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Welcome to Sex.Love.Power. I'm your host, Michele Lisenbury Christensen. I'm a relationship and sex coach who has worked for 23 years with executives and business founders. And by popular demand, I've focused on their intimate relationships for the past dozen or so years, as they sought my coaching to push the envelope on how good they could have it in life and in love and sex.
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These extraordinary high-performing clients have blessed me with a wealth of knowledge about how to create relationships that aren't just successful, but truly great. This podcast is where I can be in the conversations about love and sex that help every listener create those same world-class results in their relationships. If you've ever found yourself in the middle of a conversation, you don't have the energy or the emotional bandwidth for or found yourself trying to get your partner to engage in a conversation they're resisting, or you've ever had a late night conversation go absolutely sideways on you, this episode is for you.
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If you've had these trainwreck conversations, you're in very, very good company. Amazing people come to me all the time, needing help with what they think of as a communication problem. Today, I'm going to help you in the same way I helped them. And it starts with this basic question: Might your communication problem actually be a timing problem?
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We're going to talk about
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- Why we resist choosing a good time for a conversation
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- What becomes possible when we create well-timed conversations with full consent from both parties,
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- How you can ask for a good time to talk and how to deal with getting a reply of "not now" if that's maybe a little hard to hear (I know it is for me!)
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- How to say "not now," if that's the right thing for you, and how to know when it IS
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- How to get through the urge to talk before your partner's ready, and
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- How to ensure that you do circle back to an important conversation if there's one that's waiting to happen.
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So by the end of this episode, you're going to feel clearer and more confident about communicating with your partner, creating powerful conversations simply by having them when you're both ready. So let's dive in!
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First, why do we resist choosing a good time for a conversation?
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Now at work, we don't just dump things on other people when they're on our mind. We organize our conversations into memos and meetings, we set a time and we allow others to prepare, so they're in the right frame of mind to hear as well.
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Why don't we do that at home?
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Well, there are at least four reasons. First, impatience, the thought that our partners should be ready, whenever we're ready. We've been patient and kind of on guard all day at work in those more formalized professional relationships. At home, when we want to talk about something the moment that we think of it, we want to talk about it NOW.
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I call this "last in, first out!" It's an old inventory management accounting term, meaning the last thought to arrive in my head is the first one that I want to blurt out, I want to just get it off my chest. Now, while I'm thinking of it, so I don't forget!
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I think of this is kind of a convenience factor: you're trying to get it out of your head, offloaded onto your partner, and put it behind both of you. Problem being: they may not be ready for it. The biggest problem that comes with this convenience mentality is when we're upset.
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So when I'm mad at my partner, or sad or hurt, and I want to talk about it right now, I'm breaking what I call the 32 degree rule. That says we want to talk about something, not when we're hot about the issue, but when we've let things cool off enough, but not too much, such that they've frozen over. That's why it's the 32 degree rule. You've let it cool down, but it hasn't frozen over. You haven't sort of forgotten what mattered: that's still fresh in your mind. But you're no longer irate or brokenhearted, upset... you're able to talk about it in a calm and grounded way.
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Now the second reason that we don't choose good times for conversations at home is that sometimes it's been hard for us to have the conversation. We're not super enthusiastic, like in my first example, about having it. On the contrary, it took a lot of nerve for us to have it, so we worked up that nerve. And now it's like we've got a full head of steam and we want to put it out there before we chicken out. And so we blurt it out! We've got a lot of anxiety, and we may be injecting that anxiety into our partner to give ourselves some relief from it. So "now that I'm ready to talk about this, I'm just going to set this right here!" And that often doesn't work out any better than the kind of explosion that we talked about in the first instance.
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Now the third reason you might not wait for good timing at home could be unconscious sabotage, creating a self fulfilling prophecy of a bad conversation. "Oh, he never wants to hear about this, he never wants to help me with that!" "She never wants to talk about what it's like when her parents come to town. So I'm just going to march right into this conversation."
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When we have a negative vision of how the conversation is going to go, we often get resigned about that and thereby, we don't set the conversation up for success. And part of that is simply the timing. All of these reasons make sense.
