’ve my wife dynamic challenges in it.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, my wife and I are, are, are newlyweds of 42 years and we still argue about that a little bit.
Chris Gazdik: Here we go, your dad’s, my dad’s, no, we’re going to the kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, the things we covered there, emotional boundaries, physical boundaries, financial boundaries, social boundaries, time.
Boundaries. Family boundaries. Actually, I think we nailed them, John, didn’t we? Why are these things important? I guess to go a little further on them. Go ahead. Sorry.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I would like to give you another example of [00:42:00] time boundaries. Okay. Is that the guy thinks of himself as a good old boy. It’s a traditional, this is the way I was raised.
Dad was out of the home a lot and went to the hunting camp. Okay. And the wife says, I need a lot more than that. I need, I want weekends with, with you and the, and the kids weren’t happening with hunting. Yeah. Well, I brought the kids. I brought one of the kids hunting with me. That’s more than that. You gotta, you gotta spend that time and listen and communicate.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, and, and that’s a, yeah, a perfectly placed, John. I mean, you know, how many different discussions do we need to have about our activities? Our commitments are, you know, are we committing to the church? What do you mean? You’re a deacon that takes up a lot of time. I don’t know that I like that idea, right?
Like all of these things [00:43:00] play into, you know, where’s our commitment together? Because it’s our commitment. Commitment. I’ve talked to
John-Nelson Pope: ministers. I mean, I’m a minister, obviously, too, besides being a counselor and educator and a podcaster and a podcast. I could put that on my resume. Yeah, you can. So, so no.
And pastors, Well, you know, the wife decides or in this you’ll see this more with the men than with female pastors But men pastors the wife leaves them and he’s never had an affair anything like that Well, he had an affair with the church Basically, that’s where you going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah So, I mean, he’s, he just, the church was his mistress and The
Chris Gazdik: commitments that you make are in balance and in concert with your priority sets.
Generally speaking, mental health and religious practices align perfectly with God at the top of the list, or as you taught me, John, a cause greater than yourself. Yeah. [00:44:00] That’s first. Then you’re second. You’re second. Yeah. Your spouse is third. The children are fourth. Family is fifth. Then friends. Then work.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. So, we don’t live to, we don’t work to live. We live to work. It is something that is a gift that we do and it’s necessary. And it can be hard. If you make work your priority or your mistress, it’s going to, well, she’s going to, she’s going to bite you, or he’s going to bite you, he’s going to hurt you.
Chris Gazdik: So we’ve, we’ve hit a lot of the things that are cool, John. I want to add something to this with the common boundary challenges and all this, and then we’re going to really spend. The last segment on like, how do we deal with this? But I thought it was interesting. I was doing show prep for this and I hadn’t thought about this, but have you thought about the early marriage boundaries and [00:45:00] these things that we’re talking about, time and finances and all this kind of stuff.
How about digital boundaries? Right? Have a,
John-Nelson Pope: have an emotional affair.
Chris Gazdik: Isn’t that
John-Nelson Pope: a new, well, I don’t know what you mean by that. What do you, what do you mean? Digital, are you talking about spending time on a gaming or, for example, or I was talking about guys getting, or women getting on on the phone and having a an emotional affair with somebody.
Chris Gazdik: No, I’m thinking a little more broadly than that. Okay. Can I say Boomer just once? That’d be offensive. Okay. Boomer. Okay. Boomer. He’s not smiling. No, I think. Yeah, I do.
John-Nelson Pope: Hello. Generation zero generation X.
Chris Gazdik: Close to
John-Nelson Pope: the end. I’m going to be, at least I’m not in, I mean, I wish I were an alpha, but
Chris Gazdik: that’s some, oh my gosh, who’s going to be Jen, [00:46:00] Jen alpha.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s
Chris Gazdik: Wow, yeah, that’s we’re we’re
John-Nelson Pope: at the end of the alphabet.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, that’s a reserved name for something special man That must be F. I think
John-Nelson Pope: I think there was a Mountain Dew commercial that said generation X or generation. Yes. And so that was in the, in the eighties and you know, so we ran out of, out of alphabet letters and now we’re just
Chris Gazdik: trying to piss each other off.
