The Marriage Essentials Podcast

What Your Husband Needs to Hear

August 12, 2024 • Brett • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Imagine feeling stuck in your relationship because you've been trying to change your partner and only met with frustration. On this week's episode of the Marriage Essentials Podcast, I promise you'll learn how to shift that dynamic and build meaningful emotional intimacy instead. Join me as I share my exhilarating journey of launching "The Spouse's Guide to a Secure Marriage," overcoming imposter syndrome, and making my therapeutic methods accessible online. I also sprinkle in some personal updates, like hitting the milestone of 1,000 Instagram subscribers and enjoying summer activities and family trips—all while balancing professional and personal life seamlessly.

We'll also tackle a common hurdle in relationships: the unproductive attempts to change your partner, which often lead to feelings of unappreciation and resentment. Discover how to break this cycle by expressing genuine emotions and concerns with compassion and clarity. This approach fosters a deeper connection, clarifies miscommunications, and reassures your partner of your commitment and care. Tune in to learn actionable strategies to create a more secure and loving relationship, straight from my therapeutic toolkit.

Speaker 1:

Episode number eight what your husband needs to hear. Welcome to the Marriage Essentials Podcast, where we dive deep into the art and science of building a strong, loving and lasting marriage. I'm Brett, your host, and each week I'll bring you expert advice, heartfelt stories and practical tips to help you nurture and grow your relationship. Whether you're newlyweds or celebrating decades together, there's something here for you. So join me for a cup of coffee and let's discover the essentials of a happy marriage together. All right, welcome back to the Marriage Essentials podcast. It's been an exciting week and I really feel like I'm beginning to hit my stride with, like, the online content creation. I just recently launched the Spouse's Guide to a Secure Marriage and that beta course is now kind of in production right now. So I'm really excited to put that all together and to have that in kind of a final form for all of you guys. And up until this point, you know, it's really been a challenging process for me. To translate what I do every day in my office I meet with 25 to 30 clients a week and so that's, you know, whatever. 25 to 30 hours. I am talking and I'm listening and I'm sharing and I'm teaching and I'm supporting and I'm helping and people keep coming back and I'm getting referrals and I've been able to see the power of the work that I do.

Speaker 1:

Early on in my career I definitely had strong imposter syndrome. I was like, what am I doing? How am I able to continue this? I felt so much like a fraud Even when I was a painter. It was like I could see in a very physical sense the work that was getting completed. In a very physical sense, the work that was getting completed. And in therapy and relationship coaching and more of these, like soft sciences, it's very difficult to know if you're creating an impact, if you're bringing value. So to have grown and learned all the things that I've learned and to have learned how to apply them to other relationships and to teach them to other couples and to get the response that I've received and the referrals that I've received, and just to be able to witness the change that is occurring within my clients really has helped to solve that imposter syndrome that was so close to me early on in my career.

Speaker 1:

No doubt I still have moments of it, but now more than ever I really believe that I have a framework and a process that has been proven. You know it's not something that I necessarily created. It's a process and a framework that I've been taught myself, that I've applied to my own relationship. I've experienced the change in my life and I've witnessed how that the same framework can be taught and implemented in other relationships with similar results. So it's just given me a good belief in what I'm doing here. But yet it still has been challenging to put that into like bite-sized reels and put it onto this podcast and to put it into like the form of a course. But that's been something that I've spent a lot of time learning how to do as well, and I really feel like you know this course the Spouse's Guide to Secure Marriage. And then we're going to have another course after this that we're going to launch. It's going to be more of a high-level basic skills course, and then we're going to launch that's going to be more of a high level basic skills course, and then we're going to do a premarital course. We're really excited about these things that we're developing, but, like I said, you got to eat an elephant, one bite at a time, and I got to stay focused on some of these things and really deliver awesome content for you guys so that you guys can experience a transformation possible through these mediums.

Speaker 1:

And why a course? Well, the course really does a few things. Number one you can access it anywhere, anytime. You can access it in the privacy of your own home or at work, or wherever you might be Traveling on an airplane. You can plug into these things and learn from them. And there's also this aspect where you know when you're doing a course, you don't necessarily have to spill your whole story to anybody. You don't have to share it with me or anyone else, and I think that is something that's really valuable to people. The other aspect is it's much more cost, efficient. Right, like to meet with me. An hour of my time has a certain price. I have to put that price on there so that I can continue to do this. But if I put it into a course format, well, I just record it once, right. I put it into a course format, well, I just record it once, right, and then it becomes infinitely available and it can go to any amount of people. And because of that nature I can reduce the cost significantly compared to, like one-on-one time with my clients, time with my clients.