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Fourth, we don't set our conversations up with good timing, because we're afraid that if we don't talk about it, now, we won't ever talk about it. We're afraid our partners not willing to circle back, we're afraid we'll forget. And for the same reason that I will use a piece of paper on my desk as a reminder of a task I need to complete, we want to have the conversation now so we don't forget to have it later.
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Now, all these reasons make sense. But they all hurt our communication, too. They fail to get us the outcomes we want. And ultimately, they deteriorate our relationships. Now in contrast, when we do create well-timed conversations by seeking agreement about good timing, and not settling for anything less than enthusiastic participation from both partners, we create a far richer soil in which possibilities can grow.
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So what becomes possible when we create welcome conversations?
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When you finally do have the conversation, for one thing, your partner's creativity, their resilience, their good humor, and their full presence can come forward. And as for you, you can be your best self. When you have the conversation at the right time, you can be calm, grounded and clear minded. And in the interim, from the time that you initiate a conversation, to the time that you have it, you can grow. By waiting, you cultivate greater capacity for self regulation. You gain efficiency: you recognize that not every conversation you might have wanted to have actually needed to happen at all, you grow deeper respect for your partner, by respecting their boundaries and their timing. And as a result, you reduce the anger and resentment in your relationship in both directions. And finally, you cultivate deeper trust, a better ability to take good care of one another, you become both more trustworthy and more trusting.
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Now how do I know that all of those things happen when we cultivate well-timed conversations? Because I am the queen of the poorly timed conversation.. of the blurt... of the "we. have. to. talk. about. this. NOW. It's been a long time since I've chased my husband through the house in the middle of an argument that HE knew we needed to pause and wait until a better time to have, because we were both flooded. I couldn't let those conversations go, even when it was so clear that no more good could come from them. But that phrase: "no good can come from us talking about this right now" saved our marriage, I don't know how many times, once we learned to say it and once I recognized the truth of it.
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See, I used to panic that if we didn't talk about it NOW, we never would. We had to resolve this before we could go to sleep. I had to have a resolution to the conversation.
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The truth was I had to learn to self soothe. And then, even after I learned not to have those knock-down-drag-out, overdramatic, deeply painful, exhausting-the-next-day (like worse than any hangover you ever had!) kind of fights, we still would have conversations that were poorly timed, because I wanted to talk about it NOW. I just thought of it. Or it's the end of the day, and finally I see you, and now I want to talk about it.
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But Kurt just wasn't up for it. And through the years, we developed a vernacular - a way of talking with one another about whether now was a good time to talk about this. And as we did, all of those benefits I just named accrued to us.
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So I decided to create this episode in this period of time where all in the same day, I heard from one client that she had had a conversation with her husband where he wanted her to do something with her that she knew he wasn't really up for like he was trying to make it happen. And she thought, "Ummm... this isn't gonna work well. I don't think you're in the right space for it." But he insisted, and she relented because he was so insistent. And it went badly. So: poorly timed conversation.
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Another couple, where I saw both people together, were telling me about how he gets so excited about talking about something that he doesn't really care whether she's available to talk about it or not. He just wants to launch into it. He's excited about it. He reminds me of me. So I empathized with him. And then I taught him, "You know if it's not consensual, it's not gonna go well. You'll need to learn to ask your wife, 'I'd like to talk with you about this. Is now a good time?' And you need to learn to respect if she says no. And I know that's gut wrenching, because I hate it when my husband isn't up for talking about something when I want to talk about it, but it's okay."
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And finally, in that day that prompted me to record this episode, I came home.... I work from home. Everybody's home now! But I was in the kitchen with my husband at the end of the day, and I wanted to talk to him about something, and he wasn't ready for it. And we had the tidiest little conversation, like we can have now. I said, "Hey, can I tell you about something I did today?" And he said, I need to talk about that later. And I said, "Okay." And it went well, because I've developed the resilience to take that in stride.
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For you, that may not sound like a big deal at all. But for me, it's huge, that I can deal with him not being up for that. He is deeply introverted, and runs out of words, by the end of the day. He runs out of his capacity to listen to words. And I'm much more loquacious. I don't know that I'm an extrovert. I think I'm kind of half and half, but much more interested in exposition about what's going on inside my head and hearing about what's going on inside his head. I have much more capacity for that and interest in that than he does. So this is kind of a gap between us and bridging that gap used to feel impossible. But the tools that I'm going to teach you have allowed us to do that. And I would wager that there are a lot of you listening, who need these tools as badly as we did.
