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Obstacles in Modern Relationships: Money

today is actually a few things Let's jump through. We're gonna do today because we today will be Ah, lot yesterday was I wanted to get this theory out the kind of its grounding, these ideas about vulnerability and acceptance and forgiveness and concepts that we hear every day. But when you try to practically apply them to your own life, they're not so easy. And so we wanted to move through all that, and I know it was a lot, and I really appreciate just the feedback and you guys sticking with it and powering through today will be a lot of mawr inaction with guests and conversation and, um, showing how we do some of these things. We One of the things we did yesterday with Sarah and Brian is you guys, I came up here and we chatted about one of your friction points. You left saying You know what? We're gonna go home, We're gonna do some homework. We're gonna come back and present how we can address these things, I really believe, and they're gonna come up and join us in a little bit with t...

hat. But I really believe that a lot of the skills we build in business are extraordinarily applicable to our home life. When we learn these techniques of how to communicate, how to be able to sort and organize how to problem solve in a systematic way, we actually can apply that to tricky emotional situations. We just don't start from there. We kind of think, Well, it's a problem. He's that guy. I'm this person and that's the problem. And in fact, you can actually take a lot of these bigger issues that seem huge and pull them apart and come up with a solution that is systematic in approach but can have an emotional, emotionally satisfying response from both of you. I truly believe that that's what we're gonna show a little bit. I certainly have done that in my own life. So today we're gonna start out by talking about the most common obstacles and modern relationships. I have about six of them. They're not in the exact order that every single expert would declare because every single expert declares them in a different order. But they are, you know, pretty much as they rise the top. Historically, these have been issues. I'm saying modern relationships so these have been in the last 10 15 years. What are really becoming the things that individuals are having an extremely difficult time discussing, sharing, moving past. I don't believe any one of these things become the major obstacle in a relationship. I think it's a blend of a lot of them, but one tends to rise to the top as you know what. At the end of the day, we just can't seem to get past this. And this is one of these things. Eso we'll start out by their we're gonna touch on toxic relationships. I think that term could be thrown around a lot. I want to be really specific about what I think of is toxic relationships. I think toxic relationships certainly exists in our interpersonal experience in our business experience. But quite a lot on social media, quite a lot of social media. There are certain people that are your friends on social media that Taxify you. There are people on Twitter. I know, for instance, that all they are account set up to Mach and they live, stream and make fun of people and that's all they do. You can put them in a certain box. But if you pay attention and you take it in, it can shut you down creatively. Emotionally, it can shut you down from trying for something. My friend Jen Bed, who was a guest on health and energy, has this theory that it's called the Whack a mole theory. So and I think her conference the what if conferences. Based on this, the theory is that if if you're pegged as this person, so you're a photographer, done your graphic artists done. You're a visual artist. Done whatever the your marketing PR guy done, we try to put people in this box, and if they reach for something mawr as in. But I have a life outside of my job. What you don't get back in your hole. That's what a lot of what we find not just on parody accounts and social media, but in our everyday lives. We'll tell people, you know, I'm interested in going into this whole other field. It's a creative field. I love photography and someone will say to us, and this is where we get in that kind of toxic field. Someone will say to us, Stay with what you know stay, We'll put you know you're not really that person. Just let it pass with the happy go on and many people get shut down with these toxic experiences and you're getting a lot of nodding here. So you guys know these feelings fighting fair, fighting fair and neutralizing arguments. Fighting has a bad connotation to it. There's a way to have a disagreement, a friction point, and to move through it in a very fair way. We're gonna talk about that. Relationships with Children. I am going to specify that I'm not talking about how to be a great parent or how to be a buddy with your child. It's more like How do you build the foundation for a great relationship that will exist over time and through issues and then, lastly, connection outside of family, which is friendship and social media relationships? All right, let's dive in to these common obstacles. As I mentioned yesterday, most of these obstacles don't just up here like you turn a corner and whoa, sex is a problem. I did not. I shouldn't have gone this way like it builds over time with all these little petty things that kind of and petty. Petty is a word that kind of sounds like, Oh, you're so petty. Petty is just a small little thing that will add up over time. They tend to fester these issues and create major friction, and eventually you a couple faces the point where they're like, Well, what do we do from here? And so these are the obstacles that come up normally. No one issue is the reason it's these multiple ones, but we're going to focus on these ones so typically, a lot of the times when these obstacles present themselves as very large and a relationship, they come up at various stages commonly. So about these air, the four these time zones, or the four times that these obstacles tend to hit couples on I want to be. I want to be really clear here. When I'm talking about obstacles. I'm not saying like disaster. It's over. There's nothing you can dio. It's more like if you go into a long term relationship