45. Nailing Relationship Conflict Without Being A Bully Or Doormat ft. Sharon Costanzo

This episode I am joined by relationship coach Sharon Costanzo. Sharon focuses on helping women navigate conflict, feel more calm and confident in tough conversations, and work through challenges in their marriage. She is the host of the Respected and Connected podcast and a strong advocate for helping women understand and advocate for their needs.

In this episode we dive into...

• Why we aren't fans of the 5 languages and what tools we love instead 
• The subtle yet sabotaging habit you might not realize is cultivating violent communication ruptures and how to shift out of this pattern
• Unlearning the unhelpful relationship patterns condition from childhood, parents and media
•  How two driven individual people can come together and navigate balancing of different roles 
• Why embracing messy matters and what kind of big mindset shift is necessary for success in relationships 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Great episode for you today. I have on Sharon Costanzo. She is a relationship podcaster and coach. If you ever feel like you just can't get it right and tough conversations with your partner and you want to be able to communicate without feeling like you're coming across as a bully or a doormat, this episode is for you.

Sharon helps couples navigate conflict so that they can have peace and feel valued and heard. She has an awesome podcast. It's a great resource and she's got episodes like five tips for handling missed expectations. Thanks for watching. Redefining relationship success and the basics of nonviolent communication.[00:01:00] 

And there's a ton of other episodes that actually sound awesome. And I've already listened to a lot of them. And so definitely highly recommend go check out her podcast. And if you're wanting one on one help, then she's a great resource as well. We're going to cover a lot of topics in this episode, like mistakes to avoid and conflict resolution and how to build more intimacy.

So let's just get started with the episode. You don't want to miss this one. All right, Sharon. So to get started, I wanted to ask you from the beginning, what got you started with your mission to help couples have a productive conversation? What kind of led you to this work? Yeah, so I always say it was my marriage, and people ask me like, how did you become a relationship coach?

I'm like, well, I had a long history in the first several years of my marriage of feeling like I couldn't have a productive Conversation with my husband like I would [00:02:00] bring something up and he would get defensive He would we would kind of talk in circles never really resolve anything. It was super frustrating And also, I'm the personal development person in our relationship, so I was reading all the books and I was like, going to my husband like, hey, this is what we're supposed to do.

And he was like, says who, and we would go to therapy. And I felt like even in the couples counseling that we were doing, we weren't really getting to the heart of the issue. And it was super frustrating, and I felt like a lot of the therapists that we were working with were working on smoothing things over rather than getting to the heart of the issue, which was super frustrating for me.

And when I figured out the tools and strategies and mindset that I used to overcome some of these struggles in [00:03:00] my own marriage, I just felt really compelled. To share that with other people, people like me who want to break out of. The more traditional framework of marriage , and have more of a partnership marriage, I feel like we are still, even though the women's movement has been going on for a while, we are still struggling with this piece within our culture of what does like a strong, smart, capable woman do when she's struggling in her marriage and how does she do it in a way That is kind and compassionate, but also doesn't make her either a bully or a doormat in the relationship.

Yeah, I absolutely love that. And I think that's so true. I know you had an episode titled what driven partners can do, driven men and driven women. That's so relatable to me and something for my friends as well, those [00:04:00] issues of like, okay, we're both working a lot.

And we have a lot of household work. And all these issues are coming up because It's hard. It seems easier, but obviously oppressive and awful to just be like this is your role, whether you like it or not. . Now how do we navigate these two individual people coming together?

 It's that power dynamic. It's tough, right? Relationships can be really, really challenging. I think it's awesome your start and being in the self development world. I'm sure a lot of listeners too will relate with that and just wanting to understand how to better their relationship. So I'm really excited for this conversation.

I'm interested too, when You were mentioning, I started to figure out some of the tools that worked for me or things started to click. It might be hard to recall, but is there anything that comes to mind that [00:05:00] you think about? This was some of the first things that started to click into place for me or some of the first tools that impacted me.

