November 15, 2024 • 48 mins
"You make me feel so angry!!!!" Ever heard someone say something like this, or one of its ten thousand permutations? Movies, friends, relationship partnerships, colleagues -- most of us seem pretty intent on using this turn of phrase with impunity, thinking that we're justified in saying it, where justified = "this person really did hurt me." Indeed, even when we're hurt, Nicole and Ryan illuminate why a simple pronoun shift can lead to empowerment for the person who was hurt, and a genuine hearing on the part of the person doing the offending, and even, the possibility of compassion, empathy, and a deepening of dialogue. As they try to unpack this concept, however, they run into some of their own differences in orientation to relationships and personality around the degree to which things between them as a couple, and between any two people, are really resolvable, and what the implications are for relationships where reality requires grappling with this.
Discussed: taking ownership and responsibility for feelings through intentional use of language, responding with compassion and empathy, how to deepen of relational dialogue, existential constructs, suffering, issues between couples that aren't resolvable, Richard Boswell, Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams, ledger-keeping, wounds, and more.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This is Ryan Thomas Neace.
(00:03):
And this is Nicole Neace.
This is the Closer Podcast.
Makes me feel it's a heck of a turn of phrase.
Sure is.
You were actually the one that wanted to dedicate an episode to talking about this.
(00:28):
So maybe say a little bit about what you noticed and why that comes up for you is worth talking
about.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think that I really want to talk about it because it's everywhere.
It's in all of my sessions.
It's in regular conversations.
It's in media.
It's on television.
(00:49):
It's always just makes me feel.
It makes me feel.
She makes me feel.
They make me feel.
It's always this outward thing.
So you're experiencing it across.
Not only do you hear it in client work, but you hear it just in sort of casual conversation.
You hear people saying it on TV.
Nikki watches a lot of reality TV.
(01:10):
I do.
I watch a lot of TV.
It's a problem.
It's a little bit of a problem.
You know, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree.
You shut that down awfully quick, which suggests to me you don't really believe you have a
like to stand up.
No, I just I'm really OK with it is what it is.
I accept the level of television that I watch.
(01:31):
Arguably, I would say it has decreased over the years.
Certainly was like a friend.
I was a Lashki kid, so it was my parents.
TV in general, not just reality TV didn't exist.
No, no, no, just TV in general.
I think I've died down a little bit on reality.
But nonetheless, that phraseology is out there.
(01:54):
It's all the time.
And you actually were the first person who taught me about that when we were first dating.
I had never heard it, never thought about it.
At all.
Do you remember what I'm sure it came up in the context?
Sounds like something that I would bring up in an argument.
(02:14):
You make me feel this way.
No, I don't remember exactly what the very first time like why it was brought up.
But I do remember the lesson that I learned from it, which was if I'm always saying this
makes me feel it makes me feel you make me feel I am robbing myself of the power, the
(02:34):
ownership, the experience of the situation.
And that doesn't mean for me that like if I go, hey, you make me feel this way, that
I'm wrong somehow.
But it was the way that you flipped it for me that got me to think about how much more
(02:55):
insight I could have into myself if I were to change that sentence and say, instead of
you make me feel I feel this way when this thing happens because.
Yeah.
Right.
And that I got so much insight into myself because of that.
(03:16):
So you it's interesting to hear you sort of reflect on it when you say to me or I say
to you, hey, you make me feel really crappy when you say that you're saying that sort
of the lesson you learned is in so doing it.
(03:38):
I like I hand over to you all of the power in determining how I feel.
I would say probably you're right.
If if you say that it isn't wrong, it's right.
Meaning it's that is that that becomes a truth that I now hold all of the power for how you
feel.
And the inverse that you're suggesting is when you say that I feel very hurt.
(04:06):
Right and you said because well, you can sort of explain why.
But the difference is that I am sort of owning responsibility for the way that I feel and
if not necessarily solely owning it, sharing in responsibility as opposed to just saying
like I have no control over my feelings, how I react to something.
Sort of like, yes, if you do this, it's an inevitability.
(04:28):
Yes.
Yeah.
Whereas like I've learned even through changing that language a little bit that, oh, I feel
this way and to then extend that because if I can learn that because at times I can actually
recognize I'm feeling some certain way about what you said, not because what you said was
really crappy, but because I have a myriad of things happening within me or whatever.
(04:54):
Yeah, it's the idea that you start the sentence with I feel right.
You you I mean, a lot of times again, that that becomes the emphasis of the conversation.
So I'm trying to think I can't think of anything off the top of my head like a recent snafu
between us or something.
But it's like.
Well, I have a good one that's not recent, but I actually was talking about this probably
(05:16):
better if it's not.
Yeah, I might get into it right here.
I was talking about this in session actually was a client the other day about my own experience
of this exact thing and was saying how in our earlier part of our marriage, you used
to say the phrase why like why this?
(05:39):
Why that?
Why are you?
Why are you doing that?
Why are and not even with like a stink on it?
Like you were genuinely curious.
But what do you do?
Like what is that for?
Why do you do that?
But because I had a real aversion to being questioned and using why as the way that you
(06:00):
do it, I would always react.
I don't know if you remember this, but I would be like I would get like but hurt about it
all the time.
I know you being reacted to things that sounds really.
Yes.
It's unflappable even keeled.
Which really is how people tend to experience it.
(06:21):
Yes.
Yes.
I don't remember this specifically, but I would say why?
Why are you doing that?
Or you would say why are you doing that?
And then I would get hurt about it.
As I started to learn that it wasn't anything within the why that you were asking that bugged
me, but it was more this unresolved piece in me about being questioned.
(06:45):
The more I could get to, oh, this guy is just genuinely curious about me.
He wants to know me and love me and make sense out of who I am.
He's not asking me that so that he can then reprimand me or tell me that I'm wrong or
try to convince me otherwise.
I mean, you might try to convince me otherwise if it was off my rocker, maybe, but that wasn't
(07:05):
often the intent.
And so I think that was one of the very first things using that way of flipping it that
really changed how I started interacting with you, with other people.
But can you say more about that though?
Like why does why does so again, the thing would be you're making me feel.
(07:26):
Yeah.
Like blank.
Right.
And how was it by the way?
It would be, you would ask me why something and I'd be like, I wouldn't even say it.
I would just say it.
Get mad, right?
I'd hold it to myself.
Okay.
So the, if you had said it aloud, it would be, you make me feel mad.
Yeah.
You're making me mad.
Making me super mad.
Yeah.
You're making me mad.
All right.
(07:47):
And then by beginning to say instead out loud, I feel mad when you do that, I feel, yeah,
I feel mad when you do that because it reminds me of this time in my life where, and that
I could kind of remind you of something historically or family of origin stuff.
Yeah.
Right.
And so what's important about that, I think on a practical level is that, I mean, I can
(08:09):
even sort of experience it as you're talking that when you say you make me so mad immediately,
I sort of in the center of my chest or like in my, the top of my stomach, I sort of feel
like a tightening or an urge to tighten it almost like I'm being punched in the gut and
I'm, you know, hardening my stomach to, you know, stealing my stomach to absorb the impact.
(08:36):
So in other words, you make me really does put the other person rather immediately on
the defense.
Right.
Whereas when you say, when you do that, I feel this way, including whether or not for
me, whether or not you add the context, context usually comes, you know, eventually, if not
(08:56):
immediately, I am like, oh, it feels like, it feels like data.
Like, oh, you are?
Okay.
And, you know, it might even lead me to say, okay, how come?
Like that doesn't track for me.
Like what's happening for you?
And then let alone that you were to trot out, you know, some story of family of origin or
(09:17):
otherwise, let alone repetitive where this has been sort of used as a weapon against
you.
And it actually gives me a chance to generate compassion.
Yeah.
And, you know, empathy and you combine those two together and in context of an intimate
relationship and you might even have something like solidarity, like, oh, that like I'm with
(09:38):
you.
That was bullshit that that happened to you.
I don't want to do that.
Yeah.
And then if you start the conversation the other way, you just sort of by definition
start out with the other person on the defense.
And if there's something that I think we do well together that is an outgrowth of the
(09:59):
things that we've learned by being therapists, it's that in therapy, it's a conversation.
And so you want to engage in a way that does not invoke things you are hoping to avoid.
So in other words, if I would like someone to see the new information I have to present
(10:21):
to them and to consider it and to minimize the kind of resistance to that, I want to
phrase things in a way that invites their participation.
But somehow that like all goes out the window in marriage or in casual conversation.
