How to get on the same page as your parenting partner

0:00 [Music] hello and welcome to the your parenting Mojo podcast in this episode I want to share something with you that I might be more excited about than almost anything else I've done in the seven and a half years and over 200 episodes of this podcast first let me start with a few questions if you have a parenting partner do you ever fight with them and

0:32 if you do fight with them do you fight about parenting maybe you prefer to take an intentional approach learning from different resources and working to heal yourself from the hurts you've experienced while your partner prefers to do things more intuitively maybe you know that you aren't parenting exactly in line with your values a lot of the time and your partner tends to point out when you slip up or when the kids refuse to do what you say as evidence that your

0:58 method doesn't work maybe you've had the same arguments over and over again and each of you has the standard phrases that you repeat each time and nothing ever really seems to change it probably feels pretty frustrating and maybe even hopeless you might wish that you and your partner could get on the same page about some of this stuff or even if you couldn't be on the same page to agree that you'll disagree and how you'll handle that in a

1:23 way you can both live with well today I'm going to tell you some of the reasons why that's happening and what you can do about it and I'm going to share pieces of a conversation between parents who are in the process of figuring this out for themselves as well and how they're doing it but before we get into that I want to let you know how all of this came to be so we've had a module on parenting as a team in the

1:47 parenting membership ever since the membership started five years ago and it's always been based in the work of doors John and Julie Gman they're therapists they researchers based in Seattle Washington and they've studied couples and couples communication for DEC ades in the original parenting as a team module we introduced some of their core ideas in written format with a video lecture and some couples did get something out of it they were able to open up a conversation about a tricky

2:11 Topic in a way that they hadn't been able to before and not immediately get their Partners back up but then things pretty often fell apart they would end up bickering and drop back into their old tired phrases that they've used over and over again and the whole thing would feel very disheartening last year I took levels one and two of the three levels of Gutman method training over a period of 4 days and a substantial part of the

2:35 training consists of watching demonstration videos that the gans's recorded where they coached a couple who agreed to be recorded for use and teaching exercises as I watched those recordings I realized four things firstly the couple in the demo video was just an extreme version of the kinds of fights that I have with my husband and that parents in the parenting membership report having with their Partners as well the second thing I saw was that learning by watching others was

3:02 extremely effective it's one thing to know that all couples tend to fall into predictable patterns and it's entirely another thing to actually watch it happening and see oh I do some of those things too and see how couples therapists coach them to follow a specific conversational format so they can talk about what's really happening with them not just repeating the same old tired explanations that don't get us anywhere but deeply empathizing with each other and understand in the needs

3:30 and dreams and hopes and fears and memories that are behind those explanations the third thing was kind of the most mind-blowing for me personally which was that before I did the training I'd assumed that working with couples was in some way fundamentally different from the work that I do between parents and children and there was some really special set of techniques that I was definitely missing and there was no way that I could work with couples and I was

3:54 stunned to find out the vast majority of the techniques the gutmans were using were very well aligned with work I was already doing but I saw two really important problems in the way that they were using the tools I generally follow practices that are aligned with nonviolent communication which is usually a four-step process you start by making a non-judgmental observation about the situation so you both agree on what you're talking about without making anyone's fault you each share how you're

4:21 feeling and what your needs are and then you look for strategies to meet both of your needs in the gutman's training videos couples mixed up judgments and feelings ings all the time so a partner might say I felt criticized or I felt blindsided and those are not feelings it sounds like a really picky distinction but it's actually very important if you try to open up a conversation by saying to your partner I felt criticized or I

4:46 felt blindsided then their back is up and what you're really doing is you're judging something your partner said or did but when we disguise them as feelings by saying I felt criticized then we're making out like they're these neutral observations our partner gets triggered or flooded by what we say and the argument is heading south before we've even really figured out what we're talking about the other way the gutman's method got their demo video subjects into

5:11 trouble was when they conflated needs and strategies to meet their needs at one point the wife said to the husband something like I don't care what kind of day you've had when you walk in the front door I need you to have a smile on your face and I'm screaming in my head that is not a need that is a strategy to meet a need her need was probably for emotional safety and her husband pasting a smile

5:34 on his face before he walked in the door was one of 50 strategies they could have used to meet that need and again it might sound pricity but the whole point of understanding your needs is it helps you to find multiple strategies to meet those needs if you're restricting yourself to one strategy and your partner doesn't like that strategy because it doesn't meet their needs then you're stuck but when you can see the suite of strategies that could

