Encore: S04 Ep 05 - Emily’s Shaky Marriage

This week, we’re in session with Emily, whose relationship with her long-distance fiance blew up the moment they got married. We help her to see how her impatience to not “waste time” prevents her from making sound choices, and why slowing down is the key to making healthy decisions.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Laurie Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should
Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist advice
column for the Atlantic.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid,
and I write the Dear Guy advice column for Ted.
And this is Dear Therapists.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Each week we invite you into a real session where
we help people confront the problems in their lives and
then give them actionable advice and have them report back
to let us know what happened when they did what
we suggested.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
So sit back and welcome to today's session. This week,
a woman who feels rejected by her husband wonders if
there's any hope for their marriage.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
I'd given them an ultimatum a month and a half
before that, where I said, let's focus on our relationship intensively.
If things don't go in the right direction, we're going
to have to figure out the next step. He told
me that I was threatening divorce, and then he said
I'm done. I'm just done.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
First A quick note, Dear Therapist is for informational purposes only.
It does not constitute medical or psychological advice and is
not a substitute for professional healthcare advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia
use it in part orn ful, and we may edit
it for length and clarity. In the session you'll hear
all names have been changed for the privacy of our guests.

(01:19):
Hey guy, Hi Laurie. What do we have in our
mailbox today?

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Today we have a letter about a marriage that's very
young and not going too well. And it goes like this, deotherapists.
My husband and I have been married for a year
and five months. We dated long distance for only nine months,
and I was so sure I was making the right
decision in marrying him. I didn't think twice about it.

(01:47):
During our courtship, we facetimed about an hour every day
and had weekly date nights where we would get dressed up,
drink wine, and discuss one or two of the thirty
six questions to lead to love. We would sometimes play
music together, and the trips when we would see each
other were full of affection, cuddling, good conversations, romance, and fun.
I thought I had found my dream man. Soon after

(02:10):
we got married, there was a sudden change in his behavior.
He does not like to sit right next to me
on the couch anymore, but now on the space of
at least six inches between us. He has become snippy
with me, and when I tried to make conversation, he
often gives me one word answers. He's gregarious with his
teenage son, friends in the community and acquaintances, and he's
charmed my family and friends. I'm not sure exactly what

(02:33):
happened between us. When I moved across the country and
into his house. I tried to redecorate the house and
took down most of the artwork in the living room
so I could put up my own. I was under
the impression that I could redecorate the house, but he
did not appreciate this, and that ended up being our
first real fight as a couple. He's been colder to
me ever since then. I waited so long to find

(02:54):
this man and would love for things to work out
between us, but I feel like I'm his last priority.
His parents tolerate each other but don't enjoy each other's
company or companionship. My parents had an extremely loving, fun,
affectionate relationship. My mom also passed away suddenly two years ago.
I'm thirty eight and really want to be a mum,
but I don't know if I can waste more of

(03:16):
my time with him. We've been to therapy, but his
work schedule often doesn't work with our therapists, so he
hasn't been able to join me in therapy for months.
I gave him an ultimatum that we wouldn't try for
a kid together for the next three months and would
focus intensively on our relationship. I suggested doing a marriage
workshop or seeing another therapist, but he's against the idea.

(03:38):
I would appreciate any guidance on how to proceed. Thank you, Emily.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
The thing that really stands out for me here is
just the lack of communication that's going on with this couple.
She mentioned that she moved in with him and she
redecorated the living room, but it doesn't sound like they
talked about it first. And then they had what she
said was their first real fight is a couple, and

(04:05):
I wonder what that looked like. How did they talk
about this disagreement? And the other thing that really stood
out to me was that he does not want to
engage with her in any way, even after she's made
several attempts to try to talk in therapy with him,
to try to go to a workshop together. He just
seems to flat out refuse.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
I think that is very concerning. And the other thing
is that with all of that, and with the sudden
change of behavior that she talks about, she doesn't give
us any hint of the why. It sounds like she
doesn't know. So in all the conversations they've had so far,
in the therapy that they've been to, and that he
did attend a little love, I don't know if that
didn't come up or if she never got a satisfactory answer,

(04:47):
because she sounds bewildered and confused.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
The other thing that strikes me is that she said
her mom passed away suddenly two years ago, which seems
right about the time that either she was getting into
this relationship or was already in this relationship. And I
wonder what she's done in terms of her grieving. She
mentions that she's thirty eight and she really wants to

(05:11):
be a mom herself, and I wonder how this all
fits together.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
We have so many questions, So let's go talk to
her and get some answers.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
You're listening to, dear therapists for my heart Radio. We'll
be back after a short break. I'm Laurie Gottlieb.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
And I'm Guy Wench and this is dear Therapist.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Hi Emily, Hi Guy, Hi Laurie.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
It's very nice of you to come on our show.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
Thank you so much for taking my letter.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
So, Emily, we were looking at the timeline, and from
what you were writing, it seems that you met your
husband around the same time that your mom had passed away,
and we weren't quite sure of what happened when and
how one affected the other. Could you tell us a
little bit about that.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yes, So, my mom passed away a little over two
years ago. She had a heart attack, died very suddenly,
and so I moved back home to be with my
dad to help him out. And right before I moved
back home, I decided to add this guy on Facebook

(06:24):
who I had met a couple times in person. It
just so happens that his family lived out where my
dad lived, and he was out there visiting his family.
We decided to meet up when I was moving back there.
So it was just kind of this amazing serendipitous meeting
where we met up a few times. He was out

(06:46):
there for Thanksgiving and I was just moving back there
to help my dad out, and then he was coming
back here where we live now, on the other side
of the country. Basically, I guess it was about two
months after my mom passed way, so then we started
dating long distance and then got married pretty quickly. But yeah,

(07:07):
I kind of I wonder if my mom passing away,
if that kind of opened me up to wanting to
be really committed in a relationship. I think that might
have been a factor there.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Where were you in terms of your own relationships at
the time that you started dating your husband, meaning had
you been in other long term relationships? When was your
last relationship before this?

Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yeah, I've been in several maybe one to two year
long relationships that some of them started out very serious.
I thought they were going in the direction of marriage,
and then one or the other party ended things just
because things didn't feel right or didn't seem like they
were going in that direction in the timeline that I wanted.

