46: 4 Things To Do When Your Relationship Is Falling Apart

If you’re in a period of disconnection, or there’s been a big fight recently, listen to this episode and do each of the four things.

I’d be lying to you if I said my current relationship has never felt like it was falling apart. In this episode, I’m sharing my experience implementing these four things.

Click here to learn more about Jason's Couples Therapy Practice.

The 4 Things:

1) Put your ego aside

2) Request to talk

3) Share vulnerability

4) Give understanding to receive understanding

Transcript

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I'd be lying to you. If I said my current relationship. Has never felt like it was falling apart. In this episode, I'm sharing my personal experience. Implementing four things to do when your relationship is falling apart. If you're in a period of disconnection or there's been a big fight recently listen to this episode and do each of the four things. And if you do, I want to know how it went. This is healthy relationship secrets for parents. The podcast has saves your relationship from parenthood. My mission is to help parents have a thriving relationship. And be great parents at the same time. My name is Jason Polk, and I've worked exclusively with couples as a therapist and coach. For over nine years on this podcast, I share my experience professionally. As well as personally. And those of our amazing guests. I have four things to do when your relationship is falling apart. I've been a relationship counselor for over nine years, and I'd be lying to you if I said my current relationship has never felt like it was falling apart recently, and this was a couple months ago. It got bad between Jess, my wife, and myself. During this time I thought if I get divorced for the second time, I will lose all credibility in my profession. I might as well find something else to do. The question I struggled with during this time was, how can I help people fix their broken relationships when I can't even fix mine? I am sharing this for two reasons. The first is to empathize with you on how difficult relationships can be. Sometimes even as a couple's therapist, I have to work, we have to work at maintaining harmony and connection. The second is to give you the first thing to do when your relationship is falling apart. Number one, put your ego aside, and during this time, my ego told me that I was right and I didn't have to initiate repair. The problem was my wife. Also had the same thought. So we didn't initiate repair and we were in icy withdrawal, which, um, if you have never been there, it's not a fun place to be in. And a reason why it's not fun is because we make up things when we don't know. It's not like I was thinking, oh, Jess isn't talking to me. She must be focusing on writing me love letters. Nope, not at all. In fact, it was the opposite. A quote from my mentor, Terry Real came to mind during this time of icy withdrawal, and that was, you can be right or you can be married. Which one do you choose? I could keep digging my hole and choose to be right in myself, right? Righteous withdrawal, but it was a lonely place. Where my ego was winning and my heart was losing, the anger from my ego couldn't offset the loneliness and the fact that our two young daughters were picking up on our distance, we were setting a poor example for them, and at the same time, making us less effective as parents, I knew I had to put my ego aside to initiate repair. Number two. The second thing to do is to initiate this question, which is, can we talk? This is a second step in the repair process, talking without our ego. It's also important to ask to talk at this point because what if it wasn't a good time for my wife? I needed my wife's time and emotional bandwidth for repair. Otherwise, I'm working uphill. Say she was to say, no, I must respect that and ask her when a good time is. In this instance, she said yes, since I had put down my ego. I approached this conversation in the spirit of wanting to improve things, not as trying to prove how right I was. Number three, a third thing to do when having a repair conversation, share vulnerability. I must give my wife something for her to hear. She can hear and ideally connect with vulnerability. There it goes again. The word vulnerability. Vulnerability is essentially sharing what is underneath my anger. I first had to reflect on what was underneath it. What was I really upset about? I shared that. I shared that I felt dismissed and unheard because of what had happened. She could hear that and understand my perspective, but that doesn't mean she must agree with why I felt that way. Nevertheless, we were getting somewhere moving past the icy withdrawal. Our daughters unfortunately noticed if I lead with my anger there, She wouldn't be responding to my content, but reacting to my energy. We react to anger with defensiveness, more anger, or with withdrawal. It wouldn't bode well for me or our relationship if she did that. I can't control how she responds. However, I can increase the likelihood of a productive repair conversation by being vulnerable, by leading with vulnerability. Number four, the fourth thing to do is give your partner understanding and then you'll receive understanding. So since my wife gave me understanding, again, she heard me, doesn't mean she agreed with it. I was now open to hearing her perspective regarding our conflict. The best way to give understanding is to really listen and then paraphrase the essence of what your partner said. I need to do this. Like I mentioned, even if I disagree with her perspective or why she reacted the way she did, what could derail this? Is if I am dismissing her by saying something like, well, that's not true. I can't believe you're thinking that. That's not a good, that's not a winner. Or more subtly if I led with my intention first, and this sounds like I didn't mean to upset you like that. You know, that's not the worst way to initiate repair, but generally the rule of thumb leading with our intention, for example, I didn't mean to do this, is usually not the most productive way to start a repair conversation. And essentially, if I lead with my intention first, I'm not giving her understanding. By doing so, I'm shifting the focus to me and away from her upset and pain. Nevertheless, because I put my ego aside, initiated a repair talk, shared my vulnerability, and gave understanding we can move past the pain of icy withdrawal. And then we started to heal. We started to be collaborative. We came to the groundbreaking conclusion that instead of assuming the worst, reaching out to each other is best when we don't know or need more information. So my last piece of advice is, listen to this again. The next time you feel your relationship is falling apart and go through these steps I have a hunch it may help. Thanks for listening. Hey there, if this has been helpful for you. Give us a five star rating and a review and share this with anyone who could benefit from it. Again, Thank you so much for listening.