And so if nothing else, it's just like really strategic.
(10:43):
It's a good way to actually get the response you are looking for.
Right.
Yes, exactly.
And I think it has so many payouts when you start observing how frequently you use that
phrase and how many times you're sort of offering something outside of you to take responsibility.
(11:08):
And if you start changing it and going, oh, I feel this way when this thing happens, you
start going, oh, I think I have a little bit more power, awareness, control, all in the
good senses of those words.
Then you start being more intentional.
(11:30):
And so speaking to what you're saying is if I come in and say, I feel this way when this
thing happens and you don't go immediately to defense, we can get much farther into the
conversation about the very thing we're talking about as opposed to often when you go into
defense, not you, but everyone.
You start moving away from the original offense and start talking about 17 other things.
(11:53):
Right.
Which makes me wonder, why do you suppose that people wouldn't do this?
Let's say that somebody hears what we're saying and they think that necessarily there's something
of merit here.
What would be explicit or implicit or maybe conscious or unconscious?
(12:14):
Why would people not, for example, want to invoke an actual conversation about something?
Why would people implicitly or explicitly default to a way of engaging that sort of
doesn't invite the other person in?
The first one that comes to my mind is specifically for me is it's difficult.
(12:37):
It's difficult to take the ownership.
It's difficult to have to spend the time thinking about it.
I don't know how to do that maybe.
And it's just such a natural thing that rolls off the tongue.
I mean, if that's the thing that I noticed the most is how easily that phrase just rolls
off everyone's tongue.
(12:58):
And I don't see it limited to certain types of people or certain areas.
Yeah, that's true.
It is just like embedded, at least in our culture.
Yeah, it's very projective.
It makes everyone else responsible.
It's deflective.
(13:20):
And you're saying it's simply difficult, both from a linguistic standpoint that we just
tend to communicate that way.
And then it's also difficult to pull off.
It requires you to think.
It requires you to be intentional.
Yes.
That's making me think.
Another lesson from therapy is that there's generally two kinds of resistance at a really
(13:43):
macro sort of level.
There's what's called outcome resistance and then there's process resistance.
And I think process resistance is the one you're talking about, which is that they want
the goal, but they don't want to do the work that is required to get to the goal.
And usually you break that down and there's a bunch of reasons why.
(14:04):
And many of them are around wounds that people have and lack of modeling.
I didn't even know this was an option.
And now that I do know, it seems very foreign and tedious and difficult.
You know, when you're hurting really bad, none of that is super inviting.
But I guess the other one then is outcome resistance, which is like, you know, I may
(14:28):
or may not be willing to do some work, but I'm not actually sure I want this.
Right.
So it's like, yeah, I don't know that I want to feel empowered around the dynamics that
are going on between us.
Because if I'm empowered while, yeah, I'm empowered, I'm also empowered to what?
(14:48):
Be responsible for myself.
And it's not as easy for me to just blame things on you.
And the real difficulty, just to get maybe one more layer in with you and me, is that
there are things that we do that it's that thing you said before that's interesting
(15:10):
about like ownership.
You're talking about sharing ownership or responsibility for stuff we do.
It's hard because I can tell you when you do this, I feel this way.
It's negative.
And, you know, the implication is in knowing that now, I'd really like you to consider,
(15:33):
is there any way that you can stop doing this really annoying ass thing that you do?
And, you know, you laugh about it, but you know, as well as I do, some of the things
that we're talking about here are not just like the ha ha annoying ones.
This is, you know, we've been together for...
No, they're really, truly deeply annoying ones.
What's that?
They're really, truly deeply annoying ones.
Yeah.
(15:54):
Well, and what I'm driving at is that annoying doesn't really capture some of them.
It's not just like surface level irritation that we deal with as a kind of like, oh, well,
that's just who they are.
It's like, no, some of the ways that I think couples find one another in such a fashion
(16:14):
that if they had chosen, if they were trying to choose a person who forces them to grapple
with their childhood issues, they could not have chosen better.
Right.
But we don't choose typically so directly.
It's unconscious.
Right.
These are really deep, hurtful things sometimes.
(16:34):
And I think that I was particularly naive that I thought that my ability to articulate
things meant that you would stop doing them.
Right.
Yeah.
But you haven't stopped.
Right.
Because it...
But it is the thing that you're saying too, the shared responsibility.
(16:57):
I even want to...
And I know this goes both ways.
There are things that do hurt one another.
You do stuff, I do stuff that really hurts us and talks to our core wounds.
And we would really like to be able to stop doing them.
And we try very hard.
And sometimes we have been able to fine tune them.
But also sometimes they're so ingrained in us as well.
(17:22):
It's a difficult process.
And so instead of hearing, hey, when you do this thing, you really hurt me, well, when
you say it like that, I go, oh, there's something here because I care about you as my partner
that I should be hearing.
I want to tend to that.
There's also maybe some longstanding history of how it makes you feel, if you were...
(17:44):
I'll put it in quotations.
You make me feel this way.
And then I'm like, no, I don't.
But if you go, hey, I felt this way when this thing happened.
I go, oh.
In the best of times, I go, oh, I'm really sorry.
How can I help you?
How can I tend to you?
And then you can also say, there may not be anything.
(18:06):
This just may be something I have to care for myself with it, or something along those
lines.
Yeah, but that's a tough corner turn for me.
Like the...
And I mean, it is on the...
Potentially on the basis of the fact of what I'm saying here that I thought as a person
who has spent a lot of...
I think I have a lot of natural ability there than some of it is I've spent a lot of time
(18:30):
and energy trying to become proficient at explaining my interpersonal world.
I really thought that you were...
One did, not just you.
That meant that...
And I think that's another...
Maybe a conversation for another day, but there's certainly a place in long-term relationships
(18:51):
for the recognition that sometimes the best we might get is that you can express your
regret and say, wow, if it was in me to fix this, I would.
But part of the deal is that this is who you are.
Right.
Recently, we were at a wedding for some friends of ours who were very dear to us, and they
(19:15):
had asked me to riff on love for five or six minutes during the ceremony.
Which was awesome.
What's that?
Which was awesome.
This is one of the things that I brought up.
Hey, sometimes you can't package it out like this.
Although there are many things in our relationship where Nikki is my corresponding locket piece,
(19:37):
the heartbroken in half that says BFFs.
Sometimes that fits really well and we're opposites attract or we're complementary to
one another.
But then there are ways in which we are just two distinct, completely whole humans trying
to make a life together.
And the implication for that, that I can see very clearly now at midlife at 45, that I
(20:03):
couldn't have any idea about 20 years ago, let alone farther back than that.
Was that like, yeah, no, there's nothing to resolve.
She does hurt you again, or you just hurt her again.
And it's an outgrowth of who you are.
And there are some characteristics within you that it's probably a willful rejection
(20:24):
of good sense to think that you can really change.
You can be aware of them.
You can know what to do when you cross over that line on accident again.
But like to think that you have had the story that you've had and that you responded to
your story the ways that you did.
And then that you're going to meet me and even through as much intentional, deliberate,
(20:49):
intelligent, deep conversation as we have, and work and therapy and prayer and advice
and reading and deep individual work and dude, it's still more or less who you are.
And I think this is a point where a lot of couples are like, I don't know if I signed
(21:10):
up for this part.
And the truth is you kind of did it because you never considered the question because
you didn't have the data.
But I don't think we would have even got to this place, this understanding what you were
just speaking about.
If I was always outwardly projecting, it's always you, right?
It's always you that's making me feel that way, not anything that has to do with me.
(21:32):
And that's what I mean by like that ability to have like co-ownership sometimes.
And that doesn't mean like that the action itself may more fall at the other partner's
feet, but your response is something for you to look at and is something to learn from.
And that's not saying, oh, it's your fault that they did that necessarily, but it is,
(21:57):
oh, what's happening for me here?
When this thing happened, how am I feeling?
What can we get to?
And if you are trying to work through a difficult problem, being able to ask that of yourself
is like a key component to the entire thing.
(22:17):
If you can't ask that and it's always someone to blame, it's always that thing is wrong,
you're going to come back to the same spot over and over and over again, just in different
ways.
Yeah, maybe it's that by asking that question that when you end up at the milestone that
I'm talking about where it dawns on you, this is who they are, this is who I am, because
(22:42):
you're interpersonally aware, maybe part of the deal is that it allows you to begin to
say, okay, well, how would I like to respond?
How would I like to carry this?