So tell me Boomer, tell me XR XR. All right. So there’s a lot to this honestly, John, and you’ve seen this in battles and conflicts and whatnot with marriages. If you think about, is it okay for me to look at your phone?
John-Nelson Pope: Yes. I get that all the time.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Should I? Have a little dot on my screen and know where you’re at at all times.
Can we share our location? My
John-Nelson Pope: wife and I would absolutely go. I was gonna use an s word. Yes,
Chris Gazdik: [00:47:00] right. Is it okay John if I take your picture and put it all over my social media? No! Is it okay if I digitally connect into, yeah, right, like, there’s a lot of factors with digital boundaries, how technology impacts boundaries, including social media use, phone privacy, online communication, creating agreements on what’s shared publicly versus what remains private.
Like, there’s a whole new pressure point for marriages nowadays, man. Social media, digital. Boundaries, but I never thought of this before.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, yeah, Generation X er. So this is millennial stuff, huh? Yeah. And Gen Z ers. Yeah. But I think that’s part of the, part of the issue is, who are you married to? Are you married to your spouse?
Are you married to your social media?
Chris Gazdik: You know what I just realized would be dynamic, like, you know how people go way down in age, you know, in midlife, you date someone that’s like, you know, 27 or something like that. [00:48:00] Can you imagine the digital communication between somebody who’s like 55 and 32?
Generation gap. Massive gap there. I wouldn’t even know how to have that conversation. You’d be like, you want to do what with it? Our money is going to be on Zell’s Zip Zap? Like, no, no, no, no. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Digital boundaries!
John-Nelson Pope: My mother still uses checks. I do! Are you kidding me? I use checks occasionally.
Chris Gazdik: I’m a check guy, man. I like checks. I love checks. My kid was making fun of me. I’m like And then he had to write a check for his apartment thing. I thought that was funny. Checks are you know, people,
John-Nelson Pope: people don’t know how to write checks now.
Chris Gazdik: Okay, we need to get to the how do we apply this stuff? How do we How do we manage these boundaries?
So what are practical steps? Like, what are the things, what do you, what do you kind of talk about, John, when people are trying to traverse new [00:49:00] relationships and, and, and, you know, how to do this, how do we do this boundary setting
John-Nelson Pope: in a new marriage, John, please. I think one of it is, is that you have to be able to say, let’s talk about this and that you go to a neutral place, a place that’s comfortable for both of you.
And that could be. Going to a restaurant or something of this sort or a sort of like out of the way kind of romantic that sort of thing But you feel like comfortable that you’re not going to get into an argument about it and that you you discuss it So those
Chris Gazdik: are some specific strategies. Can I go back before that?
John-Nelson Pope: Huh,
Chris Gazdik: because I’m going to suggest that we look at managing this relationship By setting foundational things that are in place that are really important. You’re talking about some strategies, which is great. But I want to say before we even get to the place [00:50:00] of those strategies, understand that it’s your responsibility, sir, to handle your abandonment insecurity state that is inside you, ma’am.
It is your responsibility to deal with the engulfment state that is internal to you. And we end up blaming the other person because they trigger the engulfment Our fears and feelings and it’s your responsibility to handle that
John-Nelson Pope: before I do a marriage and if I get the idea and the feeling that or or sense that it’s usually the guy doesn’t want to come in and and talk, then I’m going to say this is a this.
You’re headed for trouble. Okay. In terms of the relationship. Is that what you’re talking about?
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. I would suggest it’s not gendered though. I really truly believe that people that come in and are wanting to talk to you are wide open with generally abandonment folks. A woman can be in the engulfment stance just as much as a dude.
In fact, I’m curious [00:51:00] because you’ve mentioned that on the show many times. Or at least several. How many times can you think of the woman that has visited? I don’t want to go into that talking thing. What, why would we go see the preacher guy?
John-Nelson Pope: I see that with the woman that wants to have absolutely a hundred percent control in terms of the planning of the wedding and just that real sense of, of control issues.
Engulfment. Engulfment. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: So you do see women that don’t, that don’t want to come to your, Pre marital religious chat.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, but it’s something to get over. So in other words, it’s traditional. And so they’ll do that, but it’s, they’re not engaged. I’ll tell you a second. So I think if a person does their homework and they do their homework and they both do their homework, then I know they’re engaged.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Oh, I see what you’re saying when you’re working with them and whatnot. Here’s a, here’s another really important thing that goes, Back before the strategies as [00:52:00] well. So dealing with the expectations also, by the way, I mean, look at the first segment, get into the golden circle, the golden egg, ask yourself the question.
