[00:00:00]
Todd: Here we go. My name’s Todd. This is Cathy. Welcome back to a belated episode of Zen Parenting Radio. Uh, this is podcast number 766. Why listen to Zen Parenting Radio because you’ll feel outstanding and always remember our motto, which is the the best predictor. of a child’s well being is a parent’s self understanding.
Todd: Why
Cathy: is it belated?
Todd: Well, because we usually record on Mondays and it’s Tuesday morning. But it comes out the same day, so will people even really know that? Well, people who listen first thing when they wake up, they’re like, where’s my ZPR? I want my MTV. Maybe. Was that an ad? I want my MTV. It was a slogan for MTV.
Todd: Oh, slogan. Um, so we have a few different things cooking. Um, a lot of little stuff and maybe [00:01:00] some big stuff. I, I think I might want to talk a little bit about. Yeah, give like a core so people know what they’re listening to. Well, I would like to talk a little bit about how to be, um, with somebody who’s triggered and reactive.
Todd: Oh, good. Cause I’m a little triggered and reactive. Okay. So maybe you can do it in real time.
Cathy: Yeah.
Todd: It’s such an important thing. It’s all about, you know, rupture and conflict and repair and presence and mindfulness. And I think it’s something that should be taught in schools, but instead we learn how to calculate the surface area of a triangle or no.
Todd: Sweetie, when I
Cathy: draw triangles, I
Todd: need that. Triangles don’t have surface area because they’re two dimensional. Good. Surface area of a cube. What
Cathy: about the diameter of a
Todd: circle? Um, that’s pi r squared. Good. Or it’s two pi r. I don’t know. The mathematicians will be able to help me. But first, a few, uh, random YouTube clips.
Cathy: Oh no.
Todd: Uh, let’s see. Backyard cicada
Clip: noise.
Clip: It literally sounds like running water. Yep. All [00:02:00] day. Isn’t that weird? All day. You can just see him flying around. All day. All
Todd: day. I’m with you, dude. I feel like they, they also have, uh, It’s
Cathy: just,
Todd: I,
Cathy: it’s, there’s like a background, so, okay, if the, if the cicadas are close to you, they have a sound, but when they’re all in unison far away, there’s a sound, just the way sound travels and moves, you’re getting more of a wah, wah, wah, you know, so it’s not, it has two
Todd: different types of sounds, the close up sound, and I don’t believe me, I don’t want to talk a lot about cicadas.
Cathy: Why? Why wouldn’t we want to talk about cicadas? They’re just
Todd: everywhere. We live in the Chicagoland area and it’s where the 13 year cicada and the 17 year cicada match up in the same year, which is this year. First time it’s happened like 210 years. And that’s the only thing people talk about.
Cathy: Well, let me say this.
Cathy: I feel a little like we are the
Todd: champions.
Cathy: We’re definitely, we’re the champions of having the most cicadas and I don’t want this title. Because my good friends who live in Chicago have no cicadas. My sister who lives in [00:03:00] Batavia has no cicadas. Um, there are other people who keep texting me and saying, ours haven’t come yet.
Cathy: I’m like, ours came two weeks ago. They’re everywhere. And people, my friend came to pick up her daughter yesterday and wouldn’t get out of the car because our lawn is so bad. It happens. They’re everywhere. I just, I’m
Clip: like, I don’t know, I don’t know.
Todd: Sweetie, how do you keep on fighting the cicadas on a daily basis? What do you, just really quickly, what do you do? I think I want to cry.
Cathy: Cause I, I sweep them every single, I asked Todd to wake up every day and blow them. Sorry for that language.
Todd: Take a leaf blower.
Cathy: Take a leaf blower and blow them. But what I say is, will you blow up the cicadas?
Cathy: And sometimes, we don’t have a blower, we borrow from our neighbor. Hi Nick, we borrow your blower, as you know. But we’re not gonna go get it until everybody’s up at their house and stuff. Well, [00:04:00] quick
Todd: request to Nick. Nick, can you open your garage earlier in the morning? Because sometimes the garage isn’t up, and we have to wait to leaf blow the cicadas.
Todd: And he listens to the show, so he will say something.
Cathy: Okay, so I say to Todd, can you just blow the cicadas before I go outside? Because I am always, I sweep them throughout the day, so it’s not like I’m, Oh, Todd, I’m scared of bugs, you go do it. I’m like, can we manage this together? Because, you guys, you may think that I’m, like, being, um, exaggerating.
Cathy: I am not. Everywhere. And when I walk outside, they fall on my head and I scream and they charge me and they got it out for me. So I went out this morning and I spent 30 minutes sweeping our back and I spent about 30 minutes sweeping the front. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but it feels like that. And, and they’re just alive and they’re walking around and there’s, and they, I told Todd today, it kind of smells now in our front yard.
Cathy: There’s so many dead cicadas. All the alive ones I’m hoping are [00:05:00] flying off to their places of mating. It’s disgusting. Well
Todd: just, uh, we watched a 15 minute documentary on cicadas. Not that everybody’s going to be that interested in this but it’s the males that are making the racket. Right. And the females just make a noise like
Cathy: They just snap.
Cathy: So then the males
Todd: know where to go to mate. Sounds like a snap. So anyways, thanks a lot male cicadas.
Cathy: They’re making, so honestly, the sounds don’t bother me. That to me is a sound of summer. I, I’m, I mean, I know it’s going to get extremely loud because we went through this 17 years ago. I just want them off my patio.
Cathy: I normally sit outside on the front patio when I work in the summer. Can’t do it. And I don’t mean because I’m scared. I mean, it’s literally impossible or else you’re going to have cicadas sitting on you the whole time. And then in the back. Todd and I did this whole thing where we now have a backyard we can sit in, and we do do it because I sweep it constantly.
Cathy: It’s, you know what, it’s nature. I love nature. I’m just, I’m just ready for them to move along. [00:06:00] Yes. And just everyone else telling me how they don’t have them. So I, I’m curious to why we have so many.
Todd: Well, we have a big, fat tree right in front of the, right in front of our house.
Cathy: Yeah. Boop.
Todd: Eating the, the root sap from our trees for the last 17 years.
Cathy: Yeah, I, we should love them, but there’s just too many.
Todd: I, I got nothing against them.
Cathy: I know, but you’re not sweeping them the way that I am all the time.
Todd: I do the leaf blower almost daily, sweetie. I know. And I just blow them off and, and then they come back. All right, so let’s move on. Um, for some reason I like making fun of myself on this show.
Todd: Yeah. I’m gonna play a 20 second clip from a movie from like the 1980s called Forget Paris. Billy
Cathy: Crystal?
Todd: Billy Crystal. Deborah Winger and the old guy from Christmas Vacation. And the old guy from Christmas Vacation, Uncle Lewis, is with Billy Crystal, and they’re just driving in the car together, and this is what you hear.
Speaker 6: Ed’s Tropical Aquarium. [00:07:00] Mattress City. Donuts, Donuts, Donuts. Mr. Sid’s Tuxedos. Six Guys from Greece. Authentic
Todd: Greek food. Okay, the reason I do that is because you and I were driving down the street last week at some point, and I just started doing that, not making fun of the movie. No, he’s just reading all the signs.
Todd: I was just reading all the signs. So as I get older, I’m starting to freak myself out because I’m doing some of these older man tendencies.
Cathy: I know, so am I. We both do it, and especially if I’m like, it’s just me and one of my daughters driving somewhere. You know, it’s just kind of like we’re not talking for a minute.
