November 27, 2024 • 44 mins
In popular culture which now includes so much psychological lore, conflict and fighting in relationships are often stigmatized as something to be avoided. In this heartfelt episode, Ryan & Nicole consider the ways in which fighting is itself a kind of intimacy, and a necessary one, in that when it is done productively it can produce a fuller and exponentially more pleasing and productive second intimacy which becomes a lifeblood to healthy, growing relationships. To highlight this, Ryan & Nicole received permission from the Brittish Indie Folk Rock Group, Bear's Den, as well as their European Label, Tribe, to play a portion of the Bear's Den song, Bad Blood. The song is used as a springboard to express the difficulty and pain and heartache, and again, the necessity of fighting in their own relationship in carving at forward progress and love.
Discussed: Bear's Den/Tribe/Bad Blood, fighting in relational contexts, perspectives on arguing within family and marriage, learning to fight productively, date nights, connection between scheduled intimacy and the propensity to fight, human hunger for intimacy, psychological distress experienced in the body, healing through holding, unresolvable issues, and more.
Music Credit:
This episode features music by Bear's Den, used with their permission and that of their music label, Tribe, as well as Communion Publishing Ltd/BMI, and Kobalt Music Publishing. All rights to the music are owned by Bear's Den and are included here with the explicit and expressed, written consent of Bear's Den, Tribe, Communion Publishing Ltd/BMI, and Kobalt Music Publishing. Please support the artists by visiting https://www.bearsdenmusic.co.uk/.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is Ryan Thomas Neace. And this is Nicole Neace. And this is the Closer Podcast.
(00:16):
There's a song that Nicci and I have always loved by a band that we have always loved.
The band is called Bearsden. We always kind of look at each other when trying to describe what they are.
It's definitely probably alt-folk rock. It's a British alt-folk rock.
(00:37):
And the truth is this is a Nikki band. Nikki first discovered them.
Thank you for that. I appreciate that.
Yeah, I thought you would appreciate it. Like many good things in our lives, Nikki discovers them first.
Oh, that's nice.
And there's something about their music that has always been such an integral part of our relationship.
(01:00):
And I say it as sort of a joke, but it's not a joke.
When it's been a while since they have released new music, I often say,
I wish Bearsden would come out with a new album so I can understand my life again.
Yeah.
And so we've seen them a number of times in actually the same city every time, wasn't it?
(01:25):
Yep, short time.
When we were living in St. Louis, Missouri, the closest they would perform often would be Chicago,
which is just about a 45-minute flight or about a three-ish, three-plus hour drive.
And so we've seen them a number of times.
And as a matter of fact, they're going to be playing in Amsterdam on a tour that's just in Europe.
(01:46):
Next March and March of 25, we're going to go see them there.
And the kids are coming with us, so the kids will get to see them for the first time.
We're actually planning a whole trip to Amsterdam around that.
And your birthday.
And my birthday, yeah.
So Bearsden wrote this song.
I mean, they have so many amazing songs.
(02:07):
So many of these songs.
That are just like, you know how they have that James Taylor kind of effect?
Or they're just talking about very ordinary things, but something about the way they say them makes them extraordinary.
Bearsden does that with so many songs, but there's one song in particular called Bad Blood.
In episode three, it was sort of a post-fight episode.
(02:32):
And in that episode, we sort of disclose, Nikki and I fight fairly regularly.
We're not like a couple who just doesn't fight.
And sometimes they're big and sometimes they're small, but they're regular for us.
And the song Bad Blood, I'm just going to read the lyrics for the first sort of stanza.
(02:54):
And maybe it will highlight what we're hoping to sort of talk about today.
It says this.
Sever the ties, cut me out, fill up the hole that I tried and I tried and I tried to fill.
Oh, but I lied and I'll lie at will, just to keep your feet off the floor and to keep my wolves from your door.
(03:23):
But forgive me, for I am not acting myself.
But these bees in my breath have to come out.
Well, you give me no reason to doubt your word, but I still somehow still have my reasons.
And I'm sorry I don't mean to scare you at all.
I'm just trying to drain all this bad blood.
(03:46):
All this bad blood.
All my bad blood.
Powerful lyrics and even more powerful actually, if you have the time and opportunity to hear it.
And guess what you do?
Because so amazingly, we're so gratified.
(04:10):
Bearsden, we were able to reach out to them directly to the band.
And both they and their European arm of their label gave us permission to include a portion of the song in the podcast.
We sort of told them, hey, this is what we're wanting to talk about and this is how we think the song really contextualizes what we're saying.
(04:35):
And they were really gracious and all for it.
So I'm going to play this for you now and we'll sort of pick it up right after.
Here it is, the first couple of minutes of Bad Blood by Bearsden.
(05:15):
I'm sorry.
Silver the tides
(05:36):
Caught me up
I fell out the hole
That I tried and I tried and I tried to fail
Oh but I lied and I'll lie awake
(05:57):
Just to keep your feet off the floor
My wolves from your door
Forgive me for I am not acting myself
But these bees in my breath have to come out
(06:22):
Will you give me no reason to doubt your word
But I still somehow still have my reasons
And I'm sorry I don't mean to scare you at all
I'm just trying to drain all this bad blood
(06:44):
All this bad blood
All my bad blood
Why do you think the song means so much to us?
(07:08):
They have that singer songwriter thing, right? So so much of what they sing about is like life.
And so you can find yourself connected to it in a way that feels like someone just came alongside you and started talking about whatever it is that you're going through.
(07:32):
I think in particular because we do argue, we do have our fights.
But there is this understanding I think that comes through them. I don't know who it was that first pointed that out to us.
That if we if we don't tend to ourselves that we'll end up in a fight on maybe it was you who even made that.
(07:56):
You get the credit. But this need to fight helps us get to the very thing that we're actually maybe really needing, which is connection.
Yeah. So we we end up fighting to actually arrive at a destination that we can only get to if we fight.
Yeah. And so the fight we need to fight to. Yeah.
(08:19):
Right. We see it's so easy to mop it up immediately and be like we fight so we get there and we do.
But we also that it's because we need that. Right. But we also need the fight. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think we've always identified with that line. Yeah.
I'm sorry that I'm not acting myself, but these bees in my breath have got to come out. Yeah.
(08:46):
And the thing that we've talked about before around the bees in the breath is that we are safe with each other to do that.
You can't argue and fight with everybody and find safety in it or or know that you're going to come through it and have that connection on the other side.
And that goes for us, too. We can't fight with everybody. Yeah. And so connect.
(09:11):
Well, nor are we trying to to reach that end. Right. Everybody. Right.
But also, I don't think we always have been.
We've always been ultimately safe with one another. But but we haven't always been immediately safe with one another.
And you could argue that even being ultimately safe with one another has also been something that we have historically co-created and are actively still co-creating.
(09:43):
Yeah. I don't really mean this term in the sense that it's commonly used, but we have to keep manifesting.
And what I mean is we have to keep reckoning it to be true. We kept we keep having to show up for one another so that we are ultimately safe.
Yeah. The I think what you're saying, it's making me think of what the part you read just in the very beginning when you said sever the ties, cut me out, fill up the hole.
(10:12):
I think for me, that particular lyric.
There there has always been like this need for something. And and then I'm like a big ball of energy and I'm looking to like explode.
