Are you caught in relationship limbo, seeing all the problems but unsure if you really want to leave? The very focus on what's wrong might be precisely what's keeping you stuck.
When we're in pain, we develop what I call "stubbed toe syndrome" – one part hurts so badly that we forget the rest feels fine. Similarly, in troubled relationships, especially those affected by depression, we become fixated on problems while neglecting the perfectly good connecting parts that still exist.
In this illuminating episode, I continue exploring my seven-question framework for making conscious relationship decisions by delving into Question 3: What are the strengths of your relationship? As a therapist, I've noticed how couples frequently struggle to answer this question during their first session. Some couples have been a place for so long in which they focus on their programs that identifying strengths can feel almost foreign.
Understanding relationship strengths differs significantly from assessing what you're currently getting or whether your needs are being met. Strengths represent the foundation upon which all potential growth can be built – feeling truly seen, sharing values, experiencing honesty, or finding joy in common interests. I share personal examples from my 20-year marriage, including how my husband recognized my desire to be a writer before I'd ever mentioned it.
We also explore Questions 4 and 5: Are you willing to do the relationship work, and is your partner? Through my personal journey with Imago relationship therapy and meditation (my "secret keys to relationship success"), I discovered that sometimes doing the work means stepping back rather than trying to fix everything. My well-intentioned "fix-it" approach was actually a fight response that sent an unintended message: "you're not capable."
Most of us never learned proper relationship skills growing up. Our parents didn't have these tools to pass down, and when we're triggered into survival mode, we can't access our best communication abilities. Learn why "conflict is growth trying to happen" and how developing self-regulation and communication skills creates opportunities for healing.
Take a step today toward clarity in your relationship decisions by looking beyond the problems to the foundation that still exists, and determining whether it's worth building upon.
- If you are looking to take the first step towards improving your connection and communication with your partner, check out this FREE monthly webinar on "Becoming a Conscious Couple,".
- If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!
For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the when Depression is in your
Bed podcast.
Are you struggling in yourrelationship?
Do you only see all theproblems that you and your
partner have, yet you're alsonot sure that you really want to
leave.
If this sounds familiar, listentoday to find out how focusing
on your problems may be exactlywhat's keeping you stuck.
(00:21):
Making a shift to focus on thestrengths of your relationship
and what relational repair workactually needs to be done can
help you move forward in makinga conscious decision about
whether you really want to stayor end it for good.
I'm your host, trish Sanders,ready to hear more.
Let's get started.
Today.
(00:43):
I'm going to continue toexplore the seven question
framework that I developed tohelp somebody make a conscious
decision about whether or notthey want to stay in their
relationship.
I developed these sevenquestions through my own
experience of making a decisionabout whether or not I want to
stay in my own relationship.
As I've talked about before,I've been in the position of
trying to decide many times if Iwanted to continue in my
(01:06):
relationship or not, and I thinkthat the short reason that I
have thought about breaking upor getting a divorce so many
times in my relationship isbecause, even though I have
always felt deeply connected tomy partner and have always had a
lot of love for him, ourday-to-day relationship has
proven to be very difficult fora lot of the time, over most of
our relationship, and that's inpart due to the fact that
(01:27):
depression and anxiety has beenvery present in our relationship
, and also because relationshiptools and communication skills
are really mostly learned, andthe truth is that most of us did
not grow up learning the toolsthat we need to be able to
communicate and really be inhealthy connection or in healthy
relationship, and that'sbecause our parents had no one
to teach them and ourgrandparents had no one to teach
(01:49):
them, and generationally goingback and back and back, there's
just sort of like an absence ofknowing that these are things
that we need to learn.
When the focus is on survivalor just getting through the day
or just getting food on thetable, things like how to create
a meaningful, safe, connectedrelationship don't feel like a
priority.
Yet I would say that as asociety, as a country, as a
(02:10):
world, we need a prettysignificant shift, because
creating healthy relationshipsis, in fact, how we create a
healthier, happier world, andwithout these communication,
relationship skills.
Relationships can feel reallybad and on a grand level.
We can look at what's happeningin our country and in our world
and we can see how polarizationand conflict runs rampant.
That can happen in a reallygrand way and it certainly can
(02:32):
happen in a smaller way, justbetween two people.
And essentially that's reallywhat has happened over the last
20 years with my husband that wehave really had a lot of
conflict because we come fromtwo very different places,
because we're two differentpeople, and so we have two
different approaches in thisworld.
So, anyhow, today I'm going topick up with question three.
In the last two episodes Italked more in depth about the
(02:52):
first two questions, the firstquestion being what are the real
or perceived obstacles thatcome to mind when you think
about leaving the relationshipand how can they be addressed?
And the second question, whichI addressed in the last episode,
was what are the unconsciousfactors at play that may be
keeping you in your relationshipand, again, how can you address
those or get support workingthrough those?
(03:13):
Today I'm going to start withquestion three and share my own
thought process as I workedthrough these questions in the
past, when I was making my owndecision about whether or not I
wanted to continue in myrelationship.
So question number three iswhat are the strengths of the
relationship?
So I want to say, as arelationship therapist, when a
couple comes to my office forthe first time, in a very first
(03:33):
session I start talking to themabout the strengths in their
relationship, and it is notuncommon for people to sort of
not be very quick to come upwith a lot of answers to that
question.
Or they look at each other orstumble through sort of
questioningly, looking at me,like does this count as a
strength?
Part of the reason I think it'ssuch a hard question is because
we often don't think about thestrengths of our relationship,
(03:54):
especially when the relationshipdoesn't feel like it's going
very well.
And so when people come into mefor couples therapy, oftentimes
they're in a pretty high levelof pain in their relationship, a
high level of dissatisfaction,and they haven't really been
thinking about the strengths oftheir relationship for some time
.