Cathy: So I’ll be like donut shop Or like I’ll read like that. There’s a new shop, you know, and I’ll be like, oh there’s a new I don’t know if it’s like Attention span. I don’t know I, or maybe we used to read it and do it inside our [00:08:00] brain and now we do it outside our brain.
Todd: Um, in transition, we also, uh, do this other podcast that we haven’t put up a new show in about a year.
Todd: It’s called Pop Culturing. It’s called Pop Culturing and, uh, but we’re going to do another one in about two or three weeks and it’s going to be on this documentary that’s coming up in June.
Clip: If you were coming of age in the 1980s, the Brat Pack was near the center of your cultural awareness. But, for those of us experiencing it from the inside, the Brat Pack was something very different.
Clip: On June 10, 1985, New York Magazine published Hollywood’s Brat Pack. I just remember seeing that cover and thinking, Oh.
Todd: So it’s a documentary that was created by Andrew McCarthy who has done a lot of things. Didn’t he like, he’s a director, right?
Cathy: Well, he’s a journalist, like he’s a writer, um, and he wrote his own book and he has, I think he has done some [00:09:00] movies.
Cathy: I think he’s a documentarian. I think you’re right.
Todd: So anyways, you know, we grew up in the eighties and it’s going to be an interesting, cause they interview not all, but most of these actors, um, you know, with, with the benefit of hindsight, 30 or 40 years later, however many years it’s been. So
Cathy: he’s a travel writer.
Cathy: I read his autobiography. My sister and I were talking about it yesterday because I read Andrew McCarthy’s autobiography a couple of years ago, I think it was during COVID. And, um, I enjoyed it because obviously all the stories he was telling were from things I loved, the people he associated with, the movies he was, you know, on, and you know, all the people he knew.
Cathy: He was, he’s so chromogeny. Like in the book, like he’s so like, you know what I mean? So cynical, like Kevin from St. Elmo’s, he is Kevin from St. Elmo’s. And he says in the book, that is the closest character I’ve ever played to myself. He, even the clothes that Kevin wears are clothes that he wears. Like, he’s like, I just did everything on my own.
Cathy: So [00:10:00] I’m kind of interested in this. Movie for a thousand reasons. And I think Todd, because they’re showing in the, um,
Speaker 3: trailer,
Cathy: the trailer that it’s like Emilio Estevez and Rob Lowe, and they’re, and like Ally Sheedy, there’s a few people that you’re like, Oh, they’re in it. I think they’re going to surprise us with a few people.
Cathy: I don’t think they’re going to put everybody in the trailer.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Cathy: Um, Demi Moore’s in the trailer. So, um, but yeah, that’s a huge part of our lives. The Brat Pack.
Todd: Well, we’ve, from pop, pop culturing, I think we’ve done, we did St. Elmo’s. I think we did. Breakfast Club. Breakfast Club, I think. I don’t think we did Ferris Bueller yet.
Todd: How
Cathy: did we not do Ferris Bueller? Are you sure? Anyway, go to Pop Culturing. I know it sounds funny to say because we haven’t done one in a year because you’re like, why would I subscribe? There’s like 50 or 60 episodes. There’s great movies there and we have good conversations and we’ll start it up again.
Cathy: You’re moving me along. Sorry,
Todd: babe.
Cathy: You keep going. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Keep going.
Todd: You sure? Yeah. Okay. Um, Team Zen. [00:11:00] Yes. Do you want a pair of socks, sweetie? I have three. Do you want a water bottle? Do you want a Zen Parenting shirt? Or do you want to join Cathy’s exclusive women’s group? Join Team Zen.
Todd: Um, we call it The Circle. It’s a Team Zen membership platform. It’s an app with Zen Parenting radius complete. Parenting collection, plus live talks with Cathy and I, and sometimes Cathy without Todd. Um, so if you’re interested, 25 a month, click on the link below in the show notes and sign up and get a free pair of socks or something and join Sweetie’s Women’s Circle.
Todd: Sound good? Sounds good. All right. Um, I want to start where you, uh, you want to make sure that you shared something and I want to start with that. No, go ahead and start with the relationship stuff. Are you sure? Yeah.
Speaker 4: Okay. Thank you.
Todd: So, um, I’m in relationship to lots of people, most importantly, my wife, my kids, workers, and all that.
Todd: And I’ve been having some conversations with some friends who have struggled in relationship with their [00:12:00] intimate partner. And I just, I don’t know if I’m going to be sharing anything that we haven’t already shared. We’ve done a lot of stuff on conflict, but I just think it’s such an important topic that we should re equip ourselves and whoever chooses to listen to this podcast with some tools on how best to do it.
Todd: So I just kind of wrote some notes down that I think are, would, might be helpful. So if anybody finds themselves either triggered by their partner, or, um, are triggering their partner.
Cathy: well, how about in, because those are things we can’t always control, right? We don’t know when we’re going to trigger someone and we don’t know when, you know what I mean?
Cathy: Yeah. What if it’s just, you’re having some conflict and difficulty with, uh, communication with your partner. Sure. Do you know, and, and I know it’s just language, but, You know, someone will say, well, I don’t trigger them, but they don’t know that, you know?
Todd: Well, trigger is such a, you know, volatile word. It’s like whenever you or the other is reactive and not [00:13:00] responsive.
Cathy: And actually trigger clinically, I thought, I thought today we were going to talk about pop psychology versus, you know, what real psychology is. But even like pop psychology, we use trigger now to say, you annoy me. But trigger is actually, um, like a trauma, a trauma response, a traumatic response that we’re having when someone does or says something that our body actually goes into like a trauma response.
Cathy: And that’s what a trigger is. So someone says something that annoys you or kind of sets you off. That’s not always triggering. Again, semantics here, but, um, sometimes you just feel like you go through days where maybe your partner or someone you’re in relationship with just, is annoying you or you’re not hearing each other.
Cathy: So in other words, let’s
Todd: be more responsible. And we’re using these psychological words because what I’m looking at that graphic that I think you found, um, pop psychology is what you said. It is uncomfortable or annoyances that’s, but we think that that’s triggered, but it’s not actually triggered as something that causes a sudden increase in symptoms like flashbacks and PTSD or compulsions and OCD.
Todd: A trigger is not [00:14:00] just a source of general discomfort. Okay.
Cathy: When I think about triggers with my clients or with myself, it is something that takes you back in time. So, your response or the feelings you’re having are not necessarily in what’s happening in the moment, but something that happened in the moment feels like something old.
Todd: But usually when I am triggered, I’m not aware that I’m triggered because I’m triggered, right? Well, sure. I mean,
Cathy: nothing, um,
Todd: You can learn. Yeah, it’s almost like in retrospect. Exactly. Oh yeah, I was triggered. In reflection. It’s hard to be like, I’m triggered right now. I mean, you can do that, but it’s less likely, I think.
Todd: Yeah,
Cathy: I mean, I think if you understand the physiological responses, like where, you know, you get like really hot, or you get really scared, or you start to notice that you need to like run, or you, you say, I just can’t even do this right now. You start to realize you’re in a different space. Not a lot of people have this clinical language, and if you’re not in.
Cathy: Therapy, talking about these things. How would you know? All you’re going to know [00:15:00] is that this person in front of you got, said something or something happened that drove you to a place where you, you’re shutting down in some way.
Todd: And you know, this is so basic, but when that happens, if I can have the awareness in me that either I’m reactive or I’m noticing you’re reactive, the first step is always to breathe, right?