But I don't I like hold all my things in. And then we will rub up against each other and that like static that is happening in me will rub up against you.
(10:40):
And then I need to fight to let it out. Right. Because I want to fill it up like with something else, like whatever this is filling currently doesn't feel good.
There's something about that. We kind of have the impression that there's something to be learned from there.
Yeah. That.
(11:03):
Fights are really fundamentally a part of at least our relationship. And between any two people, it seems reasonable that they're going to be there a lot.
And if what we're saying is true and they're necessary, both in the sense that they release the bees in the breath and that that eventually leads to a more intimate thing that we're actually after.
(11:28):
I mean, if the fighting itself is intimate and then there's an intimacy that follows that intimacy.
Right. Because it's like what you were saying is we don't fight with just anyone and that that you know, somebody who goes around fighting with everybody, you think that's a special kind of problem in itself.
So we need to fight both and then it purges and that fighting is a kind of intimacy.
(11:50):
And then we have an intimacy that feels a lot better and is a lot more productive after.
But I think part of the deal is that over the years, we have really had to try to learn how to fight with one another.
Yeah. In a way that can actually facilitate the sort of second intimacy.
(12:13):
Yeah. Where the second intimacy isn't just making up.
Right. Though it's that too.
But it is that like, oh, there was something behind what was going on there that I was actually trying to reach or that like if it's me reaching for you or that I was trying to allow you to reach or that I needed you to reach of as you reaching for me.
(12:35):
And a lot of times there's both.
But that's one of the things that we've needed a lot of help with, I think, is just learning how to fight productively.
Yes. And we've gotten all kinds of help with that. Mostly therapy, I would say.
(12:56):
And also, we've just had it's also trial and error. Right. Which really sucks. It does suck.
It's like, wait a minute, there's no way so you can get like a really good coaching on this and that will help a bunch of it. Yep.
Also, there's no amount of coaching that can you just have to it's like, you know, karate kid learning from a karate book is a really crappy way.
(13:23):
Having a coach is a really good way. Oh, and then you actually have to go do it. Right.
And only ultimately by doing it, can you put into play the stuff that you've learned.
Yeah.
Can you point to anything that you remember about our fights and stuff over the years and things that we've learned or things that stand out to you as like important sort of pillars of how we've sort of learned to fight productively.
(13:53):
Yeah, I mean, I think just that statement, learning to fight productively. I didn't know how to fight at all.
I was so terrified, still am scared of anger. And there still is a process to be worked there around emotion and.
So like strong emotion. Yeah. Anger, certainly you'd never really had any kind of like positive conceptualization of.
(14:21):
Yeah, like things that I what I often refer to as land of the icky, which is any of the emotions that kind of fall into the quote.
Land of the icky. Yeah. Land of the icky is anything that sort of falls into the quote unquote bad emotions or icky feelings, right?
Stuff that are like really unpleasant. Yes. And the La La Land is all of our warm and fuzzy emotions.
(14:42):
If you ever watched the movie Trolls, you've got Poppy who's everything is pop music and singing and she's in love with Justin Timberlake's character who is a bit of a grouch.
And, you know, they somehow come together. All that to say, I I didn't know how to fight.
Certainly the only arguments I had ever seen between. Like parental figures or married couples.
(15:06):
Personally, were. We're not productive fights were not rights that had the kind of outcome that ours tend to have.
And I don't know that ours have that on the front end. Like you're saying, we had to learn how to do that.
But, I mean, I just didn't even know how to enter in to those.
And so that was the biggest obstacle for me on the front end was how do I just enter in?
(15:31):
How do I enter into the ring and say this is this is OK.
How do you even like show up long enough to actually engage in actual fight? Yes. You're saying that you instead would what?
Avoid at all costs. Shut down. Go the other direction. Pretend it wasn't happening. You name it. I did it.
If you look up Enneagram type eight, which is me and Enneagram type nine, which is Nikki,
(15:57):
one of the things that it says is that Enneagram type eight and nine in relationship with one another,
a trouble spot is that they go in big time opposite directions whenever they're distressed.
They actually say Enneagram type nine, quote, goes on emotional strike. Yeah. End quote.
And then they say that Enneagram type eight then becomes the is then on the war path basically.
(16:21):
And then we can get really sort of barbaric.
So for you, there's really no models of effective engagement sort of period. Right.
Let alone fighting well. And that's got to be something that's so common for people.
I mean, just most of us, you just parents are just doing whatever as best as they could.
(16:47):
And you don't have a ton of good fight modeling.
And for some people, the concept itself is foreign.
Like I know that there's one train of thought for parents who have sort of committed that they will never fight in front of the kids at all.
And I think I've met some people who whose parents were like that, that don't report necessarily bad things.
(17:13):
I've met some of them as clients, though I will say that they seem to have trouble with this exact thing,
which is how do I even know what what like a healthy fight would be? How do I differentiate between the healthy fight?
I've never seen people really. Right. Right.
So there's sort of like no conflict that they ever saw, which is not the same thing as saying there was no conflict.
It seems pretty unrealistic. And yet.
(17:38):
As a guy who grew up with a fair amount of fighting between my parents and the home,
I remember they would like sort of go behind closed doors and do it like they would. But our house wasn't that big.
So the volume would, you know, a lot of times bleed out.
And then at times I was actually quite distressed by their fighting.
And I remember even as a little boy, I would put my ear up against the door,
(18:03):
especially if the fights were about me. And a lot of times the fights were about me, but not about me.
Right. They're about whatever's going on with my parents.
So even as a person who grew up seeing some fighting, and I think I do have some healthy differentiation in that they did always come back
and people tried to own, you know, maybe where they had erred in the process.
(18:30):
He started like, here's where I was really at. This is what I was really trying to get across.
But then I started down this path and it all kind of went to hell.
I still think that even that it's like thinking that you can work with a sharp blade
(18:51):
and that it doesn't have repercussions. It just does.
It's like thinking you can be in the kitchen and cook a lot and not occasionally get, you know, burn your, you know,
get some hot oil that jumps out or, you know, cut your finger or something.
Nikki has a story about burning my fingers.
You've also sliced your hand open.
(19:12):
In the kitchen or in the front.
That's not the, I don't know. That's the, I'm talking about your sort of, maybe those are sort of run of the mill injuries in a kitchen.
But the point is maybe even when you're doing it well, doing it well involves making mistakes at it and some learning by error.
Even when you're doing it with coaching, that involves some practice at what you've learned in coaching and bobbling it.
(19:38):
And I think that's one of those things about relationships that don't fit neatly into memes and, you know,
trying to have a relationship without the risk of injury or without injury is like trying to have water without wet.
It just kind of doesn't work like that.
(19:59):
Right.
And I don't think we want that to be true about relationships. I know I don't.
I mean, that's one of the sources of my great pain and difficulty is like, no, surely we can do better than this.
Right. Well, and I think you used to say that all the time.
Like at the very beginning when we were still learning how to argue in a healthy way, you would say we can do better than this.
(20:22):
I don't want this for us.
When we first started dating, I remember coming and visiting your family and you guys were having like this really healthy debate in the car between you and your dad and your mom about some topic.
I don't even know what it was. Not even relevant.
But you guys were just having this like sparring match back and forth.