But it's really important,especially when making a
conscious decision about whetheryou want to stay in your
relationship or not, to reallythink about those strengths, the
(04:16):
reasons that you were drawn tothis person and why you
committed in the first place,because it's really from that
grounded place that you can havea bit more clarity on the
current conflicts and be able tomake a decision of like okay,
is this a relationship that itmakes sense for me to continue
to do the work for, or is this arelationship that it makes more
sense to end.
So I also wanna share, as a partof this question, that what are
(04:37):
the strengths of therelationship is a different
question from what are yougetting from the relationship?
Because, quite honestly, ifyou're at a place where you're
thinking about ending yourrelationship and if you and or
your partner is dealing withdepression, then you might feel
like you're not getting a wholelot from the relationship and
that might be a currentexperience, even if it's been
(05:00):
lasting a while.
Whereas when I ask about thestrengths of the relationship,
that's a very foundationalquestion and it really goes back
to the initial connection andwhy people got together in the
first place and why peoplecontinue to make a decision to
increase their level ofcommitment.
Looking at the strengths of therelationship is also a
different question from are yourneeds getting met in this
relationship?
(05:20):
Because, again, especially ifdepression or disconnection is
present often in therelationship you're probably not
feeling like your needs areoften getting met.
Again, if you're consideringleaving a relationship though I
try not to make assumptions it'sprobably a good guess that
you're not getting your needsmet a lot of the time, and that
also may have been going on fora while.
(05:40):
But the strengths of arelationship I see it as the
foundation.
It's the base off of whicheverything else, all
relationship growth, allrelationship work, can be built.
So for me, there were many timesin my relationship with my
husband when I was on the brinkof considering breaking up or
getting a divorce, where Ireally felt like there was
nothing good left in ourrelationship, and of course it
(06:01):
was a little bit like a horsewith blinders.
Maybe I wasn't seeing the goodthat was there at the time.
Or it's what I call stubbed toesyndrome, where when you stub
your toe it hurts so bad youforget that the whole rest of
your body feels okay, and so mytoe was really in a lot of pain
in the relationship, and so Ireally was only paying attention
to the parts that were hurtingand I was definitely neglecting
(06:22):
a lot of the good feelingconnected parts of our
relationship, so they weren'tflourishing or thriving by any
stretch during those really hardtimes.
But when I slowed things downand started to think about, well
, why is it such a hard decisionfor me to leave the
relationship?
Right, if so many things areawful, then it should be a
pretty easy decision for me toleave, but it didn't feel so
(06:42):
easy.
So one of the questions that Ikept coming back to was why do I
want to stay here?
And for me, I can tell you thatone of the deepest strengths
that I would say as a part of myrelationship with my husband is
that I have always felt like Icould be myself around him,
certainly in times of conflictand if I was feeling
(07:03):
dysregulated and going into asympathetic fight or flight
response and I was either goinginto fix it mode or some sort of
attack mode what that lookedlike in me or if I was in like a
dorsal shutdown mode, I wasn'tbeing authentically myself,
because when we're in survivalmode we're not connected to our
authentic self, we're justtrying to protect ourselves.
But from really our first date,I can remember such a feeling
(07:26):
of ease with Ben.
If I think back to our earlydays together, I can feel a
shift in my nervous system justthinking about it, what it was
like to talk to him and feelingheard and feeling like I could
say anything and he cared aboutwhat I had to say and he valued
me, and it was something thatjust really came across very
(07:48):
strongly for me and I justdidn't feel like I had to hide
parts of myself from him, and Ithink that that's a really
important part for me, certainly, of relationship is our ability
to be ourselves, and I reallytruly felt seen by him.
I actually remember very earlyon in our relationship I don't
even remember exactly how we gotinto the conversation, but we
were talking about something andhe said oh yeah, like I see you
(08:10):
in the future writing a book,being an author.
And I looked at him and I said,really, why, why do you think
that?
And he's like oh, I don't know,he's like it just seems like
that's something that you would.
And in truth, though, I hadnever shared with him, I've
always wanted to write.
I love writing.
I've always wanted to be anauthor.
I've actually wanted to writechildren's books since I was a
child.
I used to have a series ofbooks that I wrote, and even now
(08:31):
still, I hope to be publishedone day.
But when he said to me that hesaw me as being a writer and saw
me as an author even though hedid not see me writing and I had
not shared that with him,shared that with him I felt so
deeply seen Like, wow, this guygets me, he really understands
me, and I still feel that that'ssomething that's been
consistent.
And again, when times are hardand when we're feeling very
(08:52):
disconnected, that experience isnot in the forefront, but the
fact that it exists when we areconnected is something that I
consider to be a true strengthfor us and I definitely feel
like I can be totally honestwith my husband and I feel, with
a pretty high level ofconfidence, that he is also
honest with me.
That can be a little trickybecause lying and dishonesty can
also be very present in arelationship and I'm not going
(09:15):
to talk a lot on it.
But if you're in a relationshipwhere dishonesty is present,
that's a whole other piece.
It's certainly something thatneeds to be worked on, but I
just want to address that iflying is happening in a
relationship, or deceit or somesort of deception, it just calls
to the type of work that needsto happen to be able to repair
that kind of relationshiprupture.
But coming back to my experience, I also trust not only my
(09:38):
ability to be honest with Benand for his ability to be honest
and open with me, but I alsotrust that he really wants
what's best for me and forhimself and for our relationship
and for our family, which alsofeels very comforting for me.
I really see Ben as this loving, warm hearted person, even
though we have absolutelyemotionally hurt each other in
(10:00):
pretty deep ways over the last20 years.
I've always known that it's nothis intention to be hurtful.
I've actually said that to himbefore because he'll say but I
didn't mean to hurt you or Ididn't mean to upset you.
And I've actually said to himlike, if that's your thought
process, you can just take thatpart out, because I know that
you're never meaning to hurt me.
I believe that if I was hurt bysomething that he did or said,
(10:22):
I knew it wasn't because hewanted to hurt me.
I knew it was because he wasdysregulated or hurting himself.
