Ep. 749 - Resetting Marriage: Beyond the Fairy Tale | Chris Parsons

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Episode Transcript

(00:13):
Thank you for joining us, andwelcome to another edition of Answers Network.
I'm your host, Alan Cardoza.For those of you that have been listening
sending in questions and comments, thankyou so much and please continue to help
spread the word that every Monday fromeleven am to noon Pacific time, this
show will bring on special guests thatcan inspire, educate, in some cases

(00:35):
entertained, while bringing answers and optionsto making our lives happier, healthier,
and more successful. Now, ifyou can't listen live, don't worry.
All of our shows, including theone that we're going to be doing today,
can all be found at answers dotNetwork. And what I really appreciate
is if you could all do mea huge favor forward one of our shows

(00:59):
to your social media group and tosomeone you know who can benefit from a
particular subject. This is one powerfulway that we can make a positive influence
in the world together. And Itell you just going based on the statistics
alone in regards to relationships, unfortunately, this is what this is one of

(01:19):
the shows that I think everybody knowssomebody that could benefit from it. Now,
our question today is and it camein from one of our listeners.
After fifteen years of marriage and twochildren in middle school, how do I
get my husband to pay attention tome? Well? The short answer is
also the title of our guest newbook. It starts with you, and

(01:42):
I love that part about it now. The subcategory is the secret to a
passionate marriage and a peaceful home Now. After struggling in his own marriage,
despite feeling like he was doing everythingright by following the mainstream advice, our
guest Chris Parsons, discovered a secrethiding in plain sight that allowed him to

(02:04):
totally transform his marriage. He laterstarted coaching married individuals whose spouse had quote
checked out and wasn't interested in workingon things now. Through that process,
he discovered that just advice only workedfor a little while, and what people
needed was radical belief, shifting newperspectives to be able to create joy,

(02:27):
harmony, and passion in their marriage. Now. Chris has been married to
his wife, Carrie since twenty ten, and they have four children that they're
homeschooling together. Stay with us aswe learn how Chris did it and how
you can to. Chris, Welcometo Answers Network. Thank you so much
for having me well, it's mypleasure, and I think the best place

(02:53):
to start is share with us.You know where you found yourself in the
state of your marriage when you realizedyou had to do something different. Yeah,
I found myself in the cheapest hotelthat I could get because my wife

(03:13):
told me that things were toxic andshe couldn't be with me anymore. And
I was distraught, angry, shocked, and heartbroken. Really, well,
what did you do? In otherwords, I and in going through the

(03:37):
book, you tried everything, andyou tried a lot of things of what
mainstream media wants us to do.At what point did you go, this
just isn't working. I need totry something else. It was that point
because I really thought that I wasa great husband, and I thought I

(03:57):
was doing everything I was supposed todo. And so when that happened and
she kicked me out, I realizedeverything I thought I knew about how to
be a good husband and how tocreate a happy, healthy marriage had to
be wrong. You know, doesn'tmatter what studies it had, doesn't matter.

(04:17):
You know how many books I hadread that told me what to do.
The evidence was showing me my marriagewas showing me that what I thought
made me a good husband was wrong. Well, take us through some of
the things that didn't work, andthen tell us how it started to shift.

(04:43):
The biggest thing that doesn't work.It didn't work in my marriage,
It's never worked in any marriage thatI've ever seen, is blame. And
that's what most people are doing.They're playing the blame game, and that's
what most people go to marriage counselingfor because marriage counselors just into the blame
game by choosing sides and saying oneof you is wrong and one of you

(05:03):
is right. One of you isthe good person, one of you is
the bad person. And in everycase that I've seen coaching people, blame
is always a two way stream.There's ever been a case where one person
is totally at fault. Now thatdoesn't mean that one person isn't doing something

(05:25):
wrong, but blame gets you nowhere. Pointing the finger, you know you
if you point the finger at theeconomy, you point the finger at the
president, you point the finger,point the finger at your spouse, and
you're not working to make things betterwhen you're pointing the finger. And it
doesn't work when you're pointing the fingerat yourself either you know that was a

(05:45):
big thing for me was I hada low sense of self worth from self
loathing and build and shame of beatingmyself up, and I had to I
had to just choose to walk awayfrom that. You know. One of
the thoughts, and this sounds likewhat you're talking about. And I went

