July 10, 2024 • 17 mins
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Is your marriage feeling suffocating? In this video, we discuss the signs of a suffocating marriage and offer tips on how to address the issue. We explore the concept of "pushes and pulls" in relationships, and how to identify and correct behaviors that are pushing your spouse away.
We also discuss the importance of self-reflection and communication in overcoming feelings of suffocation. If you are feeling suffocated in your marriage, we encourage you to reach out for help. Marriage Helper offers a variety of resources, including coaching and workshops, to help you improve your relationship. Don't wait until it's too late. Watch this video and learn how to create a marriage that you both enjoy.
In this video:
• What does it mean when love feels suffocating?
• Signs of a suffocating relationship
• How to identify and correct push behaviors
• The importance of self-reflection and communication
• Resources for help
Watch now and learn how to save your marriage from suffocation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What do I do if my marriage feels suffocating?
Chances are, if you're watchingthis video, that you might've
thought that very same thoughtseveral times, or maybe you've
heard your spouse say it.
Well, that's what we're talkingabout on today's episode.
Today, I'm joined by Jared.
Jared is a Marriage Helper,certified Coach, and he also
oversees our membership.
But make sure and stick aroundto the end, because we're going
(00:21):
to tell you how you can getsigned up for that membership
today.
But right now, let's talk aboutwhat to do if your marriage
feels suffocating.
On today's episode ofRelationship Radio.
Well, jared, thanks for beinghere today.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Thanks so much, jason , it's good to be back.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah, absolutely Jared.
We were kind of talking aboutthis beforehand.
You said that you kind of havesome personal stories to relate
to this, so I guess the firstquestion that I'll ask you, and
then you can run with it, iswhat does it mean when we say
love feels suffocating?
What exactly are we talkingabout there?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
So when I first became aware ofmarriage helper, I was actually
what we affectionately call thereluctant spouse.
I was the spouse who wanted outof my marriage.
I was the one who feltsuffocated.
So suffocation can mean so muchto so many different people.
So there's really not a good,one-size-fits-all answer, but
(01:28):
just general things that we hear.
I feel like there's too manydemands on me.
I feel like life is justoverwhelming in general and my
marriage doesn't recharge mybattery.
It actually makes me lessenergetic when I have to deal
with my spouse.
Or sometimes people feelsuffocated when it seems like
(01:50):
there's a different option outthere.
Why would I do the hard thingat home when there's this much,
much easier person that I couldrelate to outside?
We see that kind of thinghappening all the time.
So I think a good generalstrategy try to understand why
(02:11):
you feel suffocated.
Now many of you are here andit's your partner that feels
suffocated and they're notreally talking to you.
In that case, I would stronglyadvise you, if you possibly can,
think of everything about yourpartner that you know for all
the years that you've known themand try to infer why would this
(02:33):
person feel suffocated?
Am I doing something that'smaking them feel suffocated that
I could possibly correct, or isthere some situation that
exists that's making them feelsuffocated that I might be able
to influence in some way tocreate change?
If there's nothing you feellike you can do, then the next
right thing to do would be towork on yourself and wait until
(02:54):
your spouse becomes receptive toworking with you.
In that case, you would begaining a lot of personal
confidence and strength andintellectually, you know, you'd
be clearing your mind.
You'd, emotionally, you'd beliving the kind of life that you
enjoy, rather than one that'sjust full of terror or anxiety
or whatever you're feeling, andthen, spiritually, you'd just be
(03:16):
doing the right thing as muchas possible.
Now we call that system thepies and we have tons of
resources that you can look up.
That would be what you would do.
Now to my friends out there thatare themselves feeling
suffocated, I strongly advisethat, before you make any moves
(03:36):
with your marriage, why don'tyou try to understand why you
feel the way you feel?
Maybe you already know.
Maybe you say my spouse is socontrolling that I just feel
like I can't be myself.
I feel like I can't breathe.
Every time I'm at home, I feellike all my agency is taken away
.
I have no choices, that kind ofthing.
If you are readily able toidentify what your issue is, why
(04:00):
don't you, before you move to anew situation, before you leave
your marriage, why don't yousee if there's to a new
situation before you leave yourmarriage?