5:58 potentially meet both of your needs needs you're in a much better position the final thing I saw as I was watching those demo videos was I was pretty sure there would be couples in the parenting membership who would be willing to do coaching sessions with me to record for the purpose of creating demo videos knowing that they would then be able to watch lots of other couples also practicing these skills and learn from them and it turned out there were

6:22 quite a few couples who were willing to do it so in January I recruited some couples specifically asking to work with couples who were doing reasonably well looking to optimize or who were having some moderate difficulties but they were both committed to the relationship I'm a coach I'm not a licensed clinical social worker I'm not a therapist so it isn't appropriate for me to work with couples who are dealing with severe difficulties like infidelity or if one or both of

6:45 them are considering leaving the relationship but it turns out there are quite a lot of couples who are not having those severe difficulties but who are still kind of struggling with communication either there are new issues coming up and they don't fully understand each other's needs or they're having these same disagreements over and over and over again about the same issues they're still committed to the relationship but it still kind of sucks to not be able to find a way to get

7:11 through these situations as I was recording and editing the demo videos I also created some cheat sheets based on the gutman's ideas but with my variations that couples can use to remind themselves of the process as they go through it I would walk them through the whole process at the beginning but without fail at some point they would depart from it and that's where the bickering would start and more than one person confessed that as their partner was

7:35 sharing what was going on for them the partner who was supposed to be listening was actually thinking about what they were going to say and how they were going to explain their perspective as soon as their partner stopped talking one of them would start using one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse which I think is one of the gutman's most helpful contributions we'll learn more about those in a minute having the cheat sheet did help them to stay on track but

7:57 what really helped them was having me there to remind them when they drifted and I wasn't using really high order coaching skills most of what I was doing was calling time out when they stopped using the process and when the four horsemen popped up which was going to completely derail the conversation if it continued as I was making these demo videos I thought back to some training I did a couple of years ago on healing shame after I did that healing shame

8:22 training I did some group coaching calls where I showed members the tools that I was using and then I coached a member on a situation they were feeling Shame about each member brought with them what we called a shame buddy some people brought someone from their Action Group which is a group of five Members Plus a peer coach that meets weekly inside the membership usually the membership is closed to folks from the outside but for these calls members were invited to

8:45 bring anyone they liked so some people brought their friends or their siblings anyone who wasn't involved with a situation they were feeling Shame about and I would lead a deep coaching session with one person inviting everyone else to follow along and see the tools I was using and we discussed the tools and then we separated into shame buddy pairs in breakout rooms and the pairs got to practice the tools between themselves they were able to make a pretty dramatic

9:09 amount of progress themselves and several of the Buddies have continued to meet on a regular basis since then to continue this work so then I thought well what if we could use the same methodology with couples couples therapy has only been around for about a hundred years what did we do before that it was probably a good deal of shut up and suck it up happening in marriages back then but each partner would probably get help

9:33 from talking with friends and parents and siblings further back it wouldn't surprise me if entire communities help couples to navigate relationship challenges even if nuclear family relationships didn't look exactly the same then as they do now so what if we could support couples in that way now if most of what a couple needs to have a productive conversation is help remembering to use the tools that are laid out on the cheat sheet and spotting The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as

9:59 they arise and the occasional summary of a convoluted idea don't many of us have the basic skills needed to support couples in doing this work if we can offer a little help and training and support so let me tell you a little bit about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse so these are criticism defensiveness contempt and stonewalling so let's go through these one by one the first of them is criticism when one partner attacks the other person's

10:27 character rather than just an AC ction or behavior and this very often sounds like you always dot dot dot or you never dot dot dot or why do you dot dot dot or why don't you dot dot dot and in the case of the why questions it's important to note these aren't really questions they're rhetorical questions that are often actually expressing disappointment or anger and I also want to relate criticisms to language we use in nonviolent communication and problem

10:55 solving conversations we can equate criticism with the judgment they're basically the same thing and they indicate there's a right way and a wrong way to do things and you know the right way and you do it that way and the other person doesn't know or doesn't do things that way judgments are not terrible in your mind judgments can tell you something about what's important to you if you can take your judgment and try to understand what feeling underneath that