(06:06):
through a divorce, as many peoplehave, and one of the best things
when I went to counseling was asI kept talking about everything that I thought
was wrong, the answer that cameback was she's not here. I can't

(06:26):
help her. I can't change her. I can only change how you look
at things. Is that A lotof what you're talking about is you had
to look at yourself and the waythat you looked at things. Yeah,
I had to look in the mirror, and it's the one place a lot
of times we don't want to look. But nothing in my life has ever

(06:47):
gotten better until I accepted responsibility tocreate the change that I wanted to see.
And you cannot control your spouse.You cannot force them to change,
but you can positively influence them tochange. But that comes from changing yourself
in order to change them. Well, let's it's kind of go back to

(07:11):
maybe where where we get the idealsthat we get And I know you talk
about it in the book, andI thought it was a great point.
Is that I think that when we'revery young, we start looking at the
fairy tale, we start, youknow, the you know, I have
still have some of my favorite lovesongs, you know, and and I

(07:31):
hear them and I still have areaction. So let's talk to you.
In your book, you talk aboutthe reality of marriage versus the fairy tale.
Share what you mean by that,Well, it's kind of you know,
the Disney fairy tale is that thethere's the wedding and then that's the
end of the story. And inthe real world that's just the beginning of

(07:57):
the story. And real life iscomplicated. It's hard, and there's challenges,
and there's difficult seasons. You know, there's having a baby is a
difficult season, losing a job,losing a parent, you know, all
these things that affect us. Andwhen we're sharing our life and doing life
together with someone, it affects themand it affects our marriage. You know,

(08:22):
you just mentioned losing a job,and I'm going to go to it.
There's a question that came in andagain I thank those that take the
time to sending questions ahead of time. Oftentimes those are people who they receive
our press release that goes out,but they work in the middle of the
day, so they send in somequestions ahead of time. We have one
on the concept of losing the job. But one of the things that when

(08:43):
I saw that question, I dida little research this morning, and I've
always thought, in fact, whenI was a psych student, I thought
that the number one reason was infidelityas far as the number one reason why,
And it turns out that it waslosing a job, money, money

(09:09):
in general. So there's moving,losing a job, anything that that substantially
impacts finances has an impact on marriage. Yeah, let me let me go
to that question. While we're onthat subject, this one reads I lost
my job during COVID and my wifeleft me, taking our four year old

(09:33):
son, and moved in with herparents, who live over two hours away.
I have a new job now,and she seems reluctant to move back
in with me. Her latest excuseis that our son has made friends at
the preschool he's at. I feellike I'm the only one trying. Her
father tells me to keep trying thatshe'll come around. What do you suggest

(09:56):
I do? And this is fromMarcus in Houston, Texas. So the
first thing is that if what you'redoing isn't working, do something different.
You know, that was I thinkreally going back to the ideals that we
have about marriage. I think theone of the biggest problems is we have

(10:18):
these ideas of what we're supposed todo, that we're more committed to than
we are what the evidence is showingus. And so the evidence is showing
him that what he's trying to doisn't working, you know, speculating obviously,
but typically what I see in asituation like that is his wife doesn't

(10:39):
believe that the change is real,that it was only a surface level change,
and that that's not enough, youknow, for for her to want
to come back to him. Shedoesn't want to come back to the marriage
that they had. This is somethingthat I work with clients on is you
can't settle for the marriage that youhad. When your spouse wants a divorce,

(11:03):
they don't want to work on things. You have to show them that
you are committed to something better,something that would make them happy. Because
trying to get them to commit towhat they had means trying to get them
to commit to their own unhappiness.First of all, I think you're right
on target. And when I firstread the question, a couple of things

(11:28):
popped into my head. One was, I don't think losing the job was
the only problem right now and thenand again, And like you said,
is that just saying come back,everything will be okay. And like you
said, we don't know all theother details in there, but I love
the fact that just kind of gettingto the point of whatever it was that
you had, if it was great, maybe losing the job wouldn't have been

(11:54):
the thing that pushed it over theedge. Definitely. Yeah, So for
those people that are out there,they're still together, but they feel like
something's changed. Uh, something justdoesn't seem right. Maybe the communication isn't
what it used to be. Whatdo you believe or some of the biggest
warning signs that the marriage is introuble disconnection is a huge one. So