And I remember just sitting in total awe that this was happening and that no one was biting anybody's head off and that you guys were just like discussing but passionately about your own perspectives.
(20:50):
Right. And I was like, and I had a conversation with you afterwards that was, oh, my gosh, is that like what normal arguing or like debate or a fight even looks like?
Because I had just like never witnessed it between people.
Never. Not in your entire.
(21:12):
In real life. Have I seen it on a TV show or something? Yes. But like, no, I had never seen an argument or a disagreement or a debate.
Anything that falls in that wheelhouse. I had never seen it between two adults and come back at the end of it.
Be able to walk out and still like really have a lot of love for each other.
(21:34):
Some understanding, maybe even grown a little bit in the relationship because of those things.
I had never seen that before. And I just was in such awe.
Well, I wish I had known that when we first met.
I feel like I probably told you, but probably not as well because I didn't have as much access to it as I have as we've gone along.
Actually, maybe not though. I think it would have scared me. I'd have been like, what? Are you serious?
(21:58):
Yeah, you'd have been like, oh, you don't know how to do that.
But you know what's crazy, though, is we walk it back in the other direction. Also, as demonstrated by my efforts, to whatever degree I did,
reproduce some approximation of what I saw growing up filtered through Ryan's. Not like it went from my parents to our relationship.
(22:22):
It went through me and the Civ of all my experiences. Right.
You can see how many times, though, my efforts to produce a healthy whatever have just gone south.
And some of that some of the time is that I felt sad for you because you didn't seem to have this neutral evaluation space.
Right. So some of the time it's that I'm trying to offer things and there's no right.
(22:45):
And so you can chalk that up to your history. But then some of the time you have been able to find it.
You have been able to hang in there and OK, let's kind of and then it goes south anyways. Right.
And we end up tearing each other up anyways. And so it isn't like a guarantee that just because you've had some decent modeling.
(23:10):
And again, this is the nature of the thing. It's like trying to drink alcohol and you don't occasionally tip over the edge.
It's just that's in its nature. Right. So like what are we saying here that like in its nature, in the nature of intimacy,
part of having real intimacy means that you really, really know really are naked with one another, naked and unashamed sort of.
(23:35):
And yet when you put two people naked to that degree, well, when you start interacting,
you find out there is shame and there is corners that I am sitting here naked, but I don't really want you to see that.
And I or you touch that spot and it's tender there. And maybe I didn't even know it was tender there.
(23:57):
So there really is no way to have intimacy that does not sort of involve conflict. I don't know how you do this without that.
Right. But I don't think that jibes with my experience of most people's perspectives about conflict.
Is that conflict is like something generally to be avoided? And if not, it's sort of like if you will but do these series of things from the self-help world or whatever,
(24:26):
or therapy that means well, but also isn't dialed into reality that you can sort of like it. It's like permanent residence in La La Land.
People want to only be there. And I talk about that with my clients all the time that by the time we get you to a place where you're feeling like you can do a lot of this on your own,
it's having a healthy foot, like well planted in both La La and Icky at the same time,
(24:51):
because there can be things that don't feel good and things that need to be worked on and joy and happiness.
They work together. If you're only ever trying to be in La La Land, which I would say was my main goal,
the avoidance of Icky created so much more issue because I'd be like, oh my gosh, I can only feel positive.
(25:14):
And people never come up to you and say, stop being happy. They come up to you all the time and say, stop being angry. You don't have to be sad.
You don't have to feel these Icky emotions. And so your insistence that we could do better than what we were doing,
because I had never done it, I sort of was like, well, we certainly probably could do better because I've never done it.
(25:35):
And so there's got to be stuff for me to learn. But that was a hard pill to swallow on the front end because I was like, well, no, isn't this just I've only ever seen really Icky fighting.
So isn't this just what it's like? Yeah. And you kept saying, no, I think we can do better. And because I believed you.
(25:56):
And because I believed that what we had was worth fighting for, that even if you ended up being wrong, there was no harm in me trying to do better.
Yeah. And I really needed us to do better. Because I am deeply grieved by conflict and much, much more than is, I think, most people seem to see about me.
(26:29):
And part of it, they don't see it because I have learned to carry myself in a way that sort of obscures it because it has a defense mechanism.
And yet it backfires in that a lot of times people will not will assume that it's not there. There's sort of an immense vulnerability on my part.
And I really remember, you know, as you say that phrase that I used to say that we've got to do better than this. I'm literally almost saying like I'm begging us. We must do better because this is killing me.
(27:01):
Right. Because there was a time just to get really kind of honest about it where we would have pretty intense fights a couple of times a week.
And then what's been so fascinating and powerful and is really a testament to our process is that then it became once a week.
(27:32):
Right. And then it became, I remember, do you remember?
Mm hmm. I do. When it would then it was like all of a sudden they were only happening once every and it really was about like this about one then it went about bi weekly.
And then we would notice sometimes we would go an entire month with we would bicker and stuff. I don't know. You didn't do something that you said you were going to do. I didn't do something.
(27:55):
Right. But we would notice I think always it's been like forever. I can't even remember. It's been 30 days since and then it would be yeah forever. It would be more like super infrequent to where we would only and I think that's mostly where we are barring some and they come.
Right. Barring some outside environmental stressor that is sort of undue that it feels atypical except that it's typical that they come now and again.
(28:24):
Barring being in the middle of a major external stressor where something at work some money you know we have a few big ones a year like I don't like this phrase but sort of knock down drag out fights where we're like the gloves are off and old arguments are coming up and you know I think Wolverine when he goes
(28:48):
when he puts his things down everybody's like oh shit. Yeah. This is going to be bad. I got to be like Deadpool in this. This one. No you're the Incredible Hulk. Let's be clear. That's right. We know this. Yes it's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. Look out. I mean you have identified with that. It's true.
I have. You know interestingly that's been one of the things that's actually helped us is finding narratives in you know hero and heroine stories and you know stuff like Marvel that we identify with and sort of learning as you watch that character try to work with their power which is both the thing that it makes them remarkable and the thing that threatens to destroy them.
(29:30):
Right. Yeah. So that's really where we're at these days is just a few big ones a year. And then when stressors are present as they sometimes are. Yeah. We don't have the big knock down drag out ones but then we have ones that are bigger than we would like. Yeah. And by that I mean we really feel the emotional impact.
(29:52):
Yeah. And especially if they trot out things that we have argued about for the eight million time. I was like oh god here we go down this path again. It's like down the path we go. There we go. Yeah. One of the things that we've learned from from those fights decreasing right in combination with just having enough to have enough data to look at and then being in therapy and constantly talking and noticing patterns and those sorts of things is a lot of
(30:22):
times early on I think a good portion of our fights were stemming from if we go back to the song that bees in the breath because there was a need for release and we weren't connecting because so much stuff was overriding our ability to do so. Yeah. So like family of origin.
Traumatic stuff. Then life stuff. We're going through a lot of stuff with our business experiences interacting with outsiders. Something was getting in the way of us being able to find what I learned usually all the above. Right. And so then what we one of the things I think very first things that we learned about ourselves was the need to have date nights and like going and connecting one on one. And we sort of created a ritual around date nights.