Yeah, I think one of one of the biggest insights that I got from it is that most of these issues are not going to be resolved in a single conversation. And I think that when we hear that, we're like, Oh, yeah, we know that. But when we actually apply it, it's It's difficult. It's challenging. I think especially for those of us who are really conscientious and driven.

We, we've been thinking about whatever issue it is that's bothering us for a long time. And so when we bring it up to our partner or our spouse, and it takes them a while to understand and buy into it. And it takes us a little bit of time to figure out some of the nuances of what that request really looks like and how it's going to work.

I think just knowing that it's going to take [00:06:00] time and it's going to be messy and giving our spouse or partner. , some kind of charity and understanding during that period. That was really huge for me. Yeah, that's an amazing insight because I'm making all these connections thinking about Other areas of life,

like I dedicated 10 years in the field of nutrition science. I, I've recently just switched more on the artistic side and I'm doing graphic design and painting and everything, but you go into the mentality of I'm accepting that I'm going to suck at this at first.

This is going to be challenging. This is going to take time for me to actually feel comfortable and be in a good space with this but totally get the opposite idea with relationships, probably because of. Disney among other things, 

also there's so many like TV shows and movies that we watch and whoever the person is, they [00:07:00] like just deliver this, beautifully orchestrated speech, and the other person's Oh my gosh, yeah, I totally get it. I've been such an idiot all the time. So we have this fantasy that if we can figure out the right thing to say, and we can bring it up at the right time, that everything else is just going to fall into place.

And that hardly ever happens, like it very rarely happens. And I think often we, when we aren't figuring that out on our own, then we think that, Oh, all we need to do is go to therapy and our therapist is going to help us with this. And it doesn't really happen even that way. In couples counseling or coaching or, or personal development, it's just really messy.

And I think of it, it's a creative process and I think about like my seven year old who's very creative and when she's in her creative. Mindset, or she's in one of her [00:08:00] creative projects, right, there's like colored paper and tape and glue like all over the kitchen counter and I think that's what our relationships look like sometimes too when we're trying to create something different than what we have.

I love the metaphors , because I've been taking up painting recently. And wow, it's really hard. And I had to pick a really challenging painting too, because I'm like, if I'm going to pay for a class, I don't want to just do, I can do the easy, basic stuff by myself.

I'm with the teacher, let me pick a painting that I Yeah. Yeah. That moves me that I think looks really cool and knowing that I might have to do several iterations of this, or I might do several classes and it doesn't look exactly the way I want, but it is that commitment of, , I'm showing up, I'm trying and knowing like there's going to be parts that suck 

you hit that valley of despair. I mess up the blending.

Like, how do I recover from this? You can always recover, keep going. So if I would have just stopped, thrown [00:09:00] the painting away, then that's what I'd be left with. But, Eight classes in, I had to keep going over the same blending I had to keep revisiting that same issue over and over and over and over again, until it started to improve and I try different things figure out what work, and I think that's so similar with a relationship that. There are these big issues that we're going to revisit over and over and over, and it's going to drive us crazy.

 You've had so many clients who might bring up these, issues that they're like, we cannot get past this or this thing is this issue is just, we don't know what to do with it. What are some of those like more common issues and what advice would you have when that's showing up?

Yeah, so one of the ones I hear about really often is parenting and navigating different parenting styles, especially as the kids get into the teen years because [00:10:00] they're very complicated times. We're dealing with things now with our teenagers that we didn't have to deal with when we were kids. What are we doing with social media?

What are we doing with getting kids ready for college or whatever? And there's There's this huge emphasis on more gentle parenting methods, which women are very attracted to in general. And a lot of women have a husband who wants to be more old school, stern, disciplinary, and so that comes up a lot.