(12:20):
you know, if your spouse isnot wanting to spend time with you,
not asking you about your day,not putting effort into paying attention to you
and the marriage, then they're disconnectedand some you know, you have to
look at your own situation. Sometimesthat's an obvious temporary thing. My spouse's

(12:43):
you know, mom just died.Okay, they're going to be distant.
You know, you have to havesome grace and compassion to that. But
you know, for most people,this is something that has they've they've seen
it build up for years and years, and it's it's not just a short
season. There's you know, Ithink unfortunately, you do have to read

(13:09):
between the lines because, like yousaid, communication is such an issue for
so many couples, and you know, some other warning signs. I believe
people, you know, some peopledon't like hearing this, but I believe
affairs, including emotional affairs, area warning sign. I believe that they're
a symptom of a deeper problem thatdoesn't make them okay. I'm not saying

(13:33):
that to shift blame, but butthey are a symptom that things are not
okay in your marriage. So asyou when you describe that as a symptom,
then the first thought that comes tomind is is that you're not seeing
it as a something that's insurmountable.So talk a little bit about how somebody

(14:00):
overcomes that. Yes, so Ibelieve in non judgment. I don't judge
my client's' lives. I don't judgetheir decisions, and I do help them
establish their own healthy boundaries, butI don't determine what those boundaries should be
for them. And you know,for most people in a fair cross is

(14:22):
a boundary. However, when yourecognize the role that you played in that
and how, you know, Okay, I drove them to that by not
paying attention to them, not prioritizingthem for years and years, and they
told me they were unhappy, andI just ignored it and didn't think it
was that big of a deal.Then you start to understand, okay,
because I can't remember where I heardthis, but there was a quote that

(14:46):
said, forgiveness is understanding, andyou forgive your spouse when you understand them
and why they do the things thatthey do, and likewise, they forgive
you when they understand you and whyyou've done the things that you've done.
And so that's really a choice,you know, you have to make that
personal decision whether that's something you areinterested in moving past or not. For

(15:11):
me personally, you know, Ithink a lot of it has to do
with the context of how it happened, why it happened. Uh, And
that's that's what I find with mostof my clients. They're not okay with
it, but you know, whenthey understand, they see a bigger picture,
they understand how they played into it, they choose to work on themselves

(15:33):
and how they're showing up to fixthe underlying problem and then establish the boundary
that this is not acceptable going forward. I love the fact that what you're
talking what I'm getting from this isis that you're talking about personal responsibility,
that whatever it is that has occurred, first of all, look inward and
see what your what your level ofresponsibility is. You know, if if

(15:58):
they're things that you know, ifyou have ignored this person, you know
for a huge amount of time,you have to look inside and say,
did you contribute to this? Youknow, you know it was their communication
about it, was there warning signsthat they were you know, look,
we need to talk about this,and then they don't. So Yeah,

(16:21):
I love the fact that you know, you're really speaking about the power of
personal responsibility. Now you talk inthe book about some key secrets that this
holds. Tell us a little bitmore about some of those things, because
in the book, I get thefeeling that that was part of your success
is realizing some of these key secrets. Yeah, the biggest thing is what

(16:45):
I call sincerity, which is actinghow you feel and expressing your feelings to
your spouse. And I talk topeople every day they say, I'm completely
shocked my spouse wants a divorce.I don't understand where this came from,
and and that that happens when you'renot openly talking about your feelings. And

(17:10):
so when you take personal responsibility,you take responsibility for your hurt. So
I take responsibility for my hurts.If my feelings are hurt about something,
then I do something about it.And and the the biggest thing is just
telling my wife why I'm hurt.It's really important that I do this,

(17:33):
and that everybody does this in away that is without judgment or putting responsibility
or blame on my wife or onyour spouse. And so I acknowledge my
feelings without making her feel attacked.Because if you try to say how you
feel by by blaming them, they'regoing to feel attacked. They'll get defensive,

(17:56):
it'll lead to a big argument thatgoes nowhere. And I'm a generation
or two earlier than you. Howmuch of this do you see with some
of your clients that it's kind ofthe way in which they were raised.
And I look at things from thestandpoint of I come from a generation where

(18:18):
the men were told, your numberone job is provide. It didn't say
your number one job is to communicate. Your number one job is to is
to ask questions and see what's botheringher. You know that as long as
you are doing job number one,you're a good provider. You're doing your

(18:41):
job. Now. I know thatthat's changed. But what have you seen
in that area? And what haveyou dealt with with some of your clients
on how to get them past that? Yeah, my oldest client was seventy
eight, I think, And soyou know, I've I've dealt with all

(19:03):
different age ranges. And when Ithink about that, whether that's a generational
thing, it is, it isgetting worse in my opinion, you know.
And one reason why is cell phonesand you know, computers and everything
constantly distracting us and taking our attentionaway from our marriage and our spouse.

