Michele Christensen 0:05
Hey! Welcome to Sex, Love, Power. I'm your host, Michelle Lisenbury Christensen, I'm a relationship and sex coach. And I've worked for 24 years with executives and business founders. And by popular demand, I've been focusing on their intimate relationships for the last 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. My extraordinary high performance clients have blessed me with a wealth of knowledge about how to create relationships that are not just successful, but truly great. This podcast is where I can be in the conversations about love and sex to help you create those same world class results in your relationship. If you think you have more relational skills than your partner does, but somehow you get sucked into high conflict interactions with them, this episode is for you. If you really need your partner to change something, maybe the way they talk to you, approach sex, take care of themselves, or deal with their own parents. But conversations about that topic have never really gotten anywhere. This episode is for you. There was a time when my husband and I were paying $850 a session, to get help with our marriage. Obviously, we had some problems we could not deal with on our own. And we had gone to the big dog, Terry Real, author of "How can I get through to you", among other books, Kurt and I knew he had our number. We'd read his books together. And I had done professional trainings with him. So we started working with him. And in essence, I'm just going to lay it out to the way my ego reacted to it. What Terry told me was that I was being a bitch, I felt really smacked in the face. He told me I was indulging in unbridled self expression, in how I talked to my husband in front of him. And that probably I was even more up in Kurt's face when we weren't in a couple session. Now, my inner junkyard dog was just snarling like, Oh, yeah, you think that was scrappy? I'll show you scrappy. Do you have any idea the way this man provokes my anger. But Terry had written years earlier, that there are Five core approaches that A. Really don't work to get you what you want, and B. Make things worse between you and your partner. And C, these approaches are really tempting and easy to rationalize when you're in the white hot fire of marriage. So when Terry told me about them in our private work, I was offended at one level, and then really embarrassed at another level, because it was such a cliche to be engaging in what he had already told me and what I already loved to teach clients was a bad tack to take, I share this story with you so that you know, I am not pronouncing these things from on high, I get it. And I have been there, being confronted with my own losing strategies, feeling like they were the only reasonable response to a husband like mine. And I say that with capital letters, A HUSBAND LIKE MINE. Whoo, that man, these strategies are understandable, they are forgivable, but the bottom line is, they simply DO NOT WORK. So if you want the marriage, you say you want and I know you do, and I really want it for you too. And if you want to become the grounded, centered, peaceful, powerful person I know you can become, then you need to flex the muscle required to restrain yourself from engaging in these behaviors, and the attitudes that drive them. This practice will Polish you until you shine like a frickin Diamond. So the rest of this episode, is all about the five losing strategies. These are the approaches that people employ in relationships. Even when we think we're good at relating, that produce bad results. But only every time. I will list all five, and then we're going to go back and dive into each one individually. And then in the next episode of the podcast, we'll look at what you can do to reverse these five losing strategies. I won't leave you hanging with what doesn't work. I promise. By the end of this episode, I want you to feel that bracing feeling I felt with Terry when he was calling me out for the things that I considering myself a world class relator was doing to torpedo our connection and any hope of getting what I really wanted. I want you to feel seen, like I did in these self defeating behavior choices. And I want you to get how much love there is in my calling you out. I want you to feel that this is a life changing day, a day that you can take more ownership of your results by reeling in your reactivity and choosing to learn not to do these things. I did not say choosing not to do them because you may not be a choice yet. But choosing to learn not to is something you can do. You can choose that today and the learning can happen over time just as it has at our house. By the end of the next episode, you're going to know what to do instead. So here we go. The five losing strategies. These are the five attitudinal and behavioral patterns that sabotage your relationship. Number one, being right. Number two, controlling your partner.