Why don't you see if there'ssome kind of mitigating strategy
?
You can call and talk to one ofour coaches.
You can come to any of ourweekend workshops that we do.
We have toolkits for that kindof thing, boundaries and
criteria, what we call stops andcores.
There's all kinds of resourcesthat we have.
(04:24):
If you either don't understandwhy you feel this way, or if you
understand why you feel thisway but you don't know what to
do about it, just changing yourvenue, just going somewhere else
, a different relationship or toyour own place or something
like that, it will not solve theproblem.
It can't solve the problem.
(04:46):
If the problem exists inside ofyou, you'll take it with you
when you go to the newrelationship, and that is a very
, very sad situation to seepeople end up in.
And so you know, as a fellowreluctant spouse, my heart is
for you.
I don't want you to be in a badrelationship.
Keeping marriages limping alongfor another few years is not
the business that MarriageHelper is in.
(05:08):
We want your marriage to be thekind of relationship that you
really enjoy being a part of,and I will tell you, I am so
very happy that I did notultimately leave my relationship
, although it still took meabout two years to get back to
reconciliation.
I'm so happy I did not leave myrelationship because today it's
such a better place.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah, so, jared, what are some?
What are some signs maybe of ofa suffocating relationship?
What does that kind of looklike?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, um.
So if you were going to try totell if your partner felt
suffocated, I would look forthings like this Are they
generally trying to avoid you?
Do they seem annoyed whenyou're around?
Are they using what I callcomfort strategies, spending a
(05:59):
lot of extra money or playing alot of video games?
Or maybe they're drinking a lotthings of that nature?
Does it seem like the sameproblems come up over and over
again?
I have this issue at work, orhave this certain kind of health
struggle, or I want to getfitter, but I just can't seem to
be able to do it.
Are you seeing patterns likethat?
If you are, it's possible thatyour partner is stuck and maybe
(06:25):
your marriage relationship couldbe changed to enable them to
get better.
If you are not certain if youare feeling suffocated or not,
you're just generally unhappy,then what I would encourage you
to do is why don't you just getalone somewhere with your
thoughts?
Get a notepad, write downeverything you can think of,
(06:47):
just for maybe like a day.
Just get alone with your ownthoughts.
If I had my marriage any way Iwanted it to be, if I could have
the kind of job I wanted or thekind of house I wanted.
What am I looking for?
Here's a really great questionto ask yourself.
If money were no object, iffailure was totally impossible
(07:08):
and if nobody could be hurt,what would you do with your life
different from what you'redoing right now?
And if you just cannot think ofan answer to that, probably
you're suffocating.
If your answer is somethinglike, well, I would have a
billion dollars, well then, see,money is no object.
Why did you pick a billiondollars?
What would you do with it?
(07:29):
If your answer was, well, Iwould go help people.
I would help.
What kind of people I'd help?
The kind of people who aredrowning with their bills.
Okay, are you drowning withyour bills?
Like, see, whatever answeryou're going to get from a
question like that, it's goingto reflect something inside of
you.
It's going to clue you intowhat might be going on on a
(07:50):
deeper level.
And write all that stuff downand ask yourself that question,
maybe over several days or evenseveral weeks or months, and get
a full orb view of what's goingon in your mind, rather than
just to sit in the pain of itwhen you kind of have like this
weird cloud in your mind, ratherthan just to sit in the pain of
it, when you kind of have likethis weird cloud in your mind,
you can't really think.
You're just.
(08:10):
I don't know what's wrong withmy life.
I just don't like it.
Please don't sit in that spot,because by the time people come
to us and seek help, they've satin that spot so long their
heart has fallen asleep.
Long their heart has fallenasleep.
Their sensitivity is gone.
They don't feel love anymore,really from any source.
(08:31):
They just feel sort of an emptyhollow.
It's almost like they're deadinside and it's very hard to
help people.
Now.
We're really good at it, butit's so much easier to help
people if they will reach outbefore they get to that state.
And if you believe that yourrelationship is one that would
never, ever change it doesn'tmatter what you do then you're
(08:51):
in the most extreme danger offeeling suffocated.
It's important that you reachout sooner rather than later.
It doesn't have to be a hardthing.