 And often it's like, how do I get my husband to come, to agree with me or to cooperate with my way of doing things? And on top of that. We're also expecting men to be more involved parents than we ever have before. So it's like this Whole new world with so many different challenges that we didn't navigate as kids.

Our parents didn't [00:11:00] navigate as parents and we're trying to figure out how do we, how do we do parenting the way that we want to do it and also have a good relationship with our spouse or a partner or co parent and it's really It can feel really overwhelming and it, and it's really really high stakes.

situation as well. I totally relate with that situation as well with my five year old son. When you have a client or, and even thinking in your own relationship too, and you come up to these , really tough conversations and issues, and obviously there's a lot of frustration, what would you say would be a really important place to start for, , the two partners to address this?

Like, where can they start? Yeah, I think it's really important like our head, , our tendency and [00:12:00] our kind of instinct is to go straight into problem solving and discussing the issue and discussing like maybe the merits of my point of view versus the merits of your point of view. And it's really helpful to take a step back and look at like what is our intention.

What is our goal for you know if it's parenting, what do we want to give our kids during the 18 years. that they live in our home. What values do we have around parenting? What are some of the pains that we experience as kids that we don't want to give to our kids? What are some of our fears and all of those things?

And really talking through, where we're coming from and what we want. Before we start negotiating the strategy, because then we can really have an appreciation for my partner sees this differently, and I can respect those differences, [00:13:00] rather than I really need my agenda to be the agenda that goes forward.

It helps us with that, with that negotiation and appreciation. And I think often. When we do this and we take our time doing it, then we see that, oh, maybe there's, there's value for both of us to bring more of our way. Into whatever decision that we make, we start to see each other more as humans rather than with a shared goal than like adversaries on different sides of an issue.

, it's so easy to fall into that trap of wanting to control and list all your research and points and like, no, we're doing it my way. But. We know that two heads are better than one, and I love that approach that you're sharing about looking at the values first, really [00:14:00] understanding your own values, right?

That's going to take a lot of inner Awesome. Work and self discovery and know thyself type of stuff of like, well, what are my top values in my life? Am I even aligned to my own values? , how can I show my values through my actions, through my words, all those things, and then understanding your partners too, because you might not know, they might not know theirs, they might not have shared, you might be assuming and not know their values.

So I think that's an awesome approach to. To start there and it helps you kind of get out of the weeds because if you're just like, we need to do this gentle parenting script, , or like this real specific strategy, then that can just feel so like. I don't know, like it boxes the person in and I don't naturally talk like that or why, what does that help, versus zooming out and like, oh, we both have this shared value, and I am helping, , my kids by.

Using this method [00:15:00] to make sure that value comes across and my husband has a totally different approach, but it's still hitting the mark, and it's in his way, and that's awesome because you're getting the value from both sides in different ways, which can be really helpful versus like nope. We got to all do it my way.

And I mean, easier said than done, yeah, exactly. It's like, how do we, um, not go there? That's a great question. So what would you say are some signs where, , we might be headed toward unhelpful ways of communicating 

yeah, I think one of the things that you can recognize like when you're in the middle of the conversation is, am I feeling like emotionally flooded? Is this starting to feel like an emergency that I need to resolve right now? You know, a lot, a lot of my clients will, um, [00:16:00] Will like start to feel really urgent like we need to resolve this right now We need to keep going even though the other person's kind of pushing away, you know It's like the common what we talk about like fight fight flight freeze and fawn or fix You know if we start to feel like whatever the issue is Either needs to be resolved right now, or we just need to, to walk away from it all together, that's a sign that we're not, we're not problem solving with the, with the smart part of our brain, and to take a break during that time, or if we start to, to get into gridlock, where we become really, really attached to our, way of doing things, you know, as soon as you start to polarize to one side of the issue, the other person automatically becomes more extreme on their side rather than coming together and what do we share, what values and goals and, [00:17:00] and objectives do we share on this issue.