That's a turn of phrase that I use a lot for myself, which is like, okay, this appears
to be true.
How would I like to carry that truth?
(23:04):
Would I like to carry it in a way that leads to argument and division?
Would I like to carry it in a way that allows me some space to grieve and to say, wow, I
really want this in my relationship, but it doesn't seem to be in the cards.
But if I never get to consider how I would like to respond because I'm too busy pointing
(23:26):
out that you are at fault, maybe we never get to it that way.
And back to my earlier question, maybe that's the point, would be unconscious.
People wouldn't know that you're doing that, but the point is I don't ever want to have
to be faced with the fact that this could just be a reality between us.
And then ultimately, if I'm not responsible for anything else, I'm responsible for deciding
(23:48):
how I would like to carry this, how I would like to respond.
And I do get it.
It makes me feel versus I feel this way when you allows this further conversation.
For real, for real, I understand why some people don't have any ambition toward that,
because I do think it's deeper.
(24:11):
I do think it's richer.
But that's not to say that I always think it's quote unquote better.
Right.
I mean, sometimes the deeper into things you look, you know, enlightenment is a little
overrated at some point.
You know, it's like, I don't know.
This is always a thing that we want.
(24:31):
Yeah, I agree.
When I say that I notice people say this a lot, and I talk about it a lot with people
in therapy, outside of therapy, whatever, it's not because I'm like, oh, hey, you know
what, this is a really easy road to take and you should switch this.
It does come with more responsibility.
(24:54):
It is harder.
It will be harder.
There's no way of avoiding that because you're doing some work instead of just sort of like,
for me, floating through life and farming it out and being like, oh, yeah, that's why
that happened.
And again, I don't have to take any ownership or learn anything about myself here.
That maybe in the future, if this happens again, I might have a better experience if
(25:15):
I was to better understand.
Yes, or not.
Or not.
Yes.
And again, this is not all roads lead to...
Correct.
It's like, and you can see how easy it is to slip right back into that as almost like
a formula.
Yep.
And that's, you're right, that's why I do the same thing.
Like in therapy, when I'm presenting an alternative, in the amount of times that I go out of my
(25:38):
way to say to people, hey, I'm not recommending that you do what I'm saying.
What I want to do is to talk with you about it because for sure it will cost you something.
I mean, one thing that occurs to me that it costs is there's a death of sorts when you
say, oh, like the way that this person is or the way that this situation has been, or
(26:06):
if you pull the camera lens back even further and you just look at your life.
This is again, what happens for a lot of people around our age.
It's what they call a midlife crisis is when you realize, oh, I blew through my 20s thinking
something's going to happen in my 30s.
And then I blow through my 30s thinking it's going to happen in my 40s.
And you get into your middle 40s and by that point, enough statistical probabilities begin
(26:31):
to play themselves out of, if you haven't had some bad shit befall you to this point,
in this domain, here it comes.
You haven't had a financial problem, if you haven't had a family problem, if you haven't
had an employment problem, you haven't had a reputation problem, you're going to have
them and then you go, oh shit, is this just how it's going to be?
(26:53):
And literally the answer is yes.
Yes, that's correct.
The way that things have mostly been is how they're going to be, but here's the opportunity
itself.
How would you like to carry that?
Step zero is usually grief.
Like oh, I didn't know.
And that is the crisis that many people run into in midlife.
(27:15):
But the bitch of it is a lot of people never get out of the crisis point because they have
difficulty accepting.
And so they go back to, no, it must not be this way.
It must just be that I need to swap out jobs, spouses, relationships with my kids, relationships
(27:36):
with my friends.
And it isn't that many of those things might not be perfectly great moves for you, but
that at the end of the day, if it's a thing that's supposed to avoid the reality of life
is not perfectly going to remit to my plans or it probably not going to work.
(28:00):
Agreed.
Yeah.
So let me ask you this.
I keep kind of drawing it back.
The conversation is really principally initially about this device that you and I use.
And the answer for anyone who's wondering is yes, we actually do this.
(28:21):
I mean, we've been doing it for a long time.
So it's not even something we consciously think about now.
I don't remember the last time I've heard you say that makes me feel a thing.
Because we say it so infrequently and particularly would stand out now.
So yes, we do this.
But where it's kind of evolved here is that in doing this, it does open the doorway to
(28:46):
different, probably arguably maybe deeper, richer conversations.
But I feel like I keep saying, yeah, and then sometimes nothing changes anyways.
And you're like, yeah.
But like I haven't heard you.
So will you talk about that a little for you?
(29:07):
Let's talk about you and me for a minute.
What's your experience of that in sort of running into that wall with me?
Do you run into it?
What's it like?
I mean, is there anything that you can say off the top of your head about what the things
(29:28):
are that you run into with me?
Are you talking about like the unresolvable situations?
Yeah.
What happens when we run into it, like a thing that you've asked me to stop doing, or you've
told me, hey, when you do this, I feel crappy.
And I'm like, mm hmm.
Thumbs up.
Yes.
(29:49):
Okay.
So let me think about that for a second.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, how does it feel?
Well, it doesn't feel great.
I'm trying to think of something recently so that I could tap into an exact thing.
But much like you're saying, because we don't use that phraseology anymore, and the ways
(30:10):
that we do talk about it, there's like a ton of things that I'm sort of feeling and thinking
at one time.
But if I think about the unresolved issue or the thing that happens over and over again,
I think it's hard for you to do, apparently.
It is.
It is hard for me.
I don't know.
(30:30):
I think that this is the thing that you and I have also run into before, is the ways in
which we interact with those things.
Like how do I continue moving forward, knowing that there is an unresolvable issue?
And that yes, sometimes we can tend to it and care for the other one the best that we
(30:51):
can, but it's still this unresolvable issue.
And my natural way of sort of tending the things that fall into the uncomfortable or
painful places is to sort of go, okay, well, this really sucks.
I can get angry.
I can get sad.
(31:11):
And then I sort of just accept it until the next time I hit it again, which is, I think,
the fundamental...
Do you accept it, though?
Well, accept it in that like...
Or you just stop thinking about it?
Maybe I do stop thinking about it.
Maybe you do.
Maybe that...
I mean, I think there is a level of it to which I accept.
There are things that I think across the board, not just with you, but in life in general,
(31:35):
that I am like, well, for me to spend a bunch of time thinking about this or being upset
about it when I know it's outside of my control, it's not about me, doesn't serve me.
So I will give it what I feel is adequate attention, and sometimes that is not enough.
(31:56):
Sometimes it needs to be more.
And I think I've learned that through different times that we've interacted with, like, oh,
maybe if I sat with this a little bit more and I was maybe more clear about how that
feels or if I gain a new insight about that impact, maybe that information between the
two of us helps us take another step forward.
(32:17):
But I'm trying to think about what was it that Boswell used to say to us about, and
I think even...
The boss.
The boss.
The boss.
Boswell is our longtime couples therapist that we had in St. Louis, Richard Boswell,
LCSW.
Amazing.
Look him up.
(32:38):
Yep.
Shout out.
Well, Robin Williams also talks about it in a much sweeter way in Good Will Hunting about
the peccadillos, right?
He talks about them as these sweet little things that you can appreciate and talk about
her farting in her sleep and waking her.
I don't think that's that sweet, but yeah.
But Boswell used to talk about the unresolvable issue, right?
(33:00):
That there are going to be those things that just cannot be resolved.
So you just sort of accept that they're part of the dynamic.
That doesn't mean you don't address them when they come up and talk about them so that you
can care for your partner, but there are certain things that just will never be resolved.
Yeah.
So I guess I'm just asking you.
Yes.
(33:20):
I keep...
I'm trying to get there.
I'm trying to get there.
What I'm saying is the unresolvable issue for me at times, I can say, this fucking sucks.
I'm really hurt by it.
I'm mad about it.
Whenever I'm angry and I do something in my anger that hurts you, that you've clearly
(33:42):
stated to me, hey, this is a boundary I'd like you to not cross.
Yes.
I would like you to not say this again, or I would like you to not do that.
Put yourself there for a minute.
What's that like for you?
Well, that's when I think when...
And there's a couple of them I can think of that I'm like, there it is again.
(34:05):
And I have a few, there's like two maybe that stick for me.
And when you say them or do them, I am deeply angry and really, really hurt.
And I am sort of flabbergasted by the fact that we've had this conversation and that
(34:27):
in our right caring minds, we understand one another.
And then when we're back in the argument, there it is again.
Or we're in the situation, there it is again.