Call up one of our coaches,even if you just buy one hour,
have somebody sit down with youand just look through your life
and help you think about it,just with some extra eyeballs
(09:13):
from an outside, objectivesource, somebody who's
knowledgeable, somebody that'snot going to get in there and
just mess you up.
There's all kinds of people inthe world that will just mess
you up, so you got to know whoto trust when you open up like
this.
But uh, any of our coacheswould be a safe person to do
that with.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Absolutely Um Jared.
What are certain behaviors thatuh so for the spouse who might
be suffocating the other spouse?
What are certain behaviors thatmight make love feel
suffocating?
Would like jealousy or likecontrol with those things be
things that can make itsuffocating?
Would like jealousy or likecontrol, would those things be
things that could?
Make it suffocating.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Oh yeah, a hundred percent.
So here at Marriage Over, wehave this concept of pushes and
pulls.
Everything you do falls intoone of those two categories.
It's either pushing your spousefurther away from you or it's
pulling them in Things likejealousy.
Those are strong pushes,because jealousy makes it seem
(10:10):
like you're doing something bador wrong all the time, and I
always have to watch over you.
I have to like you wouldn't justgive me your affection unless
I'm taking it.
You know that's sort of theposition that jealousy puts you
in.
I don't believe you would loveme unless I'm taking it.
You know that's sort of theposition that jealousy puts you
in.
I don't believe you would loveme unless I forced you to.
(10:30):
Really is where you end upgoing with that.
It's similar to control.
Control would say I don't trustyou to make the right decisions
, so I'm going to make thosedecisions for you.
You know, hey, I want to gohang out with my friends.
Well, I don't trust you to gohang out with your friends and
keep me in your mind.
Therefore, you can't go hangout with your friends.
(10:53):
Or, if you go, I have to comewith you, or if we go hang out
with your friends, we have to dothese particular activities and
we have to stay away from theseparticular people and you end
up in a situation where there'sa lot of fear, there's a lot of
just anytime I'm not able toreally truly be myself I'm.
I end up getting held back.
(11:15):
My personal growth anddevelopment ends up getting held
back.
Now I will say there's a flipside to that coin, because there
are people in the world I wasone of those people when I don't
feel good, I use comfortstrategies like playing too many
video games or hanging out withmy friends too much.
(11:36):
It's entirely possible to goplay too much ping pong and
totally ignore your marriage andyour bills and stuff like that,
and whenever we do that, we'rein danger of becoming addicted.
So there has to be a balancebetween doing the right thing
even if it feels uncomfortable.
Doing the right thing it's veryrewarding if you do the right
thing, but it does requiresacrifice sometimes.
(11:57):
Doing the right thing it's veryrewarding if you do the right
thing, but it does requiresacrifice sometimes.
And just living a life whereyou just do whatever feels good,
with no real care or concernfor how it affects other people.
You might feel bad that youractions have hurt other people,
but if you don't feel bad enoughto actually correct your
actions, then you're in a placewhere you're really going to be
(12:18):
causing a lot more trouble.
You're building up a debt thatis going to have to be answered
at some point, and so thestrategy really would be examine
your motives, examine what youdo, actually Examine your coping
strategies, the things thatbring you comfort, and then
(12:41):
examine whether you're acting inways that is pushing your
spouse further away or if you'reacting in ways that's pulling
them to you.
A wife who acts criticallytoward her husband that's a
strong push.
But consider this husband andI'm not just picking on husbands
(13:04):
, it's you know, wives andhusbands both do this.
But consider this Does your wifereally know that, if she had a
problem, that you would take thetime to listen to her not solve
all her problems, but to listento her?
Does she know that?
If she doesn't know that, mightthat be one of the reasons that
(13:24):
she feels like she has to comeat you with a lot of criticism?
See, the criticism is wrong,and not listening is wrong, and
so, in order to solve it, youcan't just say well, look, you
did all this bad criticalbehavior.
Therefore, you're at fault andI'm not.
Can't say that.
We have to say I'm going to own100% of my.
(13:46):
Maybe I'm 10% wrong.