(19:23):
But you know, when I thinkabout my grandpa and the marriage she had
to my grandma. He wasn't exactlya great communicator, but he was never
hiding how he felt. You alwaysknew exactly how he felt about something,
and if he wasn't happy, youknew it. And I think that we've
as a society, we've made thisshift where we think, no, a

(19:47):
good person would act loving even thoughthey feel hurt. No a good person
would you know, do X,Y Z and ignore how they feel.
And all that does is Number one, it breaks sincerity on your part,
So now you're not being sincere,so your spouse isn't going to be sincere.
Number two, it just leads tocompounding hurts because everything just gets brushed

(20:10):
under the rug, move past andnever resolved. Let's talk about the the
era of computers, phones and again. And as an investigator, I see
a lot of differences in the wayin which people when we're hired to find
things. How do you see thisas having affected? And you know,

(20:36):
I guess we'll call it the thewhat's the one I don't know? Tender?
Yea? You know, so thewe have this tender society now to
where if something isn't quite right,you just swipe, just swipe and I

(20:57):
feel like going back a generation ortwo, you were more interested in working
on things. You're more interested ina face to face type of thing.
You know. It's you know,I feel that we've gotten to a point
now to where the relationship is it'seasy to dispose of. How do you

(21:21):
see that as having changed? Andwhat are some people if they feel like
they're stuck in something like that,how can they get out of it?
Yeah? I agree. I thinksociety has changed to make relationships more disposable,
less depth, emotional depth and bonding. And really it's about the escape

(21:45):
and the dopamine that we get from, uh, you know, these devices
and everything, and instead of usingthem to benefit our lives by watching programs
like this, you know, we'rewe're watching funny cat videos or whatever,
and so you know, to me, the biggest thing is that it steals

(22:07):
our attention. And attention is themost valuable thing that we have. If
you have a business, it needsattention. If you have a marriage,
it needs attention. And when youare busy on your phone or on your
computer all the time and you're notgiving attention to the things that really matter
to you, then they're going tosuffer and if your spouse is the one

(22:27):
doing that, then you have tobe able to communicate how that makes you
feel in a way that gets themto care about it, not just pretend
to be okay, right, whichtakes us back to what you brought up
as issue number one, don't blame. So what I hear you saying is,
don't go okay. Your being onthat phone is the problem. Yes,

(22:53):
what you're saying is I have aproblem. I'm having some uncomfortable feelings
about that, And so you're makingit on you, right, And then
also just looking at yourself to sayam I worthy of their attention? You
know, if you're just watching Netflix, then why should they prioritize you?

(23:15):
You know, if you're in aterrible mood and all you do is complain
and you're miserable to be around,why should they want to spend time with
you? And so personal responsibility goesthe full way. I love the fact
that you brought that up, andit actually reminds me of something that I
went through when you say are youworthy? After my divorce, I was

(23:40):
talking with a gentleman that I knewthrough a you know, it's a Christian
men's group, and he started tobecome somewhat of a mentor. And he
talked to me about what he didwhen he went through his divorce, and
he talked about how he found theright one, and he made a list,

(24:00):
and he shared his list with me. He said, you need to
know what it is that you're lookingfor, and you need to know what
it is that you aren't looking for. And he read this incredibly detailed list,
made a copy of it, gaveit to me, and I read
it. His was like two pages, and so I went through and I
wrote one and I took five importantcategories and I wrote one and I looked

(24:25):
at it and I thought about it, and then I wrote another one.
And that one I wrote was whatare the things that I need to be
to be worthy of the person thatI have just written out? And so
when you just brought that up,it reminded me of it, and I
think that's so important when somebody isdoing something else and you go, I