Todd: Sure. If you can. But first you got to recognize that you’re reactive. Most of the time when I’m reactive, I have no idea I’m reactive because I’m in this scared place, so I’m not in my, front of my brain. So just, if we can cultivate, if I can cultivate a habit of pausing and breathing, that’s the best tool, I think, available.
Todd: when we find ourselves in these intense conversations.
Cathy: Yeah. Or just pausing period. I mean, there’s, I think sometimes we give tips about take, stop and take a breath and it’s not a, I mean, the breath is, yes, it’s important and it calms you down physiologically, but I think just stop, you know, just, just Sit there and be like, I’m not [00:16:00] quite sure what’s going on.
Cathy: Um, and have a recognition that you’re going down a path either internally or in your conversation that it may not be a great place to go.
Todd: Well, and you know, this kind of goes along with breathing too, but to be able to stop whatever it is that you’re saying or doing. in front of your partner that’s, you’re pursuing connection from either this anxious place or demanding or this needy place.
Todd: Um, and you know, I think those two go side by side. It’s like, okay, breathe and then to stop pursuing him from that place of neediness or anxiety or something like that.
Cathy: And this is all very hard. Like one thing I, I, if we can, I would like to have this conversation in a way without tips. And more like the reality of what’s happening.
Todd: Sure, so to translate my tip into reality.
Cathy: Right, so I guess what I mean is like, let’s talk about what happens so people understand, and then it’s le and it’s more, I think, and I don’t know, you may not agree, but I think everything’s hindsight. Like, I think to [00:17:00] the, the breathing or the stopping, these are good things, it’s not, don’t utilize them because sometimes that’s exactly what you need to not go down the bad, the bad path.
Cathy: But I think everything is so much clearer in hindsight. And when we are, if, if one of the people, you like this all the time, if one of the people is in a better place. If two people are fighting, let’s just call it, let’s just say it’s a couple because I think the experience that you were talking about that you wanted to bring up on this show was a couple.
Cathy: Yeah. And let’s just say that one of them seems a little less volatile. I feel like in a partnership, we should have an agreement that that person maybe be more. Understanding of where the other person is, meaning there’s a caregiving. Sometimes when we’re showing up as a couple, we see ourselves as peers, which we should be, and we should see ourselves as equals, but there is often one person that’s having a harder time.
Cathy: Okay. And a lot of times if we’re, our partnership [00:18:00] is very, um, if we are not caring for each other and we’re trying to one up each other or win, we take advantage of those vulnerabilities and those insecurities. But if we can actually be like, wow, you know, you know, if you, if I’m really struggling and you can tell, and I’ve just been like going off, if you can be in that moment, the person who’s like, even if I’m saying things that might be annoying to you.
Cathy: You. You have a good
Speaker 3: friend. I
Cathy: mean, it’s not just about me. It’s about, it’s not just about you. It’s about the people around you. And you, I feel like sometimes my friends are the role in our conversations is to, to pull you back out. So where maybe I get more like, Oh, frustrated you get, you go back, right?
Cathy: Cause defense mechanisms, we’ve talked about those a million times. And so sometimes I feel like if you’re in a [00:19:00] partnership there, why I say everything is in hindsight is you and I can talk when we’re not in an argument and say, next time we argue, because we will, How do we help each other through that?
Cathy: How do you understand what I’m going through? And then sometimes, you know what Todd? And this is kind of what you’re bringing up now. Sometimes neither of us have what it takes. Right, that’s usually
Todd: where we get in trouble. Correct. Well, and uh, if I happen to be the one that is a little bit more grounded in the moment, I’ve been able to do this more as I’ve gotten older and I had less awareness.
Todd: Growing up is, or even earlier on in our marriage, it’s usually when the person in front of you is reacting either really big or really small, I tend to react really small, um, it’s usually not whatever the thing is that you’re talking about. Right. It’s almost always some childhood wound or some, some, there’s like a little boy in me that gets scared.
Todd: So when I get into conflict, I get scared and I get small. So, you know. for [00:20:00] you to see me not as this 52 year old man, but there is a little part of me that is, uh, that has regressed back to some earlier version of myself. And I do the same thing with you. It’s like, you know, when you’re, when, when you get riled up, if it’s, I, if I did something, or there’s something on the news or whatever, I, it’s usually not about the thing.
Todd: The thing is what. was the vehicle to trigger something that happened before. And that, and that helps me with the ability to empathize with the other, like, Oh, this isn’t, she’s not here in her full self right now. She’s, she’s in this earlier version of herself. And for me, that helps me be a little bit more empathic and have a little more compassion, a little more space.
Cathy: Yeah, definitely. And you know, we just, five minutes ago, we were talking about what a trigger is, and now you’re using that word again. And that is, if you are in some kind of discussion, we’re both. You know, both people are getting reactive. That is exactly what’s happening is you’re going, you’re, you know, you can look at this neurobiologically, your neuropathways [00:21:00] are going down their, you know, their most well worn road, which is this is what I do in conflict.
Cathy: This is what I learned to do in childhood. This is what I’ve learned to do in relationships. This is what I’ve learned to do to keep myself safe. And so those are really well, you know, when I think about neuropathways, I think literally about like a path in the woods because you’ve got all this, you know, brain space in there.
Cathy: It’s all like woods. And then there’s these, just these paths that are so well worn that it’s so easy. for our mind to go down that way. And when we’re in conflict, we actually need to start creating new neural pathways or prior to conflict, actually through other things like conversations and therapy and meditation.
Cathy: But then we have to utilize these new pathways and do something different. Now, here’s something interesting, and I don’t know how you’ll feel about this, but I historically, my neural pathways from childhood are a lot more about shutting down. [00:22:00] Okay, and and getting mad but being quiet and not talking about it.
Todd: So you go into quiet.
Cathy: That is my history Yeah, and I kind of allow everybody to do their thing and I absorb my belief system is just Don’t make it worse. Let people, I kind of thought I was the person in the situation who wouldn’t get affected. How do I say this better? I felt like I didn’t matter as much.
Cathy: That’s, it’s, you know, everybody else has these issues, but I don’t matter as much. So let me just stay as quiet as I can. Since I was about 35, you know, I’ve been with you through this whole thing. I’ve been learning to speak up, right? So it’s like, here’s, um, which is a new pathway, which is a new pathway, which I think early on, I had to really learn how to modulate.
Cathy: I still do. I mean, this is not like, oh, now I’ve got it. Like I have to learn how to modulate, but speaking up. In being like, I’m upset about this. This is really how I feel. This is my most vulnerable self. This is the [00:23:00] darkest thing I want to say. This is all like fairly new. So the reason I’m sharing that is because it is still very vulnerable for me to do that.
Cathy: Um, it is still very, it’s a lot easier. What, you know what a lot of people do, and I think a lot of people listening will relate to this. I hear this all the time from moms. I especially hear this from their teen daughters. Let’s get into a big fight, be mean to each other, not talk for two or three days, and then someone will say, Hey, are we going to have breakfast this morning?
Cathy: And then all of a sudden you start engaging again and you pretend that fight never happened.
Todd: Not a good formula.
Cathy: I think that is so common. I, I, I hear it all the time from families. And I
Todd: guess the justification of that would be time heals all wounds. Yes. Which is not something I think either one of us subscribe to.
Cathy: Well it is, it is them believing it’s more painful to discuss what we just did and to figure out a new way to not do that than to [00:24:00] just ignore each other for three days and then once our, like, body and our systems have re regulated. Or regulated. I guess re regulated is, is uh, Lady Redundant Woman, um, has regulated.