And in the moment, I really don't often have a lot of room for it.
It just sort of builds my own anger.
(34:51):
And for me, I think that's where I go into shutdown mode.
Because I'm now like tapping into something in my emotions that I don't feel safe or like
about myself.
And it goes back to what we talked about in episode one, that thing that I lived by.
If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all.
And so I'll often shut down because I'm like, oh, I'm going to now say a bunch of stuff
(35:15):
I might regret.
And it's not going to fix the thing.
So don't say anything.
And then when we do eventually get to it, and I can talk about it and you can talk about
it and apologies are made and understandings are had.
(35:36):
And we're like, here it is again.
We've just ran around the circle again.
That is where I think my, well, it's just sort of is what it is.
Like I can't do anything now about that beyond we've we've hashed this thing out.
We know this is the unresolvable issue.
But people do metabolize that differently.
Some people say there is something you can do about it.
(35:59):
You can leave.
You can, you know, you can go to therapy about it.
Like the two of you are on your own to talk about how, but you don't, those aren't, that's
not where you go with it.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, we do do those things.
We don't leave, but we go to therapy individually.
(36:21):
And as a couple, we've done those sorts of things.
And part of the unresolvable issue is there's, there isn't a thing that's going to make it
quote unquote, right.
That's the point again, is that it's not, not really resolvable.
And it is an unresolvable issue that I'm okay with existing between the two of us, I guess
maybe is I'm like, I leaving is not, it's not, it doesn't like, this isn't the thing
(36:47):
sort of stumbling over it.
Like leaving is not the answer.
That's not going to make it better.
And it's also not a leaving kind of issue for me.
There's so much more in our dynamic, in our relationship, in the ways in which we care
for one another that outweighs that.
That doesn't mean it doesn't still deeply wound me.
(37:09):
But if I think I'm going to go somewhere else and find something different, I might, it
might be a different issue, but I'm still going to have that thing with someone else,
whatever the thing is with someone else.
I mean, that's a belief.
Right.
It's a narrative.
So that's what you're sort of saying without saying it is that what you do is you begin
to narrate it in a certain way that is consistent with your beliefs.
(37:34):
Yes.
And that leads to the outcome that you sort of find a way to metabolize it.
You know, you just have, I'm with you though, on the point that you have some sort of inbuilt
thing that when it's not working super well for you or us, you just are sort of forgetful
(38:00):
in a way that is like, you probably should remember this.
And then there are times like this where it probably works in our favor or it's like,
it's like an intentional forgetfulness, if you will.
It's like, well, this does exist between us.
I, this is how I'm going to hold it.
(38:21):
Right.
I don't think I have that.
Yeah.
Well, what do you do with it?
What do you have?
How do you carry it?
(38:43):
I grieve about it.
And it gets filtered into like a sort of thread.
It becomes a thread that is filtered into my like, woven into my like tapestry of like
(39:05):
existential, this is what it means to be human.
Part of what it means to be human and to be in a long-term relationship, marriage is that
you will encounter ways in which no amount of intention or insight or even like genuine
(39:28):
transformation of the self will be sufficient to insulate you from sometimes deep and very
specific pain.
And then I sort of hold it in that bag, which is like this is what it means to be human
bag.
(39:48):
Okay.
And then I kind of deal with it maybe in a more, becomes more aggregate.
So in other words, I stop processing the thing and I start processing what is this life that
like we, many or most humans and animals have a lot of pain.
(40:13):
And it sort of allows me to mobilize it a little bit into like a way from like Ryan's
problem or Nikki and Ryan's problem or from a problem to like, how do I hold what it means
to be alive?
And then that leads to a whole bunch of reflections and then they're not all great.
(40:40):
Sometimes I'm like, well, what the fuck then?
What was the point of this?
And you have often and rightly so throughout our relationship had to point out to me other
things that are true.
Like at first, and maybe even you were doing this some, but I certainly read it at first
(41:01):
as you were trying to talk me out of it.
Right.
And I'm like, no, these things are occurring.
Right.
Like, don't tell me that like it all balances out.
Right.
Right.
Because that goes back to the same thing we're saying.
It's not really resolvable.
Don't tell me that, okay, you gave me three kisses, but you also gave me three slaps.
We're even.
(41:21):
And I'm like, no, no.
Right.
But they do contextualize things.
It's like when I remember that this is deeply like one thing about being human or about
being alive is that there's a certain amount of deep and specific pain that's not resolvable.
I can get tunnel vision.
(41:43):
And then I think like that's the only thing true or that's the deepest truth about human
existence.
And even when I start to hear myself say that I can hear how easily that it's easy to debunk,
it's like, well, wait a minute, look at the rest of your life here.
Like.
Yeah, but even that is like a story, a narrative you've created for yourself, like a belief
(42:10):
that you live within.
Because, I mean, just like you're saying I could or someone could come and debunk it
because there's 17 different ways we can look at it or more.
Okay.
And what about that?
Like, well, I'm just saying much like my own way of tending to it.
(42:31):
It could be solely unique to me or to me in a group of people and the way that you look
at it.
I mean, when you sit there and keep track of it or, no, you didn't say keep track.
You said, or the words that you just used.
A ledger.
(42:51):
Did you use the word ledger?
Definitely.
I've been in the history of you talking about things.
You mean you've kept a ledger about me using the word ledger?
Yes.
You're taking a lot of that.
No, no, now I'm losing my track of thought.
But there's just, I just think that sort of the way that you approach it, even in how
you're discussing it now and how I've heard you talk about other things in the past is
(43:17):
one way of entering in.
And I don't know if it's any better or worse than mine.
Yeah, I don't either.
Is someone saying that you're going to say that it's better or worse or that it's not
a narrative?
No, I'm sorry.
No, I'm just processing it out loud.
I'm just wondering like what happens when I say, okay, this is an unresolvable issue
(43:45):
and I forget about it or I let it go or whatever the case may be until the next time we hit
that and then I'm like, oh, here we are again.
And for me, there are certain things that are like within the realm of acceptance, right?
Because I'm not saying like I would lay down and like take anything and just be like, well,
(44:08):
forget about it and until next time.
But the types of unresolvable issues that we have are not the kinds of things for me
that I would choose to like leave as an option or say that that means something like a value
judgment.
(44:28):
Oh, our relationship is crap because these things exist.
It's this acceptance of these things existing, never stopping to try and do better, always
trying to own, but also not keeping a ledger, not holding on to it.
No, I don't agree with you.
That is a ledger.
It's just your ledger is all the things that you can accept and mine is all the ones that
(44:51):
I can't.
But you cannot.
Somebody could argue with that.
I don't know.
People listening to this might beg to differ with me.
But I'm like, I think you're right.
I mean, there is a certain amount of ledger keeping.
I just like the ledger is like, oh, there's another thing that doesn't appear to be resolvable.
And it's like, to the degree that causes me pain, I put it in this other bag over here.
(45:15):
I take the whole ledger and I put it in that bag.
Your ledger, it isn't that you aren't aware of them, but you say, I accept them.
Maybe that makes the ledger feel like it disappears or maybe it does disappear.
I think it temporarily shelves it until I take cause to look at it again because I have
(45:40):
room potentially for it to change.
But like in terms of, oh, I could learn something from that.
So I'm never just going to...
There it is though.
It just must be a core difference between us because you kind of keep going back to
it could change.
And I'm like, isn't this conversation about things that don't change?
No, not the unresolvable issue, but my own attitude towards the unresolvable issue.
(46:05):
Yeah, your own orientation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's about how you learn to hold it.
Again, that's the orientation.
I don't know if there's really something...
Mostly at this intersection, it seems like to me our basic personalities still kind of
(46:25):
do their thing.
And I think maybe this is it, right?
Here it is.
This conversation isn't entirely resolved.
Right.
Yeah.
Like we don't exactly know what happens when we get down to that level.
What I just heard you say was that your orientation leads you back to now.
(46:50):
You quote, temporarily shelved it so that you can do what?
Well, so that you can live in the next 24 hours.
And it's hard for me to argue with that.
I'm not as good at it as you.
Because I'm like, yeah, but what's the next 24 hours going to consist of?
Because if it's a repeat of that, I'm like not that into that.
(47:16):
So yeah, I think that's where we have to drop that sucker off.
Yeah, drop it.
Shelve it.
Because if not, you make a mensumade out of it.
So there you have it, folks, live and in living color.
Us sort of demonstrating both like something that we really, really, yes, we actually do
(47:36):
that.