If you’ve dealt with your emotional insecurities inside, you deal with the expectations and you manage that. Then you get into the golden circle, if you will, but then ask yourself the question, how can I be a safe space, a safe source for my spouse? My fiancé, how can I be a safe person for my fiancé? And if you’re working on that, and you’re learning about that, then you’re going to set up all kinds of boundaries and strategies and conversations and connections that get these things in place way before you have trouble with them later on down the road.
John-Nelson Pope: And I’m thinking that if you do this proactively, and so you don’t overwhelm the other spouse, I mean the other partner, With this and that you both say, okay, we’re going to do this and if we get stuck, we can [00:53:00] come back and revisit it later. And so in other words, you actually come at it as equals and as a very equal, very equal, completely equal.
And that’s,
Chris Gazdik: that’s, well, John, they say I have to honor my husband and follow his word. We probably shouldn’t go into that because that’ll take too much time. I
John-Nelson Pope: will, I will counter, I will counter that Paul says, St. Paul says that husbands, you need to love your spouse. And the same is not true of what Paul says.
for the for the, for the wife, the female. And so I’d say that both submit to one another and submit to each other in love as Christ submits.
Chris Gazdik: Right. I knew we could go off on a cliff with that. I’m sorry. No, that’s, that’s, that’s fine.
In this list of things that I created or developed, I really want to highlight like [00:54:00] dramatically if I could, and be honest with you, I don’t even know if it’s in my marriage book. I think it is somewhere, but I need to get this title of the chapter in my brain. As I start talking about through a therapist eyes, re understanding your marriage and becoming your best as a spouse.
I don’t think I could do it four more times. John, we don’t have a lot of time left today, but I got it in there that time because in there somewhere, I need to find the chapter where. You only have to do three more times. A really, really important concept as well as the emotional safety. How can I be an emotionally safe person for my fiance or new spouse?
How can I develop expectations appropriately together? How can I get into a golden circle, right? So another huge one is not taking things personally. It’s another YouTube look. You should see John’s face. Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: when somebody gets very defensive, they’re, [00:55:00] they are They are, their senses are heightened, but they’re, they are expecting the worst or they will be projecting the worst.
There’s an important word projecting. Hey, yeah, it’s it’s a little jargon, but in other words, they’re forecasting, they’re, they’re basically saying, I expect this to go bad or.
Chris Gazdik: Their fear is in charge and the insecurities are in charge and we expect this to go bad because it always has, always does, always will.
Danger, word, danger, danger, always. Like, that’s not the case. That’s your fear speaking. So, it’s hard to not take things personally, but a really important facet of trying to get these boundaries kind of put into place. Your spouse needs time alone. John just told you. He needs an hour. Why would you think that to be anything about you, right?
Yeah [00:56:00] This is what your spouse is telling you that they’re needing to do. They’ve been living their life all this time. They know how to take care of themselves to some extent, at least hopefully. And they’re telling you this. They’re not telling you that they want to be away from you. They’re not telling you that you stress them out.
So they need to build up to be able to tolerate you. They’re not telling you any of these types of fears and thoughts. They’re just saying, I know my salary. What
John-Nelson Pope: gives me comfort is that sometimes my wife and I don’t always talk and we just sit and I always
Chris Gazdik: silence also
John-Nelson Pope: silence is golden in that sense.
I feel accepted. Unconditionally loved right at those moments. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Now there’s moments. I don’t Know no, I’m dodging stuff. It’s dodging stuff. No, she never does that But but there is that sense that this is must be what [00:57:00] heavens like because it’s not boring. It’s it’s It’s not like I’m having to think about having a distress or finding something wrong.
And even if there’s something going on, it’s the golden egg. Yeah, it’s a golden egg. Yeah. It’s a safe space. It’s a golden egg. You said sacred earlier. Sacred. Yeah. It’s a sacred
Chris Gazdik: space. Yeah, I think so. I think so. So let’s kind of get into a little bit more on what are some of the specifics you went into some practical things.