11:21 that's really helpful right we saw that in our conversation with Diana recently in the episode on how to not be a permissive parent but it may be difficult for your part partner to hear judgments that come out of your mouth and still stay in a frame of mind where they want to understand your feelings and help you uncover and meet your needs the antidote to criticism and judgment is to share your feelings about specific things that have happened rather than

11:44 generalizing or saying what your partner needs to change the second of the Four Horsemen is defensiveness so this is an attempt to protect yourself to defend your innocence or to ward off a perceived attack sometimes this is done by Counterattack ing or by acting as an innocent victim the pattern of criticism followed by defensiveness is very common but defensiveness can also come up in response to a perceived criticism so partner a might say did you take out the

12:12 trash yet which has already been agreed to be partner B's task and partner B might respond with an attack like no because I've been really busy did you take it out or with positioning themselves as a victim no I didn't take it out you know I'm busy I've been at work lately can't you just do it and this victimhood may take the form of focusing on how hard it has been for partner B to already do all the things

12:33 they're already doing the weight that they're carrying how the solution is clearly to do things even more perfectly when partner a probably isn't asking for that partner B had already agreed to take out the trash but is avoiding the responsibility they'd signed up for so the antidote to defensiveness is to accept at least a small part of responsibility for the role in the situation the third of the Four Horsemen is contempt the Gutman say contempt is

12:59 the most destructive negative behavior in relationships this means treating your partner with disrespect mocking them with sarcasm condescension using hostile humor name calling mimicking body language like sneering sometimes even eye rolling can convey contempt contempt is poisonous in a relationship because it conveys that I'm better than you we didn't really see this in our conversations with couples partly because people were on good behavior in front of me and partly because I specifically requested people to work

13:29 with who were doing fairly well in their relationships and even though the tools would be the same coaching obviously is more appropriate for couples who are doing relatively well the gutman's antidote to contempt is to build a culture of appreciation in the relationship because appreciation brings the other partner up to your level it's hard to feel contempt when you also feel appreciation the final of the Four Horsemen is stonewalling and this is when one or perhaps both people withdraw

13:57 from the interaction shutting down closing themselves off the Gutman say that 80% of ston wallers are men but I've historically been a stonewaller myself before i' even heard of the gutmans I knew that I just tuned people out in difficult conversations it's a habit that I learned from my father who would lecture me for hours when I was a teen about my perceived shortcomings and I wasn't permitted to respond and so I would just mentally disappear it became

14:22 a habit that I carried into my adult relationships I think pop culture looks at stonewalling a bit derisively like oh it's just men doing their thing and pretending the woman doesn't exist in a siset relationship when she's nagging but it's important to know this is an emotion regulation strategy the stonewaller is putting a wall up between themselves and their partner because they're too disregulated to be present in the conversation the stonewaller might refuse to make eye contact they might

14:49 turn away or act busy engage in obsessive behaviors the antidote to stonewalling is to support the partner who stonewalls in regulating themselves this often involves stopping the conversation for at least a period of time the stonewalling partner could imagine themselves in a soothing relaxing place or tense and release their muscles or a focus on their breath once they're re-regulated they may be able to then continue the conversation and be present with hearing the other person and also expressing their own

15:18 feelings and needs the Gans present criticism first for a reason it often shows up first and then some combination of the other three reactions follow we may have developed patterns in childhood and through ad throughout adulthood that lead us into a particular Horsemen but most of us aren't in a relationship where contempt or stonewalling are present as part of our everyday lives and if they are I'd say that couples counseling would be a great place to explore that many many

15:45 arguments start with a criticism or a perceived criticism and then a responding pattern comes in and things devolve from there so interrupting the criticism is likely to be the best place to start working on this ideally that will take the form of the person who criticizes doing it less often or catching something right after they say it and acknowledging oh that might have come across as criticism before further disregulation occurs if that doesn't happen then the receiving partner can

16:12 hopefully create a pause observe that the statement seemed critical and asking if that was the partner's intent as people get flooded or triggered that gets much more difficult but it's something to try when criticism first comes up now I want you to hear parts of a coaching session where some defensiveness comes up although not immediately it's actually a really interesting example because I interviewed parent d a few weeks ago for another podcast episode that you're going to hear in a few weeks where she

16:40 talked about how her parenting has really shifted over the last couple of years since we've been working together and she did acknowledge in that conversation The Fairly intensive amount of connection that her child needs has been hard on her relationship with her husband not long after the podcast interview I was on a group coaching call where I showed another member CG how to use the parenting as a team tools and then CG coached D and her partner jonno