And also, I think, somestrengths from my relationship
with Ben and this maybe soundsfunny, but we have similar
tastes in music and we actuallywere born in the same year,
which has also just sort of beena cool thing about our
relationship Because even thoughwe grew up in two different
areas, we listened to a lot ofsimilar music and when we think
(10:44):
back to a certain time in ourlife we'll be like, oh yeah,
like we were 16 years old and wecan kind of go back to a
similar time and place, eventhough, like I was in New Jersey
and he was in Maryland in 1996.
We could pull up that memory ofwhat it was like to be 16
listening to that music and ithas always just been a very
connecting thing for us.
And we go to a lot of concerts.
Music is something that isdeeply connecting for us and
(11:07):
it's also something that we havea lot of fun doing together.
And we also like to go in moshpits.
And again, that might soundsilly to some people, but for me
I don't think that 20 years agoI would have said like, oh, I
have to have somebody who goesin mosh pits with me or who
likes the same music, or that ismy age, but it just has worked
out that that has been such areally awesome ongoing
(11:27):
connecting thing for us.
And then, beyond that I wannasay that we've always had a
similar vision, which is alittle bit tricky because I'm
usually very future-focused andhave a lot of vision about my
plans, what I wanna create, whatI wanna do, and my life is
always planned out years inadvance.
And Ben is not like that, whichis not uncommon.
This is sort of like an Imagomatch Partners who often
(11:48):
approach the world verydifferently find each other, and
so this is kind of an exampleof that.
But we've been on the same pageabout some major life decisions
.
We've also been on differentpages or on different timelines
sometimes as well, but I thinkthat we have enough similar
values.
That has really been anotherconnecting part of our
relationship.
And so, again, it's reallyimportant to think of the
(12:08):
strengths of a relationship,because when I was able to come
back to some of those pieces andsay, hey, look like this is
what exists in our relationship,I don't think it's a helpful
thought to say, oh well, I haveall these things in this
relationship and I might notfind that anywhere else, so I
should stay in this relationship.
I hope that that's not theframework that this elicits for
(12:28):
you.
I wouldn't say at this pointlike, oh well, I don't know if
I'll be able to find anybody wholikes the same music I like.
If I left this relationship,that wouldn't necessarily be a
deciding factor, but to be ableto look back and say, hey, this
is what's important to me aboutthis relationship, this is what
attracted me to the relationshipin the first place, this is
what felt meaningful andsignificant to me.
(12:49):
And from that place, given allthe other context of all these
other questions that I have inthis framework, does it make
sense to continue to do the workin this relationship?
Which brings me to the next twoquestions, which I will talk
about together.
Question four is are youwilling to do the work of
relationship?
And question five is is yourpartner willing to do the work
of relationship?
(13:10):
And this really, for both ofyou, also would include doing
your own individual work,because, of course, individual
work can really supportrelationship work or couples
work, just as couples work cangive you a lot of information to
bring back to your ownindividual therapist.
And the reason that these arereally important questions is
because every relationship takeswork.
There is no such thing as beingin any kind of relationship
(13:31):
where a conflict will neveroccur.
And if you're in a relationshipwhere it doesn't seem that
conflict is occurring.
The conflict may be that bothpeople are avoiding conflict,
which sometimes happens, becausewhen there's two people, they
are different and inevitablythey're going to have some sort
of difference of approach,opinion, perspective, feeling,
interpretation.
(13:52):
And it's not that all conflicthas to be this enormous, huge
blowout, but just there's goingto be some tension somewhere
right, some hurt feelingsomewhere, something like that.
And so you have to really thinkabout if this is the
relationship that you want to dothe work for.
In Imago, which is the type ofrelationship therapy that I do,
we talk about love being anaction more than a feeling, and
(14:14):
I think that's so true becausesaying I'm with them because I
love them, or I'm staying withthis person because I love them,
I understand that feeling.
And yet there's also songs andmovies and whatever about like.
Sometimes love just isn'tenough, right?
We know that as a society, thatlove is not always all that you
need.
So the feeling of love is oftennot enough.
(14:35):
But the action of love, whatdoes that look like?
And that's what these questionsare about.
Are you able to look atyourself and move from a place
of perhaps blaming your partneror waiting for your partner to
take action so that you can takeaction to take care of the
relationship, because if nobodytakes care of the relationship,
then the relationship is leftsort of out in the cold and
(14:56):
uncared for.
There is a lot of information,which I think is accurate, out
there about how one person'schange can change the dynamics
of a relationship, and I dothink that's true.
I will talk about this atlength in another episode.
But I also want to be verycareful to say that a healthy
relationship that feels reallysatisfying and connected and
safe for two people really doesrequire the work of two people.
(15:19):
Certainly, one person can getthe ball rolling and make a step
, and that's what this questionis about.
Like, are you willing to take astep for this relationship?
And you also want to know thatyour partner is willing to take
a step too.
And again, when depression ispresent, depression is something
that really makes thingsdifficult.
And just to talk about my ownexperience with these questions,
I have always felt very, verywilling to do the work of
(15:40):
relationship with my husband.
However, before we gotseparated, I saw the work of my
relationship as helping him dohis work, and I didn't realize
it at the time, but that washurting our relationship in such
significant ways.
And after we got separated andwe dove into Imago relationship
work, we found an Imagotherapist and we went to the
(16:02):
Getting the Love you Wantworkshop that is, an Imago
couples workshop.
I started to understand my roleand how I was contributing to
the nightmare.
This is going back 10 years, Idon't think that when we
actually got separated, ben wasin therapy.
He had been in therapypreviously and he certainly has
been in therapy since, but atthe time he was pretty severely
depressed and it was so easy tosay're not doing enough.
(16:26):
This is about you not doingyour work.
You're hurting our relationship.
If you just took care ofyourself, then everything would
be better.
I had such blinders on to myrole and what was happening.
After we found Imago and Ireally started to understand
what I was doing to contributeto the nightmare, which is what
we call it in Imago.