So as soon as we start to see ourselves like pulling into our corner, or I think what a lot of women do is. Like sweeping things under the rug, like, Oh, I'm, I'm feeling frustrated. Let's just not talk about it and men do it too, but maybe we, we tend to do it in different ways. If, if one person's like becoming really dismissive or minimizing, there's that, there's that minimizing and maximizing dynamic.

You know, as soon as one person minimizes. The issue and I was like, Oh, this isn't a big deal. Often the other person will start to maximize it and be like, well, these are all of the reasons why it is a big deal. So I'm trying to think of any other ones that are, that are important, but yeah, you, you start to see your pattern, whatever it might be and just recognize, okay, that's time.

That's when it's time to take a break. Yeah. Calm down. [00:18:00] Rethink what is it that I'm really trying to get out of this conversation and what is important to me about this relationship that I have with this person, then we can start talking about it again. I can see that. I think that's great.

I think In the moment, we can have those moments happening, and I love bringing that awareness to that situation, it might be hard in the moment, but maybe even after the fact, hindsight, we're like, Oh, I was doing that thing, right? It's so important to pay attention to our patterns, but I think we could even get caught in that game for a while.

So it's like on the onset, we have to... Understand that we're going to have to undergo like a really, really big mindset shift because culturally and in media and everything like we kind of hinted at and talked about it's gonna take time.[00:19:00] 

Let's look at our values. It all this process that goes into it. It's conflicts with the way things tend to play out of just like, okay, it needs to be fixed now, , my way or the highway, or I'm going to be a doormat. I'm either going to be miserable. And, I'm unheard. I'm invisible.

I'm not valued. Or I'm going to be the one in control of this relationship. And I make the other person miserable, basically. So, if we want to step away from that and we want a better relationship where both people are empowered and both people are being valued and seen and heard, that's a really big Mindset shift on the onset of, okay, this is going to be a slower process with continued awareness and continued communication.

So in addition to that awareness in the moment[00:20:00] and noticing we're going into a territory that's not going to be helpful. What would be some other. important things for couples to be aware of so that they can start to make this mindset shift.

And what does that mindset shift even look like for you? What, how would you define that? Yeah, I think part of understanding that it's going to be messy. I think part of the mind also is this, this faith that there can be a win win because I think so often we've been conditioned to. to believe that it's always kind of win lose.

And some people feel more comfortable like, Oh, I'll just take one for the team. I'll just suffer so that everyone else can be happy. You know, we have a lot of people have been, just conditioned to be people pleasers. And I hear this from my clients often like, Well, if somebody has to suffer or somebody has to go without or Somebody has to not get their needs met.

It might as well be me [00:21:00] because I can handle it more. So that's a big mindset shift of, you know, me, me getting my needs considered in this relationship and my values considered in this relationship is a win win. It's better for everyone when we're both happy and fulfilled. That's a big mindset shift.

Also the, the being right mindset shift, that one was really hard for me to overcome. As like this, high achieving, smart, capable person. Like I think I have the right answer to everything and I used to hate that phrase like you can be right or you can be married. Yeah. And it's like no, there's, neither one of us is right or wrong.

It's just what's gonna work for us. as a team in this situation. That was a really big one for me. Yeah, my husband and I are both very like fiery with each other. Maybe I'm, I can [00:22:00] be more of the people pleaser with friends. And I don't know why it's so frustrating. You had set such a higher unrealistic expectation for your spouse, like beyond parents and friends.

It's just like, no, you have to be this way because whatever all my fantasies, I guess my whole childhood of like, you're it and you got to do it all. But yeah, we can really stand our ground on our points. We'll both come with the research and like, no, are we used to right now? It's more of that, 

you respect my value, but you don't have to join it. Some things you'll join in and some things you won't and vice versa. And I respect that that's a value for you. Cool. Go for it. Do it. I'll join you if it lines up with my value. And if not, I won't. But this on, it's still a learning process.