Speaker 1:

So that's all kinds of exciting things happening here at the Marriage Essentials office. Of course I'm getting out golfing, I'm hanging out with my family, visiting friends. It's been a busy summer. We're having a good time and here, actually, the week that this launches, we're going to be heading up to Prince Albert National Park. My immediate family, along with my parents, are going to be spending a weekend up in kind of the roots, where my father was born and raised, and we're going to go back to a resort, the Waska Sioux Lake Resort, where my family has traveled to I don't know, maybe I know I've been there a couple times, but maybe my older siblings have been there more than that and we're just going to kind of relive old memories and make new ones. So really excited about that as well.

Speaker 1:

A couple of weeks ago, my Instagram account hit a thousand subscribers, and, while subscribers are a key metric for gauging impact and reach on social media, it's been kind of something that I've utilized ever since I started my original mental health business, pivotal Approach, which I still own and operate. It's that business I serve kind of Buffalo, minnesota and the surrounding areas primarily. But Marriage Essentials is an online business. It's designed to reach people in their homes and be available in an online format. So that's kind of the difference between those two businesses. I own both of them, and my original Instagram account I created for Pivotal Approach.

Speaker 1:

Well, as I was figuring out my niche, I went in like a million different directions over the last five years on that account and I've made countless attempts to establish a brand and in each effort I gain new followers. Yet most of the people who are on that Instagram page now aren't really interested in who I am today and how I'm showing up. And for me it's tough presenting to an audience that isn't engaged. If you've ever spoken to an audience live, you can sense when people aren't interested, when they're not engaged, and it's difficult to continue to stand up in front of everybody and share something that they're not interested in. And maybe that's personal to me because I have and I think I've shared on this podcast before that I have this deep desire to be wanted, and so when I get the sense that people aren't really interested in what I'm sharing or offering, it does kind of bring up some emotions for me and, as I realized, like okay, my brand has changed quite a bit and there's maybe people on there who signed up for one iteration, but they're not interested in this iteration.

Speaker 1:

It was holding me back. It was creating noise in my head that was preventing me from truly serving the people on that page who are interested. So I made a difficult decision. I talked with a lot of people who I've utilized as mentors and helped me kind of understand what my niche is and how to really communicate to my clients and the people that I want to serve within my business, and I made the decision to walk away from that old Instagram account and I created a new page and, honestly, it really feels good. I feel free and ready to serve in that space.

Speaker 1:

Now, there, I'm committed to making every piece of content truly valuable for you. In the past I've kind of shared chaotically, I would say, on there, but now I'm really going to be intentional about making sure that the content that's on there is directed towards supporting relationships, really primarily supporting marriages. So now I'll get to what you guys all tuned in for, what your husband needs to hear, and hopefully you have a pen and a piece of paper and if you're driving, pull over for sure, because this is important. It's no, I'm just kidding. I wish I had a simple recipe for what you need to share with your husband. But the truth is I don't necessarily know, but I think you do and I'll explain because here's the reality you love your husband, you care about him.

Speaker 1:

Most of you guys who are tuning into this podcast because you're here, I feel fairly confident in saying that and often what I find this is a reality for many, many, many relationships. I don't feel like I'm going on too narrow of a bridge in saying this, that you might feel sad, lonely, disconnected or confused at times within your marriage and you might be here because you want to make things better within your relationship and often, often, it's you, the woman, who takes the initiative to address the pain and the distance within your relationship. First, you men who are listening. It's much more common for the man to just try and numb out the pain or to look beyond it or to like get over it and pretend it's not happening because maybe then it will go away, and oftentimes we just have two different strategies for solving the problem.

Speaker 1:

But both of you both of you guys want a better relationship. I really find that to be the case, and probably 80 to 90% of the couples that I work with, and you're often trying to create a better relationship by fixing the other person. The wife is like you know, if I could just get the husband to do this and that, then things would get better. And the husband's like man, if she could just calm down about these things, then things could get better. And I know I'm speaking, you know, to speaking very specifically to a very broad audience. So see if you can kind of apply that to your relationship.