Michele Christensen 5:00
Losing strategy number three, unbridled self expression. Number four retaliation. And the fifth losing relationship strategy is withdraw. So let's dig right into the first one, Being Right. This might look like, arguing about whose view is more accurate. Holding i told you so over your partner's head, failing to discern, is this something worth arguing over? Or would I rather be loved than right? It might also look like deciding what your partner's intent was deciding that that thing that they just did or said, means something about how they feel about you and erases other things that they've done or felt or said in the past. Oh, now that you said that, I know how it really is. And then being married to that interpretation, to that Vantage. The effect of trying to be right for you, being right fuels self righteous indignation, which let's be honest, feels pretty good. So it may give you kind of a high, but for your partner, they're gonna feel competed with, put down, unsafe, and unloved. And that really means that the long term effect for you is loneliness, disconnection, also feeling unsafe and unloved, and not getting to have the joy of being someone who is a sanctuary for your partner. So that's the first losing relationship strategy, trying to be right. The second one is controlling your partner. This can look a couple different ways. It can look like directly controlling behaviors, like trying to tell your partner what to do, forbidding them to do certain things, go places, be connected with certain people, etc. Or it can be subtler. And this is probably more common. This is where you don't directly control, but your own mood swings, your facial expressions, your interest in sex or lack thereof, your willingness to participate in family events, your willingness to cook, and so on. All hinge on your partner pleasing you by doing what you want. For me, I've come to recognize that on the sensitive seismograph of control, there are little things down at the level of suggesting that Kurt changes lanes when he's driving, or insisting that he go to this grocery store rather than that one because I prefer the quality here, or the price of this particular item there, little ways I can be controlling. But regardless of how overt or covert how subtle or blatant your control is, the effect is always the same. It's simply self defeating, to try to control your partner. The reason it's self defeating is that nobody responds well, to even the merest hint of being controlled. Even if it looks like they let you, there's a cost downstream. Here's the way I've always put it. The only reasonable response to tyranny is Rebellion. Your partner will respond with rebellion and retaliation at some level, whether that's overt or subtle, they have to do so, because our dignity. Our sense of self love, however deeply buried has to defend us against subjugation. This is why self abuse and shaming ourselves and controlling behavior towards ourselves all backfire also, and they result in us over eating when we were trying to diet or getting injured or sick. When we're being tyrannical about our exercise routine. Nobody likes a tyrant, and everybody finds a way to get around them. The bottom line, you cannot be loved and be controlling in the same relationship. So that's the second losing strategy, trying to control your partner. The third unbridled self expression. This can look like saying whatever is on your mind without kindness or respect. It can also look like letting your emotions in the moment color your thoughts and letting those thoughts turn into words that you maybe won't mean later, but that actually do lasting damage. Now, when you speak them, it might also look like allowing your tone, your facial expressions and or your body language to convey disrespect, resentment, contempt or withdraw even if you do bite your tongue. So here are some examples of how unbridled self expression can show up. Raising your voice, slamming doors, throwing things, interrupting your partner, condescension, sarcasm, big eyes, a curled lip and a backup head that says without words, you friggin kidding me? You get a load of this guy over here? her! Eye Rolls.
Michele Christensen 9:26
Words like You're unbelievable, or you never or you always. Unbridled self expression is behaving in a way that would probably embarrass you in front of particular people if not, everybody on earth except your partner. The effect of unbridled self expression is that in the immediate term, you get off, you get high on the release and high on the superiority but it's at the cost of injecting your own anger, anxiety and or fear into your partner space. You're shooting where you eat. In essence, I could say this-
Michele Christensen 10:00
cause it takes one to know one. Terry real confronted me on this. And I was incensed. I thought he was really getting what I was reporting about my husband's refusal to see my needs and to show up fully, available and open in the relationship. So why was Terry now busting my chops on how I talked to Kurt.
Michele Christensen 10:19
But what he showed me was that I did have a leg to stand on. And what I was asking for, that Kurt really was hitting the escape hatch in our relationship, but that I was then undermining my own position and ensuring that I couldn't get what I wanted. Because I would flip my own lid, what I needed to do was settle down, to slow down, to behave like someone I would want to be loved by, and to take enough care of myself and my own wounded little girl inside, that I didn't have to let the pissed off vengeful, adaptive child inside me, my inner body guard go marauding in my relationship. What I've learned is that only my inner adult gets to talk to Kurt, my inner adult also parents the other two, that scared little bitty girl and that scrappy kinda teenage aged, that terrified, vulnerable little bitty girl and that scrappy teen adaptive child, those are mine to deal with. And my adult can do that. We'll talk more about that next week when we look at how to use the five winning relationship strategies. For now we'll wrap up losing relationship strategy, Number three Unbridled self expression. And move on to Number four, Retaliation. This is where you inflict pain, humiliation, rejection or confusion on your partner, because you yourself have suffered at their hand, at least by your own perception. It looks like anything you know, is bad behavior or that you wouldn't appreciate from them that you're doing, quote, because they did blank. You might think to yourself, if they're going to do XYZ, then I have a right to do that. You know you're retaliating, if you can imagine someone asking you, why did you speak to him that way? or why did you do that? or why aren't you doing this? And you say, Well, he never or because he always or because he did this? This is what Terry real calls offending from the victim position. Can you see that? You tell yourself your partner knocked you to the ground, but you're the