I'm going to own 100% of that10%, and that is the thing I'm
going to work on, Because,before I give up on this
particular relationship, I'mgoing to make sure I've done
everything that I possibly canto make it better and, and if
both partners are committed todoing that, there really is no
(14:06):
limit to how good things canbecome.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
And another thing to note as well with talking about
push behaviors is if, if yourspouse is feeling suffocated or
feels like you're doing allthese push behaviors and you
don't think that you're doingall these push behaviors and you
don't think that you're doingthe push behaviors, they're the
ones that get to determinewhether it's a push or a pull,
because it is all about theemotion that it that it evokes
(14:29):
in them, not what you intend.
So you might intend you know anaction to to be great and your
spouse it might evoke a negativeemotion and that's considered a
push.
So the most important part, if,if that's the case, is to be,
you know, very communicativewith your spouse and understand
what what the pushes and thepulls are in in each marriage or
(14:52):
relationship, because it's itvaries between each person.
So, jared, if there's onesingle thing that you could tell
someone right now that theycould do if they feel like they
are suffocated or are beingsuffocated, what is one thing
that they could do right now?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Identify what that thing is that's suffocating you
and try to address it.
Now, for me, when I was thereluctant spouse, the thing that
was causing me to suffocate wasmy own mind, because I wasn't
talking to people, I was juststaying inside of my own head
and I wasn't giving my wife anopportunity to understand how
(15:33):
much I was feeling hurt, and so,therefore, all the things that
she tried to do to help make itbetter actually pushed me away
more.
Part of that was my fault.
So one of the things that I didis I took the time to
understand what my thoughts weredoing through the day, and so I
practiced what we callmindfulness.
Lots of stuff out there.
(15:55):
Kimberly Beam Holmes has a bunchof stuff on her podcast about
mindfulness and, in fact, if yougo watch the Calm Down Toolkit,
you of stuff out there.
Um, kimberly beam homes has abunch of stuff on her podcast
about mindfulness and, in fact,if you go watch the calm down
toolkit, you can find out what Idid as an exercise that I call
name the lies, say the truth.
Uh, you can find out a lotabout that, um, and it's in good
detail in that toolkit.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Absolutely, and uh.
If you want to learn more abouthow to get access to that
toolkit, it is in our membership, um, and so if you want to
learn more about how to getaccess to that toolkit, it is in
our membership, um and so ifyou want to learn more about the
membership how you can getaccess you can click right here
If you're watching on YouTube,or you can go to uh in the show
notes if you're listening onpodcasts or on YouTube.
The link will be there in thedescription.
Jared, thanks so much fortalking to us today, uh, and we
(16:34):
will see you all on the nextepisode of relationship radio.
What do I do if my marriage feels suffocating?
Chances are, if you're watchingthis video, that you might've
thought that very same thoughtseveral times, or maybe you've
heard your spouse say it.
Well, that's what we're talkingabout on today's episode.
Today, I'm joined by Jared.
Jared is a Marriage Helper,certified Coach, and he also
oversees our membership.
But make sure and stick aroundto the end, because we're going
(00:21):
to tell you how you can getsigned up for that membership
today.
But right now, let's talk aboutwhat to do if your marriage
feels suffocating.
On today's episode ofRelationship Radio.
Well, jared, thanks for beinghere today.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Thanks so much, jason , it's good to be back.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah, absolutely Jared.
We were kind of talking aboutthis beforehand.
You said that you kind of havesome personal stories to relate
to this, so I guess the firstquestion that I'll ask you, and
then you can run with it, iswhat does it mean when we say
love feels suffocating?
What exactly are we talkingabout there?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
So when I first became aware ofmarriage helper, I was actually
what we affectionately call thereluctant spouse.
I was the spouse who wanted outof my marriage.
I was the one who feltsuffocated.
So suffocation can mean so muchto so many different people.
So there's really not a good,one-size-fits-all answer, but
(01:28):
just general things that we hear.
I feel like there's too manydemands on me.
I feel like life is justoverwhelming in general and my
marriage doesn't recharge mybattery.
It actually makes me lessenergetic when I have to deal
with my spouse.
Or sometimes people feelsuffocated when it seems like
(01:50):
there's a different option outthere.
Why would I do the hard thingat home when there's this much,
much easier person that I couldrelate to outside?
We see that kind of thinghappening all the time.
