The #1 Secret of a Healthy Relationship

0:00 do you ever feel like you do the lion's share in your relationship like you are the one carrying the mental load the emotional labor and like the division of labor in your relationship and in your family isn't fair it's not equal you feel like you do more you feel like you suffer more you feel like it's harder for you do you feel like you give more welcome to the parenting junkie show today i want to first start off by

0:30 telling you that this episode is sponsored by my upcoming brand spanking new training which is a master class of of sorts and it's called worth the fight this is going to be a transformative way to use your arguments bickering fights cold shoulders frustrations and irritations with your s.o with your significant other to actually alchemize them using new skills new mindsets new ways of operating

1:01 within that stressful place that actually alchemize them into your greatest opportunities for growth and intimacy and connection with your partner i know that that's probably what you crave like i do like everybody else who's in a long-term relationship that's what we want it's hard when kids come along it's hard even before that but it gets harder and i want to help you when things are getting full of friction and tension and conflict to actually not just

1:29 avoid conflict right not just shut that down or suppress it or escape from it but instead to use it to go through it in order to reach greater heights of awareness of evolution in your relationship of connection with your partner of intimacy and of joy together so to sign up for that go to the parentingjunkie.com forward slash worth the fight i'll see you on the inside today we're going to talk about the feeling of inequality in a relationship

2:01 a feeling like you're doing the lion's share like the burden of responsibility is somehow on your shoulders like you're feeling the weight of the world and of your family and perhaps it's a lot of emotional labor perhaps you're also the breadwinner or the primary parent or the person who keeps everything organized or the person who manages the time the person who does the bulk of the housework the bulk of the cleaning and cooking whatever it is

2:29 in your particular situation or maybe a lot of those things are pretty even steven between you however you still feel like there is a tally in your mind like you're keeping a tab of how much you've done versus how much your partner has done for example if one partner gets a little vacation to go away with friends for a couple of nights the other partner immediately registers that that they owe them one right or if one partner

2:55 works late and comes home after bedtime every night the other partner keeps track of that puts that in their back pocket because they're going to use it when they have to prove how worthy they are and how much more they give and how much more they suffer any of this sounding familiar yet this is one of the main feelings and kind of stories narratives that come up when people talk to me about their relationship and in many regards it makes a lot of

3:22 sense right we all seek a reciprocity in our relationships we all want to feel like there's a general you know matching of the giving and taking between the sides in whatever relationship that happens to be but certainly in our primary romantic relationship and if we're co-pairing together all all the more so we want to feel that we're part of a team however what i'm going to pose to you today is that much of our mindset actually undermines that team spirit it

3:54 actually breaks apart any chance we ever had for feeling that sense of general equality of general cohesion of collaboration cooperation and that teamwork that i'm talking about it's a great feeling to feel like you're on a team and yet so many of us kind of suck at it right we kind of suck at creating a team atmosphere i know it's something that i've certainly challenged being challenged with over the years but it's a skill that we can learn

4:19 because there are things that we're thinking and things that we're doing that are making us break apart that fabric of that team feeling if this is something that you're feeling or that you felt in the past in your relationship or that you're worried that you feel in the future keep listening because what i'm going to offer you today is questions basically open-ended questions that i want you to go through and ask yourself now this is kind of going to be like a

4:44 mini workshop right here okay as i tell you these questions i really want you to consider pausing this and asking yourself what answers come up for you there does anything surprise you does anything maybe shock you a little bit about yourself and your thinking pattern does anything bring about for you a new way of looking at the situation that perhaps serves you better so before we get into these questions i want to just riff a little on the nature of

5:09 transactional relationships look we're human beings and by nature we are transactional we do keep tallies in our minds of what people owe us right we do have a reciprocity um urge right and it's innate and it's biological in many ways and it makes a lot of evolutionary sense that we would need for whatever we put out whatever we give to be somehow returned to us this is how human beings actually evolved over the millennia because it allowed

5:38 them to give to others with the understanding that that was not wasting right if i gave you some of my bananas when i went out foraging then it was worth it for me because i could trust on the reciprocity um pact that we made subconsciously and and almost you know genetically that you would then return the same kind of favor for me in the future that makes a lot of sense however when we want to reach a higher

6:08 level of relationship a more spiritual a more connected a more evolved a more aware enlightened conscious state of relationships in our marriages in our partnerships we're going to need to move way past just the basic transactional reciprocity of give and take in equal measure why because it's not just about me giving you some of my bananas and you give me some of yours in the future it's actually much more about our general feeling uh a deeper feeling of

6:39 connection of feeling like we can be vulnerable with each other feeling like we we generally hold each other's goodness to light we generally bring out the best in each other we're generally on each other's teams in each other's corners and unfortunately that is something that is rare to see in the relationships around us i mean how many husband and wife or partnership teams do you see around you that just feel like they are so supportive of each other like wow that