(24:45):
don't understand why golf is more importantthan me, you know, and it's
like, well, let's look inwardfirst. So anyway, I love that
you brought that up. And Iused the word worthy. I actually prefer
to use the word deserving, becauseI believe that we are all inherently worthy

(25:07):
of love, but what we deserveis based on how we show up.
And when you're not showing up assomebody that is very deserving of love,
you're not going to get very much. All right, Well, so for
everybody out there, we're going totake a break, but I want you
to stay with us. So againwe're talking about Chris's new book. It

(25:27):
starts with you The Secret to aPassionate Marriage and a Peaceful Home. And
when we come back, I'm goingto ask Chris a little bit about some
of the problems with mainstream marriage advice. So stay with us you're watching or
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(27:00):
back. Our guest is Chris Parsons, and we're talking about his book It
starts with You, The Secret toa Passionate Marriage and a Peaceful Home.
So, Chris, when we wentto break, I know you talk a
little bit about the some of theadvice that you got in regards to mainstream
advice. Let's talk a little bitabout some of the advice that was out

(27:23):
there that that didn't serve you untilyou started looking inward real quick. Alan,
I did update the title of thebook from It with You, so
that was the original title. Itstarts with you. I didn't like that
for two reasons. Number one,there was another book that had that same
title, and number two, youcouldn't tell it was about marriage. So

(27:47):
actually I've republished the book under thetitle the Happy Healthy Marriage Reset, Using
Sincerity to Erase relationship baggage and Restorethe love. All right, So sorry,
we should have gotten that ironed outbefore the interview. That was my
mistake, but well it might havebeen on my on my end as well,

(28:11):
so I apologize for that. Butwhile we're talking about that, and
so that we can get people thinkingalong those lines, and actually I I
must have gotten some information on itbecause it even says here's the new website.
So again, the new website isHappy Healthy Marriage Reset dot com.

(28:33):
So so for anybody out there,that's also the title of the book.
But if you want to go tothe website and get more information, obviously
you can go do that as well. For those of you that are driving,
don't try to write that down.I'll make sure that we have all
of the accurate information on the Answersdot Network website. So thank you for

(28:56):
that. So let's let's talk aboutyou know, some of the some of
the issues. And and again we'renot we're not throwing all of mainstream under
the bus, but I think thatwe you know, many people have learned
that there's certain things that don't workfor them. And what would you tell
somebody that's that's been searching and they'regoing through some of these things. You

(29:22):
know, I don't think that there'sthere the advice is bad per se.
The problem is all the things thatit ignores. And so you know,
for example, the five love languagesare great, it's wonderful, but the
problem is it becomes a to dolist and you think, well, I
checked off my box, right,I your love language is this, and

(29:47):
I did that, so now youhave to check my box and it keeps
you in a place of blame whereyou know, you could argue, oh,
I'm taking responsibility by meeting there need, but it's it's it turns marriage
into a transaction, and there's nolove in transactions. And so and maybe

(30:11):
too as you're saying that, thethought that came through my mind, we
go back to the key being communication. A book like that could certainly be
a nice tool to communicate, butnot maybe a tool to try to fix
a problem. That sound about right. You know, I don't want to

(30:33):
talk bad about the book. No, no, no, not that I'm
just saying like that. Just whatI'm saying is is that you know,
if and maybe this is just methinking it, but you know that I
think that there are books out therethat are a good tool, but maybe
not necessarily geared towards fixing a problemas much as just a way to communicate
if it gets you talking about things, gets you talking about and using that

(30:57):
one in particular. But he's like, oh, I didn't didn't realize that
you were that you were words ofaffirmation. I didn't realize that. So
maybe somebody thinks, you know,maybe I need to focus a little more
on words of affirmation. Yeah,I mean occasion to what it makes sense,

(31:18):
but not necessarily it's going to fixanything. Yeah, it's helpful,
but again, the problem is theway that people approach it and what they
think it's for. And you know, communicating your needs is rarely very effective.
Just telling your spouse what you need, uh, you know, I
need words of affirmation whatever, usuallyis not near as helpful as you think

(31:45):
that it would be. Okay,well you bring up a great point.
Then then what does a person doif they if they're not getting their needs
met, express how you feel,right, so say instead of I need
you to do this, because whenyou when you tell some your spouse what
you want them to do or whatyou need them to do, then they're