Cathy: Then I can just say something really like, oh, want to have breakfast? And all of a sudden we’re talking again and we pretend it never happened.
Todd: And what’s the cost of that?
Cathy: Well, the cost of that is there’s no trust. I mean, there’s no, there’s always going to be a sense of underground resentment about arguments we’ve had.
Cathy: There’s going to be things about, I don’t, there’s a walking on eggshells. There’s a, this. is not a firm foundation. This is, if, you know, if I bring something up or if I get frustrated, we may not talk for three days. And that’s not Yeah, you just lost three days of your life. Exactly. And, and I think that that is a reflection of people’s inability to A, Talk about what’s really bothering them, but just as important or more important is another person being [00:25:00] capable of hearing it.
Cathy: Because the thing that, um, you and I talk about all the time is the, is part of the reason we’ve had to do this over time. You guys heard me say I was 35 when I started doing this? 52 now. Is, um, Not just me learning how to speak and Todd doing the same thing and being honest, him being able to sit in listening to me without thinking it’s all about him because that everything that I’m struggling with, he’s like, but what about what I did?
Cathy: What about what I did? What about that? I’m good. And I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about me. And sometimes you’re involved in it or like, you know, I’m asking for support in some way, but we, we, and it’s not just Todd, all of us take things personally. That people say to us, especially what is the thing we were just talking about this weekend about the always and never.
Todd: Yeah. Um, two things before I get to always and never, I think it’s really important, like the whole, so if you’re somebody who’s in partnership [00:26:00] and you do the two or three days thing, some people do two or three weeks. Sure. Some people do two or three years. Some people do never.
Cathy: Some people move upstairs into a different bedroom.
Todd: The sooner you can try your best to repair the conflict, I think. I think that’s the least comfortable. approach, but the best approach. Would you agree with that? I mean, you don’t want to do it when you’re still super reactive. So it’s like, you don’t want to repair it in the moment. I mean, if you can, but what are the odds?
Todd: But as soon as you self, as soon as you feel your nervous system settling down a bit, that’s when, and that’s what I think it’s a responsible time to, and it is a longer, for me, like Cathy, you and I are very bad at letting things go for a long time. Like we usually try to nip it in the bud, which is, I think.
Todd: So we’re very. Good at not letting things go. Correct. Right. Yeah, we, we, we deal with it as close to in the moment as we can. Right. Because I think, [00:27:00] you know, the whole idea of time healing all wounds, I think in this type of scenario, time is your enemy.
Cathy: Mm.
Todd: I think you should start as early as you think you’re, as you’re capable.
Cathy: Time, how about this? Time can be harmful, it can chip away. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like, it, it can, it, Because sometimes first, this is such an interesting conversation because basically go listen to the last 12 years of our podcast, like there’s so many layers and there’s so much nuance here. And when Todd says that, you know, time can be an enemy or it can be a problem, of course sometimes you need space away from each other to calm down.
Cathy: That’s not a problem. But what he’s saying is, if you are then avoiding each other for three or four days and then never returning to that, where does all that energy go? Gets stored. It gets stored. It becomes, it comes up later. It comes up in therapy. It comes through your dreams. It comes through you being annoyed that your partner wants to watch a different TV show than you do.
Cathy: It shows up. You can’t get rid [00:28:00] of that argument energy without processing that argument energy. And not every process needs to be a day long. It can be a quick conversation of, hey, You know, yesterday when we were arguing, I said some things that weren’t great. And the other person says, yeah, me too. And then you hug and you’re like, Ooh, like you acknowledged it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Cathy: Because the avoiding, you know, ideally longer conversation would take place, but sometimes, especially when you have little kids, you kind of have to just go to it and be like, listen, yesterday wasn’t great. But the avoiding of it or the, the putting it away and, and putting dirt on it and pretending it didn’t happen.
Cathy: That’s, that’s where resentment builds.
Todd: Well, one technique, and technique’s the wrong word, but you and I, you, you and I were talking about some ZPR business a few months ago, and I just realized I was at a really restricted closed mindset place. And then we watched our daughter’s choir performance and, and after the performance, I’m like, can I [00:29:00] just have a do over?
Todd: Because I feel like I handled that really poorly. And you’re like, sure we did. And, um, I don’t know that would, I don’t, I think I got that from City Slickers when you’re, you know, There’s a part in the movie where, like, you just want to do over, you just want to try again because you realize how much of an idiot you were being and, um, at least for that night it worked and we had kind of an open, candid conversation because you granted me the, you know, you’re like, okay, let’s try it again and I, I just had a different mindset walking into the discussion.
Cathy: Yeah.
Todd: So, anyways.
Cathy: I think that there’s so many things that stack against us in these situations and I’ll just speak for women. Not all women, not us as a monolith, but what I hear from women and what I know from myself, which is that we, sometimes our defenses go up and then we get super protective afterwards about, after a discussion, we start to be like, I need to do this all myself.
Cathy: This doesn’t matter. Nobody cares about what I think. We can go into Martyr? Yeah, but I don’t want to blame [00:30:00] us. I don’t want it to be like, oh, we’re, how do I say this? Um, Like, it’s understandable why we feel, especially if we are the ones who bring up these conversations and they go south, then your example of you saying, can I have a do over, that was great, so I’m not connecting it to that, I’m kind of like talking about another experience, but It really does make sense, especially with our history.
Cathy: If we’ve had really bad, you know, relationships in the past, or we in our family of origin, we had difficult relationships. It’s really hard to break these patterns in ourselves and do something different or be open and trusting when that’s been kind of like broken down and knocked out of us over a long period of time.
Cathy: And it is, it is the hardest thing to keep getting up and saying, I’m going to try this conversation again. You know what I mean? I’m going to go to this person again and say, Hoping for a different result. Exactly. You can start to feel like the definition of [00:31:00] insanity, right?
Todd: Like a beaten dog. Am I really going to go back into this when nothing, when there’s no rational reason to think that.
Todd: Anything’s going to be different.
Cathy: Exactly. And, and some of the, you know, I said at the beginning, we weren’t going to talk about tips and I don’t want to like give, like do this and it’ll change, but I do try and offer women different ways of going into a conversation, not to appease their partner so that they feel in their integrity.
Cathy: So they, they feel more grounded when they go into the conversation. So their whole sense of self isn’t balancing on the response that they get. Because then they can get blown over right away, right? If they go in and their most vulnerable selves and their partner does not respond in a way that is helpful or reassuring, they’re decimated.
Cathy: And I try and help them go in with a more grounded, you know, so they feel like, okay, I got my feet on the ground. I feel like I can have this conversation and deal with a little bit of back and forth without being completely, this [00:32:00] is, okay, let me say it this way. This person I’m talking to is not my dad.
Cathy: This is not me as a child. I am talking to my partner. I am not a child. I am safe. I have choices. Like, I try and build women up so they are not in their history when they’re having conversations. And, and this is and that doesn’t mean, again, very to be clear, that doesn’t mean then to overpower their partner.
Clip: It’s a tricky balance.
Cathy: It is. And this is why these conversations are so, so I don’t know how much you want to get into the conversation that you brought up to me. And I know that you want to kind of make it a little more general and not focus on these people specifically, but what were the core elements that you were like, this could have been done differently?
Todd: Well, and I know you don’t like tips, but I’m going to throw a tip out there just for fun because we just referred, we just referenced it five minutes ago. Always and never is a really bad idea. Yeah, that’s true. You always do this whenever I want [00:33:00] to go out. You always say that. You never blah, blah, blah.