(31:09):
Right. It was actually I think this is what you were alluding to earlier whenever you were kind of saying that I brought up that there was this intimacy thing happening. What I remember happening was one night we had this knockdown drag out fight and somewhere thereafter when we reconnected and we got to the stuff that we were trying to get to which was like you know expressions of vulnerability and this is where I'm at right now and I feel so alone or I'm not
(31:39):
I'm I need you so bad and you're not showing up and I you know or you're showing up in this way and I needed in that way. I remembered I had this like crazy insight that when we would go on date nights and we were in the habit of going on these dates where we would go to like a sort of a fancy meal that required three or four courses and so it sort of forces you to be there for several hours together just over food and drink talking to one another.
(32:07):
And we would often in those date nights at each course we would toast and we would say something really loving to one another and we would just cry. I remember holding the glass up and looking at you and we start crying. And I mean it was like a regular like we would do that once a month.
Several hours out together toasting each course saying something from the bottom of our heart to the other one.
(32:37):
And like I realized that night. Oh my gosh the level of sharing we are doing right now post a fight is the level of sharing we do when we go out together and it hit me. If we don't schedule regular nights like that.
(32:58):
Yeah, which life happens and you can't always but we were intentional AF about it. I mean we were as intentional as anybody I know when we scheduled those that abated the fight part so that we because here's what it is is we are such intimacy magnets we are so hungry for intimacy as humans.
(33:21):
Relationally that if you don't schedule intimacy in like a pleasing way. Yes, you will fight to get there. And in that sense that's why people who are only working on how do we stop fighting are missing the boat entirely.
It's like no dude you don't want to put the kibosh on your fighting what you want to do is figure out how you can fight in a way that doesn't tear one another's heads off so bad that they can't be stitched back on at the end.
(33:52):
And so for us, we have come up with like barriers and stuff which we have broken through speaking for myself. In the last week or two it's like things I'm not supposed to say that sometimes I, and, and I as God is my witness, it just happens I'm like, and it is out of my mouth before
(34:13):
I'm like, Oh, I just did the thing that I'm not supposed to be doing. And so they still happen sometimes but you put them up as fence posts anyways. Yeah, and I think the new evolution of this for us is, we have the guideposts we have the barriers we have
those things. And once upon a time when we would break through those, it would take a while to like mend the barriers, rebuild them right and care for ourselves. Now it's like, we see them quicker.
(34:46):
And so we see that like one part of the barriers been broken down, not the whole thing. And we're like, Oh, okay, that things happening. Um, what, what are we needing assess the need, do you need individual time do we need time together when it's the last time we had a meaningful
conversation outside of what shit needs to be done around the house you know like which is not super meaningful in my book, but that feels like an evolution and next step.
(35:11):
And that's something that we're working on perfecting now, because the idea of date nights are spending intentional time in discussion. We, we do that regularly we have enough of that. There's still something about the intentionality of a night out.
Yeah, or something that is rejuvenating that you find one another again and you remember Oh, this is the person that I that I courted this is a person that I loved this is the.
(35:34):
But what's tricky about it is it's not always this straightforward, we don't like the analysis that you're mentioning is much more intuitive and it's, and it's confusing and the, but, but we are doing it you're right we come back quicker.
And I think part of that too has been. It isn't always that we don't tear the whole fence post down though that's some of the time that's it right because yours as you're articulating we catch it quickly. Yeah, but some of the time what we catch quickly is oh I just tore the whole fence post down.
(36:07):
And what we've worked on is and this is the result of us individually doing our own homework is we are now better able to say through layers and layers of difficulty.
This is what I think I actually need.
(36:37):
So much of the distress that we are attempting to resolve verbally and through words.
We're actually resolving through holding one another. Yeah.
But the difficulty is post a fight, both of us have difficulty opening back up again physically for different reasons and to different extents and it is very related to our histories.
(37:05):
Right.
And so there are times though where I post a fight, I am trapped, like, with the both incredibly large need to be held.
And I just like I'm locked inside my body like I can't, I like, I can't even tell you that, or I can't like, if you try and you remember this right you have to hold on to me for a while before I will like soften enough to actually begin to.
(37:40):
I have to like walk down some long dark corridor.
And the, the, the, the piece there is that for me on my side of things is that I have learned that for me the distress is actually in my body.
(38:02):
And locating it there through breathwork yoga plunge, which you know I've been in yoga for over 10 years but this is something that's just broken free in the last few.
Yeah. And as a guy who we've talked about like I'm so verbally wired. And so I so learned early on to try to be able to articulate my experience as a defense mechanism, so that I could like explain my way out of things that I found myself in.
(38:36):
I'm actually realizing, oh no, that's the problem is you're running interference on what actually needs to take place which is healing in your body.
Right. And then simultaneously, I want to come and hold you because I want my heart to be open to you and I want to care for you, but because of my own history.
All of my stuff is in my body. And so I want to go into defense, and I don't want to, I don't want to touch and hold you, because then I'm like, oh, I'm allowing myself to be wounded in my body again.
(39:07):
And why would I go care for someone who's creating all this distress and it's learning that the distress is not always about you.
Right. Yeah, we both, we both do help to create each other's distress. That's real. And also, beyond the immediacy of that moment, we become massively in touch with a bunch of distress that is pre existing, post existing, that's that's been there and is there,
(39:36):
and that is a part of our, you know, as Bessel van der Kolk's book says the body keeps the score. Right.
And if we're going to come back together again, we're going to have to deal with it there. But, man, as hard as it has been as getting there, dude, when we find it there. Yeah.
We're like, it kills the whole thing. It really is like a kill switch, dude. Yeah. And like, it's almost cliche, but it's like,
(40:07):
I didn't know I needed to be held.
And what's insane is that
when we find our way in there, we are like legit getting movement on
(40:29):
things that have been going on for us most of our marriage, like things that I had sort of like previously just surrendered to.
Why are you laughing? I mean, don't look now. But one of those unresolvable issues just might be resolving themselves or at least shifting and changing.
(40:52):
Yeah. Let's not get ahead of ourselves as to whether it's resolved.
Right. But I feel you. I do feel you. It's true. It's true that there is, I mean, no doubt that's why I'm noting it. It feels pretty earth shattering to get movement.
But for real, you're getting movement on your side, too. I can feel it. And it's like, isn't it a little staggering to you?
(41:21):
Absolutely. But I mean, when you were saying that, I wasn't like, this only applies to you. I mean, there were issues.
You said you're saying don't look now like you've been waiting to pop out from behind a corner and say, gotcha. I knew it was going to resolve.
(41:42):
Like what you didn't know. No, not this specific thing. I'm driving home the point that in the previous podcast, I did say that sometimes if you keep at something that the shifting and changes that you make within yourself,
make that unresolvable issues start to shift and change and maybe even resolve itself potentially.
(42:04):
Because the more you work on yourself, the more you come back to it, you keep refining it. The problem that was maybe looked like one way starts shifting and changing.
So I'm just, you know, getting my point proven is what's happening.
It's more like, yeah, it's more like we've been slamming our head against a door for 15 years.
(42:27):
And finally, we're like, oh, let's not do that. Let's do this thing over here.
I mean, that feels like a graceful as a gradual funneling and refinement of our, you know what I mean?
Yes, that's a feels like a really abrasive way of describing it. But maybe somewhere in the middle and not quite gliding in on a smooth, you know, babe, have you ever seen our fights?