We have these sort of intentional like wording in the way that we choose to respond to one
another, which is supposed to facilitate like interpersonal ownership or shared ownership
and potentially interpersonal insight and change.
And then also what we're saying is at the end of the day, some things don't necessarily
(47:56):
resolve and then even in trying to discuss that and to like hear who we are, what we
are, what we do.
It's like when jazz music will sometimes end on like a minor chord and you're like, but
is that it?
Is that it?
Is that the end of the song?
It's like, yeah, that's the end.
And we're done.
This is Ryan Thomas Neace.
(00:03):
And this is Nicole Neace.
This is the Closer Podcast.
Makes me feel it's a heck of a turn of phrase.
Sure is.
You were actually the one that wanted to dedicate an episode to talking about this.
(00:28):
So maybe say a little bit about what you noticed and why that comes up for you is worth talking
about.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think that I really want to talk about it because it's everywhere.
It's in all of my sessions.
It's in regular conversations.
It's in media.
It's on television.
(00:49):
It's always just makes me feel.
It makes me feel.
She makes me feel.
They make me feel.
It's always this outward thing.
So you're experiencing it across.
Not only do you hear it in client work, but you hear it just in sort of casual conversation.
You hear people saying it on TV.
Nikki watches a lot of reality TV.
(01:10):
I do.
I watch a lot of TV.
It's a problem.
It's a little bit of a problem.
You know, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree.
You shut that down awfully quick, which suggests to me you don't really believe you have a
like to stand up.
No, I just I'm really OK with it is what it is.
I accept the level of television that I watch.
(01:31):
Arguably, I would say it has decreased over the years.
Certainly was like a friend.
I was a Lashki kid, so it was my parents.
TV in general, not just reality TV didn't exist.
No, no, no, just TV in general.
I think I've died down a little bit on reality.
But nonetheless, that phraseology is out there.
(01:54):
It's all the time.
And you actually were the first person who taught me about that when we were first dating.
I had never heard it, never thought about it.
At all.
Do you remember what I'm sure it came up in the context?
Sounds like something that I would bring up in an argument.
(02:14):
You make me feel this way.
No, I don't remember exactly what the very first time like why it was brought up.
But I do remember the lesson that I learned from it, which was if I'm always saying this
makes me feel it makes me feel you make me feel I am robbing myself of the power, the
(02:34):
ownership, the experience of the situation.
And that doesn't mean for me that like if I go, hey, you make me feel this way, that
I'm wrong somehow.
But it was the way that you flipped it for me that got me to think about how much more
(02:55):
insight I could have into myself if I were to change that sentence and say, instead of
you make me feel I feel this way when this thing happens because.
Yeah.
Right.
And that I got so much insight into myself because of that.
(03:16):
So you it's interesting to hear you sort of reflect on it when you say to me or I say
to you, hey, you make me feel really crappy when you say that you're saying that sort
of the lesson you learned is in so doing it.
(03:38):
I like I hand over to you all of the power in determining how I feel.
I would say probably you're right.
If if you say that it isn't wrong, it's right.
Meaning it's that is that that becomes a truth that I now hold all of the power for how you
feel.
And the inverse that you're suggesting is when you say that I feel very hurt.
(04:06):
Right and you said because well, you can sort of explain why.
But the difference is that I am sort of owning responsibility for the way that I feel and
if not necessarily solely owning it, sharing in responsibility as opposed to just saying
like I have no control over my feelings, how I react to something.
Sort of like, yes, if you do this, it's an inevitability.
(04:28):
Yes.
Yeah.
Whereas like I've learned even through changing that language a little bit that, oh, I feel
this way and to then extend that because if I can learn that because at times I can actually
recognize I'm feeling some certain way about what you said, not because what you said was
really crappy, but because I have a myriad of things happening within me or whatever.
(04:54):
Yeah, it's the idea that you start the sentence with I feel right.
You you I mean, a lot of times again, that that becomes the emphasis of the conversation.
So I'm trying to think I can't think of anything off the top of my head like a recent snafu
between us or something.
But it's like.
Well, I have a good one that's not recent, but I actually was talking about this probably
(05:16):
better if it's not.
Yeah, I might get into it right here.
I was talking about this in session actually was a client the other day about my own experience
of this exact thing and was saying how in our earlier part of our marriage, you used
to say the phrase why like why this?
(05:39):
Why that?
Why are you?
Why are you doing that?
Why are and not even with like a stink on it?
Like you were genuinely curious.
But what do you do?
Like what is that for?
Why do you do that?
But because I had a real aversion to being questioned and using why as the way that you
(06:00):
do it, I would always react.
I don't know if you remember this, but I would be like I would get like but hurt about it
all the time.
I know you being reacted to things that sounds really.
Yes.
It's unflappable even keeled.
Which really is how people tend to experience it.
(06:21):
Yes.
Yes.
I don't remember this specifically, but I would say why?
Why are you doing that?
Or you would say why are you doing that?
And then I would get hurt about it.
As I started to learn that it wasn't anything within the why that you were asking that bugged
me, but it was more this unresolved piece in me about being questioned.
(06:45):
The more I could get to, oh, this guy is just genuinely curious about me.
He wants to know me and love me and make sense out of who I am.
He's not asking me that so that he can then reprimand me or tell me that I'm wrong or
try to convince me otherwise.
I mean, you might try to convince me otherwise if it was off my rocker, maybe, but that wasn't
(07:05):
often the intent.
And so I think that was one of the very first things using that way of flipping it that
really changed how I started interacting with you, with other people.
But can you say more about that though?
Like why does why does so again, the thing would be you're making me feel.
(07:26):
Yeah.
Like blank.
Right.
And how was it by the way?
It would be, you would ask me why something and I'd be like, I wouldn't even say it.
I would just say it.
Get mad, right?
I'd hold it to myself.
Okay.
So the, if you had said it aloud, it would be, you make me feel mad.
Yeah.
You're making me mad.
Making me super mad.
Yeah.
You're making me mad.
All right.
(07:47):
And then by beginning to say instead out loud, I feel mad when you do that, I feel, yeah,
I feel mad when you do that because it reminds me of this time in my life where, and that
I could kind of remind you of something historically or family of origin stuff.
Yeah.
Right.
And so what's important about that, I think on a practical level is that, I mean, I can
(08:09):
even sort of experience it as you're talking that when you say you make me so mad immediately,
I sort of in the center of my chest or like in my, the top of my stomach, I sort of feel
like a tightening or an urge to tighten it almost like I'm being punched in the gut and
I'm, you know, hardening my stomach to, you know, stealing my stomach to absorb the impact.
(08:36):
So in other words, you make me really does put the other person rather immediately on
the defense.
Right.
Whereas when you say, when you do that, I feel this way, including whether or not for
me, whether or not you add the context, context usually comes, you know, eventually, if not
(08:56):
immediately, I am like, oh, it feels like, it feels like data.
Like, oh, you are?
Okay.
And, you know, it might even lead me to say, okay, how come?
Like that doesn't track for me.
Like what's happening for you?
And then let alone that you were to trot out, you know, some story of family of origin or
(09:17):
otherwise, let alone repetitive where this has been sort of used as a weapon against
you.
And it actually gives me a chance to generate compassion.
Yeah.
And, you know, empathy and you combine those two together and in context of an intimate
relationship and you might even have something like solidarity, like, oh, that like I'm with
(09:38):
you.
That was bullshit that that happened to you.
I don't want to do that.
Yeah.
And then if you start the conversation the other way, you just sort of by definition
start out with the other person on the defense.
And if there's something that I think we do well together that is an outgrowth of the
(09:59):
things that we've learned by being therapists, it's that in therapy, it's a conversation.
And so you want to engage in a way that does not invoke things you are hoping to avoid.
So in other words, if I would like someone to see the new information I have to present
(10:21):
to them and to consider it and to minimize the kind of resistance to that, I want to
phrase things in a way that invites their participation.
But somehow that like all goes out the window in marriage or in casual conversation.
And so if nothing else, it's just like really strategic.
(10:43):
It's a good way to actually get the response you are looking for.
Right.
Yes, exactly.
And I think it has so many payouts when you start observing how frequently you use that
phrase and how many times you're sort of offering something outside of you to take responsibility.
(11:08):
And if you start changing it and going, oh, I feel this way when this thing happens, you
start going, oh, I think I have a little bit more power, awareness, control, all in the
good senses of those words.
Then you start being more intentional.