You know, when, when you look at. Setting these boundaries up. How do you go about setting these? You know, we’ve talked about the expectations a little bit But being there’s a specificity that we want and there’s a clarity remember that golden circle So you want to be clear you want to communicate you want to be specific you want to understand?
Well, that’s what the golden circle is about when you’re conveying things. Yeah, you’re not just expressing or telling you’re not saying Hey, you know My first marriage, this, this is [00:58:00] my truth. That’s what, that’s what they like to say nowadays. Right? Yeah. Yeah. No, you’re, you’re, you’re talking about these things.
You’re clarifying you’re, you’re needing to be clear and convey and specifically get into showing
John-Nelson Pope: vulnerability because if somebody says, this is my truth, well, you’re not being, you’re not allowing yourself vulnerability as well. And that’s my phone. What
Chris Gazdik: do you mean by that? Go more there. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: If you’re, if you’re a sure of your, your impose, imposing your beliefs or your thoughts on your spouse, your significant other, then that spouse is not that person is diminished.
That hears that they, I’m, You know, I’m an old guy, you know, I’m a boomer, right? So as a boomer, I just I want to be able to respect, I want to be able to hear with respect what someone has to say to me. [00:59:00] I want to but I want it done in a loving and caring way. Right. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You know, which is interesting that you say it that way, because one of the things I would make a suggest, it leads me to go to this, the idea that boundaries, right?
You, you’re going to have conflict. How about the idea that you really set up boundaries around how we’ll deal with conflict in premarital counseling. If you’re a premarital therapist and you haven’t talked about conflict and setting up boundaries about how the couple will deal with this, you have failed.
I will make that bold statement. Yeah. Oh, cool. You have failed. You have not done a good enough job. Because you need to talk about conflict, you need to talk about how we will do this, and you’ll be more prepared. And you’re still
going to flutter through it, by the way, but still, we want to set that up in advance, anticipating or knowing that we’re going to need that.
How are we going to fight? How do we disagree? How do we manage this together? Well, in my family, we just yell, we get loud, and I’m telling you, that’s the way I deal with stuff. Okay, well, [01:00:00] if that’s the way she operates too, sir, well, that’ll work. If that is not the way that she works, man, you can’t do that.
Right, exactly. So, we have to have understandings about how are we going to deal with things. And what, what happens for you when you do this? Like if you talk about how we talk about things way more than talking about problems, we’re way better off. And I said that as a very young therapist, to be honest with you.
That’s an oldie, but a goodie in my work, in my brain. It is good. Right? Yeah. If we talk about how to talk about things way more than talking about things, we’re So, so what I’m hearing
John-Nelson Pope: too is to have a flexible boundaries.
Chris Gazdik: Flexibility is a huge thing we’ve got to mention, right?
John-Nelson Pope: Right. So in other words, sometimes It hits the fan.
And sometimes you have, and we have a boundary, but you might have to let it stretch a little bit. You know, I
Chris Gazdik: loved the stage of meeting my first wife [01:01:00] there and getting together with the idea of, So, so when we got married, I played a game. I was like constantly asking her, like, okay, did I score points there?
You know, the toilet paper is up on the top instead of on the bottom. Like did I score points? So I made it into a fun game, learning all of these things. Like, how does this go? How does that go? What do you, and it was, it was a fun thing, man. I scored a lot of points, but I got a lot of points taken off, John.
I got a lot of demerits too. I don’t know if I’m at zero now or not, but.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, with my wife, and I’m sure with Neil, this, this is also can be true, is that sometimes you, there are times when you can’t figure out what the spouse wants, and you can’t, because it might be something, and you’ll go
Right. Yeah. So, I don’t know.
Chris Gazdik: All right. We need to taxi in for a landing a little bit. What are we missing? Cause I know we need to have to say more about this, you know mutuality, you know, the respect that you need to have, I mean, you need to respect your spouse people. And how they interpret and perceive respect is important to understand to convey that you respect the other person,
John-Nelson Pope: right?
Right. So it would, it would be something I, I, and I have met with, with somebody that is, he says, well, I want to marry this type of person, an Asian person because they’re more an Asian female because they’re more submissive. Right. And I’m going, I said, dude, you’re not, you’re not wanting a marriage.