17:06 D and jono and CG have all agreed to allow me to share the conversation with you and I want to pick up fairly early in it so D was having a bit of a hard time reflecting back to jonno what the real issue was for him partly because jonno was having a hard time articulating it himself so what I want you to listen for in this snippet is D's validation she has a very different perspective on this issue but as we pick

17:28 up she's putting that on hold for just a few minutes as she tries very hard to see what's coming up for jono on this topic because she knows that in a few minutes she's going to get to share her perspective and know that he will really try to listen to her and hear where she's coming from rather than just waiting for her to stop talking and just to give you some context I should point out that they live in a very rural area

17:50 in New Zealand and they get the best internet signal outside which is why you'll see them outside in the YouTube video and you'll hear wind and background noise if you're listening to the podcast episode they're working to replant native species on a former Plantation and they also have a sailboat that they lived on full-time for a couple of years right before Co yeah okay so Jonah What I Hear What I Hear You say is that um that your plate feels quite full with

18:20 all of the different things happening around um our property and you know and then there's an extension of that too um is also there is um work that you can do in the office and then there's also the boat um so there's kind of like the property there's Ru and then there's me in terms of us connecting as well and then there's um the work in your office and then there's um work to be done on

18:50 the boat and it all feels like a lot in finding a balance you feel overwhelmed I'm get it for you in a minute um and uh that you can see that you can see that when you prioritize all those other things um and you're not feeling engaged with r or I that that then causes its

19:21 own feedback loop which then adds kind of more things to your play yeah is that kind of it kind of I'd like to boil down the items a bit further because you can say the items but it's maintaining the life you know that we live and exist in um

19:51 and I kind of feel like that's not just solely my responsibility but it is I take that on it's like the cleaning analogy before you know um well and the opposite to the the female aspect is a a very much male Centric um thing within our society that that is the male's responsibility in order to provide the the thing the the aspect for it um

20:24 everything that facilitates the lifestyle um can I can I stop there just to make sure I've got that bit right yeah um so are you are you saying that that whether or not I expect you to take responsibility for all of those things

20:55 you feel responsible for all those things or are you saying that I'm not taking ownership of those things and so you have to it's a combination I think um you are quite happy to let it slide and that's fine but I also I am the the social conventioners that I'm expected to yeah okay so so I'm okay to let it slide but is there an element of but if it slides it will be seen as you're

21:28 failing no it's more if it slides I will be dealing with the the consequences which is okay as opposed to because you Underneath It All feel that it's think that it's ultimately your things that fall into my my responsibility of of expertise I mean your expertise is

22:01 the kid at the end of the if you want to boil it down you mean because the the things that you're talking about are things like you want to build a shed or not you sorry we would like to have a shed here on the property we would like to have fences um there's weed control to be done where you use Digger and you know dig giant holes and Berry Ginger and there's um I mean the list is pretty

22:26 massive like there's electrical work to be done on the boat there's repair work in the fiberglass on the boat need to go but I guess get me FL but to credit you these are all things that I don't know how to do so you're not saying that there's just a societal expectation you're actually saying as well as that yeah you are the one that is capable of doing those things yeah if they're not done then it comes back on

22:53 my I'm I'm wondering so I'm hearing two different things I'm wondering if I may share what I'm hearing to see how it Lins for you like what's happening right now in the last 2 3 minutes um is sort of just listing I I'm doing this you're you're doing that and I'm wondering if we can move away from that and lump all that under what I think I heard Janna say earlier which is that there's an internal struggle that you're feeling

23:25 jono you're struggling between what it means to be successful as a provider for your family and as a citizen and then what it means to be a successful parent whatever that means right like you want to have time with Ru but you felt torn so there's this internal struggle and I wonder if that's the issue that we're dealing with or that you'd like to discuss is sort of like I'm conflicted and I'm not and I'm

23:56 struggling to find a way to balance it in a way that doesn't cause tension in our relationship yeah yeah I think you've had the nail on the head there um and really what I was trying to communicate to D was that her role in this even though she might from when I heard you speak initially on it you kind of said it was my problem and

24:29 yes that is my internal issue but the balancing of things is our family unit um I yeah I don't I'm happy to take the issue on and it is how I deal with the issue that is causing the issue um I accept that it's my dealing with it because I can't just let it slide so did you hear CG's elegant summary of the issue at the end of that section CG is not a trained coach she has no