(11:30):
And so speaking to what you're saying is if I come in and say, I feel this way when this
thing happens and you don't go immediately to defense, we can get much farther into the
conversation about the very thing we're talking about as opposed to often when you go into
defense, not you, but everyone.
You start moving away from the original offense and start talking about 17 other things.
(11:53):
Right.
Which makes me wonder, why do you suppose that people wouldn't do this?
Let's say that somebody hears what we're saying and they think that necessarily there's something
of merit here.
What would be explicit or implicit or maybe conscious or unconscious?
(12:14):
Why would people not, for example, want to invoke an actual conversation about something?
Why would people implicitly or explicitly default to a way of engaging that sort of
doesn't invite the other person in?
The first one that comes to my mind is specifically for me is it's difficult.
(12:37):
It's difficult to take the ownership.
It's difficult to have to spend the time thinking about it.
I don't know how to do that maybe.
And it's just such a natural thing that rolls off the tongue.
I mean, if that's the thing that I noticed the most is how easily that phrase just rolls
off everyone's tongue.
(12:58):
And I don't see it limited to certain types of people or certain areas.
Yeah, that's true.
It is just like embedded, at least in our culture.
Yeah, it's very projective.
It makes everyone else responsible.
It's deflective.
(13:20):
And you're saying it's simply difficult, both from a linguistic standpoint that we just
tend to communicate that way.
And then it's also difficult to pull off.
It requires you to think.
It requires you to be intentional.
Yes.
That's making me think.
Another lesson from therapy is that there's generally two kinds of resistance at a really
(13:43):
macro sort of level.
There's what's called outcome resistance and then there's process resistance.
And I think process resistance is the one you're talking about, which is that they want
the goal, but they don't want to do the work that is required to get to the goal.
And usually you break that down and there's a bunch of reasons why.
(14:04):
And many of them are around wounds that people have and lack of modeling.
I didn't even know this was an option.
And now that I do know, it seems very foreign and tedious and difficult.
You know, when you're hurting really bad, none of that is super inviting.
But I guess the other one then is outcome resistance, which is like, you know, I may
(14:28):
or may not be willing to do some work, but I'm not actually sure I want this.
Right.
So it's like, yeah, I don't know that I want to feel empowered around the dynamics that
are going on between us.
Because if I'm empowered while, yeah, I'm empowered, I'm also empowered to what?
(14:48):
Be responsible for myself.
And it's not as easy for me to just blame things on you.
And the real difficulty, just to get maybe one more layer in with you and me, is that
there are things that we do that it's that thing you said before that's interesting
(15:10):
about like ownership.
You're talking about sharing ownership or responsibility for stuff we do.
It's hard because I can tell you when you do this, I feel this way.
It's negative.
And, you know, the implication is in knowing that now, I'd really like you to consider,
(15:33):
is there any way that you can stop doing this really annoying ass thing that you do?
And, you know, you laugh about it, but you know, as well as I do, some of the things
that we're talking about here are not just like the ha ha annoying ones.
This is, you know, we've been together for...
No, they're really, truly deeply annoying ones.
What's that?
They're really, truly deeply annoying ones.
Yeah.
(15:54):
Well, and what I'm driving at is that annoying doesn't really capture some of them.
It's not just like surface level irritation that we deal with as a kind of like, oh, well,
that's just who they are.
It's like, no, some of the ways that I think couples find one another in such a fashion
(16:14):
that if they had chosen, if they were trying to choose a person who forces them to grapple
with their childhood issues, they could not have chosen better.
Right.
But we don't choose typically so directly.
It's unconscious.
Right.
These are really deep, hurtful things sometimes.
(16:34):
And I think that I was particularly naive that I thought that my ability to articulate
things meant that you would stop doing them.
Right.
Yeah.
But you haven't stopped.
Right.
Because it...
But it is the thing that you're saying too, the shared responsibility.
(16:57):
I even want to...
And I know this goes both ways.
There are things that do hurt one another.
You do stuff, I do stuff that really hurts us and talks to our core wounds.
And we would really like to be able to stop doing them.
And we try very hard.
And sometimes we have been able to fine tune them.
But also sometimes they're so ingrained in us as well.
(17:22):
It's a difficult process.
And so instead of hearing, hey, when you do this thing, you really hurt me, well, when
you say it like that, I go, oh, there's something here because I care about you as my partner
that I should be hearing.
I want to tend to that.
There's also maybe some longstanding history of how it makes you feel, if you were...
(17:44):
I'll put it in quotations.
You make me feel this way.
And then I'm like, no, I don't.
But if you go, hey, I felt this way when this thing happened.
I go, oh.
In the best of times, I go, oh, I'm really sorry.
How can I help you?
How can I tend to you?
And then you can also say, there may not be anything.
(18:06):
This just may be something I have to care for myself with it, or something along those
lines.
Yeah, but that's a tough corner turn for me.
Like the...
And I mean, it is on the...
Potentially on the basis of the fact of what I'm saying here that I thought as a person
who has spent a lot of...
I think I have a lot of natural ability there than some of it is I've spent a lot of time
(18:30):
and energy trying to become proficient at explaining my interpersonal world.
I really thought that you were...
One did, not just you.
That meant that...
And I think that's another...
Maybe a conversation for another day, but there's certainly a place in long-term relationships
(18:51):
for the recognition that sometimes the best we might get is that you can express your
regret and say, wow, if it was in me to fix this, I would.
But part of the deal is that this is who you are.
Right.
Recently, we were at a wedding for some friends of ours who were very dear to us, and they
(19:15):
had asked me to riff on love for five or six minutes during the ceremony.
Which was awesome.
What's that?
Which was awesome.
This is one of the things that I brought up.
Hey, sometimes you can't package it out like this.
Although there are many things in our relationship where Nikki is my corresponding locket piece,
(19:37):
the heartbroken in half that says BFFs.
Sometimes that fits really well and we're opposites attract or we're complementary to
one another.
But then there are ways in which we are just two distinct, completely whole humans trying
to make a life together.
And the implication for that, that I can see very clearly now at midlife at 45, that I
(20:03):
couldn't have any idea about 20 years ago, let alone farther back than that.
Was that like, yeah, no, there's nothing to resolve.
She does hurt you again, or you just hurt her again.
And it's an outgrowth of who you are.
And there are some characteristics within you that it's probably a willful rejection
(20:24):
of good sense to think that you can really change.
You can be aware of them.
You can know what to do when you cross over that line on accident again.
But like to think that you have had the story that you've had and that you responded to
your story the ways that you did.
And then that you're going to meet me and even through as much intentional, deliberate,
(20:49):
intelligent, deep conversation as we have, and work and therapy and prayer and advice
and reading and deep individual work and dude, it's still more or less who you are.
And I think this is a point where a lot of couples are like, I don't know if I signed
(21:10):
up for this part.
And the truth is you kind of did it because you never considered the question because
you didn't have the data.
But I don't think we would have even got to this place, this understanding what you were
just speaking about.
If I was always outwardly projecting, it's always you, right?
It's always you that's making me feel that way, not anything that has to do with me.
(21:32):
And that's what I mean by like that ability to have like co-ownership sometimes.
And that doesn't mean like that the action itself may more fall at the other partner's
feet, but your response is something for you to look at and is something to learn from.
And that's not saying, oh, it's your fault that they did that necessarily, but it is,
(21:57):
oh, what's happening for me here?
When this thing happened, how am I feeling?
What can we get to?
And if you are trying to work through a difficult problem, being able to ask that of yourself
is like a key component to the entire thing.
(22:17):
If you can't ask that and it's always someone to blame, it's always that thing is wrong,
you're going to come back to the same spot over and over and over again, just in different
ways.
Yeah, maybe it's that by asking that question that when you end up at the milestone that
I'm talking about where it dawns on you, this is who they are, this is who I am, because
(22:42):
you're interpersonally aware, maybe part of the deal is that it allows you to begin to
say, okay, well, how would I like to respond?
How would I like to carry this?
That's a turn of phrase that I use a lot for myself, which is like, okay, this appears
to be true.
How would I like to carry that truth?
(23:04):
Would I like to carry it in a way that leads to argument and division?
Would I like to carry it in a way that allows me some space to grieve and to say, wow, I
really want this in my relationship, but it doesn't seem to be in the cards.
But if I never get to consider how I would like to respond because I'm too busy pointing
(23:26):
out that you are at fault, maybe we never get to it that way.
And back to my earlier question, maybe that's the point, would be unconscious.