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So those are the three stories that had me want to record this. And now I want to answer what is likely your next question: Well, how do I ask them? How do I know whether it's a good time to talk? And how do we get to an agreement? And what do I do if my partner says no? So as I've shared, it can be really hard to hear? No, I can't talk about this now. But that's exactly what you need to ask. And Alison Armstrong is one of my teachers about men and women. And one of the things she says is, if you initiate a conversation with a man, you're interrupting him. I don't know if that's true of all men, but in my experience, it is a useful little thought or saying that we want to presume that we are interrupting, if we approach a man who's breathing. Whatever he is doing, he's doing it. He's focused, he's in that. He's present to THAT. And if you start something else, if you want to talk to him about something, you're interrupting what he's doing.
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Now, I can also say that that's true for me a lot of the time. If you approach me, I may just look like I'm sitting enjoying my thoughts. But you're interrupting that, if you come to me to talk. And now especially: homeschooling two kids, or homeschooling one and helping the other one do online schooling, and working with couples throughout the day and evening, at various times, running a team, I'm holding other people a LOT. And so if I'm in an introspective moment, or an introverted moment, and you interrupt me, I may not want to have a conversation with you right then! I may want to schedule that!
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So it really is valuable to a lot of people to hear the question "I'd like to talk with you about..." and then just give them a super succinct summary: "I'd like to talk with you about something logistical." "I'd like to talk with you about something related to our son." "I'd like to talk with you about an idea I had today." "I'd like to talk with you about our finances." Let them know what it's about so they can get some sense of how much bandwidth it'll take. If you can give them clues, like, "I'd like to have about a five minute conversation about blank, blank blank." That's really helpful. That'll let them know whether they've got it or not.
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Because here's the other thing: We're talking about your partner here, probably your spouse, yeah? This person loves you. They do want to meet your needs. Sometimes it doesn't feel like that. But it's true. They do want to meet your needs. They want to please you, they want you to be pleased with them. They want to have the conversation if they can. If they have resistance to having the conversation, it's because they think it won't go well. It's because they think they don't have the energy to do it well or that you're not in the right space for the conversation to go well. So you approaching it in a grounded way, calmly and with a true "open heart open hands" with regard to "it's okay if you say yes or no, I'm truly honestly asking is now a good time? And if it's not let's talk about this at another time you let me know when it's good for you."
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If you come to them with that they will be so relieved. And if they're at all up for it, they will rally and have the conversation now. And if they're not, if they say no, you should be really glad that they said no, because it means that they are honoring the subject and you and them and your relationship enough not to take on that losing proposition, that conversation from which no good can come. So those are some of the thoughts that help me take it well, when my husband says "no, not right now," even though it can be really hard to hear.
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So I've given you some tips on how to ask whether it's a good time to talk. But that's the language: "I'd like to talk about this. Is now a good time?" And then the follow up question is, "Okay, if now's not a good time, can you let me know when you'd like to talk about it?" or "Please let me know when is a good time?"
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And here's the next tall order I want to issue you: then what I want you to do is smile and walk away. Just leave it there. You have made a request to have a conversation, and your partner will circle back to you. And we'll talk about if they don't. But that trust that they'll circle back has been really hard for me in the past, too. I was afraid that we would never talk about it. Can you hear that whining? There's a six year old in my voice: "we're neeeeeever gonna have this conversation!" But that's not actually what happened when I was honestly available for my husband's willingness, when I gave him room to say yes or no.
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So when they say no, just relax. Steel yourself. And if you are afraid that you'll forget about the topic, go write it down! Write down what you wanted to say to them, write down what you wanted to ask for. Take good notes. And then wait a couple days, give them a chance to come back to you and let you know when would be a good time or say "hey, I'm ready to have that conversation now."
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And if they don't? Then broach it again. And this next time, broach it with the exact same lightness as if it were the first time: "Hey, I'd like to talk to you about that thing I mentioned the other day. Is now a good time, or would you like to let me know another time that would be better?"