(42:55):
I think we are meeting this is as middle as I can meet you. I concur that something about it is looking very different.
OK, Colin Robbins, that I feel hope around that.
You feel hope around that?
Yeah.
(43:19):
I think hearing you say that you feel hope is a really strong statement, given the course of our relationship as it relates to arguing.
There was certainly a time where you wouldn't have said that.
(43:44):
Truth.
And so 17 years later.
To say that you, you know, are feeling that way.
And I agree with you. I also feel very hopeful.
I'm proud of all the work that we've actually put into it and done.
(44:06):
And it's paid dividends over and over and over again.
Yeah.
So there's something to the expression and the experience of arguing and fighting and the pain and, you know, the bees breath, the bad blood.
(44:34):
Yeah.
This is Ryan Thomas Neace. And this is Nicole Neace. And this is the Closer Podcast.
(00:16):
There's a song that Nicci and I have always loved by a band that we have always loved.
The band is called Bearsden. We always kind of look at each other when trying to describe what they are.
It's definitely probably alt-folk rock. It's a British alt-folk rock.
(00:37):
And the truth is this is a Nikki band. Nikki first discovered them.
Thank you for that. I appreciate that.
Yeah, I thought you would appreciate it. Like many good things in our lives, Nikki discovers them first.
Oh, that's nice.
And there's something about their music that has always been such an integral part of our relationship.
(01:00):
And I say it as sort of a joke, but it's not a joke.
When it's been a while since they have released new music, I often say,
I wish Bearsden would come out with a new album so I can understand my life again.
Yeah.
And so we've seen them a number of times in actually the same city every time, wasn't it?
(01:25):
Yep, short time.
When we were living in St. Louis, Missouri, the closest they would perform often would be Chicago,
which is just about a 45-minute flight or about a three-ish, three-plus hour drive.
And so we've seen them a number of times.
And as a matter of fact, they're going to be playing in Amsterdam on a tour that's just in Europe.
(01:46):
Next March and March of 25, we're going to go see them there.
And the kids are coming with us, so the kids will get to see them for the first time.
We're actually planning a whole trip to Amsterdam around that.
And your birthday.
And my birthday, yeah.
So Bearsden wrote this song.
I mean, they have so many amazing songs.
(02:07):
So many of these songs.
That are just like, you know how they have that James Taylor kind of effect?
Or they're just talking about very ordinary things, but something about the way they say them makes them extraordinary.
Bearsden does that with so many songs, but there's one song in particular called Bad Blood.
In episode three, it was sort of a post-fight episode.
(02:32):
And in that episode, we sort of disclose, Nikki and I fight fairly regularly.
We're not like a couple who just doesn't fight.
And sometimes they're big and sometimes they're small, but they're regular for us.
And the song Bad Blood, I'm just going to read the lyrics for the first sort of stanza.
(02:54):
And maybe it will highlight what we're hoping to sort of talk about today.
It says this.
Sever the ties, cut me out, fill up the hole that I tried and I tried and I tried to fill.
Oh, but I lied and I'll lie at will, just to keep your feet off the floor and to keep my wolves from your door.
(03:23):
But forgive me, for I am not acting myself.
But these bees in my breath have to come out.
Well, you give me no reason to doubt your word, but I still somehow still have my reasons.
And I'm sorry I don't mean to scare you at all.
I'm just trying to drain all this bad blood.
(03:46):
All this bad blood.
All my bad blood.
Powerful lyrics and even more powerful actually, if you have the time and opportunity to hear it.
And guess what you do?
Because so amazingly, we're so gratified.
(04:10):
Bearsden, we were able to reach out to them directly to the band.
And both they and their European arm of their label gave us permission to include a portion of the song in the podcast.
We sort of told them, hey, this is what we're wanting to talk about and this is how we think the song really contextualizes what we're saying.
(04:35):
And they were really gracious and all for it.
So I'm going to play this for you now and we'll sort of pick it up right after.
Here it is, the first couple of minutes of Bad Blood by Bearsden.
(05:15):
I'm sorry.
Silver the tides
(05:36):
Caught me up
I fell out the hole
That I tried and I tried and I tried to fail
Oh but I lied and I'll lie awake
(05:57):
Just to keep your feet off the floor
My wolves from your door
Forgive me for I am not acting myself
But these bees in my breath have to come out
(06:22):
Will you give me no reason to doubt your word
But I still somehow still have my reasons
And I'm sorry I don't mean to scare you at all
I'm just trying to drain all this bad blood
(06:44):
All this bad blood
All my bad blood
Why do you think the song means so much to us?
(07:08):
They have that singer songwriter thing, right? So so much of what they sing about is like life.
And so you can find yourself connected to it in a way that feels like someone just came alongside you and started talking about whatever it is that you're going through.
(07:32):
I think in particular because we do argue, we do have our fights.
But there is this understanding I think that comes through them. I don't know who it was that first pointed that out to us.
That if we if we don't tend to ourselves that we'll end up in a fight on maybe it was you who even made that.
(07:56):
You get the credit. But this need to fight helps us get to the very thing that we're actually maybe really needing, which is connection.
Yeah. So we we end up fighting to actually arrive at a destination that we can only get to if we fight.
Yeah. And so the fight we need to fight to. Yeah.
(08:19):
Right. We see it's so easy to mop it up immediately and be like we fight so we get there and we do.
But we also that it's because we need that. Right. But we also need the fight. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think we've always identified with that line. Yeah.
I'm sorry that I'm not acting myself, but these bees in my breath have got to come out. Yeah.
(08:46):
And the thing that we've talked about before around the bees in the breath is that we are safe with each other to do that.
You can't argue and fight with everybody and find safety in it or or know that you're going to come through it and have that connection on the other side.
And that goes for us, too. We can't fight with everybody. Yeah. And so connect.
(09:11):
Well, nor are we trying to to reach that end. Right. Everybody. Right.
But also, I don't think we always have been.
We've always been ultimately safe with one another. But but we haven't always been immediately safe with one another.
And you could argue that even being ultimately safe with one another has also been something that we have historically co-created and are actively still co-creating.
(09:43):
Yeah. I don't really mean this term in the sense that it's commonly used, but we have to keep manifesting.
And what I mean is we have to keep reckoning it to be true. We kept we keep having to show up for one another so that we are ultimately safe.
Yeah. The I think what you're saying, it's making me think of what the part you read just in the very beginning when you said sever the ties, cut me out, fill up the hole.
(10:12):
I think for me, that particular lyric.
There there has always been like this need for something. And and then I'm like a big ball of energy and I'm looking to like explode.
But I don't I like hold all my things in. And then we will rub up against each other and that like static that is happening in me will rub up against you.
(10:40):
And then I need to fight to let it out. Right. Because I want to fill it up like with something else, like whatever this is filling currently doesn't feel good.
There's something about that. We kind of have the impression that there's something to be learned from there.
Yeah. That.
(11:03):
Fights are really fundamentally a part of at least our relationship. And between any two people, it seems reasonable that they're going to be there a lot.
And if what we're saying is true and they're necessary, both in the sense that they release the bees in the breath and that that eventually leads to a more intimate thing that we're actually after.
(11:28):
I mean, if the fighting itself is intimate and then there's an intimacy that follows that intimacy.