Speaker 1:

But either way, this leaves both spouses oftentimes feeling unappreciated or disliked at times within the relationship. And when we don't feel liked, when we feel like someone doesn't like us or even hates us, oftentimes we have this protective response of not liking them or hating them in return. And when that's happening it can be very confusing for the relationship because both of you guys are now confused and you're sending signals to each other that you don't like the other person, but you would if the other person liked you. And how do we kind of get through that? So what can you share with your husband that maybe can break out of this? And now I honestly have an answer for you.

Speaker 1:

I think your husband needs to hear your truth. He needs to hear that you are choosing him, that you care deeply about him and that you envision a future together. You want a future with him and in this process, he needs to hear about your worries about your relationship not your anger, not your frustration, not your resentment, not your defensiveness about the relationship. He needs to hear that you're worried about the relationship, that you want it to be healthy, you want it to be holy, you want it to flourish. That you're worried about the relationship, that you want it to be healthy, you want it to be holy, you want it to flourish and you're worried that maybe something is going on that's preventing it from being that way and that's scary for you. And you're worried that you're going to lose him, maybe in this process. And that he's significant to you, that he's important to you, that you find him to be such an integral part of your life. And you can express the pain that you've felt in this relationship, that you've felt hurt and you've felt afraid, and that you have a desire to work through these issues together with him. And you can share the longing that you have for his love and his care. And this can be so, so difficult, especially if you fear that you aren't always liked by him or that he's not really into working on the relationship. And you can also have your own worries of not being enough for him or not being attractive enough for him or not being important enough for him, and so we can have so much resistance and fear to sharing our truth with him, because what if he rejects it? And that can be very scary.

Speaker 1:

And when I talk about your truth, you know, one of my clients a long, long time ago said something like this that you know, brian, I'm just so bluntly honest and I remember kind of having a conversation with them about like what does that mean exactly? Because they were saying that, you know, their blunt honesty often, you know, cause some hurt within the relationship. And they said well, you know, if my spouse is being a jerk, I'm going to tell them that they're a jerk, I'm not going to sugarcoat it, and I honestly don't think that that's the honest truth. I want you to kind of figure out what is going on within you, what's happening inside of you, and communicate that right. So instead of saying you're a jerk, I really believe the truth in that statement is that, you know, sometimes when you say these kinds of statements, it feels hurtful to me and I worry that maybe you don't like me or you're not going to be nice to me or something like that, I think, is much more the truth. Right, we're revealing our own emotion in that. I'm worried that maybe you won't be nice to me, and that's scary for me when I hear you say those kinds of things.

Speaker 1:

So it takes a little bit of digging and we oftentimes, early in this process, can benefit from writing down kind of our truth, like what's going on for you and I gave you that example and I think that you can maybe draw from that language that is true for you. And really what this is, that you're sharing with your husband, is this idea of emotional intimacy or being honest and vulnerable with him, and I think that this level of honesty is so important in a relationship, but it doesn't provide a quick fix. What it does is it builds emotional intimacy and it really is so integral in establishing a secure bond within a relationship. Yet this approach can definitely be daunting, especially if you're unsure of his commitment, his love, his care, his generosity towards you. His feeling of wanting to work on the relationship or not. Like these kind of things can create some resistance to this process.

Speaker 1:

But I really believe that if you can do this, if you can just approach him in this kind of a way from a calm, caring, curious and compassionate space, by sharing your true feelings, you can clarify misconceptions and miscommunications that have happened within the relationship and often what I have witnessed is it can soften his defenses, it can allow him to see the genuine loving person behind your concerns and ultimately, this fosters a deeper connection and reassures him that you truly care about him and that he's truly valued by you.

Speaker 1:

And I think that, more than anything, this is what he wants to hear that there's still that girl that he met years ago on the other side of these walls of protection, that is just into him, that loves him, that cares about him and thinks he's a pretty special guy. So remember this that exposing your heart like this can really bridge these gaps of misunderstanding, and often it can be difficult to do, it can be kind of a muddy process, but practicing this, attempting this, having grace for yourself and for them in this process, is so important, and I think that this can be the start of kind of a beautiful change within your relationship, a movement back together, a pointing back towards the relationship and you can invite him in closer together with you. So that's what I have here for today. I hope you guys all have an awesome week and I will see you again here next week.

Speaker 1:

Bye-bye, you have been listening to the Marriage Essentials podcast. I hope that you found some valuable insights and inspiration to apply to your relationship. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram at marriage underscore essentials for more content like this. Until next time, keep nurturing your love and remember that a happy marriage really is a journey. It's not a destination. Take care and I'll see you in the next episode.