and you know you want to be connected to this person for life in whatever capacity and you're not expecting obstacles. That's ridiculous. I mean, if you are people who see hear, touch and move through life. That's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. So understand. That's part of acceptance. Understand that these things do occur, and these are the timelines that they usually do occur. So between the 1st 2 second year is when people are more in that infatuation face on. But this series is gonna be very much about romantic relationships. This part I know. We've been talking about all kinds of different relationships. This is more romantic. S about 1 to 2 years into a relationship. It's that kind of transition from infatuation to reality that we hear a lot about the honeymoon stage. And that's where ah lot of these obstacles tend to peak. Thea other stage where it hits a lot, is between the five and seven years. That's where people have a lot of high conflict in the relationship, without an idea of how to a handle it. That's why I'm really excited about talking about the conflict stage because conflict isn't bad, conflict is normal. There's just no way to people see everything the same way. It's how do you handle the conflict? And then about 10 to 12 years in loss of connection, which I went there about 10 to 12 years. People start establishing so much outside of just the relationship that it tends to move them apart unless they are sure to stay together in terms of communication. And then about 20 to years. You hear this all the time, like, why are the divorcing now? Around 20 to 22 years, this empty nest syndrome where everybody's left and they realized they don't They're not friends anymore, you know, in terms of how people exchange. So issues like that, that's when they kind of come and hit you. I think they can come in and hit you. That's fine. But if you're set up like we're gonna go, like seriously the next two hours for life, you're done. We're gonna get through everything, and you're just set for life, understanding the root of what these obstacles are and how you can communicate them in your about them in your own life. So number one it's about the money, honey Number one. Most people agree that money is a major obstacle on dime, not talking about leg. Do you make enough money for me? It has to do with how people communicate about money financially for me. When I think about discussing finances, that seems like such a dry topic. Why is that so emotionally charged? I'm I'm thinking about things like, you know, number sheets and dollar amounts and looking through bills and receipts like Why is that something that could be so highly passionate for a couple that they don't know how to move past it, but it tends out. But it tends to be that money is more related to people's core values individually than anything to do with a bank account or a number access code. It has to do with how you view money in relationship to life, in relationship to what you hold most dear. At the root of it, when you really digging in and turn to each other and say, Why is it that we can't seem to get past these issues? Part of it has to do with this. Most people, unfortunately, don't have those discussions when the top school so large it just becomes about the spreadsheets of the numbers and everything. Um, because money means different things to different individuals at a whole level. We have this idea that the spender meets the saver. Now this is not to be confused. As you know, every couple that gets together. One is the extreme spender, and one is the extreme saver. But studies show in research when looking at couples who have major conflict over money, that one of them tends to assume one part one role, and the other one tends to assume the other role, even if neither one of them would classify themselves as that. And it can shift over time in terms of what the topic at hand is that you're talking about money, whether it's should we buy this house, one will fit more of a role in the other versus should we take this vacation. But most the time. One is kind of steadfastly a spender and one steadfastly a saver. So again, it's not that once just throwing cash at the window. Who remember Kyle Sisi had suggested I bought this house because I hate money. It's not usually that extreme, and the other person's like sleeping on moneybags with shack, but it's more like the mentality, so the mentality of the spender is actually beautiful. Money is meant to be spent because life is meant to be lived. I love that. I think that's gorgeous. That's a wonderful thing. That means that money often stands for a way to increase pleasure in one's life. The value of money is in what it can bring to you in terms of life experiences, goods, gifts, services. It's kind of gorgeous mentality, isn't it? I quite love this, and it's not about how frequently or how frivolously one spends. It's more about what money stands for to them inherently, so. Money is meant to be spent because life is meant to be lived. The other mindset is gorgeous, incredibly noble and beautiful, too, Which is that money is meant to be saved because life is meant to be protected. Who doesn't hear that? That's I'm a vegan. I love it. Money is a form of security. Also, it's a way to illustrate accomplishment, things that we strive for in life. It should be held close and appreciate it because you never know what will happen in life and when you may need it. I don't think anybody in this room or anybody watching online doesn't know of either had experience himself or know of somebody else. where money didn't become the way that they got through something like, It's I'm really grateful that we at least had this nest ache or we could tap into this. We had this insurance and sadly, on the flip side where everything was going wrong. And then the way the system set up now they have the money is the major stressors makes it even more difficult. We see this often health care situations like something terrible is happening, and now there's the stress of money on top of it, which becomes this whole situation. But what money often stands for for the saver is an ability to have some security in a wildlife. That's what it means. And so the value in money of money for the saver is it's a way of protecting us against