People wouldn't know that you're doing that, but the point is I don't ever want to have
to be faced with the fact that this could just be a reality between us.
And then ultimately, if I'm not responsible for anything else, I'm responsible for deciding
(23:48):
how I would like to carry this, how I would like to respond.
And I do get it.
It makes me feel versus I feel this way when you allows this further conversation.
For real, for real, I understand why some people don't have any ambition toward that,
because I do think it's deeper.
(24:11):
I do think it's richer.
But that's not to say that I always think it's quote unquote better.
Right.
I mean, sometimes the deeper into things you look, you know, enlightenment is a little
overrated at some point.
You know, it's like, I don't know.
This is always a thing that we want.
(24:31):
Yeah, I agree.
When I say that I notice people say this a lot, and I talk about it a lot with people
in therapy, outside of therapy, whatever, it's not because I'm like, oh, hey, you know
what, this is a really easy road to take and you should switch this.
It does come with more responsibility.
(24:54):
It is harder.
It will be harder.
There's no way of avoiding that because you're doing some work instead of just sort of like,
for me, floating through life and farming it out and being like, oh, yeah, that's why
that happened.
And again, I don't have to take any ownership or learn anything about myself here.
That maybe in the future, if this happens again, I might have a better experience if
(25:15):
I was to better understand.
Yes, or not.
Or not.
Yes.
And again, this is not all roads lead to...
Correct.
It's like, and you can see how easy it is to slip right back into that as almost like
a formula.
Yep.
And that's, you're right, that's why I do the same thing.
Like in therapy, when I'm presenting an alternative, in the amount of times that I go out of my
(25:38):
way to say to people, hey, I'm not recommending that you do what I'm saying.
What I want to do is to talk with you about it because for sure it will cost you something.
I mean, one thing that occurs to me that it costs is there's a death of sorts when you
say, oh, like the way that this person is or the way that this situation has been, or
(26:06):
if you pull the camera lens back even further and you just look at your life.
This is again, what happens for a lot of people around our age.
It's what they call a midlife crisis is when you realize, oh, I blew through my 20s thinking
something's going to happen in my 30s.
And then I blow through my 30s thinking it's going to happen in my 40s.
And you get into your middle 40s and by that point, enough statistical probabilities begin
(26:31):
to play themselves out of, if you haven't had some bad shit befall you to this point,
in this domain, here it comes.
You haven't had a financial problem, if you haven't had a family problem, if you haven't
had an employment problem, you haven't had a reputation problem, you're going to have
them and then you go, oh shit, is this just how it's going to be?
(26:53):
And literally the answer is yes.
Yes, that's correct.
The way that things have mostly been is how they're going to be, but here's the opportunity
itself.
How would you like to carry that?
Step zero is usually grief.
Like oh, I didn't know.
And that is the crisis that many people run into in midlife.
(27:15):
But the bitch of it is a lot of people never get out of the crisis point because they have
difficulty accepting.
And so they go back to, no, it must not be this way.
It must just be that I need to swap out jobs, spouses, relationships with my kids, relationships
(27:36):
with my friends.
And it isn't that many of those things might not be perfectly great moves for you, but
that at the end of the day, if it's a thing that's supposed to avoid the reality of life
is not perfectly going to remit to my plans or it probably not going to work.
(28:00):
Agreed.
Yeah.
So let me ask you this.
I keep kind of drawing it back.
The conversation is really principally initially about this device that you and I use.
And the answer for anyone who's wondering is yes, we actually do this.
(28:21):
I mean, we've been doing it for a long time.
So it's not even something we consciously think about now.
I don't remember the last time I've heard you say that makes me feel a thing.
Because we say it so infrequently and particularly would stand out now.
So yes, we do this.
But where it's kind of evolved here is that in doing this, it does open the doorway to
(28:46):
different, probably arguably maybe deeper, richer conversations.
But I feel like I keep saying, yeah, and then sometimes nothing changes anyways.
And you're like, yeah.
But like I haven't heard you.
So will you talk about that a little for you?
(29:07):
Let's talk about you and me for a minute.
What's your experience of that in sort of running into that wall with me?
Do you run into it?
What's it like?
I mean, is there anything that you can say off the top of your head about what the things
(29:28):
are that you run into with me?
Are you talking about like the unresolvable situations?
Yeah.
What happens when we run into it, like a thing that you've asked me to stop doing, or you've
told me, hey, when you do this, I feel crappy.
And I'm like, mm hmm.
Thumbs up.
Yes.
(29:49):
Okay.
So let me think about that for a second.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, how does it feel?
Well, it doesn't feel great.
I'm trying to think of something recently so that I could tap into an exact thing.
But much like you're saying, because we don't use that phraseology anymore, and the ways
(30:10):
that we do talk about it, there's like a ton of things that I'm sort of feeling and thinking
at one time.
But if I think about the unresolved issue or the thing that happens over and over again,
I think it's hard for you to do, apparently.
It is.
It is hard for me.
I don't know.
(30:30):
I think that this is the thing that you and I have also run into before, is the ways in
which we interact with those things.
Like how do I continue moving forward, knowing that there is an unresolvable issue?
And that yes, sometimes we can tend to it and care for the other one the best that we
(30:51):
can, but it's still this unresolvable issue.
And my natural way of sort of tending the things that fall into the uncomfortable or
painful places is to sort of go, okay, well, this really sucks.
I can get angry.
I can get sad.
(31:11):
And then I sort of just accept it until the next time I hit it again, which is, I think,
the fundamental...
Do you accept it, though?
Well, accept it in that like...
Or you just stop thinking about it?
Maybe I do stop thinking about it.
Maybe you do.
Maybe that...
I mean, I think there is a level of it to which I accept.
There are things that I think across the board, not just with you, but in life in general,
(31:35):
that I am like, well, for me to spend a bunch of time thinking about this or being upset
about it when I know it's outside of my control, it's not about me, doesn't serve me.
So I will give it what I feel is adequate attention, and sometimes that is not enough.
(31:56):
Sometimes it needs to be more.
And I think I've learned that through different times that we've interacted with, like, oh,
maybe if I sat with this a little bit more and I was maybe more clear about how that
feels or if I gain a new insight about that impact, maybe that information between the
two of us helps us take another step forward.
(32:17):
But I'm trying to think about what was it that Boswell used to say to us about, and
I think even...
The boss.
The boss.
The boss.
Boswell is our longtime couples therapist that we had in St. Louis, Richard Boswell,
LCSW.
Amazing.
Look him up.
(32:38):
Yep.
Shout out.
Well, Robin Williams also talks about it in a much sweeter way in Good Will Hunting about
the peccadillos, right?
He talks about them as these sweet little things that you can appreciate and talk about
her farting in her sleep and waking her.
I don't think that's that sweet, but yeah.
But Boswell used to talk about the unresolvable issue, right?
(33:00):
That there are going to be those things that just cannot be resolved.
So you just sort of accept that they're part of the dynamic.
That doesn't mean you don't address them when they come up and talk about them so that you
can care for your partner, but there are certain things that just will never be resolved.
Yeah.
So I guess I'm just asking you.
Yes.
(33:20):
I keep...
I'm trying to get there.
I'm trying to get there.
What I'm saying is the unresolvable issue for me at times, I can say, this fucking sucks.
I'm really hurt by it.
I'm mad about it.
Whenever I'm angry and I do something in my anger that hurts you, that you've clearly
(33:42):
stated to me, hey, this is a boundary I'd like you to not cross.
Yes.
I would like you to not say this again, or I would like you to not do that.
Put yourself there for a minute.
What's that like for you?
Well, that's when I think when...
And there's a couple of them I can think of that I'm like, there it is again.
(34:05):
And I have a few, there's like two maybe that stick for me.
And when you say them or do them, I am deeply angry and really, really hurt.
And I am sort of flabbergasted by the fact that we've had this conversation and that
(34:27):
in our right caring minds, we understand one another.
And then when we're back in the argument, there it is again.
Or we're in the situation, there it is again.
And in the moment, I really don't often have a lot of room for it.
It just sort of builds my own anger.
(34:51):
And for me, I think that's where I go into shutdown mode.
Because I'm now like tapping into something in my emotions that I don't feel safe or like
about myself.
And it goes back to what we talked about in episode one, that thing that I lived by.
If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all.
And so I'll often shut down because I'm like, oh, I'm going to now say a bunch of stuff
(35:15):
I might regret.
And it's not going to fix the thing.
So don't say anything.