I also started to see what Icould do to contribute to the
(16:48):
dream, how I could take care ofthe relationship and take care
of myself.
A lot of it was byself-regulation.
I often say that Imago andmeditation were my secret keys
to relationship success andthat's because Imago gave me the
communication tools along withthe knowledge and the relational
skills that I needed.
That I didn't have.
(17:08):
Because, again, who of us grewup with relationship and
communication skills?
I think it's very common for usto have not gotten that growing
up for so many reasonsincluding, of course, that our
parents and our grandparents andour great grandparents and
beyond didn't have somebodyteaching them those skills, so
it didn't trickle down for us tolearn.
But also the way our brainswork can really get in the way,
because when we're in survivalmode we're not going to be
(17:29):
effective communicators andwe're not going to be good
connectors and be very helpfulin relationship.
So I really learned that Ineeded to work on my own self
regulation and that me being infix it mode was really a
survival response.
It was actually a mobilizedfight or flight response.
It was a fight response, like Ifeel threatened.
So I have to try to fix thisrelationship and when I started
(17:51):
to pull back, that was part ofwhat my work of the relationship
looked like that less is more,that me being so active was
actually hurting therelationship and certainly me
blaming my husband was nothelping the relationship because
I wasn't presenting.
I believe in you, you got this.
I know that it's hard, but Ilove you and we're gonna figure
(18:12):
out a way through this.
That was not.
I mean, I think sometimes Iheld that message, but it was
not the primary message that Iwas sending to my husband,
consciously or unconsciously,but when I was trying to do it
for him, I was sending a messageof you can't do this, I have to
do it for you.
You're not capable.
That was not in any way myconscious thought, but that was
definitely some of the messagingthat was unintentionally going
along with the actions that Iwas taking the idea of being
(18:35):
willing to do the work of therelationship.
Sometimes it means stepping backand trusting your partner,
which is definitely what itmeant for me.
For me, that was a huge part ofthe work that I had to realize
that I needed to do, and foryour partner, it's really
important.
Like I said, yes, one personcan change the dynamics in a
relationship, but two peoplecreate the relationship and it
(18:55):
really needs to be tended to indifferent ways perhaps, but I
really strongly believe that arelationship does need to be
taken care of by two people.
It is true that one person cantake a step when the other
person can't.
I call it stand as you are able.
If you are at a place where youcan take care of your
relationship and it doesn't makeyou feel resentful, then I
(19:16):
highly recommend taking thatstep towards caring for the
relationship.
If you feel resentful or angryabout it, then that's a
different thing and then doingsomething to take care of the
relationship probably willbackfire in the long run,
because building resentment isnot helpful.
If you're able to take a stepbut you don't want to because
you're not seeing your partnertake a step, that might be
something different and then inthat case it could be helpful to
(19:38):
think about what's hard abouttaking a step, or what comes up
when it seems like you're doingall the work, which, of course,
I definitely know that feeling,because I have absolutely felt
like I'm doing all the work inthe relationship and that's why
it was so easy to blame Ben andsay, hey, I'm doing all this
work, what are you doing?
And I realized that there was areally big shift in how I
needed to approach that and tobe able to see Ben's efforts and
what he was actually doing totake care of himself to take
(20:04):
care of our relationship, and itdidn't always look like what I
thought it quote unquote shouldlook like, but understanding
that he was on his own process,his own journey, and it was in
fact going to look differentthan what I might think it
should look like, was such animportant thing for me, and me
learning how to express my hurtsor frustrations in a helpful
way, being able to set limitsthat helped create an
environment where I could lovemyself and love Ben were
(20:26):
incredibly important for me, andthey're things that I needed to
learn how to do.
That created theseopportunities for growth and
healing in our relationship.
To close on that, in Imago wesay conflict is growth trying to
happen, and so the fact thatconflict exists in a
relationship is not problematic.
It's what you do with theconflict.
We don't know how to heal andgrow through conflict.
(20:49):
We either avoid conflictbecause in our childhood
experience we learned thatconflict should be avoided.
It was scary.
Feelings are scary.
Or we jump on conflict or, youlike, let's handle that, let's
take care of that, let's addressthat right now.
There could be something goodabout wanting to address things,
but sometimes the energy comesfrom more of a fight response
actually and then it cannot beso helpful.
So we a lot of the time we justbring unhelpful skills into
(21:11):
conflict.
Like I said, we're either kindof like aggressively going after
it or maybe avoidant, and thenwe're very hands-off and neither
of those approaches allow us toreally grow through the
conflict.
Sometimes what is needed forsomeone to actually make a
conscious decision about stayingin a relationship is actually
having the opportunity to buildthe skills to communicate and
(21:31):
grow through conflict, which isabsolutely the case for me,
because had I not found Imagoand had I not started meditating
, I can't imagine that Ben and Iwould have been able to stay
together, because ourrelationship was just too
painful too much of the time andwe didn't know really what
relational work was.
Mind you, I was a therapist formany years but I was a kid
therapist and I worked withtrauma and attachment and kids
(21:54):
who had been abused or witnesseddomestic violence, and I was a
play therapist and I did sandtherapy and my relationship
skills and my communicationskills that I used and needed at
work with my clients werereally different than the skills
that I needed at home with Ben.
So getting clear on whatrelationship work even means and
then being able to find out ifyou and your partner are willing
(22:16):
to do it.
That's maybe the second step.
So we're down to the last twoof the seven questions and I
don't want to rush through them.
So I think we're going to wrapup for today and I will pick up
next time, as our time comes toa close.
I ask you to keep listening forjust a few more moments, because
I want to thank you for showingup today and I want to leave
(22:38):
you with an invitation as youhit stop and move back out into
the world on your own uniquewellness journey In order to
move from where you are today tothe place where you want to be.
The path may seem long orunclear or unknown, and I want
you to know that if that seemsscary or daunting or downright
terrifying or anything else,that is totally okay.
(23:01):
Know that you do not have tocreate the whole way all at once
.