(07:56):
I didn't really want to date someone for like seven
or eight years before we getting married and having kids.
I've always known I wanted kids, So a lot of
the relationships kind of ended because they wanted to keep
dating for several more years before getting engaged and then
moving on.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
But you're saying, Emilie that many of them started out
serious and then kind of ran into problems. I'm just
curious about how quickly things became serious, because I understand
there's a difference between obviously waiting seven and eighty is
and waiting seven to eight minutes, and so I'm just
curious about how serious quickly.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
That's a good question. The other very serious relationship I had,
it lasted maybe almost a year, and it was in
the first month. We were talking about big things like
having a family together, and you know, said I love
you very early on, like in the first month or so.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
You're saying that the relationships ended because you wanted to
get married and have kids. But it sounds like in
the relationship you're describing that that person was very serious
from the beginning. So how does it shift from we're
really serious, this person was talking about marriage in the

(09:11):
first month to finding out this person actually doesn't want
something serious.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yeah, that's a good question. So the other relationship I'm
thinking of, some things came out about him and that
concerned me, and I brought them up, and then I
think he felt insecure after that point, and he didn't
think he could live up maybe to my expectations. So
it went on maybe another six months, and then he

(09:37):
ended things.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
What were your expectations that were hard to live up to?

Speaker 3 (09:41):
He was kind of into more partying than I was,
like with his guy friends. He would do some drugs
that I wasn't comfortable with, and he said that he
would be willing to change those habits, but I felt
like it was kind of a forced thing, and I

(10:02):
think he said that I was kind of controlling, so
I felt like he didn't really mean it when he
said he wanted to change those habits.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Is that something that has happened with you several times
where it's very intense in the beginning, And by the way,
often things are very intense in the beginning of a
relationship because people are really excited about each other. But
it sounds like things go from zero to sixty. Yeah,
right away.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
That's the big one really where it went from zero
to sixty. There was maybe another one also that it
was started out really intense and then fell apart, and
this other guy I'm thinking of ended up having some
alcohol issues.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
But part of what goes from zero to sixty are
your expectations? It sounds like, in other words, I might
get really excited about someone and might even say I
love you to that someone and talk about maybe marriage
and kids. It times that I don't really fully know
them yet, and then when I find out more, it
turns out maybe that's not that possible. With your current husband,

(11:06):
things started long distance. But it sounds like your expectations
went from zero to sixty again.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, they did. He was giving all the signals that
he wanted the same things as I did. He told
me on our first date, like I want marriage and
a family, and I thought that was really attractive. Actually,
I've really liked the directness, and I haven't met too
many guys who turn out to actually want a family.

(11:33):
I feel like I've met a lot who maybe say
they do, and then they end up having some issues
that get in the way of that.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
You seem to have choked up a little bit when
you said you haven't met many guys who have wanted
a family. Can you talk about what just happened there?

Speaker 3 (11:51):
Yeah? I mean, like, I guess I would love to
have the whole package. Someone who's really awesome wants to
spend a life together and grow together and has the
same like long term goals with a family. Maybe it's
made me a little impatient when I'm dating people.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
I don't think the issue, Emily, is that some of
these guys are saying, yes, I want marriage and a family,
and many other guys do not, And so that means okay, good,
they're at least serious and want the same things I do.
What a relief To feel that relief and to feel like, Okay,
this is the right track, I think is absolutely fine.
I think what happens, though, is that that excitement and

(12:31):
the impatience, as you pointed out, makes you fill in
a complete picture from just a few dots. Yeah, and
so you're making a ton of assumptions about what's filling
in those dots, and then you're in the process of
discovery about whether this lives up to the assumptions that
you've made. Yeah, but the impatience is causing you to

(12:52):
decide on a prospect before you've fully vetted that person.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yeah, that's one hundred percent correct. That's a good point.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
Is it one you've been aware of?

Speaker 3 (13:01):
I definitely am aware of it. With dev like, it's
been pretty clear things changed, so quickly, and I did
think I was vetting him by having daily conversations, hour
long FaceTime meetings and then also weekly date nights, And
I thought that that kind of thing would continue, and

(13:21):
he had different ideas when it came to marriage, like
it just it didn't continue suddenly pretty suddenly. So yeah,
I did fill in the blanks, I think, But I
also I thought I was like doing my due diligence
and getting to know him.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Did he propose while you were still long distance? Yes,
so you decided to get married even though you had
never lived in the same city, right. Did you think
that maybe things would be different when you're actually in
the same location. You don't have to be living together,
but at least be in the same city.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yeah. I remember people suggested that to us, like, well,
maybe you could go there and just work and live
there and get to know each other better. And I
was like, no, we're good, We're getting married.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
So before you moved there to get married, did you
both talk about what it would mean to be married,
and how did you talk about integrating your lives from
being long distance to all of a sudden moving in
together creating a life together. Sounds like he was married before.

(14:29):
He has a teenager who lives with him. How did
you talk about that? And did you even know his son?

Speaker 3 (14:36):
I did know his son. We took a lot of
trips to see each other back and forth, probably once
a month or so, a long weekend at least, and
then I spent like a two week period with them
before we got married, and we were kind of getting
the house ready a little bit for me to move in,
and that all went pretty well. I knew we weren't
going to talk an hour every night at dinner like

(14:59):
we had been doing that whole nine months, but he
now says that he neglected his son while we were
doing that. I knew things would change, like we probably
weren't going to have as many high quality conversations, but
I didn't know things would change as much as they did.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Is his son living with you full time?

Speaker 3 (15:18):
He's with us halftime and I'm actually I'm currently out
of the house. I moved out about two weeks ago
because things came to a head. We had a really
big fight, probably a couple weeks before I wrote the letter,
and he ended up stonewalling me after that fight for

(15:41):
like six weeks.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
What was the fight about?

Speaker 3 (15:44):
So he's lived in this house for a long time,
and in our office there's his desk, his son's desk,
and my desk, and my desk was just piled with
stuff because I didn't have a bookshelf in there, and
he had two full bookshelves, and so I was asking, Hey,
can I take over this one shelf here to put

(16:07):
some of my stuff on. We had talked about that
for actually several weeks, like, hey, one of these weekends,
let's move the stuff from the shelf so I can
put my stuff on it. And it just didn't happen
week after week. So finally I said, hey, listen, if
we don't get around to it next week, I'm just
going to do it on my own. And he got
really mad about that.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
What does that look like? Where he got really mad
about that?