Todd: And it’s just, I don’t know how much good comes from it. Now, if I’m on the receiving end of an always, never statement and you don’t, I don’t know, I don’t think you do that. I think we’re pretty good at not using always, never, because think about it. What are the odds of you never help with the kids? Like, of course, of course that’s not true.
Todd: And, and if I’m in my grounded state, Can I know that that’s not true and not get reactive from that statement, which is really tricky because I get defensive and I’m just making this illustration up. It’s not a real thing.
Cathy: Well, and let me say that always, never for the person who’s using it, it don’t do it for this reason.
Cathy: The partner, your partner can take that and go fly that kite for the next 20 minutes. You have just derailed your conversation because as soon as you say always and never, they are going to start focusing on all the times they did, all the times they didn’t, and they’re going to get lost [00:34:00] in themselves and look at what I did.
Cathy: And so it’s in your best interest. I feel like I’m speaking for, even though we’re talking about same sex partnerships too, I feel like I’m giving a very woman’s perspective on this, which is It is in your best interest to not use those words because that will derail your conversation for a long time.
Cathy: Yeah.
Todd: It’s just, it’s just a good idea to stay away from it. I feel like the question is, what do you do instead? Um, you could say like, you can use a feeling word. Like I, I, I would say something like, you know, instead of me saying, um, let me take it out for you, sweetie. Like it’s a coworker, I’m like, you’re a jerk.
Todd: I should tell somebody they’re a jerk because they just said something to upset me. Instead, I could say, I’m feeling really scared or mad right now. Like, isn’t that a better thing to say than you’re a jerk? Yeah. And what, because that’s not something that, so we’re talking about inarguable language.
Cathy: Okay, so, so play with me because I know this [00:35:00] is like something that gets annoying to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Cathy: You just said something that I know in men living is a very evolved thing. I feel very scared right now. I appreciate it. I hear you guys say it, but if you were talking with a client and they had not gone through all the men living stuff, they had not been in therapy, what’s something else they could say besides I’m scared right now?
Cathy: What’s a, what’s a middle road for them? Like I’m feeling. Uncomfortable. Sure. I’m feeling, um, unsure about what you’re saying.
Todd: Like, I wouldn’t say I’m feeling annoyed. Right. Because that’s an attack.
Cathy: That does go the opposite way, right? Where that is not an, that is a, you’re annoying me. Yeah, that’s me hiding
Todd: behind I’m feeling, but really just a judgment that you’re annoying.
Todd: Correct. Instead, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re, If I’m like, oh wow, I’m really uncomfortable right now and I feel like my, I don’t know, my hands are sweating or like my, I feel like my heart beating or I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t know what I would say.
Cathy: Well, right. And that, and again, I’m, [00:36:00] the only reason I say that is because I know with you and I, we use this kind of language and I know that we’ve, and so it’s not you that I’m questioning.
Cathy: I just think that Some people hear things like that and they’re like, I’m never going to say that. I’m never going to say my heart’s beating fast. That’s not normal language for people. It would be more like, I’m feeling like I’m not doing anything right. I’m feeling like, um, you know, I’m feeling really, um, like the things that I tend to say a lot.
Cathy: I, I’m usually bringing things to you.
Todd: The thing is about is I feel like I’m not doing anything right. And you know, you and I are just getting into semantics here, but that can be argued with. But if I’m like, I’m just feeling really uncomfortable, I’m feeling really scared that you can’t argue with that because it’s a feeling.
Cathy: I know. Versus a
Todd: judgment that I am or
Cathy: am not doing anything right. I think you and I are in interesting places in our, in our lives, uh, in our careers. And this is why. I used to be the person [00:37:00] who said what you just said. Yeah. And I, and I still believe in it and I still use it. But you’re, if you’re talking to a group of men who have not been in men living, who are not in.
Cathy: like any kind of therapy, they’re not going to say, I’m feeling really scared right now.
Todd: No, but what I can do is plant a seed that this tool exists that you can pull out of your toolbox instead of the one is, honey, I’m really annoying you, or you’re really annoying.
Cathy: Right. That is an extreme. Don’t do that.
Cathy: I get it. It’s just, I’m trying, like, I’m, you know, You want to make it more common. Yeah, because when you’re saying it, I get the cringes. I get it. Because I’m like, no, nobody’s going to say that.
Todd: And if I can come up with a less cringey way of saying it, I’m all in.
Cathy: I know. You don’t know what
Todd: that is. I know.
Todd: I think uncomfortable is a very common
Cathy: word. Yeah. Like I’m feeling uncomfortable. Um, And let me be clear. I’m not getting the cringes because I don’t want men saying those words. I, I hear men and men living say that stuff all the time, but it’s not always common for everybody. And I am talking [00:38:00] to women whose significant others, if they’re married to a man, are not in men living.
Cathy: Do you see what I mean? Sure. So I’m trying to figure out a way to have this conversation where there can be, you know, language that they can, Pull from that still taking ownership without it being so vulnerable. That, cause that’s like a stage. Like for you to get to a stage where you’re finally saying, I’m so scared right now.
Cathy: I kind of feel like that’s some levels, you know, where you’ve worked through some things where you’re like, Literally, I’m just scared, you know,
Todd: um, and that requires vulnerability, which most people don’t have when they’re in a defensive posture, there is no vulnerability because I’m defensive. I’m either fighting or fleeing or fawning or freezing, correct?
Todd: That’s the last moment I would ever want to be vulnerable. But if I could pause, take a breath, notice that my heart’s racing, notice that my hands are getting sweaty, feeling cold. I hate to say, you know, my hands are sweaty right now. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I think I’m pretty scared. [00:39:00]
Cathy: Or just like I right now, I’m not sure, but I’m hearing you.
Cathy: Yeah. Like you don’t even have to, you just, it’s not attacking each other because I think we, like, I just get visuals of couples just start going after each other and they want to win. Why do they want to win? Because they feel unheard. Your partner in life often becomes the representation of what the rest of the world isn’t seeing about you.
Cathy: They become the, they are this person you’re living with and they are holding all the, like, love you can receive from the world and all of the love you’re not receiving from the world. It kind of, it shouldn’t be that way and it’s not really the truth. But they become the representation of this. So if you are someone who doesn’t feel heard, who went through childhood and no one was listening to you, who feels like even when you’re with your friends sometimes they don’t hear you or that your kids aren’t listening, and then [00:40:00] you start to talk to your partner about this and they don’t listen, you are going to attack them.
Todd: So if you said something to me and you, you and I have pretty good rules of engagement and always never is like, you’ve never said to me in my, in my life, like you never do anything. Like, that’s just not in your, that’s not something you say. Maybe I
Cathy: did when I was 29.
Todd: Maybe, who knows? But if you did, let’s just pretend you did say that.
Todd: If I could, you know, um, Don Miguel Ruiz, one of the four agreements is don’t think, take things personally. Correct.
Cathy: If you say to me. That one makes me laugh.
Todd: Okay. Which is near impossible thing, right? How do you really not take things personally? I know.
Cathy: I teach my college kids this one and we spend a day on it.
Cathy: Like it’s so hard.
Todd: So if you said to me. You never take care of the kids. Right. My reaction would be to take it personally and start defending and thinking about all the evidence to refute what you say. If I, if I know I help with the kids, and this is a very, um, [00:41:00] this is in a very enlightened state, so I can’t, I certainly can’t do this and I think most people can’t either, but if I know I help with the kids and you tell me I never help with the kids, and I can have.