So I think a good generalstrategy try to understand why
(02:11):
you feel suffocated.
Now many of you are here andit's your partner that feels
suffocated and they're notreally talking to you.
In that case, I would stronglyadvise you, if you possibly can,
think of everything about yourpartner that you know for all
the years that you've known themand try to infer why would this
(02:33):
person feel suffocated?
Am I doing something that'smaking them feel suffocated that
I could possibly correct, or isthere some situation that
exists that's making them feelsuffocated that I might be able
to influence in some way tocreate change?
If there's nothing you feellike you can do, then the next
right thing to do would be towork on yourself and wait until
(02:54):
your spouse becomes receptive toworking with you.
In that case, you would begaining a lot of personal
confidence and strength andintellectually, you know, you'd
be clearing your mind.
You'd, emotionally, you'd beliving the kind of life that you
enjoy, rather than one that'sjust full of terror or anxiety
or whatever you're feeling, andthen, spiritually, you'd just be
(03:16):
doing the right thing as muchas possible.
Now we call that system thepies and we have tons of
resources that you can look up.
That would be what you would do.
Now to my friends out there thatare themselves feeling
suffocated, I strongly advisethat, before you make any moves
(03:36):
with your marriage, why don'tyou try to understand why you
feel the way you feel?
Maybe you already know.
Maybe you say my spouse is socontrolling that I just feel
like I can't be myself.
I feel like I can't breathe.
Every time I'm at home, I feellike all my agency is taken away
.
I have no choices, that kind ofthing.
If you are readily able toidentify what your issue is, why
(04:00):
don't you, before you move to anew situation, before you leave
your marriage, why don't yousee if there's to a new
situation before you leave yourmarriage?
Why don't you see if there'ssome kind of mitigating strategy
?
You can call and talk to one ofour coaches.
You can come to any of ourweekend workshops that we do.
We have toolkits for that kindof thing, boundaries and
criteria, what we call stops andcores.
There's all kinds of resourcesthat we have.
(04:24):
If you either don't understandwhy you feel this way, or if you
understand why you feel thisway but you don't know what to
do about it, just changing yourvenue, just going somewhere else
, a different relationship or toyour own place or something
like that, it will not solve theproblem.
It can't solve the problem.
(04:46):
If the problem exists inside ofyou, you'll take it with you
when you go to the newrelationship, and that is a very
, very sad situation to seepeople end up in.
And so you know, as a fellowreluctant spouse, my heart is
for you.
I don't want you to be in a badrelationship.
Keeping marriages limping alongfor another few years is not
the business that MarriageHelper is in.
(05:08):
We want your marriage to be thekind of relationship that you
really enjoy being a part of,and I will tell you, I am so
very happy that I did notultimately leave my relationship
, although it still took meabout two years to get back to
reconciliation.
I'm so happy I did not leave myrelationship because today it's
such a better place.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah, so, jared, what are some?
What are some signs maybe of ofa suffocating relationship?
What does that kind of looklike?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, um.
So if you were going to try totell if your partner felt
suffocated, I would look forthings like this Are they
generally trying to avoid you?
Do they seem annoyed whenyou're around?
Are they using what I callcomfort strategies, spending a
(05:59):
lot of extra money or playing alot of video games?
Or maybe they're drinking a lotthings of that nature?
Does it seem like the sameproblems come up over and over
again?
I have this issue at work, orhave this certain kind of health
struggle, or I want to getfitter, but I just can't seem to
be able to do it.
Are you seeing patterns likethat?
If you are, it's possible thatyour partner is stuck and maybe
(06:25):
your marriage relationship couldbe changed to enable them to
get better.
If you are not certain if youare feeling suffocated or not,
you're just generally unhappy,then what I would encourage you
to do is why don't you just getalone somewhere with your
thoughts?
Get a notepad, write downeverything you can think of,
(06:47):
just for maybe like a day.
Just get alone with your ownthoughts.
If I had my marriage any way Iwanted it to be, if I could have
the kind of job I wanted or thekind of house I wanted.
What am I looking for?
Here's a really great questionto ask yourself.
If money were no object, iffailure was totally impossible
(07:08):
and if nobody could be hurt,what would you do with your life
different from what you'redoing right now?