We don't travel a whole journeyin one stride, and that is why
my invitation to you today is totake a step, just one, any type
, any size, in any direction.
It can be an external step thatcan be observed or measured, or
it could be a step youvisualize taking in your mind.
(23:24):
It can be a step towards action, or towards rest, or connection
, or self-care, or whatever stepmakes sense to you.
I invite you to take a steptoday, because getting to a
place that feels better, morejoyful, more connected than the
place where you are today ispossible for everyone, including
(23:44):
you, and even when depressionis in your bed.
If today's episode resonatedwith you, please subscribe so
you can be notified when eachweekly episode gets released.
I encourage you to leave areview and reach out to me on
social media at trishsanderslcsw.
Your feedback will help guidefuture episodes and I love
(24:05):
hearing from you.
Also, please share this podcastwith anyone who you think may
be interested or who may getsomething from what I have
shared.
Until the next time we connect,take care of yourself and take
a step.
Hello and welcome to the when Depression is in your
Bed podcast.
Are you struggling in yourrelationship?
Do you only see all theproblems that you and your
partner have, yet you're alsonot sure that you really want to
leave.
If this sounds familiar, listentoday to find out how focusing
on your problems may be exactlywhat's keeping you stuck.
(00:21):
Making a shift to focus on thestrengths of your relationship
and what relational repair workactually needs to be done can
help you move forward in makinga conscious decision about
whether you really want to stayor end it for good.
I'm your host, trish Sanders,ready to hear more.
Let's get started.
Today.
(00:43):
I'm going to continue toexplore the seven question
framework that I developed tohelp somebody make a conscious
decision about whether or notthey want to stay in their
relationship.
I developed these sevenquestions through my own
experience of making a decisionabout whether or not I want to
stay in my own relationship.
As I've talked about before,I've been in the position of
trying to decide many times if Iwanted to continue in my
(01:06):
relationship or not, and I thinkthat the short reason that I
have thought about breaking upor getting a divorce so many
times in my relationship isbecause, even though I have
always felt deeply connected tomy partner and have always had a
lot of love for him, ourday-to-day relationship has
proven to be very difficult fora lot of the time, over most of
our relationship, and that's inpart due to the fact that
(01:27):
depression and anxiety has beenvery present in our relationship
, and also because relationshiptools and communication skills
are really mostly learned, andthe truth is that most of us did
not grow up learning the toolsthat we need to be able to
communicate and really be inhealthy connection or in healthy
relationship, and that'sbecause our parents had no one
to teach them and ourgrandparents had no one to teach
(01:49):
them, and generationally goingback and back and back, there's
just sort of like an absence ofknowing that these are things
that we need to learn.
When the focus is on survivalor just getting through the day
or just getting food on thetable, things like how to create
a meaningful, safe, connectedrelationship don't feel like a
priority.
Yet I would say that as asociety, as a country, as a
(02:10):
world, we need a prettysignificant shift, because
creating healthy relationshipsis, in fact, how we create a
healthier, happier world, andwithout these communication,
relationship skills.
Relationships can feel reallybad and on a grand level.
We can look at what's happeningin our country and in our world
and we can see how polarizationand conflict runs rampant.
That can happen in a reallygrand way and it certainly can
(02:32):
happen in a smaller way, justbetween two people.
And essentially that's reallywhat has happened over the last
20 years with my husband that wehave really had a lot of
conflict because we come fromtwo very different places,
because we're two differentpeople, and so we have two
different approaches in thisworld.
So, anyhow, today I'm going topick up with question three.
In the last two episodes Italked more in depth about the
(02:52):
first two questions, the firstquestion being what are the real
or perceived obstacles thatcome to mind when you think
about leaving the relationshipand how can they be addressed?
And the second question, whichI addressed in the last episode,
was what are the unconsciousfactors at play that may be
keeping you in your relationshipand, again, how can you address
those or get support workingthrough those?
(03:13):
Today I'm going to start withquestion three and share my own
thought process as I workedthrough these questions in the
past, when I was making my owndecision about whether or not I
wanted to continue in myrelationship.
So question number three iswhat are the strengths of the
relationship?
So I want to say, as arelationship therapist, when a
couple comes to my office forthe first time, in a very first
(03:33):
session I start talking to themabout the strengths in their
relationship, and it is notuncommon for people to sort of
not be very quick to come upwith a lot of answers to that
question.
Or they look at each other orstumble through sort of
questioningly, looking at me,like does this count as a
strength?
Part of the reason I think it'ssuch a hard question is because
we often don't think about thestrengths of our relationship,
(03:54):
especially when the relationshipdoesn't feel like it's going
very well.
And so when people come into mefor couples therapy, oftentimes
they're in a pretty high levelof pain in their relationship, a
high level of dissatisfaction,and they haven't really been
thinking about the strengths oftheir relationship for some time
.
But it's really important,especially when making a
conscious decision about whetheryou want to stay in your
relationship or not, to reallythink about those strengths, the
(04:16):
reasons that you were drawn tothis person and why you
committed in the first place,because it's really from that
grounded place that you can havea bit more clarity on the
current conflicts and be able tomake a decision of like okay,
is this a relationship that itmakes sense for me to continue
to do the work for, or is this arelationship that it makes more
sense to end.
So I also wanna share, as a partof this question, that what are
(04:37):
the strengths of therelationship is a different
question from what are yougetting from the relationship?
Because, quite honestly, ifyou're at a place where you're
thinking about ending yourrelationship and if you and or
your partner is dealing withdepression, then you might feel
like you're not getting a wholelot from the relationship and
that might be a currentexperience, even if it's been
(05:00):
lasting a while.
Whereas when I ask about thestrengths of the relationship,
that's a very foundationalquestion and it really goes back
to the initial connection andwhy people got together in the
first place and why peoplecontinue to make a decision to
increase their level ofcommitment.
Looking at the strengths of therelationship is also a
different question from are yourneeds getting met in this
relationship?