What would you say for those times when maybe people? Are really struggling because the values seem very [00:23:00] unaligned. There's two, I mean, there's really two things. There's, you can agree to disagree. I guess maybe three. You can agree to disagree and some people are really good at doing that.

There's also this, there's this mourning in relationships. Like, mourning. The partner, the fantasy partner, mourning the fact that I'm never going to have that fantasy partner and deciding to let that thing go. Terry Reel calls this relational reckoning, Am I getting enough from this relationship to make it worth it to me to mourn the things that I'm not getting?

And I think that's such a reality, a hard reality for us sometimes. Like, okay, am I, am I able to compromise on this value? In order to make this relationship work [00:24:00] and there are times when couples are not able to do that. And that's a really difficult decision to make. I think if you've been going through all of this stuff for a long time and you've really given it like a good faith effort.

There might be, one or two non negotiable issues that you have that you have to make those hard calls like there just is no other way around it. So I think sometimes that is one of the fantasies that we have with communication is that if we do it all right, then we end up like living happily ever after.

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And. It's not always the case. I think more often than not, we are able to work through those issues and we are able to find some common ground but not 100 percent of the time. Yeah. [00:25:00] Again, , big mindset shift you have to go through and. I've been married 11 years and it's just so interesting.

Like only coming to this point recently like this awareness of, wow, I'm recognizing that I do not treat my partner fairly because I give all these passes to my friends or I can appreciate the differences. I'm fine with agree to disagree. I, you know, because I can see. All the values that you bring or all the things that I like about you, even if we disagree on this point or that point or whatever, and then for some reason it comes to Your own marriage and sometimes, maybe at first those things are, are awesome and then they start to be like, wait, that is too different.

No, I don't like that. So it can be really challenging. You have to come to that mindset shift for sure. But I think. [00:26:00] I think where a lot of people get really tripped up to or where I got tripped up a lot is not even understanding my own true top values and priorities. Once I, yeah, cause it's like, I, You get so conditioned by society or parents and get taken down whatever path and you're like, Oh, I'm actually miserable.

Why am I doing this? What did I enjoy as a kid? Oh, I should be doing that. And you understand this is a non negotiable for me. When I die, what are the things that I'm going to regret if I didn't do it? What is what are the most important things to me? Is it? traveling, spirituality, health, fitness, relationships impact.

So all of these different things, and you have to know that for yourself first, and then you can better understand, . What's happening in my relationship, what are the things that maybe I'm [00:27:00] frustrated and annoyed, but it's really not that big of a deal and actually still can construct the life I want versus what are those things that this is actively holding me back from being able to live the life I want, like I cannot live in my top values because it conflicts so heavily.

With my spouse and they're so against it and the life we've constructed is not allowing for that, then I would say, it's a really important sign and reason to understand that that relationship is not working. You should probably get out of that relationship. Yeah. Yeah. And I think also, like I was hearing you talk, I think it's also worthwhile to.

To bring up this like perspective, our point of view is that one of our partner's like biggest jobs is to reveal to us like the areas where we have work to do, where we need to grow up and develop ourselves. [00:28:00] And when we look at them that way, like, oh, I had a guest on my podcast who Specializes in internal family systems and she called it like it reveals a trailhead like oh, there's a trail I need to explore Why is this so upsetting to me?

Why is this so triggering to me? And where can I use that as a tool to grow and develop myself. So, that's another helpful perspective. Another one I was thinking of also is, Esther Perel talks about this really often. How in our modern society, we expect our, our spouse or our partner to fulfill the needs of a whole community.

Yeah. We used to live in this big community where we had a lot of connections. And now we have a lot of very superficial connections, but not very much community for most of us. So we're looking at, especially as [00:29:00] women, we're looking at our husband. To be like our girlfriend and our confidant and our, like, emotional support and then we're also looking for them to probably have a career and then also help with the household chores and be a co parent and, and we, we do need to like take a step back and, and look at.

