The Four R's

What if you could stop conflicts in their tracks and build a stronger, more secure bond with your partner? This episode of the Marriage Essentials Podcast promises to equip you with the tools you need to navigate and resolve disagreements effectively. We delve into the Four R's that are crucial for breaking the conflict cycle—starting with regulating yourself. Discover how to identify and manage your reactive behaviors without waiting for your partner to change first.

Once you've mastered self-regulation, the next frontier is reassurance. Learn why moving towards your partner with care and compassion is vital and often overlooked. Through actionable advice and heartfelt stories, we guide you toward creating a happier, more connected marriage. Whether you're just starting out or celebrating decades together, these insights from Pivotal Approach are designed to help you nurture and grow your relationship. Grab a cup of coffee and join us for an episode packed with expert insights and practical tips to enrich your love life.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Episode number 13, the Four R's. Welcome to the Marriage Essentials Podcast, where we dive deep into the art and science of building a strong 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. Today I am coming to you with a quick and heavy episode heavy hitting. I guess it's not necessarily heavy content, but we are going to. I guess it's not necessarily heavy content, but we are going to share something here that's very practical, very applicable, on what to do when you find yourself in a conflict cycle. So much of my work here at Pivotal Approach and within Marriage Essentials is helping couples understand why they are growing distant and having a hard time staying connected. And oftentimes what couples don't realize is they have a conflict cycle that is happening within their relationship and they don't have the skills and the tools to stop that conflict cycle, to repair the hurt that has happened and to reassure each other so that they can grow closer and develop a more secure bond within their relationship. Which really is the goal in any long-term romantic relationship is we would get to a place where we have a very mature, developed, secure bond. And when we have that type of a relationship, what we're going to find is our stress and our conflict is decreased within the relationship and we're able to feel more content, more safe, more at ease. So a secure bond really is the goal. And when we have a conflict cycle that is running amok within our relationship and we don't have the skills and the tools to stop it, to get out of it, to repair it and reassure our partner, we're going to find that we are easily activated, easily triggered and we slowly drift apart within our relationship. So many of the couples that I work with, I teach to them the four R's.

Speaker 1: 2:47

When they find themselves in a conflict cycle, they first need to figure out how to regulate themselves. That's our number one. So when we are activated, we're going to feel something in our chest. It's like a tightening in our chest and oftentimes in that place we're going to be very reactive within our relationship. So we're either going to pursue and become aggressive, we're going to attack, we're going to criticize, we're going to question, we're going to move towards our partner, we're going to try to fix the relationship Not all of those, but some of those or one of those types of behaviors. Alternatively, we're going to withdraw from the relationship, we're going to pull away, we're going to shut down, we're going to defend, we're going to explain, we're going to stonewall something to that nature.

Speaker 1: 3:39

And when we're in that space we're dysregulated and we have to figure out how to regulate ourselves without our partner doing anything different than what they have done in the past. Right, do some exercise, sleep, read a book, talk to a friend, reach out to a coach or a therapist, some way. Somehow. I often joke, I don't care how you do it. If you got to, like you know, eat some junk food or something like that to regulate yourself, do it for the sake of your relationship and figure out how to change your emotion, the energy that you bring in. You move out of that angry, frustrated, defensive or resentful emotion into a more vulnerable, open, caring, compassionate, loving, supportive, curious emotion, those that's really the first hour. We want to figure out how to regulate ourselves out of the angry, frustrated, resentful or defensive emotions. Once we do that, again, we're doing that without any help from our partner. Once we do that, then we want to learn how to reassure our partner. We want to be able to move towards them, to reassure them, to let them know that they are important to us, that we care about them and that they are someone who we love and look up to. We value something to that effect. We want to reassure them that they matter to us.