Speaker 3 (16:29):
He raised his voice, kind of gets really anxious, uptight.
It feels just not good to be around him. He
was like, don't create a problem for me, Like, if
you move that, I'm not going to know where it is.
That's going to create another problem in this house. And
then I said, okay, listen, you can make your own

(16:52):
decisions about what you do, but I'm going to take
that into consideration. I'd given him an ultimatum a month
and a half before that, where I said, let's folks
on our relationship intensively. If things don't go in the
right direction, we're going to have to figure out the
next step. He told me that I was threatening divorce
and then he said I'm done. I'm just done. So
he basically stonewalled me for six weeks after that.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
What does that look like? He stonewalled you.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
I started sleeping in a different room because he asked
you to no because of just the tension from that
particular fight.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
So he stonewalled you, but in reaction you left him.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
Yeah, I guess we were both maybe stonewalling each other.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yes, your first big argument was around the same issue
of you redecorating the house and here you want to
just move something Michelle for much smaller endeavor than you know,
redoing the living room, and he's not participating. Did you
express to him how you felt about those things? Were
you able to say things like, I really want to

(17:58):
be able to feel at home. The way that you
keep postponing this makes me feel like you're not making
room for me figuratively literally, Were you able to talk
about the emotional piece for you.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
I did. I said all of that, and his response
he wanted to redecorate together, but when it came down to, hey,
here's a picture of a couch that I think would
look good, or here's some bookshelves I think would look good,
he ended up turning down every proposal I had. And
I told him that too. You say you'd want to

(18:31):
work together, but then you turn me down for every
suggestion I make.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
So when you moved out, you said, two weeks ago,
how did that go down? And what's happened?

Speaker 3 (18:41):
Since he and his son were going to be out
of town this one weekend, and I was just like, okay,
this is my opportunity to get everything out of here.
I moved things into storage and now I'm staying with friends.
Since then, he's written me. Actually every day he texts
me and asks how I'm doing, and he's trying to
be in touch a little bit.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
I'm confused, Emily, because you said you had that argument
about the shelf. He said, we're done, and then you
decided to move out, Like he might have said that
in a moment of anger distress, but then you decided
to move out. It doesn't sound like the two of
you really communicated about what happened between you. What he

(19:23):
meant by we're done, why you were moving out? Yeah,
what do you think it's in the way of the
two of you communicating. You mentioned that you went to
couple's therapy, and then it was hard to get him
to go there. But in the times that he did go,
there were the two of you able to communicate it all.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
Yeah. I really enjoyed couples there because it was like
one of the few times where we really did communicate.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
What was he able to tell you about himself and
his feelings about you coming into his house and coming
into his life with his teenage son and redecorating, and
and why he was feeling a little bit crowded and
wanted some space. Did you understand the why of it?

Speaker 3 (20:06):
Yeah? He also said he felt like I was controlling.
We didn't talk a whole lot about the space and
the redecorating in Couple's Therapy. I would say a lot
of last year the beginning was like me meeting friends
in this town. We were in trying to establish myself
a little bit and finding my own happiness. So I'm

(20:31):
not completely reliant on him.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Actually, Emani Laurie's asking what did you learn about his
feelings about things? Because when you're saying he said, I
am controlling. What did you learn about how he feels
in these situations or in any way about these things?

Speaker 3 (20:47):
I got a sense that he was very anxious about
his son graduating from high school next year.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
But what did you learn about his feelings about you?

Speaker 3 (20:58):
He said, he was very grateful for me, and he
thought I added a lot to the family, and he
really loves me and cares about me. I mean another
complication in first year of marriage, he found out he
had cancer, so he had to major actually two major
surgeries for that.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
How far into the relationship were you when he found
out he had cancer?

Speaker 3 (21:19):
About six months into the marriage he found out he
had cancer. I wondered if the lack of like good
communication and coming up with kind of a system of
communicating regularly was because of all the things he had

(21:39):
to deal with with his health. But his last surgery
was almost a year ago.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
Was he able to talk about his feelings about having
cancer and how he's feeling about those surgeries and prognosis
and all those.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
Things a little bit? But he's not an expressive person
about his feelings. He likes to think of himself as
this like happy, go lucky, golden retriever. People come to
him with their problems. He's just always the happy one.
So I think even with me, that really put us
at a distance, because he wanted to come off as

(22:17):
just always had it together, didn't really want to discuss
things that didn't make him look strong.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
But you would ask him how he's speeding about these things.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
I don't think I did at that point?

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Why not?

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Do you think?

Speaker 3 (22:32):
I think part of it was so one of our
assignments from our couple's therapist was to check in with
each other every night and try to include something about
a feeling that something good or bad that happened in
the day. And he just had a very hard time
including something that had to do with his feelings. I'd

(22:54):
bee like, so, how was your day and he would
say it was good, and I'm like, can you give
me more details? Else? Who did you interact with? And
he didn't really want to go there.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
What you're asking, Emily is the what who are you
with those kinds of things. That's not so much about feelings,
that's reporting events. I'm thinking about the fact that your
mom died a couple months before you started this relationship,
and I don't know how you processed your grief or

(23:26):
how you've gone through that. And then your husband gets
cancer six months into your marriage, and it sounds like
the two of you didn't really talk about what was
going on for either of you, and you keep talking
about how he's not a really good communicator. But I
wonder if you're aware that maybe you don't have a

(23:51):
lot of practice in communicating, and that when the two
of you are together, do you want to have some
kind of communication going on? Mm hmm, but that maybe
the way you're going about it hasn't worked because the
two of you just really don't know how to do it.
You say he had cancer. I don't know. Is his

(24:11):
prognosis okay at this point and besides surgeries, did he
go through chemo, did he go through radiation?

Speaker 3 (24:19):
None of that? Just surgery thankfully, so his prognosis is
pretty good.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
But it must have been scary.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah, it was terrifying for me. And I think I
did communicate that, especially at the beginning when we were
trying to figure out what was going on, and I
remember him saying he was scared before the surgery.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Did you know how he wanted to be supported?

Speaker 3 (24:41):
I think I did, and he was extremely appreciative of
me being there for him. And he says, like, I
saved his life because I told him I like insisted
that he go to a really good cancer treatment center.
So yeah, he was like, he was very appreciate of that,
which was nice.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
What makes you emotional when you're saying that right now?

Speaker 3 (25:06):
I don't know. It's nice. I guess it's just like
he really I think he did have maybe he does
have feelings of love toward me, but he's it just
didn't get expressed enough.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
And so when you recall a moment like this where
it the gratitude of the affection did get expressed, that's moving.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
I mean I want to get back to something you
said earlier that was just curious about. You said that
he and his son were out of town and that
was your opportunity to move out. Why did you need
an opportunity to move out? Why did you have to
wait for that.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
We had started going to therapy. It was like three
weeks in a row, and that's the first time we
were going consistently since last year. I think he knew
I was serious about what I was saying, So I
was afraid, and I was thinking about past relationships where
I've stayed too long, and I've had this moment in

(26:07):
those relationships where I was like, oh my gosh, I
wish I had left, like nine months before when there
was kind of a window. It was just an obvious
window to get out.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
You moved out without telling him that you were moving out.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
No, I texted him and told him he was out
of town. And that's kind of when I decided to
do it, when he had left already and I just
sent him a text and.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
Said, can we back up just a second. You went
a couple's therapy. For three weeks, you'd been trying to
get him to go to therapy. He's finally going to therapy,
and you finally get what you want, meaning you're talking
at least with a therapist, and when you finally get
what you want, you decide to leave.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
Yeah, what did you.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
Learn about him in those three weeks? If you could
put aside all of your feelings about when it happened,
and you were an observer and like a journalist and
just reporting on this, what do you think you would say, oh,
this is what I learned about what he was experiencing.