one lying there in the dirt aiming a gun at your partner, feeling all the while like you're the good guy in the story. There is no good guy if you're retaliating. Retaliation may look clear cut, or more likely, it'll be subtle with holding of affection, a disinterest in sex or in shared time together. Little ways of not doing what you know makes your partner happy and makes them feel loved. We retaliate in order to hurt, we do it to make them suffer like we suffered. Or better yet, worse. The effect of retaliation is that, it does hurt our partner. And whereas their initial action or inaction may or may not have been intended to hurt you, you both know that this one on your part was vindictive, carried out with the intent to wound. So now, when we show our partner through retaliation, that we believe that a hurt person has a right to inflict hurt and retribution, we're running the risk that our partner will follow our lead, and now inflict pain on us deliberately as well. And so we enter the race to the bottom. Or if we're really blessed with a wise and centered partner, however, they may have misstepped in the past, they'll call us on it. They'll say," the way you're treating me feels awful". "It's not like you". "What's going on?"To stop retaliation, it takes a similar move. When we see that we're tempted to retaliate, or that we've already engaged in some deliberate inflicting of pain in retaliation for perceived wrongs, we've got to back it up and address those directly. It takes real humility to admit that we've been retaliating or tempted to retaliate. And it takes real vulnerability to simply say, "ouch!", to the action or the neglect that our partner engaged in. But that is how we stay out of this losing strategy. We recognize that we're not all good or all bad that we are both loving and vulnerable to hurt by our partner and capable of vindictiveness and we're responsible for reeling in those urges. So that's the fourth losing relationship strategy, Retaliation. The Fifth and Final of these baddies but goodies is Withdraw. I want to pause and make a distinction here. Slowing things down when you're getting triggered or flooded is not the same as withdraw, pausing a conversation that's going nowhere so that it can go somewhere when you're both centered is a winning move. The difference between withdraw and pause is how you convey the intention of the distance you're creating. If you pause the conversation, be clear about why and about when you'll circle back and offer any reassurance that you can. For example, will say something like, "I can tell I'm so triggered that no more good can come from talking about this right now. I need to pause and calm down. I love you. I want to work this out. But I cannot right now. How about we circle back and pick up this conversation in two hours after I've had a walk and some lunch". But actual withdraw looks like-
Michele Christensen 14:59
Moving away from your partner without connection. It could look like pulling away because you're experiencing stress and not letting them be of support in your stress or pulling away because you're angry with them or disappointed or hurt, but not sharing what's happening or creating any opening for them to soothe you or meet you or for them to make it right. Withdrawal looks like pulling into yourself because of a mood or energy fluctuation or illness going on for you but not signposting that with your partner. And it looks like signaling disapproval, anger or displeasure with your partner by denying them your companionship, denying them conversation, withdrawing your sexual availability or pulling back on courtesy. Regardless of the flavor of withdraw, it conveys to your partner, you don't have access to my heart. We're not a unit. We can go through the loss of a parent, our own depression, a layoff, lots of legitimate reasons that someone needs to turn within needs to show up differently with their partner. We can do all of it without withdrawing, but the secret ingredient is maintaining connection and transparency. John Gottman says, "pulling back without that kind of transparency is stonewalling". He named stonewalling is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Those four horsemen are the key indicators that in his love lab. Gottman identifies as the reliable predictors of couples unhappiness and eventual divorce over the long term, Withdrawal is a losing strategy. And it's the last one. So those are the five losing strategies, I give you a super quick recap here. The love you want is not on the other side of these five things. One, trying to be right. Two, trying to control your partner. Three, indulging and unbridled self expression. Four, retaliating, and Five withdrawing or stonewalling. If you have been engaging in any one of these at however subtler level, you're my people.
Michele Christensen 16:56
I can relate. And if you're willing to quit justifying that, I look with clear eyes that your own behavior and see that the relationship you really want is on the other side of releasing these patterns, and being willing to cultivate a new set of responses, then you're in luck. Next week, we're going to dig into the five antidotes to these patterns, which Terry real calls the five winning strategies for this week, please just reflect back on what you've heard here and look for the one, two or three biggest insights into your own behavior. Now, let me emphasize, not insights into how your partner does these things. That is losing strategy number one, looking to be right about what's wrong with them. Find what you can see about you, and just spend this week looking with compassion for yourself at how you have repeated these behaviors and where they're coming up now. Finding the choice points is the key to making new choices. So that's your homework. Then, please go leave a review for the podcast, like this five star review that we got from Catalina Rex from the United States. The review is entitled Listen, Share, Repeat, Catalina Wrote. Wish I had heard this years ago. Fantastic exploration of too little charted terrain. I loved that review, because that's exactly what I'm here to do, to explore terrain that we don't talk enough about. And to shed light on the dark corners in a way that keeps those episodes quick, but the insights deep, so I'm glad to hear it hit the spot for you Catalina thank you so much for the review, and I look forward to hearing from others as well. Please go to your favorite podcast app and drop us a review right now. And who knows I might just share your review on a future episode. And Hey, have you subscribed yet to the podcast? You're gonna want to so you never miss an episode. Hit that subscribe button now and you'll always get notifications of new episodes when they drop. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Michelle Lisenbury Christensen and this has been Sex, Love, Power. I'll be back soon with the next episode and until then May the light within you illuminate the world around you.