(05:20):
Because, again, especially ifdepression or disconnection is
present often in therelationship you're probably not
feeling like your needs areoften getting met.
Again, if you're consideringleaving a relationship though I
try not to make assumptions it'sprobably a good guess that
you're not getting your needsmet a lot of the time, and that
also may have been going on fora while.
(05:40):
But the strengths of arelationship I see it as the
foundation.
It's the base off of whicheverything else, all
relationship growth, allrelationship work, can be built.
So for me, there were many timesin my relationship with my
husband when I was on the brinkof considering breaking up or
getting a divorce, where Ireally felt like there was
nothing good left in ourrelationship, and of course it
(06:01):
was a little bit like a horsewith blinders.
Maybe I wasn't seeing the goodthat was there at the time.
Or it's what I call stubbed toesyndrome, where when you stub
your toe it hurts so bad youforget that the whole rest of
your body feels okay, and so mytoe was really in a lot of pain
in the relationship, and so Ireally was only paying attention
to the parts that were hurtingand I was definitely neglecting
(06:22):
a lot of the good feelingconnected parts of our
relationship, so they weren'tflourishing or thriving by any
stretch during those really hardtimes.
But when I slowed things downand started to think about, well
, why is it such a hard decisionfor me to leave the
relationship?
Right, if so many things areawful, then it should be a
pretty easy decision for me toleave, but it didn't feel so
(06:42):
easy.
So one of the questions that Ikept coming back to was why do I
want to stay here?
And for me, I can tell you thatone of the deepest strengths
that I would say as a part of myrelationship with my husband is
that I have always felt like Icould be myself around him,
certainly in times of conflictand if I was feeling
(07:03):
dysregulated and going into asympathetic fight or flight
response and I was either goinginto fix it mode or some sort of
attack mode what that lookedlike in me or if I was in like a
dorsal shutdown mode, I wasn'tbeing authentically myself,
because when we're in survivalmode we're not connected to our
authentic self, we're justtrying to protect ourselves.
But from really our first date,I can remember such a feeling
(07:26):
of ease with Ben.
If I think back to our earlydays together, I can feel a
shift in my nervous system justthinking about it, what it was
like to talk to him and feelingheard and feeling like I could
say anything and he cared aboutwhat I had to say and he valued
me, and it was something thatjust really came across very
(07:48):
strongly for me and I justdidn't feel like I had to hide
parts of myself from him, and Ithink that that's a really
important part for me, certainly, of relationship is our ability
to be ourselves, and I reallytruly felt seen by him.
I actually remember very earlyon in our relationship I don't
even remember exactly how we gotinto the conversation, but we
were talking about something andhe said oh yeah, like I see you
(08:10):
in the future writing a book,being an author.
And I looked at him and I said,really, why, why do you think
that?
And he's like oh, I don't know,he's like it just seems like
that's something that you would.
And in truth, though, I hadnever shared with him, I've
always wanted to write.
I love writing.
I've always wanted to be anauthor.
I've actually wanted to writechildren's books since I was a
child.
I used to have a series ofbooks that I wrote, and even now
(08:31):
still, I hope to be publishedone day.
But when he said to me that hesaw me as being a writer and saw
me as an author even though hedid not see me writing and I had
not shared that with him,shared that with him I felt so
deeply seen Like, wow, this guygets me, he really understands
me, and I still feel that that'ssomething that's been
consistent.
And again, when times are hardand when we're feeling very
(08:52):
disconnected, that experience isnot in the forefront, but the
fact that it exists when we areconnected is something that I
consider to be a true strengthfor us and I definitely feel
like I can be totally honestwith my husband and I feel, with
a pretty high level ofconfidence, that he is also
honest with me.
That can be a little trickybecause lying and dishonesty can
also be very present in arelationship and I'm not going
(09:15):
to talk a lot on it.
But if you're in a relationshipwhere dishonesty is present,
that's a whole other piece.
It's certainly something thatneeds to be worked on, but I
just want to address that iflying is happening in a
relationship, or deceit or somesort of deception, it just calls
to the type of work that needsto happen to be able to repair
that kind of relationshiprupture.
But coming back to my experience, I also trust not only my
(09:38):
ability to be honest with Benand for his ability to be honest
and open with me, but I alsotrust that he really wants
what's best for me and forhimself and for our relationship
and for our family, which alsofeels very comforting for me.
I really see Ben as this loving, warm hearted person, even
though we have absolutelyemotionally hurt each other in
(10:00):
pretty deep ways over the last20 years.
I've always known that it's nothis intention to be hurtful.
I've actually said that to himbefore because he'll say but I
didn't mean to hurt you or Ididn't mean to upset you.
And I've actually said to himlike, if that's your thought
process, you can just take thatpart out, because I know that
you're never meaning to hurt me.
I believe that if I was hurt bysomething that he did or said,
(10:22):
I knew it wasn't because hewanted to hurt me.
I knew it was because he wasdysregulated or hurting himself.
And also, I think, somestrengths from my relationship
with Ben and this maybe soundsfunny, but we have similar
tastes in music and we actuallywere born in the same year,
which has also just sort of beena cool thing about our
relationship Because even thoughwe grew up in two different
areas, we listened to a lot ofsimilar music and when we think
(10:44):
back to a certain time in ourlife we'll be like, oh yeah,
like we were 16 years old and wecan kind of go back to a
similar time and place, eventhough, like I was in New Jersey
and he was in Maryland in 1996.
We could pull up that memory ofwhat it was like to be 16
listening to that music and ithas always just been a very
connecting thing for us.
And we go to a lot of concerts.
Music is something that isdeeply connecting for us and
(11:07):
it's also something that we havea lot of fun doing together.
And we also like to go in moshpits.
And again, that might soundsilly to some people, but for me
I don't think that 20 years agoI would have said like, oh, I
have to have somebody who goesin mosh pits with me or who
likes the same music, or that ismy age, but it just has worked
out that that has been such areally awesome ongoing
(11:27):
connecting thing for us.