25:00 experience of coaching anyone before she gathered some parents inside the community and then participated in some peer-led workshops to practice active listening and you can see that that's paying off what she's doing here is listening closely and reflecting what she's heard and 40 minutes into the conversation jonno finally says yes that's it that's the issue which he and de have discussed a number of times before using again these same old tired phrases and getting nowhere except

25:30 frustrated now jonno's need for understanding and being heard is met we continue hearing jono's feelings on the topic for a little while longer and when we finish with that aspect of the conversation he does think that D has understood it as well as they both can at this point were you are you saying that um you don't feel appreciated for everything that you do and that it's hard for me to appreciate everything that you do because they don't understand the

26:01 complexities of what's involved in a lot of the the things that you do yes yes that's correct and probably further to the point of J you also don't understand the what is put back on to me from the way that we raise Ro it's so you're and so you're saying on top of that I don't I don't

26:34 understand or jene doesn't understand I don't understand okay I don't understand what um the additional work on you because of how we parent work yeah okay and not necessarily additional just B work okay then we switched to hearing from d and initially she feels quite defensive she describes it as a sense of indignation and CG catches it and asks

27:04 her to refocus just on her feelings and you can hear that jonno does not respond with criticism or defensiveness or stonewalling or contempt of his own possibly because the experience of being heard earlier created some space for him not to blow up but to stay present in the conversation and even reflect back to her what he thinks he's heard I guess I I there is a sense of indignation in me um yes I I see that parenting in this

27:38 way takes more time in the moment but um and and I also I I I actually think that jonno sees the um you know that yes it's more in the moment but that the overarching you oh maybe I feel a bit indignant because when um when when Jonah's not in this tense tense anxious when you're not in this

28:09 tense anxious place you like parenting like this and R being a you know like a whole person that we interact with the same way we'd like to be treated I'm going to keep you D to talking about your feelings and your reaction to yeah what jna said as opposed to you thinking

28:39 how Janna acts and thinks and reacts right okay oh thank you okay um maybe while you're thinking for your next feeling is could maybe Janna can reflect back what what you just said yeah I heard you say that you

29:13 feel comfortable in the way that you're doing it and how we're doing it together when things are going well but you feel like the uncomfortable that the UNC comfortable section comes when uh it's my way or when I'm not dealing with it well amongst when it's running well it's the way that we're both trying to to

29:44 achieve yeah y yep yeah and I think I feel a bit rattled and scared but really that that rattled and scared comes from I'm not

30:18 sure s can you direct me a bit because I'm not I'm a bit lost in the process what do you wish for but what do I wish for yeah I I think I that was my very beginning I wish that I don't wish that we didn't have the conflict I don't wish that we didn't have those times I I wish that we could work out what the

30:48 instigator of that conflict or what is underneath that so that we could try put you know try change things a little bit so that it doesn't come up or not that it doesn't come up but so that if it comes up we can say oh yeah I recognize this and this is some things that we should do to address to address it and now I feel like I'm speaking really daely but it's um some things

31:20 that we should do to address the tense um apprehensive feelings because it seems that when those feelings come about there is a just uh I don't know now I'm now I'm going back to what I think you know instead of talking about your feelings my feelings yeah so I'm a bit lost in the process so you

31:51 kind of you're getting caught on this tension side of things I've heard you repeat that a couple of times yeah no notice that lovely validation and questioning by jonno he isn't asking de a question to catch her out he asks what her dream is so he can better understand her perspective and he notices when Di has said something a couple times as an indicator that this is an issue that's really getting caught in the tension is

32:14 important to her I do want to be clear that D and jonno did not solve their issue on this call they have previously tried having D share appreciations with jonno for the things he does to support their family but she wasn't sure whether and how to do this especially when he seemed to be in what they refer to as a grumpy mood he clarified that even if he is in a grumpy mood the appreciations do land for him and he appreciates them as

32:38 it were sometimes we get to a really tidy resolution on the coaching call itself which always feels amazing for the coach but sometimes it doesn't happen like that and the ideas continue to percolate as they did for Di and jono which we'll get to in a few minutes immediately after the coaching session we had a casual debrief chat with d jonno CG and the other other parents who had watched the session in the background and we chatted about how

33:01 hard it can be to do this work by ourselves a participant who is watching the session asked in the chat can I have this conversation with my by myself with my partner and CG picks up with a reflection on that si si asked the question of can we can she do this by herself or or is it better with another person and when I'm working it right like I find I guess you have to know yourself like I know myself enough now