Are these expectations reasonable for one single person to fulfill for us? Yeah. And what can I do to kind of diversify my portfolio, so to speak, and get some of these needs met? In other ways, yeah, I think we're obviously, you know, more than ever with technology and since 2020 even so isolated and even more just apart from community more.

Just at home in [00:30:00] general and buying everything on, on Amazon, trying to get out more and disconnect from technology that helps a lot, but I think it's a big struggle for a lot of us that it is so much harder and people don't go to birthday parties like they used to people just don't go to events like they used to it's just a lot harder to, you know, Get those other connections and then you really can fall into that trap of, well, who am I going to talk to about this, new psychology thing that I'm studying or this new TV show or whatever.

And, so you can really pin all that on to your Partner, which is very unreasonable. I think that's a big one to understand those those frustrations. Obviously, there can be bigger frustrations and domestic violence and a lot of issues. So it's important to understand those things as well. Oh, yeah, sure.

What are some examples of violent [00:31:00] communication versus non violent communication? 

 I love the principles of non communication, and one of the ones that I think it's very subtle, like, violent communication can be very, very violent and very aggressive, but I think on the more subtle side of things, it's just the, the, using that, that emphasis on should, either with ourselves, Or our spouse, like you should feel this way, you should do this, you should agree with me, anytime we're, we're placing that, that emphasis on should.

Rather than focusing on this invitation to create a shared goal. And that was, that was a big shift for me too. Because I was shooting on my husband all the time. You should care about this. You should, you should be as clean as me. You should, all of those things. You should be as into personal development as I am.

And that is [00:32:00] inherently violent, and it's, it's, it doesn't, I don't know if it seems that way on face value, but anytime you push somebody into a man down position, or, or put them in the man up position, anytime you create any sort of hierarchy in your relationship, then there's, there's violence in the relationship.

Because there's a hierarchy, so, and we don't really do equal adults on the same level playing field. We don't, we don't have a really great model for that. We haven't seen that very often, it's like the My Big Factory Greek Wedding, like, the husband is the head of the household, but the woman is the neck, you know?

There's all of these kind of underlying power struggles, and they can be, really controlling and violent, or they can be a lot more subtle. Yes, I agree, and It is [00:33:00] interesting because it's like we're given the opposite information I feel like, or at least I feel like I have absorbed a lot of the opposite information where this is so obvious when it comes to your boss relationship or coworkers or friends where it's like you said, it's an invitation, right?

You're, you don't have these expectations and you're not like, well, you should be like this and you should always go to every event with me and you should like the same music or you should do, you should be more spiritual. You should be into more self development. You kind of just accept those people for how they are.

And then if they have. bad behavior or they do something to hurt you. Okay. Then you have that conversation, but you're not so much like imposing your will on them. You invite them. . You say, Hey, how about you read this book? How about you come attend this astrology class with me or this [00:34:00] church Bible study with me, whatever, right?

Like you invite them. And then when it comes to our Spouse, that is something that, that we see even with social media posts or things, right? If your spouse isn't as growth minded as you, what are you doing with them? I think, so it's very interesting. I feel like I definitely hear the opposite information and just growing up and.

In hearing, you know, I can in my own parents, one of them definitely was the more shooting person with everything. And I've picked up a lot of that that I've had to unlearn. So I love that. And yeah, it's subtle, but I agree it is controlling, right? It's manipulative, it's violent, and it's not going to be helpful.

So I think that's a big one. Noticing where you say you should. Yeah, and I think along with that I've taught this workshop on communicating your needs in [00:35:00] a few, in a few different times, and one of the things that I teach Is if someone isn't free to say no, then they can't really fully say yes either.

So, you know, when we, and sometimes we like, we try and like build a case so we make it really hard for our spouse to say no. And I think we're doing it with the very best of intentions because something is important to us. But it is, it is in that way, a form of violence when we make it really hard.