And then when we do eventually get to it, and I can talk about it and you can talk about
it and apologies are made and understandings are had.
(35:36):
And we're like, here it is again.
We've just ran around the circle again.
That is where I think my, well, it's just sort of is what it is.
Like I can't do anything now about that beyond we've we've hashed this thing out.
We know this is the unresolvable issue.
But people do metabolize that differently.
Some people say there is something you can do about it.
(35:59):
You can leave.
You can, you know, you can go to therapy about it.
Like the two of you are on your own to talk about how, but you don't, those aren't, that's
not where you go with it.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, we do do those things.
We don't leave, but we go to therapy individually.
(36:21):
And as a couple, we've done those sorts of things.
And part of the unresolvable issue is there's, there isn't a thing that's going to make it
quote unquote, right.
That's the point again, is that it's not, not really resolvable.
And it is an unresolvable issue that I'm okay with existing between the two of us, I guess
maybe is I'm like, I leaving is not, it's not, it doesn't like, this isn't the thing
(36:47):
sort of stumbling over it.
Like leaving is not the answer.
That's not going to make it better.
And it's also not a leaving kind of issue for me.
There's so much more in our dynamic, in our relationship, in the ways in which we care
for one another that outweighs that.
That doesn't mean it doesn't still deeply wound me.
(37:09):
But if I think I'm going to go somewhere else and find something different, I might, it
might be a different issue, but I'm still going to have that thing with someone else,
whatever the thing is with someone else.
I mean, that's a belief.
Right.
It's a narrative.
So that's what you're sort of saying without saying it is that what you do is you begin
to narrate it in a certain way that is consistent with your beliefs.
(37:34):
Yes.
And that leads to the outcome that you sort of find a way to metabolize it.
You know, you just have, I'm with you though, on the point that you have some sort of inbuilt
thing that when it's not working super well for you or us, you just are sort of forgetful
(38:00):
in a way that is like, you probably should remember this.
And then there are times like this where it probably works in our favor or it's like,
it's like an intentional forgetfulness, if you will.
It's like, well, this does exist between us.
I, this is how I'm going to hold it.
(38:21):
Right.
I don't think I have that.
Yeah.
Well, what do you do with it?
What do you have?
How do you carry it?
(38:43):
I grieve about it.
And it gets filtered into like a sort of thread.
It becomes a thread that is filtered into my like, woven into my like tapestry of like
(39:05):
existential, this is what it means to be human.
Part of what it means to be human and to be in a long-term relationship, marriage is that
you will encounter ways in which no amount of intention or insight or even like genuine
(39:28):
transformation of the self will be sufficient to insulate you from sometimes deep and very
specific pain.
And then I sort of hold it in that bag, which is like this is what it means to be human
bag.
(39:48):
Okay.
And then I kind of deal with it maybe in a more, becomes more aggregate.
So in other words, I stop processing the thing and I start processing what is this life that
like we, many or most humans and animals have a lot of pain.
(40:13):
And it sort of allows me to mobilize it a little bit into like a way from like Ryan's
problem or Nikki and Ryan's problem or from a problem to like, how do I hold what it means
to be alive?
And then that leads to a whole bunch of reflections and then they're not all great.
(40:40):
Sometimes I'm like, well, what the fuck then?
What was the point of this?
And you have often and rightly so throughout our relationship had to point out to me other
things that are true.
Like at first, and maybe even you were doing this some, but I certainly read it at first
(41:01):
as you were trying to talk me out of it.
Right.
And I'm like, no, these things are occurring.
Right.
Like, don't tell me that like it all balances out.
Right.
Right.
Because that goes back to the same thing we're saying.
It's not really resolvable.
Don't tell me that, okay, you gave me three kisses, but you also gave me three slaps.
We're even.
(41:21):
And I'm like, no, no.
Right.
But they do contextualize things.
It's like when I remember that this is deeply like one thing about being human or about
being alive is that there's a certain amount of deep and specific pain that's not resolvable.
I can get tunnel vision.
(41:43):
And then I think like that's the only thing true or that's the deepest truth about human
existence.
And even when I start to hear myself say that I can hear how easily that it's easy to debunk,
it's like, well, wait a minute, look at the rest of your life here.
Like.
Yeah, but even that is like a story, a narrative you've created for yourself, like a belief
(42:10):
that you live within.
Because, I mean, just like you're saying I could or someone could come and debunk it
because there's 17 different ways we can look at it or more.
Okay.
And what about that?
Like, well, I'm just saying much like my own way of tending to it.
(42:31):
It could be solely unique to me or to me in a group of people and the way that you look
at it.
I mean, when you sit there and keep track of it or, no, you didn't say keep track.
You said, or the words that you just used.
A ledger.
(42:51):
Did you use the word ledger?
Definitely.
I've been in the history of you talking about things.
You mean you've kept a ledger about me using the word ledger?
Yes.
You're taking a lot of that.
No, no, now I'm losing my track of thought.
But there's just, I just think that sort of the way that you approach it, even in how
you're discussing it now and how I've heard you talk about other things in the past is
(43:17):
one way of entering in.
And I don't know if it's any better or worse than mine.
Yeah, I don't either.
Is someone saying that you're going to say that it's better or worse or that it's not
a narrative?
No, I'm sorry.
No, I'm just processing it out loud.
I'm just wondering like what happens when I say, okay, this is an unresolvable issue
(43:45):
and I forget about it or I let it go or whatever the case may be until the next time we hit
that and then I'm like, oh, here we are again.
And for me, there are certain things that are like within the realm of acceptance, right?
Because I'm not saying like I would lay down and like take anything and just be like, well,
(44:08):
forget about it and until next time.
But the types of unresolvable issues that we have are not the kinds of things for me
that I would choose to like leave as an option or say that that means something like a value
judgment.
(44:28):
Oh, our relationship is crap because these things exist.
It's this acceptance of these things existing, never stopping to try and do better, always
trying to own, but also not keeping a ledger, not holding on to it.
No, I don't agree with you.
That is a ledger.
It's just your ledger is all the things that you can accept and mine is all the ones that
(44:51):
I can't.
But you cannot.
Somebody could argue with that.
I don't know.
People listening to this might beg to differ with me.
But I'm like, I think you're right.
I mean, there is a certain amount of ledger keeping.
I just like the ledger is like, oh, there's another thing that doesn't appear to be resolvable.
And it's like, to the degree that causes me pain, I put it in this other bag over here.
(45:15):
I take the whole ledger and I put it in that bag.
Your ledger, it isn't that you aren't aware of them, but you say, I accept them.
Maybe that makes the ledger feel like it disappears or maybe it does disappear.
I think it temporarily shelves it until I take cause to look at it again because I have
(45:40):
room potentially for it to change.
But like in terms of, oh, I could learn something from that.
So I'm never just going to...
There it is though.
It just must be a core difference between us because you kind of keep going back to
it could change.
And I'm like, isn't this conversation about things that don't change?
No, not the unresolvable issue, but my own attitude towards the unresolvable issue.
(46:05):
Yeah, your own orientation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's about how you learn to hold it.
Again, that's the orientation.
I don't know if there's really something...
Mostly at this intersection, it seems like to me our basic personalities still kind of
(46:25):
do their thing.
And I think maybe this is it, right?
Here it is.
This conversation isn't entirely resolved.
Right.
Yeah.
Like we don't exactly know what happens when we get down to that level.
What I just heard you say was that your orientation leads you back to now.
(46:50):
You quote, temporarily shelved it so that you can do what?
Well, so that you can live in the next 24 hours.
And it's hard for me to argue with that.
I'm not as good at it as you.
Because I'm like, yeah, but what's the next 24 hours going to consist of?
Because if it's a repeat of that, I'm like not that into that.
(47:16):
So yeah, I think that's where we have to drop that sucker off.
Yeah, drop it.
Shelve it.
Because if not, you make a mensumade out of it.
So there you have it, folks, live and in living color.
Us sort of demonstrating both like something that we really, really, yes, we actually do
(47:36):
that.
We have these sort of intentional like wording in the way that we choose to respond to one
another, which is supposed to facilitate like interpersonal ownership or shared ownership
and potentially interpersonal insight and change.
And then also what we're saying is at the end of the day, some things don't necessarily
(47:56):
resolve and then even in trying to discuss that and to like hear who we are, what we
are, what we do.
It's like when jazz music will sometimes end on like a minor chord and you're like, but
is that it?
Is that it?
Is that the end of the song?
It's like, yeah, that's the end.
And we're done.
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