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So just keep it kind and gentle. And trust that they will find a good time: that they care about you, and as you stay kind and calm about it, they'll figure out a good time, even if it's a conversation that they're dreading, because you're showing up with the same kind of vibe that you want the conversation to have, which is light and positive. And they'll get the picture on that if you can effectively demonstrate it. But if you get exasperated and are like, "Aaargh! You never want to have important conversations with meeee!" Then they'll say "No, I don't because you're like THIS." And they'll be right, you know? It takes one to know one. I can talk about this because I've been that lady.
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So what the how on the other side? What about if you're the one who's being asked, "Hey, can we talk about this?" How do you know whether you're up for the conversation or not, when you haven't had the conversation yet? Here's what I want you to ask yourself. When your partner says, "is now a good time?" Ask yourself, "Do I have it in me to stay calm, grounded, present, connected and attentive? Am I feeling sufficiently resilient, to be able to stay on an even keel? Even if something in this conversation is triggering to me?" If you don't feel like that you shouldn't have the conversation now.
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If you never feel like that, then you need to beef up your self-regulation skills. And if you scroll back in the podcast episodes, to episodes (I think it's five and six) where I give you a full self regulation toolkit in conjunction with my good friend, Dr. Jessica Pullins. We can teach you how to calm yourself down so that you can have important conversations, even if they're somewhat triggering. But probably there are times when you're grounded enough to have challenging or provocative conversations. And there are times when you're not. And that is perfectly okay!
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You absolutely get to have times when you're not up for it. And you can say to your partner what I just said in the podcast: "You know, this conversation is important to me. So I want to give it its due. I don't want to show up for it with a tank that's so low, that it's not going to go well. So yeah, let me circle back to you. Probably in the next three to four days I will be able to find a time when I am up for this."
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Or you might say "Yeah, let's talk about it on the weekend." or "Let's talk about it while we're taking a walk." That's one Kurt and I use a lot: moving our bodies while we talk gives us another place to kind of focus. We can look around us at nature, we've got fresh air on our faces, whatever the season is. And the movement seems to help both of our brain chemistry and keeps us calm. And you know, being out in public usually kind of prevents the most jack-assed of behaviors that people are capable of. So that helps, too! (laughs) That's what I want you to say, if you're not up for it. And if you are up for it, awesome.
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So give yourself that grounding, and set your intention at the beginning of the conversation. Now what if you're nervous that your partner is going to freak out? Let's imagine that they asked you for a conversation, and you have a sense that there's kind of a gun to your head. If you say, no, they're going to lose it. You have to just let them. Don't take the bait. Don't escalate yourself, say "Your upset makes sense. I know you really want to have this now." Whatever it is that you can see in them, just affirm it. Validate that you see it. "Yeah, I know: You're scared that I won't circle back to it. I know there have been lots of times when I wasn't willing to have a conversation and you've felt really put off. I know that you have felt silenced sometimes in this relationship, because I avoided the challenging conversations. It makes sense that that's upsetting. But I am willing now, I am willing to have the conversation. I just want to do it with good timing. How would it be if we did this early tomorrow evening, before we've had a big meal or any wine? How would it be if we did this on Saturday afternoon while we walked? I love you. I want to have an effective conversation with you. Please be patient. I'd be happy to snuggle with you right now if that would be reassuring, but I can't have the conversation."
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Okay? Give some room to what it's like for them. And stand your ground! Do not have the conversation if you know you're not up for it! And that's difficult. There are times I've certainly been a coercer, trying to talk him into having a conversation. I just didn't see that no good could come from it. And I was impatient. And I was feeling urgent and I wanted to get relief from the tension inside me by having a conversation, even though he could see that there wasn't going to be any relief at all! What there was going to be is misery! (chuckles) So if you're holding wisdom, that this isn't a good time, stick to your guns. Do not be coerced into the conversation.
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Now, let's imagine -- Shift back over now to you're the other party who is initiating the conversation -- You've asked your partner, if now's a good time to talk. They've said no, everything's going all right.