(27:16):
You don't have to agree with it, but just what
did you learn about his perspective?

Speaker 3 (27:22):
I learned that from his perspective, I wasn't taking his
story into account or his needs and wants, which were
what the needs and wants well with the house. But
he really wants to have a say in what happens

(27:42):
and what goes on.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
That he communicated to you, even independently and before. But
what did you learn about his feelings or his needs
and wants, Because yes, it sounds like he's not the
most fluent and open communicator about his feelings. But as
Laurie was saying, your communication issues come when you encounter
someone like that. What tends to happen with you is

(28:07):
that you think, Okay, I can't get information from them.
I need to make unilateral decisions and think about what's
best for me. And at that point, you start making
big decisions without including him in them, without communicating to
him about them, so you start therapy. It would have
been a good opportunity to say, look, I'm starting this,

(28:27):
but it is too little, too late in some ways.
So I'm here because I want this to work out,
but I need things to progress, and I want to
be clear that I'm not here with a ton of rope,
at least to alert him and the therapist that you
know you're in some kind of place there. But yeah,
those processes happen in your head. You move out, you're

(28:49):
living with him and with a teenage boy who's going
to be affected by that, and it's not something that's discussed.
There's no preparation for the kid about the move that's
about to happen. It's almost like, well, I decided and
I'm doing it. Do you notice that you tend to
start making these decisions by yourself.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
I actually did bring that up in therapy in what way.
The week before I did send that text. We had
in our therapy meeting, I said I'm looking at moving out.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
What was his reaction.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
He told me he didn't want me to move out,
since he told me I'm done, since that big fight.
That was one of the first times he told me
how much I do mean to him and how much
he loves me, and he thinks I contribute so much
to his life and the good far outweighs the bad.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
And then you moved out anyway.

Speaker 3 (29:39):
Yeah, why because of the too little, too late.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
I think I'm not sure why you wanted to go
to therapy with him if there was literally nothing he
could do to help prepare the marriage.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
In that last session, I did say, I'm going to
be looking at moving out unless some kind of miracle happens,
like if you want to go to an intense therapy
workshop weekend with me.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
But why are the anti because he's finally coming to
therapy consistently. But any couple therapists, if you come in
and say, a couple syrapist, you have three weeks to
fix this because otherwise I'm out. No couple syrvice would
take you because I like, well, that's not going to
happen in three weeks, and so let's not waste anyone's
time or money. And so he's actually going you actually

(30:23):
say I'm really thinking of leaving at this point, and
he's like, but I really appreciate you, and you make
my life richer. And at that point you don't give it,
say we'll give this process six months and evaluate. You
literally cut and run. At the point where he's I
don't know how much he would have been able to do,
but he's showing up at least. Yeah, Why that's not

(30:44):
clear to me. Why.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
I guess it was like it was after the sort
of deadline I had already given of, like let's try
to work on ourselves intensively for three months. He wasn't
able to go to therapy that whole three months.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Why did you even engage in therapy with him at
that point if you were sure that there was literally
nothing he could do to repair the marriage. It sounds
like you weren't communicating that you were done. And my
other question is why were you done if finally you're
getting what you want. He's coming consistently, he's communicating how

(31:24):
much you mean to him. He's saying all the things
that he wasn't able to say before. And as guy said,
we don't know what would have happened. Maybe you would
have found indeed, this is not a marriage that works.
But right at the moment where finally you two are
in a position to communicate with each other and get
to know each other better, you, as guys said, cut

(31:45):
and run.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
M hm.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
Does that make sense to you? If you weren't willing
to give the marriage a chance, why were you going
to therapy? Why did you ask him to go.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
Yeah, that's a good question. I think I wanted to
talk to it and just hear what was going on
in his head at that point, because I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
But you didn't communicate that. You didn't say, you know what,
Here we are in couple's therapy. There's absolutely nothing I'm
willing to do to repair this marriage. But I just
want to hear what's going on in your head.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
Well, I did want big change to happen in him,
in us, that.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
You didn't give it an opportunity to happen. Big change
doesn't happen in three weeks. Yeah, And to me it
smacks a little bit of stuff you've done before, which
is that you decide in your own head.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
Right.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
This one wants a family, he wants kid, He's kind, affectionate.
It's a long distance. We only see each other once
in a while. We've never even had an argument. I
always say to people, and until you've had an argument,
you don't know the person. Now, there's a lot that
hasn't happened. I've met the son, but I haven't lived
with a son. I don't know how that's going to go.
My mom just died recently. I might be looking for
another family as a replacement. Unconsciously, all those things might

(32:56):
have been going on, but you're goind have decided, Okay,
this is it. I'm going for it. And at the
point do you decide you're going for it, the data
doesn't matter because you're going to go for it. So
then you go, and you immediately assume I get to
redecorate the home that he's lived in with his son
without asking him, and then he gets really upset, and
then you decide, Okay, I'm giving an ultimatum, not let's

(33:17):
talk together and give ourselves a period of time. You
give the ultimatum, and you decide, and then, despite a
change in the circumstance of him again with no guarantees,
actually engaging in a process that might even theoretically lead
to the big change you were looking for. Nope, but
I gave myself an ultimatum. So now I'm going to
make another unilateral decision and move out and not even

(33:38):
tell him. And so you have this pattern of making
decisions that involved the other person by yourself and then
enacting them regardless of whether that's a fit with the
new realities.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
I think I also knew he would be really upset
when I like and I didn't want to be there
with them in the house movie out.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
Emily, I'm going to interrupt, because what I notice is
that when I ask you a question, or Guy asked
you a question, you go off to something else. Guy
was talking about a pattern that he's noticed, and I'm
wondering if it made you uncomfortable to hear that, and
that's why you went off to talk about more content