And then, beyond that I wannasay that we've always had a
similar vision, which is alittle bit tricky because I'm
usually very future-focused andhave a lot of vision about my
plans, what I wanna create, whatI wanna do, and my life is
always planned out years inadvance.
And Ben is not like that, whichis not uncommon.
This is sort of like an Imagomatch Partners who often
(11:48):
approach the world verydifferently find each other, and
so this is kind of an exampleof that.
But we've been on the same pageabout some major life decisions
.
We've also been on differentpages or on different timelines
sometimes as well, but I thinkthat we have enough similar
values.
That has really been anotherconnecting part of our
relationship.
And so, again, it's reallyimportant to think of the
(12:08):
strengths of a relationship,because when I was able to come
back to some of those pieces andsay, hey, look like this is
what exists in our relationship,I don't think it's a helpful
thought to say, oh well, I haveall these things in this
relationship and I might notfind that anywhere else, so I
should stay in this relationship.
I hope that that's not theframework that this elicits for
(12:28):
you.
I wouldn't say at this pointlike, oh well, I don't know if
I'll be able to find anybody wholikes the same music I like.
If I left this relationship,that wouldn't necessarily be a
deciding factor, but to be ableto look back and say, hey, this
is what's important to me aboutthis relationship, this is what
attracted me to the relationshipin the first place, this is
what felt meaningful andsignificant to me.
(12:49):
And from that place, given allthe other context of all these
other questions that I have inthis framework, does it make
sense to continue to do the workin this relationship?
Which brings me to the next twoquestions, which I will talk
about together.
Question four is are youwilling to do the work of
relationship?
And question five is is yourpartner willing to do the work
of relationship?
(13:10):
And this really, for both ofyou, also would include doing
your own individual work,because, of course, individual
work can really supportrelationship work or couples
work, just as couples work cangive you a lot of information to
bring back to your ownindividual therapist.
And the reason that these arereally important questions is
because every relationship takeswork.
There is no such thing as beingin any kind of relationship
(13:31):
where a conflict will neveroccur.
And if you're in a relationshipwhere it doesn't seem that
conflict is occurring.
The conflict may be that bothpeople are avoiding conflict,
which sometimes happens, becausewhen there's two people, they
are different and inevitablythey're going to have some sort
of difference of approach,opinion, perspective, feeling,
interpretation.
(13:52):
And it's not that all conflicthas to be this enormous, huge
blowout, but just there's goingto be some tension somewhere
right, some hurt feelingsomewhere, something like that.
And so you have to really thinkabout if this is the
relationship that you want to dothe work for.
In Imago, which is the type ofrelationship therapy that I do,
we talk about love being anaction more than a feeling, and
(14:14):
I think that's so true becausesaying I'm with them because I
love them, or I'm staying withthis person because I love them,
I understand that feeling.
And yet there's also songs andmovies and whatever about like.
Sometimes love just isn'tenough, right?
We know that as a society, thatlove is not always all that you
need.
So the feeling of love is oftennot enough.
(14:35):
But the action of love, whatdoes that look like?
And that's what these questionsare about.
Are you able to look atyourself and move from a place
of perhaps blaming your partneror waiting for your partner to
take action so that you can takeaction to take care of the
relationship, because if nobodytakes care of the relationship,
then the relationship is leftsort of out in the cold and
(14:56):
uncared for.
There is a lot of information,which I think is accurate, out
there about how one person'schange can change the dynamics
of a relationship, and I dothink that's true.
I will talk about this atlength in another episode.
But I also want to be verycareful to say that a healthy
relationship that feels reallysatisfying and connected and
safe for two people really doesrequire the work of two people.
(15:19):
Certainly, one person can getthe ball rolling and make a step
, and that's what this questionis about.
Like, are you willing to take astep for this relationship?
And you also want to know thatyour partner is willing to take
a step too.
And again, when depression ispresent, depression is something
that really makes thingsdifficult.
And just to talk about my ownexperience with these questions,
I have always felt very, verywilling to do the work of
(15:40):
relationship with my husband.
However, before we gotseparated, I saw the work of my
relationship as helping him dohis work, and I didn't realize
it at the time, but that washurting our relationship in such
significant ways.
And after we got separated andwe dove into Imago relationship
work, we found an Imagotherapist and we went to the
(16:02):
Getting the Love you Wantworkshop that is, an Imago
couples workshop.
I started to understand my roleand how I was contributing to
the nightmare.
This is going back 10 years, Idon't think that when we
actually got separated, ben wasin therapy.
He had been in therapypreviously and he certainly has
been in therapy since, but atthe time he was pretty severely
depressed and it was so easy tosay're not doing enough.
(16:26):
This is about you not doingyour work.
You're hurting our relationship.
If you just took care ofyourself, then everything would
be better.
I had such blinders on to myrole and what was happening.
After we found Imago and Ireally started to understand
what I was doing to contributeto the nightmare, which is what
we call it in Imago.
I also started to see what Icould do to contribute to the
(16:48):
dream, how I could take care ofthe relationship and take care
of myself.
A lot of it was byself-regulation.
I often say that Imago andmeditation were my secret keys
to relationship success andthat's because Imago gave me the
communication tools along withthe knowledge and the relational
skills that I needed.
That I didn't have.
(17:08):
Because, again, who of us grewup with relationship and
communication skills?
I think it's very common for usto have not gotten that growing
up for so many reasonsincluding, of course, that our
parents and our grandparents andour great grandparents and
beyond didn't have somebodyteaching them those skills, so
it didn't trickle down for us tolearn.
But also the way our brainswork can really get in the way,
because when we're in survivalmode we're not going to be
(17:29):
effective communicators andwe're not going to be good
connectors and be very helpfulin relationship.
So I really learned that Ineeded to work on my own self
regulation and that me being infix it mode was really a
survival response.
It was actually a mobilizedfight or flight response.