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Except now you really want to talk about it. Maybe it's even half an hour later. And you want to circle back and say, "oh, but could we talk about it now?" (laughs) You're still thinking about it a lot. You've got that pressure inside you. How do you deal with that urge?
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A lot of clients have asked me that. And here's what I have to say: Write it out, talk to yourself, talk to a voice recorder, call a friend. This is why I'm building a community, the Secret Society of Turned On Couples, because I really believe that the most important conversations that I need to have with my husband, I actually need to have with two or three other people first. Honest to goodness!
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I go and rehearse and I get it off my chest. And I get good feedback. Not commiseration, or "Yeah, he's such a..." and not "Michele, you're such a..." but true, insightful, loving, wise counsel, so that I can see things more clearly. And that comes for me through meditation. It comes through writing, and it comes through conversations. And I think you should go do all three, if your partner is not ready to talk.
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You should do that even if they are, you know, before you initiate the conversation. But that's backing up a bit, isn't it? I didn't put that in there at first. But truly a well, time conversation is one where you're really ready. Not just feeling eager, not just feeling the urge to talk, but you've actually prepared in that grounded, soul centered, loving way, so that you know what's really at the heart of the issue for you, how you really feel, what you're actually thinking, and you're not coming from a reactive place, but a place of clarity. So if your partner puts you off, it may simply be divine order that they're giving you the chance to go do the homework you didn't do before you initiated in the first place. And now the final question that many people ask me is, "Well, what do I do if they don't ever circle back? How do I know they're going to? And if I don't know they're going to and what if they don't? Then what am I going to do?"
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I already answered this to some extent, you're going to ask again, light as a feather, fresh as morning dew. You're just going to say, "hey, I'd like to talk about this thing. I know I mentioned it the other day. That wasn't a good time. That's cool. Is now a good time? Or would you like to let me know another time?" So just bring it up again. It's okay! And they don't have to prove they love you by circling back.
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It would be nice. So if you're someone who has said "no, not right now," yes, I'm inviting you to circle back. But if you're the person whose partner said "no, not right now" and hasn't circled back, I also don't want you to get hacked off about that. Stay cool. Know that you're performing a vital service to your relationship by holding the flag for this conversation, and leave it at that.
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Just be proud of yourself, don't get down on your partner. They probably have had an experience or two with you of conversations going badly. And that's why they've learned to avoid them. And I say that with the humility of having been that person who was like, "What is your problem? Why won't you talk to me?" Can you just see my head weaving right now? (Laughs) And I really thought that he was avoidant. And I came to realize a big part of it is that I was so confrontive, so confrontational, so intense, that just about anybody would want to try to avoid being in that conversation with me.
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So I hope that that hits a lot of your questions about how to create well-timed conversations. If you have more questions, I want to hear them. So please, go use these tips now. Start having the conversations that you need to have, and start having them at times when they're actually likely to be successful. I know you can do this and that it's going to build in both of you the capacity to self-regulate through high-sensation and moments. As you build that capacity, you're going to be able to use it in all kinds of situations, from erotic moments together, to parenting, to meetings and conversations at work. I find it so fascinating and thrilling that we really can wake up in love, and you are well on your way.
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I wish you so much love and pleasure and satisfaction. And I would love to hear about it as you create it. So please bring any questions you have your stories, your comments over to the conversation on The Secret Society. You can find it at society.lisenbury.com. It's a great place to ask your questions and share your experiences and join the conversation about creating the love and sex you deeply desire in ways that evolve you both. All that's happening at society.lisenbury.com The link is in the show notes at http://lisenbury.com/episode/022.
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If you've enjoyed this or other episodes, please click now wherever you're listening to leave a review. These reviews are really crucial to the show finding new listeners and growing the positive impact that these conversations can have. So please leave a review right now with just a few words about what the show gives you? I would so so appreciate it. And hey, have you subscribed to the podcast? You're gonna want to so you never miss an episode.
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Please go to Apple podcasts or wherever you listen and hit that subscribe button. That way you'll always get notifications of new episodes each week. For today, thank you so much for listening. I'm Michele Lisenbury Christensen. This has been Sex.Love.Power. I'll be back here next week with the next episode. Until then, may the light within you illuminate the world around you.