(32:07):
going to feel controlled. And mostpeople generally speaking, don't respond well to
that. They rebel against feeling controlled, and so just expressing, hey,
I'm feeling like I'm not important toyou because you don't give me words of
affirmation and giving your spouse an opportunityto make you happy, and when you

(32:31):
frame it in the right way toget them to care instead of to give
them something to do or to youknow, make them feel attacked. The
vast majority of the time they care. They want to make you happy.
But the way that most people areapproaching it, it's it's just building resentment

(32:53):
because the what happens is, Okay, I tell my wife you know I
need and then she does it,and I'm not happy because I'm like,
you just did it because I toldyou I wanted you to do it right,
and you know, and that goesboth ways. It's not just me,
and because what we actually want isour spouse's desire, and the way

(33:16):
that we create that desire in themis by expressing our feelings rather than telling
them what we want them to do. Okay, so kind of giving a
bit of an example then, wouldbe instead of saying you know, I
need you to do this that duringthe time in which that does happen,

(33:39):
praising them for how much you appreciatethat it's being done. Yes, a
simple example, instead of do thedishes. I love coming home to a
clean kitchen. Right, So you'resaying an outcome that you want, that
you appreciate, and then you haveto you have to act like you actually

(34:01):
appreciate it, right, because ifyou come home and the kitchen has been
cleaned and you're like, okay,whatever, then they're not going to be
very inclined to keep doing that.All right, Yeah, you're not showing
appreciation, right, But if yousay I love coming home to a clean
kitchen, you're not putting an obligationon them. You're not telling them what

(34:22):
to do, you're not making themfeel controlled. You're giving them an opportunity
to make you happy. Yes,okay, we've got that concept. Yeah,
I love it. We've got acouple more questions that have come in.
I want to make sure and getthese in before we you know,
while we have time. We mentionedearlier about cheating. Cheating was one of

(34:47):
the subjects. We have a questionthat has come in on that, and
this one says cheating is a hugeissue for me and unfortunately the reason I
left my husband finding out was quitethe revelation, especially the fact that the
last woman he was involved with actuallybelieved he was single. I need to
move on and I feel I deservebetter, but he is stalling the divorce

(35:13):
and begging that I not go throughwith the divorce. How does one even
go about trying to save a marriagewith a person like this? And this
is Melissa in Arizona. Yeah,I think you really have to look at
the circumstances of what led to thecheating and decide if it's something that you're

(35:35):
willing to work on or not.And if it's something that he's willing to
change. Right, if he's gota sex addiction, if he's got you
know, some kind of you know, he's not processing his feelings, or
he's filled with pride and ego.You know, there's a reason for why

(35:55):
he's doing what he's doing. Mostlikely the majority of the time cheaters actually
want monogamy. They want to bein a committed relationship, but there's something
going on that's causing them to lookoutside their marriage. Sometimes, you know,
people just don't really want a monogamousrelationship with one person. And so

(36:23):
I'm guessing, because he's begging youto not get divorced, that he wants
monogamy. And so really it's aquestion of you establishing a boundary of saying
what kind of you know, tryto figure out what is going on with
him, and then that he needsto get help for that for you to

(36:43):
consider it. Yeah, and Iwas kind of thinking along the same lines
as you was saying, well,you know, if he's begging, I'm
guessing that part of that is isthat this will never happen again. But
at the same time, you know, not knowing, you know, was
this, was this the first time? Was this the fifteenth time? You

(37:04):
know? And and so on.There's so much more that that can be
going on. But yeah, Imean, indicate, communicate and communicate well,
the the promise that it won't happenagain does not mean very much,
and that's that's probably what she's strugglingwith. He probably has promised that,
but that that promise means very littlebecause he also promised never to do it,

(37:29):
and he broke that promise. Andso that's why it really goes back
to understanding why he did what hedid, because just promising to change is
not enough. You have to dealwith what is the underlying issue? Is
it low self worth? Is thatyou know that's he's seeking validation from other
women. You know that that's theissue that has to be addressed for you

(37:52):
to believe that he can actually keepthat promise. You When before we came
on the air, I met mentionedabout a term that most everybody has heard
at some point in time, andthat's the term happy wife, happy life.
When I brought it up, youhad an interesting twist on it.