You, you, you know,
Chris Gazdik: first of all, you can’t [01:03:00] say it, even if you think it, like, what are you thinking? But you can’t say it. Yeah. That’s, that’s it’s danger.
John-Nelson Pope: It is danger because he has, he has expectations that are absolutely expectations. Yeah. Unrealistic.
Chris Gazdik: But you know what? We didn’t talk about before we get off the air here that we need to what sex.
sexuality. What’s that affection? Yeah. This creates major, major troubles. And when your partner is just not wanting to be sexual, and then you’re taking it personally and you lose. You know, there could
John-Nelson Pope: be a physiologic issue could be hormones. It could be all sorts of things. Somebody shows, You a lack of interest, it could also be the person is highly stressed and the other person’s highly sexed, right?
And so there, so there has to [01:04:00] be some compromise and understanding of that need to have an understanding
Chris Gazdik: and compromises. I mean, obviously you just don’t have sex. So
John-Nelson Pope: then when somebody says that, and this is working with some couples too, is that the person says, well, I’m not interested in sex and I won’t hear it about it and that I’m just not interested anymore.
Yeah. Well, I’m, I’m 45 and I’m not interested. Well, that can be. Yeah, it is a problem, but I think that that person needs to say, okay, I need to find out why I’m this way. And it’s not just normal. It’s not just hormones. It’s not change a life. And that can
Chris Gazdik: also, I want to say, John, be worked out. It can be,
John-Nelson Pope: anything can be worked out in that sense, right?
Chris Gazdik: There’s different ways to express affection and, you know, sex isn’t, I mean, sometimes people get to the point where they can’t have sex, being [01:05:00] quadriplegic or whatever. I always love to talk about Christopher Reeve in this way where he, you know, fell off the horse and became quadriplegic and I remember seeing them on Oprah when I was a kid.
It was long ago. Yeah, she was
John-Nelson Pope: very,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. Did you see that? Yes, I did. Okay, right. Very cool, right? Yeah. He’s a we learned ways to manage this now at first he was depressed and he was suicidal And he really had to heal himself and grow to accept his body now not being able to move but they became sexual They figured out how to be affectionate how to operate
John-Nelson Pope: have a you know a colleague a teaching colleague at another place.
He’s at a, at a, another school now and he is a quad and a quadriplegic and he, his wife and he married him for the first time and she for the second. They have a very loving and very sexual relationship. So [01:06:00] it’s possible, it’s possible.
Chris Gazdik: All right. I know we went a little long today because I didn’t want to rush the part and segment of how do we really do this.
I hope that we’ve given you some ideas on what some pitfalls are, what are some foundational realities, boundary areas, and things need to be addressed, and then really how to do that, because this is a dynamic, dynamic, dynamic. ever evolving thing that doesn’t stop either year five of the marriage or 15 or 23, right?
John-Nelson Pope: So, you, you, in other words, you envision boundaries of being able to be in a relationship where the boundaries are flexible, that they’re also, you can make new boundaries, you can, and change and negotiate. And you can do this throughout the marriage.
Chris Gazdik: I’m gonna let you take this for what it is. What it’s worth and let your brain do with it.
Whatever you want to use a listener you john as well And we’ll do a mic drop [01:07:00] and we’ll see you next week. So the the the boundaries of Of our marriage was very different, you know, before we had kids and then after we had kids and before we became empty nesters and after we became empty nesters. You do with that whatever you want.
I didn’t
John-Nelson Pope: think that our marriage could be as good as it was after we had after they left the nest. Yeah. And it got better.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Hang tough. You can do it. That’s one of the ways that I end. Through a therapist’s eyes, re understanding your marriage and becoming your best spouse is at the end a touching chapter where somebody taught me their attitude was very much like, look.
I said my vows and I meant it. And a second ending to the book. I think
John-Nelson Pope: you need to buy through a therapist eyes, re understanding your marriage and becoming your best as a spouse.
Chris Gazdik: Thank you, John. [01:08:00] Man. And in a second touching chapter that we ended on is, is you can do it. And so, you know, this is a dynamic relationship that.
Starts out and that you’ve started or embarking upon and we wish you the best with it. We want to come along with you to help you understand some things and traverse. What is a dynamic but beautiful and fun relationship that you’ll have hopefully for the rest of your life.
Thank you.