7:09 couple really has best friends in each other they really have a companion they really have someone who cares who's in their corner who's support a figure of support or at least strives to be a figure of support for each other you know that's rare and our over 50 divorce rates are going to be one testament to this that just typically a one out of two couples so much doesn't feel like they're on the same team that they actually choose to

7:34 part ways so i want us to just notice that one of the things that i think that leads to that to that great divide between between us as couples one of the things is the tit for tat nature the transactional nature with which we view our relationships putting on a transactional lens means that whenever i look at you my dear beloved partner i am looking at a scoreboard essentially right i'm saying well we're on two different teams and sometimes you score

8:05 and sometimes i score and you better bet i want that score to be absolutely even or at least i want you to owe me some that's what i want i don't want to be indebted to you right we all want or not all of us i'll speak for myself you know i have often noticed in myself this deep and kind of embarrassing need to be the good one to be the one who sacrifices who's a martyr who gives and gives and

8:32 gives and gives and nothing's left for me at the end right why why do we want to go into that victim place why do i want to do all these things for you why is it worth it for me rather than me communicating with you no actually please you know i need some help in this arena whenever we have a behavior like that we've got to ask ourselves why what's in it for us why do we consistently sacrifice beyond

8:57 what we meant to right allow our own boundaries to be transgressed in that way give give give to the point of depletion of emptying of our cups why do we do it if we feel so hard done by if we feel so much like you know where where's mine when do i get mine well take a deep breath and pause this and give yourself a little think maybe journal it out why do we do that and the reason that i have come to is

9:26 that there's something in it for us there's something as some of my clients said delicious or yummy about staying in that victim mentality and feeling like somebody owes us you better bet we're not just letting that scoreboard run wild and not doing something with it no no no no we're going to put that in our back pocket and years down the line when resentment has built up when we've victimized ourselves for decades when something big comes along we'll

9:55 have that winning card to pull out of our pocket and say you see you owe me you owe me for this and this and this and this and this and it's time to pay up we're gonna have that card that excuses us from setting boundaries that excuses us from communicating our truth that excuses us from being in integrity because hey i was just giving and giving because i'm so good and i'm so kind and i'm so

10:20 generous it's not true generosity right that's not true generosity that's not true giving if you want to reach a level of consciousness in your relationship a level that does not build resentment over the next few decades that does not build a sense of disconnect of anti-teamwork you absolutely must dismantle this transactional thinking in your relationship okay you must realize that you are each individuals and honor

10:51 that individuality and honor the individual ways you each contribute and learn many many different skills that will allow you to set boundaries that will allow you to fight fair and productively yes there is such a thing as fighting productively that will allow you to actually not do the things that are too much for you or that lead to a sense of victimization or martyrdom but only do the things that come from a place of generosity and

11:21 that will allow you to actually communicate regularly when you feel like you are veering into that land of resentment and of build up of the victim mindset so that you can regularly clear the air and regularly dismantle any seeds that have started to be planted of resentment before they grow into mighty oaks we absolutely must begin to realize that we each trade in very different currencies within our relationships we each offer and give things and bring things

11:52 to the table that are different and frankly immeasurable and incomparable right we bring apples and oranges different things to the table because we're all individuals that's how we operate some people are going to bring a lot of love and energy into the relationship others will bring the ability to organize other will bring emotional emotional labor physical labor money time right um mental energy stability all sorts of things fun humor people bring different things

12:23 into our relationships but somehow we are still trying to tally up a score between us and it's going to fail us every single time so if this is hitting a nerve for you if you are wondering hey i am a little bit tallying up a score i am keeping a scorecard between me and my partner then i would love for you to just go on a little journey with me and and what you could do is really just take a deep

12:49 breath in just exhale let your shoulders move away from your ears really relax yourself down and i'm going to speak some questions as i said they're open-ended questions and i want you to see how they land for you okay so my first question is is there ever really such a thing as equality in a relationship have i achieved that with any of my friends with my parents with my colleagues with my children with my siblings what what

13:21 would that even look like what does equality in a relationship look like how would it be measured how will i ever know if i've arrived and if i have arrived how will that sustain itself over time is this really something that we want to be focusing on within our relationships let's ask ourselves do i want things to be so even steven in my relationship so measured so tallied up such a scoreboard kept or

13:54 does that take from the energy of romance of spontaneity of authenticity of evolution and growth and the ebb and flow of life let's ask ourselves does tallying up who is winning right who is giving more who is doing more who is better at this whole relationship thing does that lend itself well to unconditional love to romance to a feeling of connection and teamwork and safety or does it