And if you just cannot think ofan answer to that, probably
you're suffocating.
If your answer is somethinglike, well, I would have a
billion dollars, well then, see,money is no object.
Why did you pick a billiondollars?
What would you do with it?
(07:29):
If your answer was, well, Iwould go help people.
I would help.
What kind of people I'd help?
The kind of people who aredrowning with their bills.
Okay, are you drowning withyour bills?
Like, see, whatever answeryou're going to get from a
question like that, it's goingto reflect something inside of
you.
It's going to clue you intowhat might be going on on a
(07:50):
deeper level.
And write all that stuff downand ask yourself that question,
maybe over several days or evenseveral weeks or months, and get
a full orb view of what's goingon in your mind, rather than
just to sit in the pain of itwhen you kind of have like this
weird cloud in your mind, ratherthan just to sit in the pain of
it, when you kind of have likethis weird cloud in your mind,
you can't really think.
You're just.
(08:10):
I don't know what's wrong withmy life.
I just don't like it.
Please don't sit in that spot,because by the time people come
to us and seek help, they've satin that spot so long their
heart has fallen asleep.
Long their heart has fallenasleep.
Their sensitivity is gone.
They don't feel love anymore,really from any source.
(08:31):
They just feel sort of an emptyhollow.
It's almost like they're deadinside and it's very hard to
help people.
Now.
We're really good at it, butit's so much easier to help
people if they will reach outbefore they get to that state.
And if you believe that yourrelationship is one that would
never, ever change it doesn'tmatter what you do then you're
(08:51):
in the most extreme danger offeeling suffocated.
It's important that you reachout sooner rather than later.
It doesn't have to be a hardthing.
Call up one of our coaches,even if you just buy one hour,
have somebody sit down with youand just look through your life
and help you think about it,just with some extra eyeballs
(09:13):
from an outside, objectivesource, somebody who's
knowledgeable, somebody that'snot going to get in there and
just mess you up.
There's all kinds of people inthe world that will just mess
you up, so you got to know whoto trust when you open up like
this.
But uh, any of our coacheswould be a safe person to do
that with.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Absolutely Um Jared.
What are certain behaviors thatuh so for the spouse who might
be suffocating the other spouse?
What are certain behaviors thatmight make love feel
suffocating?
Would like jealousy or likecontrol with those things be
things that can make itsuffocating?
Would like jealousy or likecontrol, would those things be
things that could?
Make it suffocating.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Oh yeah, a hundred percent.
So here at Marriage Over, wehave this concept of pushes and
pulls.
Everything you do falls intoone of those two categories.
It's either pushing your spousefurther away from you or it's
pulling them in Things likejealousy.
Those are strong pushes,because jealousy makes it seem
(10:10):
like you're doing something bador wrong all the time, and I
always have to watch over you.
I have to like you wouldn't justgive me your affection unless
I'm taking it.
You know that's sort of theposition that jealousy puts you
in.
I don't believe you would loveme unless I'm taking it.
You know that's sort of theposition that jealousy puts you
in.
I don't believe you would loveme unless I forced you to.
(10:30):
Really is where you end upgoing with that.
It's similar to control.
Control would say I don't trustyou to make the right decisions
, so I'm going to make thosedecisions for you.
You know, hey, I want to gohang out with my friends.
Well, I don't trust you to gohang out with your friends and
keep me in your mind.
Therefore, you can't go hangout with your friends.
(10:53):
Or, if you go, I have to comewith you, or if we go hang out
with your friends, we have to dothese particular activities and
we have to stay away from theseparticular people and you end
up in a situation where there'sa lot of fear, there's a lot of
just anytime I'm not able toreally truly be myself I'm.
I end up getting held back.
(11:15):
My personal growth anddevelopment ends up getting held
back.
Now I will say there's a flipside to that coin, because there
are people in the world I wasone of those people when I don't
feel good, I use comfortstrategies like playing too many
video games or hanging out withmy friends too much.
(11:36):
It's entirely possible to goplay too much ping pong and
totally ignore your marriage andyour bills and stuff like that,
and whenever we do that, we'rein danger of becoming addicted.
So there has to be a balancebetween doing the right thing
even if it feels uncomfortable.