whatever life may bring, and it should be handled with great care and great respect. And since you never know what's gonna happen, let's keep it close. So the spender versus the saver, who do you think is right? That's quickly. Who do you think's right? Both? Both balance balance. Both. So everybody believes both there, right when I present it this way, if I didn't present it this way. What? You probably would have done this thought where you usually are in your relationship. Well, I usually like Teoh get some good shoes. Oh, I guess I miss Bender. Um, versus yeah, I'm the one who kind of gets annoyed when we have to pay late feet. And we did everything we had A late fee was because somebody wasn't on top of the bills. And I guess I'm the saver, you know? So it's interesting. I think if you can look in your own life and your own relationship and think you know which one of us is right, it's not about that. It's not about that. It's sitting down and figuring out what is money really mean to you? If you can sit down with your partner and say, You know what? Take all this stuff away, and I'm telling you don't have this discussion outside of an A T M machine. This is when it this is nowhere around and then you're sitting down and you're saying, Tell me at a core root level what money means to you. Most people haven't really given that much thought to this like what money means to you. Most people, when you are raised, you're taught by your parents and society and you have a framework that you don't even question. I can tell you I had this experience when not about money, but I was raised Catholic. I was raised Catholic and it took me. I went to Catholic school and I went up through the whole thing. And by the time I got to college one, my very dear friends was Jewish, and I kept wishing him at break. Merry Christmas. It was like I don't celebrate Christmas as they go, you know what I mean? It took me a while to get like because I was so indoctrinated in that world, took me a while to pull back and kind of go a little higher and see what that really meant. It's the same thing about a topic like this if you are. If you are spender or saver, you probably don't classify yourself that way, and you probably don't recognize at the root of what you really think about money. It has to do with whether or not you think life is meant to bring you pleasure and life experience, and it's to be lived or is to be saved and secured and protected. But having that discussion helps you to have a lot more empathy for the other person's point of view and will allow you to see things in a better way in a more holistic way. Does that make sense to you? Any questions on that? I have a comment. One of the things that I think about earlier I thought about early on, even when I was dating is I heard this quote and it really just stuck with me That said, um and I don't know who it was, but I just remember it and said, Money is a wonderful servant, but a horrible master on it was just like Wow, yes, go very much so, yeah, and I think we end up not intentionally but letting the money have so much power over a relationship without being conscious of it. We just slip into that, and suddenly our relationship is secondary to the financial concern, and you see this even more significantly in economic downturns. Research shows like economic downturn, relationship struggles because it's such a big thing. Yes, Troy, using about money. I had a girlfriend when she was dating her now husband. He used to spoiler and spend money on her, and she loved that. But once they were married all sudden, it was their money. It was a conflict. Yes. So that's a wonderful point. And I can actually piggyback that. When my husband and I got married, he immediately started, sent me flowers every week, and I was working right here in service Goes on marketing second, remember is on the top floor, and the flowers would show up every Monday. And they were always the same flowers that have been our wedding. And everyone's like Oh, but like and I loved it first. But, you know, 20 weeks in, I was like, Where? Enjoyed checking now baby a daisy after work. It's mine. And he's like, OK, that it was okay. Got it? So yeah, exactly. It's the idea of understanding if you're both coming at it, what are both of your views and making sure you discuss that before it doesn't become flowers or year? Okay, great. We're engaging, and definitely the money topic is huge. A needle London says it's the meaning we give to money that affects us and not the money itself. Absolutely. And and we also have urged photo. Who says I can't deal with money? I must confess that I delegate everything about it. Every time I hear the word, I just want to put myself on. Ignore how myself on Ignore. That's funny. No, thank you very much for those comments in that feedback. So good. So any other questions about yes, kind of a comment? Once you just said something that made me think about it. There's a power about to, you know, like you said, the joint checking counting you to do and who holds that power. And do you have to ask permission to spend the money and the very good point? Yeah. No, you know what? Initially, and Durand, the producer Ken will laughing This initially, I had about 16 slides for each of you to get into things like power issues and whose may be making more money and who's feeling resentful that they feel like they have to produce money versus, you know, if somebody's an entrepreneur and they've got a certain time line ahead of you to try to catch up the other person the pressures on them and do you equalize it? Oh, you can go like days on this. Yeah, yeah, I'll say this life later. But but yeah, I wanted to say OK, so fundamentally at the root of it. What are one of the major reasons that we tend to have this? Yeah, because again, it's not about what's on your what's on your statement that you get in terms of your salary every two weeks or whatever the case may be. It's about my beholden to you, because I'm also doing things and how much about the things that I'm doing are worth that. If you had to pay somebody to do what I'm doing, what would that take from your mean? You can go with this for a while, but again, it's never about the dollars. It's about how we feel about this, the meaning that we assign to the value of money