(34:23):
as opposed to your feelings. What was it like to
hear guy talk about that pattern that you have. Maybe
it made you anxious, Maybe it made you feel defensive.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Yeah, I think I do feel like a little bit defensive,
But it is good to hear too, and I know
I have things I'd like to work on.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
We're not saying that dev hasn't contributed at least fifty
percent to what's going on between the two of you,
but we're saying there is something that's going on with
you that maybe widens the gap between what you say
you want and what you actually do. So you say

(35:08):
you want a stable relationship, You want, as you said,
the whole package. You want this person that you really
care about, that you really love, that also wants the
things that you want in life, marriage, kids, and then
you do things that set you up for not having that.
We don't know what dev is willing to do or

(35:29):
capable of doing, and I don't think anybody has that
information at this point, but we do know that a
lot hasn't been talked about between the two of you.
That you had a long distance relationship where you say
he was very communicative and very emotionally present, and then
you got in the same place. There's obviously going to

(35:49):
be a big adjustment to living in the same place
with someone integrating into the family where there's already a teenager,
and then he gets very ill. You're still dealing with
the loss of your mother and you want to be
a mom yourself. And then finally, after all of this,
he says, Okay, I'm coming to therapy. And he's there

(36:11):
consistently for three weeks, not much, but you know, we
don't know what would have happened, and you text him
and say, I'm out of here. So you wanted something,
You started to get closer to the possibility of seeing
whether or not that could happen, and you leave, And
that's the pattern we're talking about. What's important to us

(36:33):
is for you to see whether it works out with
devor or you want to move on to somebody else,
that you see this pattern so that it doesn't repeat.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
Yeah, I feel like I need to process it because
it's like as soon as something kind of shows some
kind of potential or possibility, I make a unilateral decision
a lot like I've got to get out of here.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yes, you described him as he was the man of
my dreams. And if given it was a long distance relationship,
given it happened right after your mom passed away, given
you never really had any big arguments, that you never
actually lived with him or with the sixteen year old,
then he couldn't have been the man of your dreams
because there was just too many unknowns. But you kind

(37:16):
of decided he's the man of my dreams. Therefore I'm
plunging forth. And that part is problem A and problem
B is once you decide to plunge forth, if there's
signs that, oh, maybe not so fast, you don't heed.
And if there are signs that maybe not so fast
in terms of leaving either, you don't heed. And that's
the issue that you make these decisions, and then you

(37:36):
do them by hooker by crook, even if they counter
your own wishes and needs and what you want.

Speaker 3 (37:42):
Yeah, kind of impulsive decisions.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Reactive the reactive decisions, and what you're reacting to is
a deep longing and desire for this connect that you
haven't found in any of your other relationships either. And
the question is are you doing the things that will

(38:07):
help you find that or are you getting in things
too quickly, leaving them when maybe there's a possibility of
having something better that gets in the way of what
your goal is. Yeah, it would be one thing if
you went to therapy and dev was not interested in
having any of these conversations or opening up in any

(38:29):
way that would give you really good information. And even then,
though you probably wouldn't leave by text, it would be
a conversation in therapy, even if he wasn't happy about it.
This is why I'm leaving. I don't feel you're able
to show up in the way that I need. But
he's trying to show up and it's only been three

(38:51):
weeks and we're not saying stay or go. We're looking
at how you make these decisions that seem to what
you're saying you want. You said, I've always really wanted
to be a mom. I want the guy, I want
the family, but you haven't been able to find it.
And I don't think it's just about dev you've had

(39:12):
other relationships. I think this similar pattern has happened. Yeah,
And we want to make you aware of the pattern,
because if you're not aware of the pattern, you'll repeat
the pattern.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yes, I don't want to do that.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
And part of the pattern is as loris saying, yes,
you're thirty eight. Sure, you have a lot of friends
who've gotten married already, you have kids already, and you're
feeling the sense of time and urgency, and that's making
you rush things. And my concern for you right now
is now you're thirty eight and married and you want
to rush things again, Like I don't want to spend

(39:45):
too much time in therapy because I'm thirty eight. If
it's not going to work out, I need to end
this and move on to the next thing. And then
you're really likely to rush the next thing.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
And to really examine what you imagine marriage is going
to do for you. What kind of hole is it
going to fill for you? What kind of safety will
it provide for you that you don't already have. You
try to move very close, thinking that that's going to
provide all of that. I see you nodding, so that

(40:16):
resonates and maybe dev got a little lost in this.
You had ideas about I'm going to move in the
house is going to look like this, and you know
this is what it's going to be like. And he
needed more time, he needed more space, but couldn't communicate that.
One thing he did communicate was I feel like I
neglected my son, and so he was probably trying to

(40:37):
protect his son a bit, but didn't know how to
communicate that to you. Right, So these are all questions
that couple's therapy could be really helpful for. Where's our independence,
where's our togetherness? Where's our space? Where's our closeness?

Speaker 3 (40:52):
Right?

Speaker 2 (40:53):
You said that you've been texting since you've moved out.
What's the current understanding of what's going on?

Speaker 3 (41:00):
We haven't really asked any hard questions. He's just asked,
how's your day today? What did you do today?

Speaker 2 (41:08):
So you're continuing the pattern of talking without talking really, Yeah,
how does it feel to you where you've moved out?
It's such a dramatic move and that you're texting back
and forth without addressing what's going on. Is that more
comfortable for you or less?

Speaker 3 (41:25):
I actually didn't want to be really talking right now.
I'm just sort of giving brief replies to his messages.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
What do you want right now?

Speaker 3 (41:37):
I think I want to cut my losses with him,
move on. I'm thinking I will want to just have
a kid on my own at this point. I know
I do want a kid, it just hasn't worked out
with anyone. And I'm like, I don't have much time.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
It feels like a lot of decisions are out of
fear as opposed to a sense of groundedness. That's almost
like rushing into the marriage where maybe you haven't done
enough research on whether that is the right decision for you.
And I think that what you end up doing is

(42:19):
wasting a lot of time. That is the thing that
you're afraid of doing is wasting time. But I think
that you waste time by making impulsive decisions because if
you could slow down a little bit, and here's the paradox,
if you could slow down a little bit, you'd actually
make better use of your time. So if you had
slowed down a little bit with dev In the beginning.