Todd: The ability to not take it personally because I know for a fact I do help with the kids, then it really shouldn’t get me so reactive, right? But to be able to, I feel like if we as human beings could do that, like not take it personally because I know the truth and the truth is I actually do help with the kids, then I feel like I’d be at a much better place.
Todd: Place of connection with you, if I could do that, but most of the time I just get defensive.
Cathy: Well, and that’s Dalai Lama stuff, right? Like that’s so high evolved because even in, in the four agreements, when Don Miguel is talking about, don’t take it personally, he’s talking about like people from the outside world who say things about you, people who criticize your work.
Cathy: Like, I’m not saying he’s not talking about partnership, but that is
Todd: Yeah, the closer in the circle of your relationships, the harder it is to not take it personally.
Cathy: Correct. He’s talking about, like, the [00:42:00] person who kind of side eyes you. Don’t let that ruin your day. You know what I mean? Like, don’t take that personally when someone doesn’t love your work.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Cathy: Um, and that’s hard too. So, I think that, it’s so funny because I want to You just, you keep using help with the kids.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
Cathy: And you know what, um, I know I’d wanna hear?
Speaker 4: What?
Cathy: The kids are just as much my responsibility as they are yours. Yeah. Cause help with the kids. Yeah. Sounds like a babysitting job.
Cathy: Sure, right. I help with the kids.
Speaker 3: Right.
Cathy: I showed up on Thursday when you were gonna be gone for an hour and I took them and I even took them out. And it’s like, okay, this whole, and, and this is not always the truth. It’s, there’s, Here’s the thing, Todd. This is why it’s so interesting and why having conversations is essential if we’re going to keep our partnership healthy.
Cathy: There’s so much under layer. There’s so many layers below of what we’re saying.
Todd: Absolutely.
Cathy: There’s so much. It’s not only our history and our [00:43:00] childhood and our, in our neuro, you know, what we’re doing neurologically when something’s happening, which is often beyond our, Ability. It’s sometimes our awareness, you know, it’s sometimes unconscious.
Cathy: It is also all these other layers of what’s going on as far as gender. Society. Expectations. Culture. Because Todd can say something really benign to me and internally I’m set off. Give me an example. That one. I help, and you’re using it as I’m going to use it because this is not our conversation. Hey, I help with the kids.
Cathy: Right. What do you mean help? Yeah. Like, are they completely my responsibility and then occasionally you come in? Because Yeah. You would never hear me say, I help with the kids. The expectation is, I’m in charge of the kids, and you occasionally come in, so you can see how someone like me, our kids are older now, so this is easy, but I still have [00:44:00] that vibe in me, where if you said something like that, I’d be like, oh, you know what I mean?
Cathy: Yeah. And you’re not even, you’re like, what are you talking about? Like, that’s not even what our conversation is. And so you can understand, again, why. Not having conversations about little things leads to these big blow ups where all of a sudden, we’re like, wait, what are we arguing about? What’s, what’s happening in this conversation?
Cathy: Because I don’t know where you’re going now. I can tell you guys that when Todd and I get, you know, into a discussion where we’re really going back and forth, I am so tangential. I can go down a path. I don’t mean like I, I don’t pull up things from the past. No, you don’t. I don’t pull up something like, but two years ago you said blah, blah, blah.
Cathy: I’m not that, but tangential in my experience currently. Like, you know, and then I’m feeling this. And then when this happens, I feel this. And then sometimes he’s like, okay, wait, where are we
Todd: focusing? How did we get here?
Cathy: Because you just asked, you just want to meet. We started here and now we’re over there.
Cathy: To blow the cicadas. And all of a sudden you’re talking [00:45:00] about women’s rights. You know what I mean? But that’s, that’s. What I want to say in partnership, that is what it’s about, everybody. So if you have a partner who says you’re just getting tangential and you’re just bringing up stuff from nowhere and you’re just trying to win, it is all interconnected.
Cathy: And our ability to have patience with each other in those situations. Because I’m not just pulling out stuff to like, win the argument. I want Todd to understand where all this comes from. And you know what else? It’s paradoxical. Say more. I have said to Todd, I feel like because of our decision making in our marriage, You know, we made decisions together about what we were going to do.
Cathy: I did not get the opportunity to launch my career in the way that Todd did and continues to. I just, the choices I made, I didn’t get to do things the way that I thought I was going to do it. Okay. [00:46:00] So that’s distressing in some times. And then we’ll be talking and I’m like, there is no other way I would ever want to raise my kids, but the way that I did.
Cathy: Those are in conflict with each other and they’re both true. Yeah. And for Todd or anybody else listening to be able to hold them as both true is, to me, a an ability to be wise.
Todd: Yeah. Basically you’re saying that sucked and I’m so happy that I did that.
Cathy: Correct. Or you can flip it the other way, you know what I mean?
Cathy: Like. It sucked that there were decades, like I, I, turning 50 was really interesting, I’m 52 now, but I kind of looked back on decades and I, I didn’t, when I say I lost them, I don’t really mean I lost them, I raised children and had amazing experiences and connection, but I really don’t remember it very well.
Cathy: And the reason I don’t remember it is because I was never focused on me ever. And [00:47:00] so it’s a very strange like brain thing where I did a good job of getting in all the photos like, you know, a lot of those things that people say, mom, get in the photos. I did that stuff. I see myself on the walls in our house.
Cathy: You know, thank goodness we have these podcasts
Speaker 3: because
Cathy: I can go back and listen, but I don’t remember. Because, as well, and now that I’m the age I am, I’m starting to take these moments where I’m just focusing on me and I’m like, how did I do that? And not only that, but I had two aging parents and I, I just, I think put, tied myself up in a nice bow and put myself somewhere else.
Cathy: in my mind or body and I just focused on everybody else. Right. And I think that’s what a lot of moms do. Maybe dads do too. Do you ever hear this from dads? Right. Okay. This is what I talk to women about. So you can understand sometimes when they start to untie that bow and they look at what they [00:48:00] need.
Cathy: That it kind of sometimes rolls out really fast.
Todd: Well, especially in transitionary periods of our lives, like you and I are, have been and will be in a transitionary parenting journey for the next few years as our kids decide to go live their life. And then all of a sudden it’s back to us. It’s funny, we’ve talked a little, this might be a little tangential, but, um, There is, I just found this, um, parents whose kids have moved out are hiring empty nest coaches, life coaches who specialize in the transition surrounding a child’s departure.
Todd: And there’s a judgmental part of me. It’s like, come on, do you really need a coach for that? And, and I think it’s a, in retrospect, I don’t think it’s something you and I, I don’t think you and I are going to be hiring any transitionary coaches. Because I feel like you and I have done a good job of staying connected to each other while we’re raising these three girls.
Todd: I think there’s a lot of parents out there that lost themselves and their relationship with their partner because they want to be a really good dad and really good mom, which [00:49:00] I think is a really, it’s a much harder transition for those folks than it is for folks that that did it differently.
Cathy: Yeah, I agree with that and you know interestingly, I’ll say this because I’m just going to talk about the paradox and the nuance again, is that you know how I’m saying for the last two decades, I don’t remember a lot of it.
Cathy: I also was teaching self care to people all the time and I was practicing it the best way I knew how and Todd was supportive of it and I was making myself a priority. It makes me laugh a little bit because I really was trying, but there’s like limits to that when you have three very small kids and aging parents.