Right. Because it's like what you were saying is we don't fight with just anyone and that that you know, somebody who goes around fighting with everybody, you think that's a special kind of problem in itself.
So we need to fight both and then it purges and that fighting is a kind of intimacy.
(11:50):
And then we have an intimacy that feels a lot better and is a lot more productive after.
But I think part of the deal is that over the years, we have really had to try to learn how to fight with one another.
Yeah. In a way that can actually facilitate the sort of second intimacy.
(12:13):
Yeah. Where the second intimacy isn't just making up.
Right. Though it's that too.
But it is that like, oh, there was something behind what was going on there that I was actually trying to reach or that like if it's me reaching for you or that I was trying to allow you to reach or that I needed you to reach of as you reaching for me.
(12:35):
And a lot of times there's both.
But that's one of the things that we've needed a lot of help with, I think, is just learning how to fight productively.
Yes. And we've gotten all kinds of help with that. Mostly therapy, I would say.
(12:56):
And also, we've just had it's also trial and error. Right. Which really sucks. It does suck.
It's like, wait a minute, there's no way so you can get like a really good coaching on this and that will help a bunch of it. Yep.
Also, there's no amount of coaching that can you just have to it's like, you know, karate kid learning from a karate book is a really crappy way.
(13:23):
Having a coach is a really good way. Oh, and then you actually have to go do it. Right.
And only ultimately by doing it, can you put into play the stuff that you've learned.
Yeah.
Can you point to anything that you remember about our fights and stuff over the years and things that we've learned or things that stand out to you as like important sort of pillars of how we've sort of learned to fight productively.
(13:53):
Yeah, I mean, I think just that statement, learning to fight productively. I didn't know how to fight at all.
I was so terrified, still am scared of anger. And there still is a process to be worked there around emotion and.
So like strong emotion. Yeah. Anger, certainly you'd never really had any kind of like positive conceptualization of.
(14:21):
Yeah, like things that I what I often refer to as land of the icky, which is any of the emotions that kind of fall into the quote.
Land of the icky. Yeah. Land of the icky is anything that sort of falls into the quote unquote bad emotions or icky feelings, right?
Stuff that are like really unpleasant. Yes. And the La La Land is all of our warm and fuzzy emotions.
(14:42):
If you ever watched the movie Trolls, you've got Poppy who's everything is pop music and singing and she's in love with Justin Timberlake's character who is a bit of a grouch.
And, you know, they somehow come together. All that to say, I I didn't know how to fight.
Certainly the only arguments I had ever seen between. Like parental figures or married couples.
(15:06):
Personally, were. We're not productive fights were not rights that had the kind of outcome that ours tend to have.
And I don't know that ours have that on the front end. Like you're saying, we had to learn how to do that.
But, I mean, I just didn't even know how to enter in to those.
And so that was the biggest obstacle for me on the front end was how do I just enter in?
(15:31):
How do I enter into the ring and say this is this is OK.
How do you even like show up long enough to actually engage in actual fight? Yes. You're saying that you instead would what?
Avoid at all costs. Shut down. Go the other direction. Pretend it wasn't happening. You name it. I did it.
If you look up Enneagram type eight, which is me and Enneagram type nine, which is Nikki,
(15:57):
one of the things that it says is that Enneagram type eight and nine in relationship with one another,
a trouble spot is that they go in big time opposite directions whenever they're distressed.
They actually say Enneagram type nine, quote, goes on emotional strike. Yeah. End quote.
And then they say that Enneagram type eight then becomes the is then on the war path basically.
(16:21):
And then we can get really sort of barbaric.
So for you, there's really no models of effective engagement sort of period. Right.
Let alone fighting well. And that's got to be something that's so common for people.
I mean, just most of us, you just parents are just doing whatever as best as they could.
(16:47):
And you don't have a ton of good fight modeling.
And for some people, the concept itself is foreign.
Like I know that there's one train of thought for parents who have sort of committed that they will never fight in front of the kids at all.
And I think I've met some people who whose parents were like that, that don't report necessarily bad things.
(17:13):
I've met some of them as clients, though I will say that they seem to have trouble with this exact thing,
which is how do I even know what what like a healthy fight would be? How do I differentiate between the healthy fight?
I've never seen people really. Right. Right.
So there's sort of like no conflict that they ever saw, which is not the same thing as saying there was no conflict.
It seems pretty unrealistic. And yet.
(17:38):
As a guy who grew up with a fair amount of fighting between my parents and the home,
I remember they would like sort of go behind closed doors and do it like they would. But our house wasn't that big.
So the volume would, you know, a lot of times bleed out.
And then at times I was actually quite distressed by their fighting.
And I remember even as a little boy, I would put my ear up against the door,
(18:03):
especially if the fights were about me. And a lot of times the fights were about me, but not about me.
Right. They're about whatever's going on with my parents.
So even as a person who grew up seeing some fighting, and I think I do have some healthy differentiation in that they did always come back
and people tried to own, you know, maybe where they had erred in the process.
(18:30):
He started like, here's where I was really at. This is what I was really trying to get across.
But then I started down this path and it all kind of went to hell.
I still think that even that it's like thinking that you can work with a sharp blade
(18:51):
and that it doesn't have repercussions. It just does.
It's like thinking you can be in the kitchen and cook a lot and not occasionally get, you know, burn your, you know,
get some hot oil that jumps out or, you know, cut your finger or something.
Nikki has a story about burning my fingers.
You've also sliced your hand open.
(19:12):
In the kitchen or in the front.
That's not the, I don't know. That's the, I'm talking about your sort of, maybe those are sort of run of the mill injuries in a kitchen.
But the point is maybe even when you're doing it well, doing it well involves making mistakes at it and some learning by error.
Even when you're doing it with coaching, that involves some practice at what you've learned in coaching and bobbling it.
(19:38):
And I think that's one of those things about relationships that don't fit neatly into memes and, you know,
trying to have a relationship without the risk of injury or without injury is like trying to have water without wet.
It just kind of doesn't work like that.
(19:59):
Right.
And I don't think we want that to be true about relationships. I know I don't.
I mean, that's one of the sources of my great pain and difficulty is like, no, surely we can do better than this.
Right. Well, and I think you used to say that all the time.
Like at the very beginning when we were still learning how to argue in a healthy way, you would say we can do better than this.
(20:22):
I don't want this for us.
When we first started dating, I remember coming and visiting your family and you guys were having like this really healthy debate in the car between you and your dad and your mom about some topic.
I don't even know what it was. Not even relevant.
But you guys were just having this like sparring match back and forth.
And I remember just sitting in total awe that this was happening and that no one was biting anybody's head off and that you guys were just like discussing but passionately about your own perspectives.
(20:50):
Right. And I was like, and I had a conversation with you afterwards that was, oh, my gosh, is that like what normal arguing or like debate or a fight even looks like?
Because I had just like never witnessed it between people.
Never. Not in your entire.
(21:12):
In real life. Have I seen it on a TV show or something? Yes. But like, no, I had never seen an argument or a disagreement or a debate.
Anything that falls in that wheelhouse. I had never seen it between two adults and come back at the end of it.
Be able to walk out and still like really have a lot of love for each other.
(21:34):
Some understanding, maybe even grown a little bit in the relationship because of those things.
I had never seen that before. And I just was in such awe.