It was a fight response, like Ifeel threatened.
So I have to try to fix thisrelationship and when I started
(17:51):
to pull back, that was part ofwhat my work of the relationship
looked like that less is more,that me being so active was
actually hurting therelationship and certainly me
blaming my husband was nothelping the relationship because
I wasn't presenting.
I believe in you, you got this.
I know that it's hard, but Ilove you and we're gonna figure
(18:12):
out a way through this.
That was not.
I mean, I think sometimes Iheld that message, but it was
not the primary message that Iwas sending to my husband,
consciously or unconsciously,but when I was trying to do it
for him, I was sending a messageof you can't do this, I have to
do it for you.
You're not capable.
That was not in any way myconscious thought, but that was
definitely some of the messagingthat was unintentionally going
along with the actions that Iwas taking the idea of being
(18:35):
willing to do the work of therelationship.
Sometimes it means stepping backand trusting your partner,
which is definitely what itmeant for me.
For me, that was a huge part ofthe work that I had to realize
that I needed to do, and foryour partner, it's really
important.
Like I said, yes, one personcan change the dynamics in a
relationship, but two peoplecreate the relationship and it
(18:55):
really needs to be tended to indifferent ways perhaps, but I
really strongly believe that arelationship does need to be
taken care of by two people.
It is true that one person cantake a step when the other
person can't.
I call it stand as you are able.
If you are at a place where youcan take care of your
relationship and it doesn't makeyou feel resentful, then I
(19:16):
highly recommend taking thatstep towards caring for the
relationship.
If you feel resentful or angryabout it, then that's a
different thing and then doingsomething to take care of the
relationship probably willbackfire in the long run,
because building resentment isnot helpful.
If you're able to take a stepbut you don't want to because
you're not seeing your partnertake a step, that might be
something different and then inthat case it could be helpful to
(19:38):
think about what's hard abouttaking a step, or what comes up
when it seems like you're doingall the work, which, of course,
I definitely know that feeling,because I have absolutely felt
like I'm doing all the work inthe relationship and that's why
it was so easy to blame Ben andsay, hey, I'm doing all this
work, what are you doing?
And I realized that there was areally big shift in how I
needed to approach that and tobe able to see Ben's efforts and
what he was actually doing totake care of himself to take
(20:04):
care of our relationship, and itdidn't always look like what I
thought it quote unquote shouldlook like, but understanding
that he was on his own process,his own journey, and it was in
fact going to look differentthan what I might think it
should look like, was such animportant thing for me, and me
learning how to express my hurtsor frustrations in a helpful
way, being able to set limitsthat helped create an
environment where I could lovemyself and love Ben were
(20:26):
incredibly important for me, andthey're things that I needed to
learn how to do.
That created theseopportunities for growth and
healing in our relationship.
To close on that, in Imago wesay conflict is growth trying to
happen, and so the fact thatconflict exists in a
relationship is not problematic.
It's what you do with theconflict.
We don't know how to heal andgrow through conflict.
(20:49):
We either avoid conflictbecause in our childhood
experience we learned thatconflict should be avoided.
It was scary.
Feelings are scary.
Or we jump on conflict or, youlike, let's handle that, let's
take care of that, let's addressthat right now.
There could be something goodabout wanting to address things,
but sometimes the energy comesfrom more of a fight response
actually and then it cannot beso helpful.
So we a lot of the time we justbring unhelpful skills into
(21:11):
conflict.
Like I said, we're either kindof like aggressively going after
it or maybe avoidant, and thenwe're very hands-off and neither
of those approaches allow us toreally grow through the
conflict.
Sometimes what is needed forsomeone to actually make a
conscious decision about stayingin a relationship is actually
having the opportunity to buildthe skills to communicate and
(21:31):
grow through conflict, which isabsolutely the case for me,
because had I not found Imagoand had I not started meditating
, I can't imagine that Ben and Iwould have been able to stay
together, because ourrelationship was just too
painful too much of the time andwe didn't know really what
relational work was.
Mind you, I was a therapist formany years but I was a kid
therapist and I worked withtrauma and attachment and kids
(21:54):
who had been abused or witnesseddomestic violence, and I was a
play therapist and I did sandtherapy and my relationship
skills and my communicationskills that I used and needed at
work with my clients werereally different than the skills
that I needed at home with Ben.
So getting clear on whatrelationship work even means and
then being able to find out ifyou and your partner are willing
(22:16):
to do it.
That's maybe the second step.
So we're down to the last twoof the seven questions and I
don't want to rush through them.
So I think we're going to wrapup for today and I will pick up
next time, as our time comes toa close.
I ask you to keep listening forjust a few more moments, because
I want to thank you for showingup today and I want to leave
(22:38):
you with an invitation as youhit stop and move back out into
the world on your own uniquewellness journey In order to
move from where you are today tothe place where you want to be.
The path may seem long orunclear or unknown, and I want
you to know that if that seemsscary or daunting or downright
terrifying or anything else,that is totally okay.
(23:01):
Know that you do not have tocreate the whole way all at once
.
We don't travel a whole journeyin one stride, and that is why
my invitation to you today is totake a step, just one, any type
, any size, in any direction.
It can be an external step thatcan be observed or measured, or
it could be a step youvisualize taking in your mind.
(23:24):
It can be a step towards action, or towards rest, or connection
, or self-care, or whatever stepmakes sense to you.
I invite you to take a steptoday, because getting to a
place that feels better, morejoyful, more connected than the
place where you are today ispossible for everyone, including
(23:44):
you, and even when depressionis in your bed.
If today's episode resonatedwith you, please subscribe so
you can be notified when eachweekly episode gets released.
I encourage you to leave areview and reach out to me on
social media at trishsanderslcsw.
Your feedback will help guidefuture episodes and I love
(24:05):
hearing from you.
Also, please share this podcastwith anyone who you think may
be interested or who may getsomething from what I have
shared.
Until the next time we connect,take care of yourself and take
a step.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com