(42:40):
You'd be more clear now at thirty eight about whether
or not this was the right relationship for you, or
maybe you would have broken up earlier and found a
different relationship that worked better for you. But the rushing
is what trips you up. The rushing actually wasted your time.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
Yeah, good point, And now.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
The rushing again might waste your time. The rushing to
leave this might be a waste of time because you
don't really know whether there's something that could really work here,
which you could find out within a few months. You'd
get a sense of what direction you were headed, and

(43:25):
that's not a huge time cost. And you'd also learn
a lot about your patterns, so that even if you
decide that, okay, we took six months and I don't
think this is going to work, you don't want to
do that with the next person. Even if you have
a kid on your own, you'll probably still look for

(43:46):
a partner, and you don't want to do that, especially
with a child. Keep making these impulsive decisions. Yeah right,
The slowing down actually prevents you from wasting time.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
I don't know how to do that.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
You have to a identify the reactive rush impatience, and
you have to learn to tolerate it, because you have
to get a little bit more comfortable with the discomfort
of not knowing. You keep saying I want to cut
my losses, I want to minimize how much I'm losing,

(44:23):
But the minimizing losses is not a strategy for winning.
You have to learn to catch it and sit with
the discomfort of not knowing if this is going to
be the right decision, but knowing that taking time to
think things through and to identify what seems like the
most reasonable course of action, that's the thing that's going
to allow you to make more sound decisions. The voice

(44:48):
in the back of your head is going to be saying,
but hurry up, and you're going to have to learn
to say, I mean giving myself, say, three months to
explore this in therapy. I'm giving myself this much time
before I decide to stop looking for in future fertilization.
And even once you do that, the voice in the
back of your head will be shouting at you to
hurry up that it's dangerous. Once you know the pattern,

(45:09):
you can identify it and try and neutralize that voice
as much as possible, But you have to know that
it's there, and that it's going to keep trying to
trip you up by rushing and wasting time because of it.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
That's really good. Yeah, my therapist actually said that to me,
that I make impulsive decisions.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Speaking of things happening suddenly, you said that your mom
died of a heart attack unexpectedly. Can you talk a
little bit about what that was like for you and
what has been like for you since, and how much
you've shared of that pain with dev Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
It was awful. It's been so hard.

Speaker 4 (45:48):
We were so close, so it was really I miss
her a lot. She was a wonderful person, just an awesome,
wonderful grandma. And yeah, and mom and friends. We had
just a really fun, warm relationship. We're very much alike too,
of all my siblings.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
And the other part that Lloyd's question was about how
much of this you shared with Devin. I don't mean
in a single conversation, because grief is something that's ongoing
and that needs to be talked about in an ongoing way.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
Yeah. I did when we were dating, shared a lot
about her and how much I missed her, and I
remember we would talk on zoom and I would be
crying talking about her.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
How would he react.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
He was very warm and sympathetic and sweet and just
would let me cry it out, and it felt very
therapeutic to talk to him about it. Actually, he was
able to come to her memorial service, which was like
six months after her death, so he was really nurturing
and there for me in that time. And then like

(46:55):
after we got married, I remember crying about her, thinking
about her, and telling him more about her, and it
was a little bit different. I don't know. I got
a feeling like that he was not comfortable with it.
I don't really know.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Why, but you didn't ask.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
No. That's been kind of my achilles heel. I think
in a lot of relationships, I want to accommodate the
other person and I want them to feel comfortable. But
I've had a hard time kind of speaking out about
my needs. I think I had communicated in our therapy sessions.
He did know that that was a need of mine,

(47:36):
like emotional closeness and intimacy.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Did he know how to give that to you in
a way that you were looking for somewhat?

Speaker 3 (47:46):
I would ask, Hey, it's Wednesday, can we do our
date night? And he'd be like, well, it depends. We
might have his son that night, and he wouldn't want
to do it if we did have his son there,
and then rescheduling it was hard and a lot of
times it just wouldn't end up happening.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Did you get angry at some point and go stop
pushing me off? This is important?

Speaker 3 (48:06):
Yeah, that one I did. I said, Hey, I'm going
to set a timer right now for five minutes, and
it was good to talk about it, and it was
a little bit longer.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
So when you insist, when you follow up, when you
really have agency and empowerment, you're like, oh, no, this
is happening. It happens.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
What's notable to me is that he engaged in the
conversation with you and it felt good afterward.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
I have a feeling that you would learn in couple's
therapy if you stayed in it with him and he
stayed in it with you, how the two of you
could have more of those kinds of conversations when you're
actually able to talk about things. He seems open to change,

(48:53):
And I think that willingness is so important in a marriage.
Are you willing to meet your partner somewhere that makes
sense for both of you, that feels good for both
of you.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
And also he doesn't do subtle. In other words, if
you're hinting, implying, you know, even requesting softly, it's probably
not going to land. But when you're being super clear,
then he is it.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
I definitely hear you. It's hard.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
What makes it so hard for you?

Speaker 3 (49:23):
I think being a middle child with a lot of sisters,
it was like the squeaky wheel gets the oil kind
of thing, and I didn't want to be a squeaky
wheel because there were just so many other needs.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
As a kid. What you learn is that my needs
are less important because there are people who have louder
voices speaking wheels than mine, and so I, you know,
contact them my parents, and there's only so many resources.
So I'm gonna sit this one out exactly.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
Yeah, that's kind of how I grew up.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
And you're finding that that doesn't work very well in
a marriage, right.

Speaker 3 (50:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
So, Emily, we have some advice for you, and we
think that you have to make a really thought through
decision and we want you to choose between two options
that we see that you have. The first option is
that you decide that you know what, I'm going to
give this marriage one last chance. I'm willing to give

(50:30):
it six months in couple's therapy to do several things.
First of all, to practice speaking up, voicing my needs,
voicing my feelings, really learning to be much more open
and much more communicative yourself in this relationship, because that

(50:51):
is a lesson that will work for you in other relationships.
But if you decide to take this option, what you
need to do is talk to dev and I need
to say to him thev First of all, I want
to apologize for how I left. I texted you. I
didn't coordinate that with you. I didn't discuss it with you.