(38:13):
Share your thoughts on that. Iwas a big proponent of that term.
When my wife kicked me out andtold me she didn't want to be with
me, and so, you know, it really made me take a step
back and question my commitment to thatbelief. And ultimately what I saw is
that all the things that I thoughtI was doing to make my wife happy,

(38:37):
I was actually just appeasing her.I was doing what was easiest to
make her happy and disregard my feelingsand my needs, And I was building
up resentment in myself, and youknow, hurt people hurt people. So
I'm building up resentment because I'm doingall these things for her and she's thinking,
well, you wanted to do them. You could have said no,

(38:59):
And I'm thinking, but I didthem to make you happy, and you're
still not happy. But I wasn'tactually making her happy. I mean,
if you actually understood how to makeyour wife happy, there's nothing wrong with
the term happy wife, happy life. The problem is what we think will
make our wife happy, and thesame thing is true for wives trying to

(39:19):
make their husbands happy. Now,would you say that the part of that
issue is the lack of communication,In other words, your belief of what
you thought would make her happy withoutcommunicating to a point to find out what
really would. Partially, but mostpeople don't know what would actually make them
happy. Even though I would askwhat would make you happy? What most

(39:45):
of us think will make us happydoesn't actually make us happy. You know.
We get the promotion, we getthe thing that we think we want
that will make us happy, andthen we're just on to the next thing,
because that didn't do the trick andthe other thing that you just touched
on a little bit was or atleast my perception of what you were going
towards is you started to lose yourself. Is that an accurate statement? Yeah?

(40:07):
What what do you say to thosepeople that are out there? Or
if you have stories of clients thatyou've worked with where the issue became that
they just lost themselves very common.And you know, I had a client
that I worked with that Greg,and he, you know, used to

(40:32):
do all these you know, usedto rock climb and all these things.
Then he gets married, he startscutting back. He's not you know,
going out to the bar with hisfriends anymore. Then they have a kid,
and now he's not going rock climbing, and then he gets, you
know, a promotion at work,and now he's not doing anything for himself.

(40:53):
And I always tell my clients,you can't pour out of an empty
cup. Your spouse needs to feelloved, you know, That's that is
really I mean, that's that's whatmarriage is built on, is love,
and they they need to feel loved. And in order for you to feel
love in return, you have togive to get but you can't pour out

(41:14):
of an empty cup, and wehave to take responsibility for our own happiness
and not make that our spouse's responsibility. That's what I did, was,
uh, you know, I madeit my wife's responsibility to make me happy
rather than taking responsibility for my ownhappiness. I like that. As you

(41:35):
were saying that, I had anotherthought. But if you can share,
just look, I'm checking out thetime. Share a couple of success stories,
because I think there's people out therethat they're struggling. They may or
may not have started talking to anyoneelse about it, but you know,
share one of your favorite success storiesto where there's going to be somebody out

(42:00):
there that's going to be watching orlistening and they're going to go, yeah,
I think that's where I'm at.Yeah. I'll share two, if
that's okay, One from a husbandthat I worked with and one from a
wife. And so the first wasa husband I worked with, Mike.
He only had text interactions with hiswife. She had kicked him out.

(42:22):
He moved out across town to anapartment and she would only text about the
kids, you know, for scheduling. She didn't want to talk to him.
He decided to come into the programto get coaching, and he had
all of these hurts that he washolding on to. He was feeling really

(42:44):
bad about himself and had had aproblem processing his emotions, and so whenever
work would get stressful, he wouldget angry and distant and really unenjoyable for
his wife and kids to be around. And so that's the first stage of
our coaching is we we help youprocess your feelings, because your best marriage

(43:09):
needs your best self. And that'son the other side of letting go of
judging yourself of guilt, shame,pride, ego, and you know,
any feelings that you're having a toughtime processing. What most people are doing
is they're trying to control their feelings, and they're they're trying to stuff their

(43:30):
feelings deep down and act how theythink they're supposed to act. And that
always fails. Always. What actuallyworks is acknowledging the feeling, processing it,
and then expressing it in a usefulway. And so eight nine weeks
into the pro excuse me into theprogram, his wife was asking him to

(43:53):
move back in and things have beengoing really well with them ever since.
And that was, you know,based on that change that he made in
himself to show up the way thathe wanted to show up as a man
that his wife and kids respected andloved and wanted to be around and deeply