33:28 to say I can't do this by myself because like yeah like when D was going in and starting to direct it at jonno as opposed to talking with her like like I probably do that without seeing it and the only reason why I was able to stop is because I was watching her and I'm not her exactly yeah I couldn't see myself doing it yes I'm gonna go back and watch because I just yeah and even

33:56 after you pointed it out I'm like oh yeah kind of say that but I couldn't see how not to do that yeah is so you heard and you'll hear in the recording jna will say like I'm feeling defensive because I feel like there's judgment coming from those words right even though you don't maybe not intending it but it's coming across that way and I know that's what I deal with I know it but I can't stop myself and so I think a

34:22 mediat a mediator might be helpful it really is and I think that if if both people like if the relationships at a point where um you know and and each person has an awareness that in this case like maybe jonno says yeah I'm I'm noticing that you're actually talking about yourself now you're not you're not validating me anymore um and if jonno can be present and not be immediately triggered by that and if D can hear that and not be

34:49 immediately triggered by that then yeah you can get yourself back on course but it's really hard because you've got to listen to what they're saying and hold on to the end to interject just to direct it without getting into a a battle yes yes it is hard because we never learned to communicate like this right we what we learned is you you just wait for the other person to pause long enough so that you can start talking

35:12 about your perspective not actually truly hearing the other person um and that's why what we're trying to do here right the reason I had CG coach instead of doing it myself is because I want us to skill build in our Network um I mean every gonna watch this recording and CG is G be the hottest thing in running these sessions everybody's gonna want you to do theirs um and so you know we had a whole bunch of people on the call this

35:37 morning and who have all seen it in practice who have who you know a bunch of them have coached each other and so Siana you know you're having a hard time with your partner we've got the cheat sheets right that you can use and we've got a whole bunch of people in our community you can raise your hand and say hey we we got some help could anyone join us on a call um and maybe CG's

35:55 available and then maybe CG and her partner are having a hard time and Si's like yeah I can I can do it so that that's the kind of network I want to provide so that we're not like oh I we're having a hard time and we can't afford therapy and where else do we go right there's nothing else but this is kind of a you know yes this is not therapy but it is something that can

36:12 help when we posted the call recording 24 hours later D shared a lovely update on the conversations that had happened since then which I'm going to read to you because they're I mean they're really that cool okay so D says it loosen things and then a whole bunch of exclamation Mar we could talk about it after the call who knew we had a really connecting conversation that night and we even spoke about patriarchy lots more exclamation points I felt sad

36:38 embarrassed and above all disappointed coming out of the call I had so wanted to have this conversation and it just didn't end the way I'd hoped I couldn't focus on the process I got stuck in story mode I was thinking we are so close and yet so far from pinning down the issue at the core at the end I was telling myself the actions by which she means the appre iations that she agreed to share were a

37:00 Band-Aid she says I'm going to debrief and explain the aftermath here so I can hopefully get the most out of this and for our wonderful coach which of course was CG first before going into my turn to speak I felt flooded I had high arousal unpleasant effect rapid heart feeling of being lost scared to dig into the problem with no resolution in sight I should have taken the pause that CG offered me and maybe more second and

37:24 perhaps very tied to the first I had a dominant story in my my head that I didn't know how to articulate in the format of the call or even if I should or even if I could jonno expressly said months ago he did not want to discuss the p word on a your parenting Mojo call until he was ready and any one-on-one attempts I have made to discuss patriarchy have been met with insurmountable defensiveness the story I was telling

37:48 myself is it is the patriarchy and capitalism and probably white supremacy that has jonno feeling apprehensive and gives rise to unmet needs for accompl ment achievement satisfaction and appreciation our choices are non-standard and don't follow traditional measures of success there's no increase in stuff wealth or status and the story I was telling myself is that periodically once every few months jonno gets bogged down in these feelings of apprehension and instead of interrogating this and perhaps seeing it

38:18 for what I think it is a system that doesn't care about what brings you Joy and only wants you to measure yourself against others to perpetuate a power difference to drive productivity jonno blames Ru and I Rue for holding jonno back jonno can't achieve more because he's busy with r because Rue asks for jonno's attention resentful of me because jonno sees it as an expectation of mine that he will be a present and engaged father and additionally