For someone to say no, and you know, we see this coercive behavior in sexual intimacy all the time, but it becomes coercive in other ways too. If we make it hard for them to say no, if we pout, when we don't get what, we pout or withdraw, when we aren't getting our way, those types of behaviors are really undermining of our relationships.

Yeah, that's so important. I love this conversation even as a reminder for [00:36:00] myself of what am I going to pay attention to this week? But I have a great relationship with one of my best friends of over 20 years and she's my business partner. And that's a point. Naturally that I've made with her I'm a huge idea person.

I'm always coming up let's try this now. Let's do this and a lot of them. She's on board and she's like, cool. Let's collab. Let's do that. We've done a lot of things together and then some of them. She's just like, no, I'm not that interested in that, or I don't have the time to do that, or that's too much work, or whatever.

And I'm like, cool, that's fine. Internally, I might be a little bit like, oh, man, I'm disappointed. It's okay to be disappointed and feel what you feel, but it just stops there. And like you said, it opens space for More of a yes in the future. And I know early on, that was a huge thing with my husband where it was the opposite.

It was like throwing a little tamper tantrum of, Hey, can you help me with [00:37:00] this? Or even starting this podcast too, I would really try to lean on him for the editing. And he said yes at first. And then I'm like, once he. Started getting tired of it or he's like, I don't have time anymore for this. Then I'm like, Oh, but I can't do it and I can't hire an editor and blah, blah, blah.

You're better at it. And then just realizing okay, this is your like, you can't should this person and it's not fair to get all upset. at them, or turn it into an issue. So I think that's a really important one too, for people to, to take away from this, from this conversation. 

About the five love languages, because I think this is a phenomenon of everyone will bring up the five love languages. If you're talking about how do we help our relationship, right?

 I've never liked it. I'm like, okay, cool. Maybe because I'm one of those people where I'm like, they're all my [00:38:00] love language. I want them all. How is this going to help me? It's such a simplistic model and and just to give you like a little bit of background on this book, like it was written by like a clergy person, he used this framework In counseling with his clergy members, and it's not to say there's any harm in it, but it's not like a researched back back therapeutic tool.

Yeah, it's just an idea and we have a lot of this. It's a pop psychology kind of a thing and not to say that those don't have any usefulness, but I think the problem with the five love languages is what we've been talking about a little bit. It becomes this should in our relationship. Yes! It becomes this entitlement of like, okay, now I know what my love language is.

And [00:39:00] it's your job to speak it to me. Or if, if I speak your love language, then I'm entitled to receive something from you in, in return. It often does become One of those shoulds in our relationship and it becomes kind of a way of trying to get your needs met without really asking for them.

Like I said, I think it's, it's helpful in some ways. It's helpful as an awareness tool of a if I'm trying to improve my relationship, of course, understanding my spouse is going to be really helpful. But, my spouse is going to change. Yeah. What made them feel loved today? Why not make them feel loved next week or next year?

So we, I think it's much more helpful to look at what's going on in our relationship right now and have that open communication with each other. And one of the [00:40:00] questions I love is just, Hey, what's one thing I could do this week to make you feel loved? Or to make you feel appreciated? Or to make you feel supported?

Whatever the feeling is that you're looking for right now, what's one thing that I can do? To help with that, and then they can ask, and again, if it's a, if it's a real request, you can say, I don't know if I can meet that request or not, but at least you can start talking about it, and you can, you can convey , the core message, which is being in this relationship is important to me, supporting you is important to me, and let's talk about different ways That we can do that, but often I think the five love languages can be like overly simplistic and create a lot of , that should.

And the entitlement in our relationships and I, I see people online all the time and they're coming to these support groups with really complicated, challenging problems. And [00:41:00] somebody will say, just speak their love language. And I'm like, I felt like I was getting a lot in couples therapy when we were going and trying to figure all of this out was this, these just bandaid solutions.