14:26 somehow breed something more close to resentment animosity perhaps even hostility and contempt another way of asking this is when we first fell in love at the beginning of our relationship were we measuring who gave more right was i measuring every time i gave and every time i smiled and every time i brought energy or brought a gift or called my partner was i always measuring or was i giving from enthusiasm from the fullness of my heart

14:56 and i realized that relationships grow and mature and we don't stay stay in that passionate falling in love stage forever and some of us didn't start off that way to begin with however there's something to be learned from that giving for the pleasure of giving without the expectation of immediately receiving an equal gesture in return does it feel good when i pit ourselves against each other does that feel good to me does noticing all the ways that my

15:26 partner is a loser or is annoying or is irritating or is falling short does that make me feel more in love with them or less in love with them and could i equally notice other things about my partner that might make me feel more in love with them rather than less in love with them does continuously counting the ways that we give to each other make me a better version of myself or a worse version of myself do i become

15:55 more fun to be around more me more joyful happy energetic or do i become a drag what does my partner do that i actually appreciate greatly that maybe i'm not noticing so much what are the things that my partner actually takes on that i may be undervaluing so much so that it might even be something that i would not want to have to do that i would not want to take on i'm not happy to take that on and i'm happy

16:24 that my partner takes it on what does it mean to me to love someone and to accept them as they are how does that look how do i know when i'm practicing it see i may be able to continuously evolve with my partner right and influence them and set boundaries or make requests of them but ultimately am i displaying unconditional love through all of that or not and can i choose to as you're listening to these questions i want you to

16:54 remember that there are no right answers but some answers are going to come to you and question them listen to them debate with them you know pick them apart have a back and forth with these answers and see where it takes you what's the difference between trying to control someone trying to change them and trying to evolve with someone and trying to influence them am i aware of those differences am i nuanced in my application of those differences

17:26 what does my partner appreciate in me that i might not be counting as significant i might be discounting the things that i'm bringing to the table what are we each competent and good at what do we bring what energies skills passions drives can we bring to this relationship how are those different should we be forcing each other to bring the exact same qualities or is part of what makes any friendship and relationship

18:00 helpful and productive the differences in what each of us is able to contribute should we be forcing each other into a state of measurable equality is that possible and is it desirable or perhaps should we each be contributing to the best of our abilities each in our own special way what is the meaning of time passing of seasons of ups and downs of ebbs and flows am i giving ample weight to the fact that we each carry

18:31 different burdens at different times and that throughout the course of our lives we take turns carrying the burdens of responsibilities in various ways passing them to each other in a type of dance am i aware of the differences in resources in temperament and personality and abilities that we each have am i making space for that and honoring the diversity between us am i communicating my needs properly such as my need for help

19:03 or support am i enabling lazy narcissistic or unempathic behavior by letting it slide am i requesting the help the support the teamwork or am i nagging setting ultimatums manipulating and criticizing and undermining how am i contributing to the sense of inequality that i might be feeling how can i take responsibility for my part in this

19:34 and what can i do to change it without making it worse am i subconsciously or consciously using punishments to control to manipulate my partner such as withdrawal of love and attention or nasty comments glares stabs or nasty text messages for that matter am i using this kind of punitive behavior because i'm not able to maturely articulate what it is i need and to face the fact

20:04 that it might not get met right now or perhaps ever do i somehow revel in that victim mindset that i'm being hard done by am i holding on to that for later or for my sense of self-esteem or as an excuse for not showing up to my life the way i wanted to am i ready to let us both shine in our own unique individual ways and am i ready to communicate my needs requests expectations and offer the

20:36 support to make sure that those can potentially get met when indeed they are realistic i hope these questions are peaking your curiosity about your own inner workings within your relationship and perhaps alternative ways you might operate within it that might lead to more fruitful discussions ultimately i want to leave you with this thought there is no such thing as a win-lose situation in a marriage or partnership because when one partner wins and the other partner loses then

21:07 ultimately they both lose so if you're pitting yourself against each other and tallying up the score one of you is going to officially win but ultimately you both lose instead i want you to start adopting a win-win mindset where you both get to shine you both get to get your needs met you work together as a team on the same side in each other's corner it is counter-cultural it is counter-intuitive for many of us because we haven't seen it done

21:38 but it is possible the next step further is to go to the parentingjunkie.com forward slash worth the fight and to really start to cement these skills in a more hardcore way in a more actionable way i hope these questions have begun to open up your mind to different ways of viewing your relationship and now i'd love for you to really take this training right take it to the take it to the gym really put it through its paces

22:07 and start to make it a new habit and a new way of behaving and talking to each other within your relationship ultimately i absolutely believe that how we partner is how we parent so i want to invite you to be peaceful partners and to learn and invest and think about all the ways that you can make that a reality it is incredible gift to give to yourself to your partner and to your children