38:45 resentful of me because if only I could do more of the skilled practical things jonno could have time for things he enjoys instead of feeling only the weight of everything a man and provider should do on his shoulders to reiterate that is my story so that was what was in my head that I couldn't get past and that story was flooding me what I should have been thinking about was thank all that is wonderful that he doesn't want

39:07 me doing more domestic duties 1920s style I know that's flippant I simply mean to acknowledge that with a systemic issues the problem as I see it could be so much worse but I got defensive and critical he is saying Society is placing all these competing things on his plate and D also has expectations and that is true and I'm upset that he didn't say patriarchy is putting all this stuff on my plate and sometimes I blame you

39:32 instead of fully exploring that why why did I care so much about that distinction why did I get so bogged down in that so much learning and unlearning still to do I ranted to another member after the call and then she thanked that member for holding space for her big feelings I had a light bulb moment after our conversation noted with a light bulb Emoji below last night after we went to bed I apologized to jonno that I wasn't able

39:56 to simp State my feelings that I'd been so blamy something we're both actively working on with mixed success obviously we each shared five things we appreciated about each other and then I asked jonno if he was willing to hear my feelings and what I heard him say and what had shifted for me he said yes so in that conversation D said I felt sad and apprehensive this last week I've been worrying over the past week and

40:19 during the call that you feel downtrodden for systemic reasons because we live in a culture that values only a very narrow vision of success and instead of seeing this as a contributing and major factor you blame Ru and I when you don't feel successful but something shifted for me after the call what I thought I heard you say during the call is we are choosing a non-standard lifestyle and at times you do feel downtrodden by society's patriarchal and

40:44 capitalist measures of success that don't match how we live because there's no substantial increase in wealth or stuff or status and then there's the light bulb emoji and sometimes Society comes knocking and those times and front loaded you need me to back you up and say I see you I see what you do for us I appreciate you I think you are successful you hold High status to me you are doing amazing things X Y and Z

41:12 make our life more wonderful I love you and hopefully this can reduce the chatter fed in from the outside world that says success is only financial and only status what do you think and then jono said yes and then D said woohooo and then she went on we went on to talk for another hour about life and love and systems and how jonno feels shame when he yells or power overs Ru because it reminds him of his

41:39 childhood and feeling powerless and angry and we finished by each of us sharing one thing that the other could do to make our lives more wonderful this week I hope we can have this conversation many times over there were heaps of layers to the conversation too too much to read I think but lots for me to consider mostly I'm thinking on how I can Lev the playing field for partnership instead of a patriarchy and what is at the root of the defensiveness

42:02 for me feelings of inadequacy around not doing more of the physical labor Financial contribution mental load of saving versus spending for financial sustainability and capital Improvement reducing long-term workload all of these perhaps and then she inserted some bullet points she said I've committed to two months of daily appreciations regardless of the mood and keeping it up if it's useful I'm already quite practical nowhere near as Jon though so I'm going to double down on these efforts I'd love to learn a practical

42:30 skill of ongoing use to us just have to think of something goodness knows I've thought on this so any ideas are welcome I'm going to muck in more with any labor to be done to up the team feel I'm going to retain my focus on R being a nurturer and talking about the importance of everyone nurturing for equality I'm going to talk to jonno about redoubling our efforts to limit external gratification for R and I'm going to

42:52 steadfastly demonstrate and encourage being non-binary in all of us these three and I'm always looking for more are specifically to reduce passing patriarchal Norms down the line biggest I'm going to wait a week to retry this type of conversation with jonno following the script so we can work together on ongoing strategies tailored to the specific needs I want to do one more conversation by ourselves to get some practice and then I'd like to have another call with CG peer coaching us if

43:19 she's willing wish me luck and tell me what I'm missing I'd love to hear if this or the call resonates for anyone or people's thoughts and ideas for improvement and then D concluded by thanking the people who are on the call for their support and we chatted in the comments about some of the kinds of skills she could easily learn and put to use in the house that they're remodeling she's also going to research some budgeting

43:39 software she can use so she can take on the mental load of that work and once again I want to point out that D and jono haven't solved the issue the Gans say that 69% of problems coup's face are intractable meaning they never really get solved we can debate the validity of their methodology on that they basically asked couples during their intake interview what they thought fought about and then they asked them again A year later what they were