Yeah. To what was really going on. Yeah. It definitely can be one tool or like an awareness, but I think it's been used as a weapon a lot, or that is the most frustrating incidents to me is we're fighting a lot. And it's like, just speak their love language. It's like that has nothing to do with the fight that we're having. So, oh, man. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, yeah. It can be used and misused, but definitely something that has been frustrating to me.

And I love, I've already at the intro of this episode, I talked about how your podcast is such a resource and all the awesome different topics that you cover. So I'm just gonna say that again, right? That you guys [00:42:00] should check out the podcast and where can listeners find your podcast? Yes, so I just barely rebranded yesterday.

So this is all kind of new, but my podcast is called respected and connected. And it's on, it's on Apple podcasts. It's on Spotify. My website is respected and connected. And then I'm also on Instagram. It's respected underscore and underscore connected. But yeah, just Just take a listen. One of the things I hear often from people who listen is that it's just really great relationship advice for all different relationships.

So you don't have to be like, In a really difficult, challenging relationship to benefit from the things that I share and the guests that I have on that podcast. Yeah. And I think you're so good at titling the episodes too, where I'm like, I need to know that. That's my problem. That's exactly what I want to learn right now.

So definitely [00:43:00] check that out. And my last question. On this conversation is maybe a big one, but intimacy, what is intimacy? How can we cultivate intimacy with our partners? And what can we do when it feels really hard to have that intimacy? I think it would be helpful to define. Intimacy or give some examples because I think that's something that's thrown out a lot as well of, of like, have an intimate relationship.

I think that it's such a misunderstood concept. And often, I'll hear my clients come in and they say intimacy and what they mean is sex. And it's kind of, you know, it makes sense, but it's like. We can, you can have sex that's not very intimate at all. You can have, you can have a relationship with somebody that's not very intimate at all.

And I think what really, the way I really like to think of intimacy is It's the willingness [00:44:00] to share a part of yourself without really knowing how the other person is going to receive it. It goes a lot with the vulnerability. Being willing to understand yourself and kind of put it out there.

Like, hey, this is something I've been thinking about and I'm not really quite sure how you feel about it. But it's something about me that I want to share. You without any other agenda other than just, this is something I wanna share with you. And I think that when physical intimacy comes from that place of being vulnerable, we're, we're, we're naked, we're, we're bearing our whole like vulnerable selves.

Mm-Hmm. , without a real agenda. That's where the real opportunities for connection and closeness come from. Yes, I love that, being vulnerable, and of course, that has a lot of challenges [00:45:00] with fear of judgment or, how the person might take it or misunderstand you, but it's just something that Is crucial

How are we going to have a closer relationship? We have to continue to learn how to be vulnerable and make that space to be able to share with each other and. Honestly, and like be our authentic selves. That could be a whole conversation, but I'll send everyone over , to your podcast. And it's been so great to have you on the last closeout question that I just ask all my guests is what are some of maybe like the routines, practices, resources, things that you love to stay high vibe.

I think for me, it's like physical movement, making some sort of effort to move my body. I tend to be like so type A and so [00:46:00] driven. Physical movement, finding nourishing food that you actually enjoy eating is another one. And for me as a busy mom, I say this all the time, but for me, like self care.

It's just going through the car wash and washing and vacuuming my car with me, you know, so that I don't feel like I'm a little trash. Yeah. It really can be as simple as that. Yes. 

Well, awesome. Thank you so much. This was a great episode. We shared where listeners can find your podcast, but how else can they work with you? Where can we send them off to? Yeah, so if you go to my website respected and connected I have I have a group coaching program That's a you know A group of women that meets twice a month and I also do individual one on one Coaching and if you're interested in either of those things you can just schedule a consult call with me and we can talk more about What might be a good fit for [00:47:00] you and, and how we would work together.

Awesome. That sounds great. Thank you so much. Thank you.