Well, I wish I had known that when we first met.
I feel like I probably told you, but probably not as well because I didn't have as much access to it as I have as we've gone along.
Actually, maybe not though. I think it would have scared me. I'd have been like, what? Are you serious?
(21:58):
Yeah, you'd have been like, oh, you don't know how to do that.
But you know what's crazy, though, is we walk it back in the other direction. Also, as demonstrated by my efforts, to whatever degree I did,
reproduce some approximation of what I saw growing up filtered through Ryan's. Not like it went from my parents to our relationship.
(22:22):
It went through me and the Civ of all my experiences. Right.
You can see how many times, though, my efforts to produce a healthy whatever have just gone south.
And some of that some of the time is that I felt sad for you because you didn't seem to have this neutral evaluation space.
Right. So some of the time it's that I'm trying to offer things and there's no right.
(22:45):
And so you can chalk that up to your history. But then some of the time you have been able to find it.
You have been able to hang in there and OK, let's kind of and then it goes south anyways. Right.
And we end up tearing each other up anyways. And so it isn't like a guarantee that just because you've had some decent modeling.
(23:10):
And again, this is the nature of the thing. It's like trying to drink alcohol and you don't occasionally tip over the edge.
It's just that's in its nature. Right. So like what are we saying here that like in its nature, in the nature of intimacy,
part of having real intimacy means that you really, really know really are naked with one another, naked and unashamed sort of.
(23:35):
And yet when you put two people naked to that degree, well, when you start interacting,
you find out there is shame and there is corners that I am sitting here naked, but I don't really want you to see that.
And I or you touch that spot and it's tender there. And maybe I didn't even know it was tender there.
(23:57):
So there really is no way to have intimacy that does not sort of involve conflict. I don't know how you do this without that.
Right. But I don't think that jibes with my experience of most people's perspectives about conflict.
Is that conflict is like something generally to be avoided? And if not, it's sort of like if you will but do these series of things from the self-help world or whatever,
(24:26):
or therapy that means well, but also isn't dialed into reality that you can sort of like it. It's like permanent residence in La La Land.
People want to only be there. And I talk about that with my clients all the time that by the time we get you to a place where you're feeling like you can do a lot of this on your own,
it's having a healthy foot, like well planted in both La La and Icky at the same time,
(24:51):
because there can be things that don't feel good and things that need to be worked on and joy and happiness.
They work together. If you're only ever trying to be in La La Land, which I would say was my main goal,
the avoidance of Icky created so much more issue because I'd be like, oh my gosh, I can only feel positive.
(25:14):
And people never come up to you and say, stop being happy. They come up to you all the time and say, stop being angry. You don't have to be sad.
You don't have to feel these Icky emotions. And so your insistence that we could do better than what we were doing,
because I had never done it, I sort of was like, well, we certainly probably could do better because I've never done it.
(25:35):
And so there's got to be stuff for me to learn. But that was a hard pill to swallow on the front end because I was like, well, no, isn't this just I've only ever seen really Icky fighting.
So isn't this just what it's like? Yeah. And you kept saying, no, I think we can do better. And because I believed you.
(25:56):
And because I believed that what we had was worth fighting for, that even if you ended up being wrong, there was no harm in me trying to do better.
Yeah. And I really needed us to do better. Because I am deeply grieved by conflict and much, much more than is, I think, most people seem to see about me.
(26:29):
And part of it, they don't see it because I have learned to carry myself in a way that sort of obscures it because it has a defense mechanism.
And yet it backfires in that a lot of times people will not will assume that it's not there. There's sort of an immense vulnerability on my part.
And I really remember, you know, as you say that phrase that I used to say that we've got to do better than this. I'm literally almost saying like I'm begging us. We must do better because this is killing me.
(27:01):
Right. Because there was a time just to get really kind of honest about it where we would have pretty intense fights a couple of times a week.
And then what's been so fascinating and powerful and is really a testament to our process is that then it became once a week.
(27:32):
Right. And then it became, I remember, do you remember?
Mm hmm. I do. When it would then it was like all of a sudden they were only happening once every and it really was about like this about one then it went about bi weekly.
And then we would notice sometimes we would go an entire month with we would bicker and stuff. I don't know. You didn't do something that you said you were going to do. I didn't do something.
(27:55):
Right. But we would notice I think always it's been like forever. I can't even remember. It's been 30 days since and then it would be yeah forever. It would be more like super infrequent to where we would only and I think that's mostly where we are barring some and they come.
Right. Barring some outside environmental stressor that is sort of undue that it feels atypical except that it's typical that they come now and again.
(28:24):
Barring being in the middle of a major external stressor where something at work some money you know we have a few big ones a year like I don't like this phrase but sort of knock down drag out fights where we're like the gloves are off and old arguments are coming up and you know I think Wolverine when he goes
(28:48):
when he puts his things down everybody's like oh shit. Yeah. This is going to be bad. I got to be like Deadpool in this. This one. No you're the Incredible Hulk. Let's be clear. That's right. We know this. Yes it's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. Look out. I mean you have identified with that. It's true.
I have. You know interestingly that's been one of the things that's actually helped us is finding narratives in you know hero and heroine stories and you know stuff like Marvel that we identify with and sort of learning as you watch that character try to work with their power which is both the thing that it makes them remarkable and the thing that threatens to destroy them.
(29:30):
Right. Yeah. So that's really where we're at these days is just a few big ones a year. And then when stressors are present as they sometimes are. Yeah. We don't have the big knock down drag out ones but then we have ones that are bigger than we would like. Yeah. And by that I mean we really feel the emotional impact.
(29:52):
Yeah. And especially if they trot out things that we have argued about for the eight million time. I was like oh god here we go down this path again. It's like down the path we go. There we go. Yeah. One of the things that we've learned from from those fights decreasing right in combination with just having enough to have enough data to look at and then being in therapy and constantly talking and noticing patterns and those sorts of things is a lot of
(30:22):
times early on I think a good portion of our fights were stemming from if we go back to the song that bees in the breath because there was a need for release and we weren't connecting because so much stuff was overriding our ability to do so. Yeah. So like family of origin.
Traumatic stuff. Then life stuff. We're going through a lot of stuff with our business experiences interacting with outsiders. Something was getting in the way of us being able to find what I learned usually all the above. Right. And so then what we one of the things I think very first things that we learned about ourselves was the need to have date nights and like going and connecting one on one. And we sort of created a ritual around date nights.
(31:09):
Right. It was actually I think this is what you were alluding to earlier whenever you were kind of saying that I brought up that there was this intimacy thing happening. What I remember happening was one night we had this knockdown drag out fight and somewhere thereafter when we reconnected and we got to the stuff that we were trying to get to which was like you know expressions of vulnerability and this is where I'm at right now and I feel so alone or I'm not
(31:39):
I'm I need you so bad and you're not showing up and I you know or you're showing up in this way and I needed in that way. I remembered I had this like crazy insight that when we would go on date nights and we were in the habit of going on these dates where we would go to like a sort of a fancy meal that required three or four courses and so it sort of forces you to be there for several hours together just over food and drink talking to one another.
(32:07):
And we would often in those date nights at each course we would toast and we would say something really loving to one another and we would just cry. I remember holding the glass up and looking at you and we start crying. And I mean it was like a regular like we would do that once a month.