(51:11):
I didn't plan it with you, and I really should have.
But I did what I tend to do, which is
to rush because I want this so much that I
think I rushed in to the relationship. We both did,
and now I rushed out of it. And I think
both of those were mistakes in some way, because there

(51:34):
are a lot of things you and I didn't discuss
before we got together. We didn't discuss what it would
be like for me to move from where I am
to go to a new place. We didn't discuss what
it would be like for me to live with a
teenager for the first time. We didn't discuss how you
would feel about somebody moving into your home and how
you would make space for them. We didn't discuss the

(51:55):
fact that he felt that you were ignoring your son
too much and not paying him enough at ten during
our courtship, and therefore, how is it going to work
when I'm there? What accommodations we have to make. There's
so much we didn't discuss, And when I think about
how you feel about certain things, I have so many
questions because I don't know, because we didn't have those conversations,

(52:18):
and I think we really really need to have them.
And I have to say that there are times when
I've been really clear in terms of what I needed
from you, and you delivered in those occasions when I
was really really clear, and it felt really good to
me that you did.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
And these are the steps that couples usually take on
the road to getting married. They have these conversations. And
for you two, all those conversations that you had on
zoom or on the phone, there are certain things that
you might have shared that felt very intimate, but it's
very different from being face to face with another person

(52:58):
on a daily basis, and so it's almost like you
have to go back and do the things that you
didn't do in the right order. You don't want to
waste time, and we don't want you to waste time.
So what I think waste your time is dilly dilling?
Is am I in this? Am I not in this?
How long should I hang on? Should I stay at

(53:19):
my friends and just keep texting him? That's a complete
waste of time. We want you to either say to depth,
I'm really sorry for how I left. We didn't take
the steps in the right order. I feel like there's
a lot of potential here, but only if we go
to couple's therapy and we go every week for six months,

(53:39):
and I understand that some weeks you'll be out, but
I don't want to miss two weeks in a row.
So if you're away, we can zoom so we don't
miss two weeks in a row, and that we both
really open up to understanding each other, to saying the
things that we're afraid to say about how we feel
about ourselves and each other. Everything's out on the table

(54:01):
and we can make a really good decision. Because dev
I don't want to waste time.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
The other option that you're considering is just to kind
of cutbake minimize your losses, which is the strategy you
typically use and think of maybe just go and having
a kid by yourself. And we're concerned that that option
is also replicating the pattern from the post of rushing
into things before you know enough. So if you decide

(54:28):
I don't want to investe more time in this marriage
because I don't think it's going to go somewhere, and
I don't want to spend six months doing that, and
we think you should also not rush into having a
kid right now. I think that you need to use
the same amount of time to really work on you,
to really figure out this pattern and where it comes

(54:49):
from and how you change it going forward.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
So either way, you're not wasting time. You're using these
six months to set yourself up so that you don't
end up wasting time in ways that don't serve you
because of impulsive decisions. So if you decide I don't
want to ask Dev to go to couple's therapy with
me for six months, we'd like you to go into

(55:14):
individual therapy and tackle these issues that we've addressed head
on about this pattern that you have the impulsivity, the avoidance,
the sense of I'm going to grab onto this because
it feels safe, and this place of operating out of fear.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
And the middle child dynamic of let me not voice
my needs and my feelings and make too many demands
because you know, my parents have squeaky wheels to take
care of, and not just be disappointed.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
Yeah, we would like you to spend the six months
thinking about what would be the best next step for me.
Would it be having a child on my own? Would
it be freezing my eggs? Would it be dating in
a different way and considering that I might not have
a biological child, but I might have a child a

(56:03):
different way. What are those options? What does it look
like to have a child on my own financially, logistically, emotionally,
all of the things that, again weren't discussed going into
your marriage you would need to discuss in therapy going
into this parenthood situation so that you're not thinking about

(56:24):
it after the fact. What would it be like for me?
Is this the life that I want? Would I regret
not spending those six months seeing what is possible in
my marriage given that there's so much that I really
do love about him, but neither of us is skilled
at communicating, and neither of us knows how to talk

(56:44):
about the important things yet.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
But can we learn, Maybe I can develop these skill
sets that I can take with me to another relationship
if this one doesn't.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
The other thing we would like you to do is that,
if you do decide that you want to invest six
months to learn more about who you are to each
other in the marriage, that you together find one hour
to do what sort of a modified date night. Date
nights can feel like a lot of pressure. People feel
like we have to be intimate. It has to be

(57:14):
a grand gesture. It has to feel like it felt
when we were in that honeymoon phase. And what we
would like is just for you to do something that
you both find fun and you only have an hour.
It has to end after an hour. So maybe you
like to take walks, maybe you like to listen to music,

(57:35):
cook together, but it can only take an hour, so
it can't be a big deal, and it doesn't have
to feel romantic or anything like that. It just has
to feel like, wow, we have so much fun when
we do this. Let's go take an hour and do
that and don't feel like you have to enjoy it
in the way that you enjoyed it back when you
were in that honeymoon phase. Just be there in the moment.

(57:57):
We don't want you to spend a lot of time
planning because because I think that that tends to feel
very stressful to dev Yeah, but we also don't want
him to feel controlled, where it's like, here's what we're doing.
The assignment should be, let's take ten minutes. We're going
to set a timer and we're just going to throw
out things that sound fun to us, and by the
end of the ten minutes, we're going to decide on one.

(58:18):
It's going to be super fast, and we're going to
spend one hour doing it, and we're going to pick
the date that we're going to do it this week.
And if you decide that you are invested in this
for the six months, you need to make the couple's
therapy appointment this week before you report back to us. Okay,
all right, and we want you to make that decision
in the next twenty four hours.

Speaker 3 (58:38):
Twenty four hours.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
Yeah, you have twenty four hours to decide which route
you're going.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
The reason that we want it in twenty four hours
is because we think that, even with this information and
processing it, that you're going to steal dilly dolly because
that's what you do. And then you're going to make
an impulsive decision. And we want to say either way
you're going to spend it is oh.

Speaker 3 (58:58):
My gosh, oh are you guys my whole life.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
Well, that's why we're trying to not waste your time.
So right now you have twenty four hours. By tomorrow
evening you are going to get on a zoom with
Dev and have one of two conversations with him.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
So how does that sound to you?

Speaker 3 (59:15):
Yeah? I like that. That's good.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
All right, So we very much look forward to hearing
from you.

Speaker 3 (59:21):
Emily. Thank you guys so much. I appreciate this.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
You're very welcome. It was just interesting to see how
in their relationship so much of what normally would happen
leading up to a decision to spend a life together
didn't happen because she was in such a rush and

(59:47):
he was in such a rush for whatever reason, and
they both.

Speaker 2 (59:50):
Don't have good skill sets in that regard, so it
wasn't a comfortable, easy thing for them to do.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
Yeah, but when you think about what happened, her mom died,
she's moving somewhere new, he has a teenage son. They're
not used to having a third person.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
There and then can sit.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
And that was right six months into their marriage. So
one of the things that people think about therapy is
that you're not supposed to tell somebody whether to stay
with somebody or whether to go. We can't make those
decisions for people. But I think what we're asking her
to do is to really look at here are these
two ways that the next six months could play out.

(01:00:28):
What do you think would help you grow the most,
given that you're just discovering that you have this pattern
that you haven't spent a lot of time with it.
Maybe you were vaguely aware of it, but it really
seemed to hit her in the session. Wow, I never
really thought of it that way.

Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
And that's why we gave these two options that both
of which are a six month hiatus from rushing into
something out of something, because she can't rush in either direction.
So I think it's really important that we put the
speed bumps in all way.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Yes, yes, the speed bumps in order to help her
to get more clear and really reinforcing that paradox of
sometimes you need to slow down in order to move
faster in the direction you want to go.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Absolutely you listening to deo therapists. We'll be back after
a short break. So we heard back from Emily, and

(01:01:36):
I'm really interested to see what happened and which option
she chose.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
Hi, Lauri and Guy, thank you so much for talking
with me last week. I wanted to give you an
update on your advice. So I met with Dev and
I did apologize for how I left and decided to
ask him if he would be open to doing therapy
every week for six months. I really liked Lorie's point

(01:02:03):
about that I could grow more and doing therapy with
him than I would doing individual therapy. And I also
did really appreciate Guy's point about trying to break my
pattern of dilly dallying. So I did decide to ask
him that and he agreed to that idea. So he

(01:02:23):
is going to be traveling a lot this spring, but
he did commit to doing weekly therapy and if he
has to miss a week, then we'll do zoom therapy.
And we did go back and forth on some ideas
of a one hour date we could do together. At first,
he actually threw out the idea of doing pickleball, which
I thought was a really cute idea. We had a

(01:02:45):
snowstorm coming in the next day, so we ended up
deciding to just make dinner together. But we do want
to play pickleball together at some point, and I thought
that was just really fun and kind of a creative
idea on his part. Making dinner together was really nice.
He was being really sweet and affectionate with me, which
I really appreciated. It felt really good. It felt like

(01:03:08):
he is making it clear to me that he does
want this to work. It was really nice to spend
that time with him. He kind of like cuddled next
to me on the couch a little bit, and it
was good. It did feel maybe a little bit confusing, too,
because he hasn't done that in so long, and I
don't know if we were just in a rut as

(01:03:29):
a married couple living together. But I do think it's
definitely been beneficial that I'm out of the house right now.
I do feel nervous a little bit about how I
will feel in six months, but I'm trying to keep
in mind that the goal of this time is to
ask questions that we should have asked before we were married,
and so I don't have to decide now how I

(01:03:51):
will feel in six months, and I can decide one
way or the other if my questions are not being
answered satisfactorily. But I really, I really appreciate the time
you guys spent with me and the insights you had.
I just can't thank you enough. I did want to
know your thoughts on how do I know when I
am dillydallying? So thanks a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
So it sounds like this week Emily really stopped the
dilly dilling and she did make a choice between the
two options that we had suggested, and she chose option one,
And it sounds like dev was very receptive to trying
that option with her. Things changed very very quickly in

(01:04:40):
terms of going from he wants me six inches away
on the couch to he kind of snuggled up with
me on the couch. He agreed. It sounds like immediately
to do the six months of couple's therapy and if
he's out of town, to do it on zoom. So
it sounds like once she communicated in a different way,

(01:05:00):
he decided he was going to respond in kind.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
I agree that was encouraging. I just don't know if
that's a behavior he's going to continue once they're actually
physically back together in the same house again, because again,
they did really well when they were long distance. It's
the in person stuff that didn't work. And now they're
not long distance, but she's not living there, So that's
something that I'm a little concerned about. And I'm also

(01:05:25):
concerned that she will take a foot of the pedal
too soon. In other words, if this continues for a
little bit, you'll go Okay, things are fine without doing
full six months of vetting.

Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
Yes. I like that she realizes, though, that there are
a lot of questions that she needs answered that should
have been answered before she got into a marriage. And
so if she can keep her eye on the prize
there and wait the six months, if they both do
the therapy weekly, they'll learn a lot about each other,
and they'll learn a lot about themselves individually well. And

(01:06:01):
I hope that they keep up this sixty minute date again.
It can be really low key. I think a lot
of couples think we need to do something really romantic,
and we don't have time, and it's stressful. Just that
idea of let's play pickleball for an hour or let's
just cook together. Those are the kinds of things that
people need to just connect with each other in a

(01:06:21):
way that's not about the disagreements, which doesn't mean they're
avoiding them. It just means this is not the time,
and we have a different time, which is called couples therapy,
where we do talk about those things.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
I often say to my couples patients, like, guys, don't
forget date night can be about romance, but it can
also be about fun and should be, and they should
remember that fun is just as important as romance. And
she asked this question about how would she know if
she's kind of falling into those patterns again, And so
I hear it when she says, oh, I'm worried about

(01:06:53):
how I'm going to feel in six months time. There's
the pattern because you're not focused on how you feel
right now, on what's going on right now now. You
don't know how you're going to feel in six months time.
But when you're asking yourself that you're not paying attention
to how you're feeling right now, that's something you really
emily have to watch out for that you're really asking
yourself what's going on in the present and doing that

(01:07:14):
rather than anticipating how I might feel and what do
I do if I feel that way six months from now.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
I like too that she added to the email that
she had forgotten to leave in the voicemail that they
already made the couple's therapy appointment. So I feel like
they're really on that track. It's not just let's talk
about it or we've agreed to do this, but we
actually have an appointment. And I hope that they say
to the therapist in the first session, we're here because
we want to take six months to get to know

(01:07:42):
each other and this relationship better, to see how we feel.
We rushed into this, and we want to see where
we are in six months and make some decisions. And
I think that's going to be really helpful for the
therapist to know.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
And another consideration is that the in crisis right now
because she moved out, and people are much more flexible
and willing to do stuff when they're in crisis, but
that will die down soon, and that's when they really
have to be mindful and intentional of continuing all of
these efforts even if the crisis is behind them.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
Next week, a man who met his current partner because
they shared the same ex wonders if they're past will
doom the relationship.

Speaker 5 (01:08:23):
Seems almost too good to be true, like am I
missing a key thing? Or is there something wrong with
me and something wrong with my current partner that attracted
us both to the X? Or is there something that
he saw in both of us that's gonna like drop
at some point.

Speaker 1 (01:08:40):
If you're enjoying our podcast, don't forget to subscribe for
free so you don't miss any episodes, and please help
support your therapists by telling your friends about it and
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people to find the show.

Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us,
email Us at Lori and Guy at iHeartMedia dot com.
Our executive producer is Noel Brown. We're produced and edited
by Josh Fisher, additional editing support by Zachary Fisher and
Katie Matty. Our intern is Anna Doherty and special thanks
to our podcast fairy Godmother Katie Couric. We can't wait

(01:09:18):
to see you at our next session. Deotherapist is a
production of iHeartRadio. Fisherfold