Cathy: There’s like a, I’m going to do my best. And so. Even when you’re doing something, you know, you might be doing your best in the moment, but you realize as you get older, that sometimes it doesn’t, there’s still a challenge with that. We only have so much energy to put out. Right. And then what you just said is true too, is that, you know, people are hiring these coaches because their lives They [00:50:00] don’t, they don’t know what to do with their lives at this point.
Cathy: Part of it could be the relationship with their partner. And like you said, Todd, we have been saying, and it’s been a wonderful part of doing the show and having this business together. We have been saying since the girls were little, you and I, you and I, you and I, because they will eventually just be you and I.
Cathy: They’re going to go after their own
Speaker 3: partners.
Cathy: Right, and I think a lot of people heard that and did their best with it and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. You know, a lot of couples 10 years ago aren’t together anymore and they’ve moved on and their lives are changing. So part of it is that.
Cathy: I think also part of the Empty Nest Coach is I think a lot of parents invested their lives and dreams in their kids. They were excited because their kid was going to state or their kid was, you know, in the semifinals or their kid was, um, you know, they were helping their kid, you know, get on a certain team or, or do their applications for college.
Cathy: So their focus was all about their kid and [00:51:00] all of their dreams were in their kid. And then when their kids are gone, it, their partnership may be strong, but they don’t know who they are and they don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to create that same kind of feeling. Because they invested in themselves when they were young, then their kids, and they’re like, okay, what do I do now?
Cathy: And I think you go back to basics. I, I, again, I still feel right now, like I, I’m writing a book and Todd and I are doing, oh, I was just about to say something else that we’re not announcing yet, but we’re doing things and we have plans, but I still have that feeling sometimes of, okay, but after those things, what next?
Cathy: Yeah. Like I get concerned about making sure. That we are making ourselves and our goals a priority. So I don’t have to be like, calling up my kids and being like, make me happy. Right?
Todd: Well, and I think as parents, we do that a lot, whether their kids are 3, 13, or 23.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Todd: I can’t do this on my own, so I need you to fill [00:52:00] me up.
Todd: Right. Um, There was something else I was going to say just about, you know, getting into arguments or whatever. Um, two things. Um, when I’m in a kind of closed defensive posture, I’m focusing all my energy on you and judging what you’re saying, whether or not it’s valid or not, blah, blah, blah. And it’s, when I’m doing it right, I will try to bring some attention to myself and like internally, not like, Hey, look at me, Cathy, more like, okay, what’s happening to me right now?
Todd: Right? Where am I going? How am I, are there projections here? Am I defensive? Am I getting big? Am I getting small? Because it’s so, it’s so much safer to cast all the attention on the other.
Cathy: I’m the problem, you’re not the problem. Yeah.
Todd: And then the other thing is just to ask for help. Um, you know, I have so many wonderful friends and clients and, you know, they say, Hey, you got a few minutes?
Todd: Cause I just, I don’t feel like I showed up really well for my partner. Um, and that could be talking to a friend, talking to a therapist, talking to a coach, [00:53:00] meditating, journaling. Uh, that’s, you know, it’s like. Basic stuff, but for guys, that does not come naturally. No, it’s not. Like, we don’t, we’re like, we gotta figure, I have to figure all this out in my head.
Cathy: Right.
Todd: And I don’t want to bother anybody or, or tell anybody that I have less than a perfect marriage. So I’m just going to keep this in. And for the guys out there, Please, please, please ask for professional or relational support from a friend.
Cathy: You know what I think, um, and as we know, typically women are really good at that.
Cathy: Um, we share our stories with our, with people we love very much with our, you know, friends or therapists. And I think that What that helps us with is normalizing. Cause usually when I share a story about here’s an argument that, that Todd and I had, or here’s something that, you know, that’s getting me frustrated and my friend or someone is like, oh yeah, me too.
Cathy: And here’s, and here’s how I struggled through it, or here’s how I did it. It just makes it less of a big deal. You’re kind of like, oh, this is what people go through.
Todd: This is called [00:54:00] human behavior.
Cathy: Correct. And it’s part of the reason I love my job and I’ve always felt really I love what I do is because guys, the thing I get to hear.
Cathy: All the time is other people’s issues, which a lot of people are like that can be really overwhelming. True, it can. I need to have respite from that. But it also just gives me such a perspective on the world, and it’s helped me with my kids. Because my kids always think, Other people’s lives are better.
Cathy: They live in this house, so other people’s lives are better. They got this position, or they, you know, won this award, so their lives are better. And I talk to these people who win these awards and live in these houses, and I know it’s not true. And I don’t mean their lives are worse. I just mean that everyone’s going through it.
Cathy: And it’s one of those beautiful, like, I get to, you know, I look in people’s windows, as Taylor Swift would say, and she has a song called that. I think it’s called I Look in People’s Windows. Anyway, there’s like, [00:55:00] it gives you some balance. You know, it’s why people read books and listen to podcasts, because you like to hear other people’s challenges.
Cathy: It just normalizes your life. Because the thing that an argument can bring about, Todd, is shame. I’m not doing it right. My relationship is worse. Um, I must not be a good partner. Other people are better than me. And the shame spiral is what keeps us from reconnecting. It makes us avoid each other. It keeps us from talking to other people.
Cathy: And that shame is what kills us and kills our relationship.
Todd: And the flip side of that is that these ruptures, these fights, these arguments, these conflicts are the way, are the vehicle for deeper connection.
Cathy: That’s, that’s what intimacy is, is the ability to have disagreements and to talk through things and to hear each other and to get through it.
Cathy: That’s how you build I would say a marriage or a [00:56:00] partnership.
Todd: I always think of that part in the movie Singles with Matt Dillon and Bridget Bonda. And, uh, it’s when they, they like have a visualization of what, uh, Kira Sedgwick’s character is in The Ponytail Guy. And they’re just like reading the paper.
Todd: And they think they’re so happy. Like really vanilla and bland. There’s no fighting. Right. But it’s just really,
Cathy: Boring.
Todd: Boring. And, and if we can look at these times when I get reactive to you or you get reactive to me as an opportunity to connect, if I can hold a space for you while you’re reacting something heavily to either something I did or the world did, that is amazing.
Todd: such a better way to connect with another human being than kumbaya.
Cathy: Right. Well, because kumbaya and when we, and when we are kumbaya, gratitude, right? We’re having fun. Things are, no one’s annoyed. It’s great. Like enjoy that, but trying to hold tight to that and say, ah, like what I hear from [00:57:00] women a lot is they’ll be like, I’ll kind of coach them through something and I’ll be like, try and start the conversation this way.
Cathy: And they’ll be like, okay. And they’ll be like, we have a date night on Friday. I’m going to do that. And then I’ll talk to them the next week or two weeks later. And they’ll say, well, we went on the date night, but we were having so much fun and I didn’t want to bring up difficult things and I didn’t want to ruin it.
Cathy: I totally get it, but at the same time, there, you actually missed an opportunity for deeper connection. The
Todd: time for deeper connection is at that time versus when you’re both reactive.
Cathy: Exactly. And so I’m not saying every date should be some kind of deep discussion or argument. You sprinkle a little bit of heaviness into
Todd: the glasses of wine and the good food.
Cathy: Exactly. There is a sense of let’s, because we have this time. Let’s have this conversation and, and the more you practice doing it, the less you’ll be afraid of it. Yeah. Like, I don’t know about you, Todd. I’m definitely not afraid of deep discussions
Todd: at all. Um. I’m not right now, but [00:58:00] next time we have one, I will probably get scared.