Speaker 1: 5:18

That's our number two. Oftentimes this is a step that's often overlooked. We rush into kind of talking about what's going on and we forget that one of the best ways to open up the ears of our partner is to reassure them, to move towards them from that regulated emotion and say, hey, you know what, it seems like we got confused here, but I want you to know that you're important to me. This is a way that we can reassure our partner. That tone, that energy, that emotion is so important there. Once we've done that, then we can reveal ourselves.

Speaker 1: 5:56

So again, if we kind of build on this, I first moved out of that frustrated emotion. I've gotten into a more vulnerable emotion and I've reassured my partner hey, I'm not sure what's going on here. I think we're confused, but I want you to know that you're so important to me and when I try to talk to you and you're on your phone, I get so worried that I'm not talk to you and you're on your phone. I get so worried that I'm not important to you. Now, here I'm revealing my experience. This is R number three. I'm a huge fan of using the term worried versus feel. So rather than saying I feel like you don't care about me or I feel like I'm not important to you, I like to say I'm worried that I'm not important to you. I think it just invites our partner in so much more. So now I've regulated myself, I've reassured my partner and I've revealed my experience. Again, it sounds like this hey, I'm not sure what's going on right now. I think maybe we're a bit confused, but I want you to know that you're so important to me that I care about you, I love you and sometimes, when I'm talking to you and you're on your phone, I get worried that I'm not important to you.

Speaker 1: 7:11

Now we move into our number four. Our number four is to communicate your relationship longing, that's to talk about what you want to experience within this relationship. So if we kind of stack all four R's upon us or upon each other again. We've caught ourself in our conflict cycle. We've caught ourself in our dysregulated state. We've moved from the anger, frustration, the defensiveness, the resentment We've moved down into that vulnerable emotion and we say, hey, not sure what's going on right now. I think maybe we're a little bit confused, but I want you to know that you're so important to me that I care about you, that I love you, and sometimes when I'm talking to you and I see you on your phone, I get worried that I'm not important to you and I want to be someone that is important to you. I want to be someone that matters to you because you're so important to me.

Speaker 1: 8:09

And this ability to communicate, our relationship longing kind of now, sandwiches that experience that we have in reassurance. I know I've heard from various places I think my dad has talked about this and I've read it or heard about it in different books and writings about how when we offer even criticism, we want to sandwich it with praise and when we reveal our experience in a relationship, we want to sandwich it with reassurance. Reassurance is really underutilized. I've talked about that on this podcast before that reassurance really is underutilized within relationships and when we follow the four R's. We're doing that. We're regulating ourselves. We're regulating ourselves, we're reassuring our partner, we're revealing our experience and then we're communicating our relationship belonging, which is a form of reassurance, again towards our partner that we want to be someone that is important to them, that we don't want to be important necessarily to anybody, but we want to be important especially to them because they are so important to us. And when we can do this, when we're dysregulated, move ourself into a regulated state and follow the other three R's, we can have, statistically speaking, a proven framework to provide clarity to a situation that otherwise is very confusing, and we can utilize a framework that has been shown to give us the best results possible when conflict arises within a relationship. So save this podcast, refer back to it often and practice using the four R's in your relationship.

Speaker 1: 9:59

To practice, you don't have to wait for conflict. You can use the same system when you've had a very good experience within your relationship. So let's say you go out on a date or you have a very good, positive experience with your partner. You're feeling very connected, very secure with them. You're regulated, so very secure with them, you're regulated, so we don't have to really work on that first hour. But now we can reassure our partner, we can say you know what. You're so important to me, that's our number one. And now was amazing to me. I really felt close and secure and connected to you, especially when you just reached out and held my hand and touched me affectionately. That felt so good to me and, more than anything, I want to continue to experience these kinds of moments in our relationship. I want to continue growing closer and closer. Together with you, we utilize the four R's and we practice using the four R's right there in that moment, during the good times. And if we practice it during the good times, it's going to be much more available to us when trouble, when confusion, when conflict strikes. That is all that I have for today. I will talk to you guys all next week. Have a great week, everybody. Bye-bye.

Speaker 1: 11:22

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.