(44:15):
missed when he wasn't there anymore.And it sounds like he he became his
authentic self rather than the self hethought was what they wanted. Yeah,
you know what I say is yourbest self. Your best self is the
you that you would show up asif you didn't have all these feelings about

(44:37):
yourself in the way. You know, it's not about fundamentally changing who you
are to try to, you know, make your spouse happy, but being
the version of you who you reallyare when you're not beating yourself up and
feeling really bad about yourself, orfor that matter, you know, feeling

(44:58):
really good about yourself and thinking yourstuff don't stink. Well. We have
another question that has come in,and this one reads my daughter and her
husband were separated for a year andthey are now back together trying to work
things out for the children's sake.They are both good people, but as

(45:19):
I'm sure you know, rekindling loveisn't all that simple. I'm looking forward
to this show and would like toknow how your approach differs from the thousands
of marriage counselors and relationship books outthere. It's from Nancy and California.
Yeah, good question. I thinkultimately there's two things. Number One,

(45:40):
Fundamentally, I believe in personal responsibility, which is very different than the way
that most people are approaching marriage.And it's the reason that I'm able to
have success with only one spouse,where the other spouse wants a divorce,
is uninterested in working on things.Because when you take response ability for how

(46:00):
you show up and how you approachthings, you can get a different outcome.
And I found that that is justa completely different approach. Every other
marriage book I've ever read is allabout a formula. If I do X
and my spouse does why, thenwe'll have the happy, healthy marriage.
And the problem with that formula isthat most of the time you find yourself,

(46:24):
you know, checking your box andthen your spouse not checking theirs,
and you're just left stuck in thatin that formula, whereas personal responsibility,
you always know there's something you cando, and as far as rekindling the
passion, you know, the biggestthing is that the hurts have to be

(46:47):
resolved. Whatever those past issues were. They can't just be moved past.
You have to actually deal with them. They have to be addressed, and
they have to all the pain fromthem has to be taken away, not
buried, and then it's just aprocess of deepening the emotional connection and bond.

(47:10):
But what happens for most people,you know, the reason that the
saying I love you, but I'mnot in love with you is so popular
is because resentment overtakes the feeling oflove, and so washing away the resentment
solves the majority of the problem.I like that. Okay, so we've

(47:34):
just got just a couple of minutes, so just give a quick description and
again, folks, the book isThe Happy, Healthy Marriage Reset. Okay,
that's the name of the book.It's been republished, and so again,
just in the next minute or so, just give us a couple of
little nuggets from that and let usknow as far as and I can put

(47:59):
the website on ours if there's abest best place to get it, if
you can get it anywhere, ifyou get it at Barnes, at Noble,
Amazon or whatever, or go rightto the website. Yeah, the
best place to get it is atthe website www dot Happyhealthymarriage reset dot com.

(48:19):
The paperback version is available on Amazonif you prefer paperback. But you
know one thing I will say,I've already done three versions of the book.
I'm working on the fourth version,and so everybody that buys through the
website gets those updated copies free.I am a first time author. It's
been it's been a learning curve asfar as the process of how to write

(48:43):
a really good book. And soI feel like every time I can make
the book twenty five percent better,if I can make it at least twenty
five percent better, I'm going todo a new version. And so that's
what I've done a few times now, and I'm already working on the next
one. I like that, andI like the fact that you're offering you
know that as you come up withmore stuff, you're going to put it

(49:05):
out there for everybody who has alreadybought the book. Very nice. Yeah.
And the bonuses. We've got severalgreat bonuses that come with the book
when you buy it through the website. One of them is a decision making
worksheet to determine if your marriage isworth saving. Because I know a lot
of people just get stuck right therewhere they're not even sure if it's worth

(49:25):
trying, and you know, Iwill say it's always worth it to work
on yourself. And if you youknow, get the book from the website,
you can go through that worksheet todetermine whether it's worth it to work
on your marriage. That's great,Chris, thank you so much. And
when you have the next update,you know, let us know and we

(49:49):
can come back and see what newthings we can learn. Absolutely all right,
So for everybody out there again,that's Chris Parsons. Check out the
book and you can also, again, if you're driving or can't write all
of that down, go to answersdot Network. We will have everything on
our site, and please visit archivesof past interviews at answers dot Network,

(50:10):
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(50:30):
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