Todd: somewhere in it and not deep. If it’s deep, I’m fine. But if it’s conflict, I don’t, I don’t know how much work I’m going to do. My initial reaction is always fear.
Cathy: Well, can you, I know you’re probably trying to close up here, but can you differentiate between deep discussion and conflict? What is the difference to you?
Todd: Well, deep discussion could be something like, Oh, um, You know, we just spread your parents ashes out this weekend. We
Cathy: did. We took my parents
Todd: to watch places. It was a wonderful thing and we’re talking, you know, let’s say you and I are talking about death. What happens when you die? Like, that’s a deep discussion.
Todd: There’s no conflict. Um, so.
Cathy: Got it. And conflict is when we are not seeing eye to eye. And we feel the need to sort something out and, and can’t you guys just see like that sorting something out, I just see all these pictures in my head that like relationships have a bunch of knots and every time you talk through something and sort something out, you are like undoing, undoing those knots.
Cathy: And so things start to become smoother [00:59:00] and it’s so literal.
Todd: Yeah. My, uh, instead of the knot and the rope thing or the. I think of a river, and then I think of a bunch of boulders in the river, and the river is like the life force of our relationship, and these little, um, arguments or places where we get reactive towards one another are the boulders, or some of them are small rocks, some of them are big, huge boulders.
Todd: And, uh, uh, When you and I have a really good connecting discussion that was uncomfortable, but in the end we, we connected more deeply, like I either moved to Boulder, so the river goes more fluidly, I don’t know if that’s a word, down the river, or I just get rid of it and I throw it out of the river so that our relationship can be, and it’s, it Our ex My human experience is just looking at this life force and just trying to move some of the boulders around and get rid of some of them and shift some of them.
Cathy: Exactly. And just to say, I can, I can [01:00:00] say this very generally for everybody. Everybody is very complex. Yes. And so if you’re looking for somebody who is one dimensional, who says something and then does something and then acts that way and then is that way and then looks that way, that is not human beings.
Cathy: We are complex. We have many different feelings. We feel one way a certain day. We feel a different way about something another day. And that is when Todd’s talking about a river, that’s what’s happening is we’re growing and changing and we’re alive. There are so many people sometimes, I’m going to be judgmental for a second, as Todd would always say.
Cathy: There are a lot of much older men, 80 year old men, some of them famous, who date 30 year olds, 35 year olds, 27 year olds, or marry them. And Todd and I will always say, what do they have in common? And maybe they do have stuff in common. I don’t know. I’m not there. But sometimes I think that people are looking for one dimensional people who can serve one role.
Cathy: And it could be sexual. It could be that [01:01:00] it could just be like the person they take with them to parties. I don’t know. But a true, like, in depth relationship? is complex.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Cathy: Because they fit a lot of different and they, they’re not going to be everything in every way. Still have friends, have your therapist, have your groups, like, don’t make them be everything.
Cathy: But can you talk about everything? Do you see what I mean? Like, are you capable of having complex conversations with this person? Because that’s what makes them so essential in your life is that kind of friendship and that complexity. Because man, I’ll tell you, Todd, I am 80 different things at once in a 30 minute period of time.
Todd: That’s true.
Cathy: And I don’t know, you know, I think you are too. I think you’re a little smoother and simpler. We’ve talked, Todd and I’ve talked about this before. I tend to be more low lows and really high highs and Todd’s a little more like
Todd: My variability is a little bit, yeah, a little more flat.
Cathy: It’s a [01:02:00] little more that way and that’s fine.
Cathy: Like that’s not a problem as long as we understand that about each other. This isn’t something we have to solve and I don’t need Todd to be like me and he, and I don’t want him, you know, vice versa. I don’t need Todd to be like me and you don’t need me to be like you. Can you imagine how boring our relationship would be if I was not Like, not to make it all about me, sorry, but what if I was like, had no emotional response to things sometimes like you do?
Todd: It would be bad. I think we’d be bored. I think we would too. And that’s why, you know, not to get into Esther Perel, but polarity or looking at the world differently is a really I think for most couples, including ours, important component, because if, if you and I both had the same worries about money, I think that might be bad.
Todd: If you and I had the same fear of flying, yeah, that would be, that would be bad. Like, what would it be like for you and I both be all jacked up on a plane? Will we survive? Yeah. But I don’t know how helpful I would be as if I was as scared as you were when [01:03:00] we get a little bumpy.
Cathy: It’s not a little bumpy, turbulence.
Cathy: Turbulence is fine. Do you know that they’re saying there’s more turbulence now because of climate change?
Todd: I did not know that.
Cathy: I wish I didn’t read these things.
Todd: But
Cathy: I can’t help it. See, I’m a paradox. I’m like, these are the things that bother me. And he’ll be like, why are you watching three documentaries about it?
Cathy: It’s because I need to understand it. Last night I watched the Ashley Madison documentary because a few people told me to. Well, I kind of already knew the story for those of you who don’t know. The real brief synopsis is Ashley Madison was a dating website for married people to have affairs. Their tagline was, um, life is short, have an affair.
Cathy: And it had like 70 million users. And what ended up happening is they got hacked. And then the hacker, um, Um, shared all the information that everybody, all the people that were on it
Speaker 3: were
Cathy: shared. And so it caused a lot of problems, if you can [01:04:00] imagine. And not to mention, it showed a lot of fraud within the company.
Cathy: Um, because there really weren’t that many women on it and it was, you know, a big mess. But anyway, I like to watch, I like to understand why people do what they do.
Todd: Sweetie, you said things were complicated. I’m going to close the show with a quick line, and then we’re going to play a quick song. I thought you were going to play Poydog Pondering.
Todd: No, it’s complicated. All right. Uh, this is from the movie. It’s Complicated with Meryl Streep and Steve Martin. And, uh, they’re dating. Steve Martin and Meryl Streep are dating, and she’s worried about how old she is compared to him.
Clip: You didn’t say a lot.
Todd: I was thinking it.
Clip: So, I’m not too old for you?
Todd: How can you be too old for me when I’m older than you?
Clip: I just figured that all the women you’re fixed up with are 35.
Todd: Jane, [01:05:00] your page is one of my favorite things about you.
Cathy: Isn’t that sweet? I love that scene.
Todd: And that’s a perfect line. Perfect response. Right? Because it is. He’s interested in being with a peer and, you know, all due respect to people who marry somebody 30 or 40 years younger than you, I just, that would be tough for me.
Cathy: Todd, how, who would watch Friday night videos with me? Only Todd understands Friday night videos. Yeah, we’ve been watching some Friday night videos lately. One of my favorite parts about my relationship with Todd is that we Because we’re from the same generation, we have all, we have similar memories, because we both grew up in the Chicago area.
Cathy: So we like, had the same commercials we grew up with. You know what I mean? We just have so much history, even though we weren’t together.[01:06:00]
Todd: Not everybody knows this song sweetie, but we do. It’s
Cathy: the Friday night videos theme. That’s all I’ve got. Just go back. So anyway, I don’t like to be critical of any relationship. People get to be with who they wanna be with, but I really appreciate that line in that movie. And if you haven’t seen it’s complicated, go watch it ’cause it’s so funny.
Cathy: Pedro,
Todd: Pedro, darling, darling. All right. Uh, any closing thoughts or no? Uh, no. I think that’s good. All right. So this is from, I look in people’s windows. Yes.
Speaker 4: I look in peoples windows. They have.
Speaker 4: I look in people’s windows in case you’re at their table. What if your eyes looked up and I’d find
[01:07:00]