44:04 fighting about and 69% of the topics were the same we don't know how much if any help these couples had in between or if they were really fighting at the beginning and it was more of a disagreement by the end or vice versa but I think we can safely say that a pretty big proportion of the things we disagree over are not one-time issues but they're recurring in nature the Gutman actually say that even with couples with whom they work directly

44:28 they aren't looking to resolve the issue they want to move toward what they call being in Dialogue on an issue meaning they can talk about it without having a huge blowup and they can agree on some things to try and then try them and regroup and see if they worked in the way the couple thought they would and if not to try something else and I'm sure you can see that D and jonno are very much in Dialogue on this issue now part

44:51 of that happened on the coaching call but a big chunk of it happened afterward and it happened because an untrained peer coach was there on the call helping them to stick to the framework and notice the four horsemen when they came up so if you wish that you could have this kind of conversation with your partner and have some movement instead of just repeating your positions over and over again as you both get more frustrated and start to be in Dialogue

45:17 on these challenges so you can see some forward progress even if you don't solve them entirely then I would love to work with you in the parenting membership yes it's a membership about parenting and parenting often involves disagreements about parenting yes the membership will help you in your relationship with your children but it will also help you in your relationship with your partner if you and your partner have at least one and maybe more than one issue where you

45:44 cannot seem to make progress and you're basically having the same conversation each time you talk about it these tools will help with that and of course they also help with the daily struggles like how to get out the house in the morning what to when your child prefers one parent over another how to navigate conflict in front of the kids when you join the parenting membership you'll spend your first month learning some problem solving tools that are primarily

46:07 focused on challenges with your children but they also form the foundation of the Gutman tools you'll learn in your second and third months we have demo videos all ready and waiting for you to watch I will support you and your partner directly on group coaching calls and we also have peer coaches who can then help you in the more ongoing conversations it will take to be in Dialogue on the ongoing issues if you or your partner identify

46:31 as a dad we also have a dad Circle led by a dad and therapist where dads can develop a kind of relationship that truly supports them many dads in our community are fed up of being in spaces where they get praised for being able to change a diaper they want to have genuine relationships with other men where they can share their struggles if they have female Partners it can be hard to explore that stuff when their partner

46:53 has done a lot of reading and listening to podcasts and thinking about these topics and the dad isn't quite sure about them and has questions but doesn't have a place to express their uncertainty the dad circles a place where dads can do that with guidance and support from a peer dad who also happens to be a practicing psychologist and without me or other women present and if you're a single parent at the moment then unless you are definitely going to

47:16 remain single for the rest of your life which is a totally valid choice if that is your choice then I know from experience and from talking with parents that our communication patterns tend to follow us from one relationship to the next they do not magically disappear when we enter a new relationship and if both of us and our partner have all already been in long-term relationships chances are we are both bringing unhealthy communication patterns with us

47:41 so rather than thinking that because you're single you don't need parenting as a team modules you might consider that a phase of life when you're single is a great time to work on learning new skills that you can take into a new relationship when you're ready I know some people aren't sure about the membership format they'd rather take a course that has a defined duration but I'm wondering if maybe you've ever done therapy or even couples

48:05 therapy with your partner maybe you already learned some skills that were really helpful when you practiced them with a therapist present or outside of the therapy session but then reporting back to the therapist each week you might have been able to make some good progress on the issue while you were in therapy but therapy is expensive so you can't do it for an extended period of time this isn't therapy but most couples who are committed to a relationship ship

48:27 don't actually need therapy they need help following a cheat sheet and staying on track when they forget to follow this cheat sheet the membership format allows you to keep getting support in an affordable way for as long as you need it in fact if you're a member for five continuous years you can stay as long as you like and stay after that for free we have a cohort of members who are at that point right now and it can be incredibly

48:48 helpful to hear from them when you're having a challenge because they can show you they went through something very similar they got through it and how they got through it and give you hope that things will be easier members develop deep relationships with each other that just isn't possible in a short course that you go through mostly by yourself we've already supported each other in beginning to heal from the shame we experience in our lives and the shame

49:11 our children experience as well and now we can support each other in the challenges we face with our co-parents too a parenting membership is open for enrollment between May 5th and 15th we have sliding scale pricing and a money back guarantee you can get all all the details on the membership at yourp parenting mojo.com parenting membership and if you need help talking with your partner about joining the membership I also have a very short document you can

49:37 print or email to them to share some of the details and benefits you can get that on the page where this episode lives at yourp parenting mojo.com parenting [Music] partners