Several hours out together toasting each course saying something from the bottom of our heart to the other one.
(32:37):
And like I realized that night. Oh my gosh the level of sharing we are doing right now post a fight is the level of sharing we do when we go out together and it hit me. If we don't schedule regular nights like that.
(32:58):
Yeah, which life happens and you can't always but we were intentional AF about it. I mean we were as intentional as anybody I know when we scheduled those that abated the fight part so that we because here's what it is is we are such intimacy magnets we are so hungry for intimacy as humans.
(33:21):
Relationally that if you don't schedule intimacy in like a pleasing way. Yes, you will fight to get there. And in that sense that's why people who are only working on how do we stop fighting are missing the boat entirely.
It's like no dude you don't want to put the kibosh on your fighting what you want to do is figure out how you can fight in a way that doesn't tear one another's heads off so bad that they can't be stitched back on at the end.
(33:52):
And so for us, we have come up with like barriers and stuff which we have broken through speaking for myself. In the last week or two it's like things I'm not supposed to say that sometimes I, and, and I as God is my witness, it just happens I'm like, and it is out of my mouth before
(34:13):
I'm like, Oh, I just did the thing that I'm not supposed to be doing. And so they still happen sometimes but you put them up as fence posts anyways. Yeah, and I think the new evolution of this for us is, we have the guideposts we have the barriers we have
those things. And once upon a time when we would break through those, it would take a while to like mend the barriers, rebuild them right and care for ourselves. Now it's like, we see them quicker.
(34:46):
And so we see that like one part of the barriers been broken down, not the whole thing. And we're like, Oh, okay, that things happening. Um, what, what are we needing assess the need, do you need individual time do we need time together when it's the last time we had a meaningful
conversation outside of what shit needs to be done around the house you know like which is not super meaningful in my book, but that feels like an evolution and next step.
(35:11):
And that's something that we're working on perfecting now, because the idea of date nights are spending intentional time in discussion. We, we do that regularly we have enough of that. There's still something about the intentionality of a night out.
Yeah, or something that is rejuvenating that you find one another again and you remember Oh, this is the person that I that I courted this is a person that I loved this is the.
(35:34):
But what's tricky about it is it's not always this straightforward, we don't like the analysis that you're mentioning is much more intuitive and it's, and it's confusing and the, but, but we are doing it you're right we come back quicker.
And I think part of that too has been. It isn't always that we don't tear the whole fence post down though that's some of the time that's it right because yours as you're articulating we catch it quickly. Yeah, but some of the time what we catch quickly is oh I just tore the whole fence post down.
(36:07):
And what we've worked on is and this is the result of us individually doing our own homework is we are now better able to say through layers and layers of difficulty.
This is what I think I actually need.
(36:37):
So much of the distress that we are attempting to resolve verbally and through words.
We're actually resolving through holding one another. Yeah.
But the difficulty is post a fight, both of us have difficulty opening back up again physically for different reasons and to different extents and it is very related to our histories.
(37:05):
Right.
And so there are times though where I post a fight, I am trapped, like, with the both incredibly large need to be held.
And I just like I'm locked inside my body like I can't, I like, I can't even tell you that, or I can't like, if you try and you remember this right you have to hold on to me for a while before I will like soften enough to actually begin to.
(37:40):
I have to like walk down some long dark corridor.
And the, the, the, the piece there is that for me on my side of things is that I have learned that for me the distress is actually in my body.
(38:02):
And locating it there through breathwork yoga plunge, which you know I've been in yoga for over 10 years but this is something that's just broken free in the last few.
Yeah. And as a guy who we've talked about like I'm so verbally wired. And so I so learned early on to try to be able to articulate my experience as a defense mechanism, so that I could like explain my way out of things that I found myself in.
(38:36):
I'm actually realizing, oh no, that's the problem is you're running interference on what actually needs to take place which is healing in your body.
Right. And then simultaneously, I want to come and hold you because I want my heart to be open to you and I want to care for you, but because of my own history.
All of my stuff is in my body. And so I want to go into defense, and I don't want to, I don't want to touch and hold you, because then I'm like, oh, I'm allowing myself to be wounded in my body again.
(39:07):
And why would I go care for someone who's creating all this distress and it's learning that the distress is not always about you.
Right. Yeah, we both, we both do help to create each other's distress. That's real. And also, beyond the immediacy of that moment, we become massively in touch with a bunch of distress that is pre existing, post existing, that's that's been there and is there,
(39:36):
and that is a part of our, you know, as Bessel van der Kolk's book says the body keeps the score. Right.
And if we're going to come back together again, we're going to have to deal with it there. But, man, as hard as it has been as getting there, dude, when we find it there. Yeah.
We're like, it kills the whole thing. It really is like a kill switch, dude. Yeah. And like, it's almost cliche, but it's like,
(40:07):
I didn't know I needed to be held.
And what's insane is that
when we find our way in there, we are like legit getting movement on
(40:29):
things that have been going on for us most of our marriage, like things that I had sort of like previously just surrendered to.
Why are you laughing? I mean, don't look now. But one of those unresolvable issues just might be resolving themselves or at least shifting and changing.
(40:52):
Yeah. Let's not get ahead of ourselves as to whether it's resolved.
Right. But I feel you. I do feel you. It's true. It's true that there is, I mean, no doubt that's why I'm noting it. It feels pretty earth shattering to get movement.
But for real, you're getting movement on your side, too. I can feel it. And it's like, isn't it a little staggering to you?
(41:21):
Absolutely. But I mean, when you were saying that, I wasn't like, this only applies to you. I mean, there were issues.
You said you're saying don't look now like you've been waiting to pop out from behind a corner and say, gotcha. I knew it was going to resolve.
(41:42):
Like what you didn't know. No, not this specific thing. I'm driving home the point that in the previous podcast, I did say that sometimes if you keep at something that the shifting and changes that you make within yourself,
make that unresolvable issues start to shift and change and maybe even resolve itself potentially.
(42:04):
Because the more you work on yourself, the more you come back to it, you keep refining it. The problem that was maybe looked like one way starts shifting and changing.
So I'm just, you know, getting my point proven is what's happening.
It's more like, yeah, it's more like we've been slamming our head against a door for 15 years.
(42:27):
And finally, we're like, oh, let's not do that. Let's do this thing over here.
I mean, that feels like a graceful as a gradual funneling and refinement of our, you know what I mean?
Yes, that's a feels like a really abrasive way of describing it. But maybe somewhere in the middle and not quite gliding in on a smooth, you know, babe, have you ever seen our fights?
(42:55):
I think we are meeting this is as middle as I can meet you. I concur that something about it is looking very different.
OK, Colin Robbins, that I feel hope around that.
You feel hope around that?
Yeah.
(43:19):
I think hearing you say that you feel hope is a really strong statement, given the course of our relationship as it relates to arguing.
There was certainly a time where you wouldn't have said that.
(43:44):
Truth.
And so 17 years later.
To say that you, you know, are feeling that way.
And I agree with you. I also feel very hopeful.
I'm proud of all the work that we've actually put into it and done.
(44:06):
And it's paid dividends over and over and over again.
Yeah.
So there's something to the expression and the experience of arguing and fighting and the pain and, you know, the bees breath, the bad blood.
(44:34):
Yeah.
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