Doing the right thing it's veryrewarding if you do the right
thing, but it does requiresacrifice sometimes.
(11:57):
Doing the right thing it's veryrewarding if you do the right
thing, but it does requiresacrifice sometimes.
And just living a life whereyou just do whatever feels good,
with no real care or concernfor how it affects other people.
You might feel bad that youractions have hurt other people,
but if you don't feel bad enoughto actually correct your
actions, then you're in a placewhere you're really going to be
(12:18):
causing a lot more trouble.
You're building up a debt thatis going to have to be answered
at some point, and so thestrategy really would be examine
your motives, examine what youdo, actually Examine your coping
strategies, the things thatbring you comfort, and then
(12:41):
examine whether you're acting inways that is pushing your
spouse further away or if you'reacting in ways that's pulling
them to you.
A wife who acts criticallytoward her husband that's a
strong push.
But consider this husband andI'm not just picking on husbands
(13:04):
, it's you know, wives andhusbands both do this.
But consider this Does your wifereally know that, if she had a
problem, that you would take thetime to listen to her not solve
all her problems, but to listento her?
Does she know that?
If she doesn't know that, mightthat be one of the reasons that
(13:24):
she feels like she has to comeat you with a lot of criticism?
See, the criticism is wrong,and not listening is wrong, and
so, in order to solve it, youcan't just say well, look, you
did all this bad criticalbehavior.
Therefore, you're at fault andI'm not.
Can't say that.
We have to say I'm going to own100% of my.
(13:46):
Maybe I'm 10% wrong.
I'm going to own 100% of that10%, and that is the thing I'm
going to work on, Because,before I give up on this
particular relationship, I'mgoing to make sure I've done
everything that I possibly canto make it better and, and if
both partners are committed todoing that, there really is no
(14:06):
limit to how good things canbecome.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
And another thing to note as well with talking about
push behaviors is if, if yourspouse is feeling suffocated or
feels like you're doing allthese push behaviors and you
don't think that you're doingall these push behaviors and you
don't think that you're doingthe push behaviors, they're the
ones that get to determinewhether it's a push or a pull,
because it is all about theemotion that it that it evokes
(14:29):
in them, not what you intend.
So you might intend you know anaction to to be great and your
spouse it might evoke a negativeemotion and that's considered a
push.
So the most important part, if,if that's the case, is to be,
you know, very communicativewith your spouse and understand
what what the pushes and thepulls are in in each marriage or
(14:52):
relationship, because it's itvaries between each person.
So, jared, if there's onesingle thing that you could tell
someone right now that theycould do if they feel like they
are suffocated or are beingsuffocated, what is one thing
that they could do right now?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Identify what that thing is that's suffocating you
and try to address it.
Now, for me, when I was thereluctant spouse, the thing that
was causing me to suffocate wasmy own mind, because I wasn't
talking to people, I was juststaying inside of my own head
and I wasn't giving my wife anopportunity to understand how
(15:33):
much I was feeling hurt, and so,therefore, all the things that
she tried to do to help make itbetter actually pushed me away
more.
Part of that was my fault.
So one of the things that I didis I took the time to
understand what my thoughts weredoing through the day, and so I
practiced what we callmindfulness.
Lots of stuff out there.
(15:55):
Kimberly Beam Holmes has a bunchof stuff on her podcast about
mindfulness and, in fact, if yougo watch the Calm Down Toolkit,
you of stuff out there.
Um, kimberly beam homes has abunch of stuff on her podcast
about mindfulness and, in fact,if you go watch the calm down
toolkit, you can find out what Idid as an exercise that I call
name the lies, say the truth.
Uh, you can find out a lotabout that, um, and it's in good
detail in that toolkit.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Absolutely, and uh.
If you want to learn more abouthow to get access to that
toolkit, it is in our membership, um, and so if you want to
learn more about how to getaccess to that toolkit, it is in
our membership, um and so ifyou want to learn more about the
membership how you can getaccess you can click right here
If you're watching on YouTube,or you can go to uh in the show
notes if you're listening onpodcasts or on YouTube.
The link will be there in thedescription.
Jared, thanks so much fortalking to us today, uh, and we
(16:34):
will see you all on the nextepisode of relationship radio.
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