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The Art and Lines of Lifetime Love

Are you nervous? A little bit. This is my husband, Steve. Steve, Say hello to people and Internet, everybody High Internet. Steve. Steve's new This is welcome to my world in this thing. This is what she does all the time. She comes out here praying a lot easier than Washington is at the house. That is true. Actually, Steve and I I asked to Steve to join us because we're going to talk a little bit. We've been talking all day long about did you chance to catch any of this and even shuffling humans unfortunately now? Okay, so we're gonna talk a little bit about the art and lines of lifetime love. And you actually don't know much about this. Dio I would hope I know something about I mean, the presentation. Like what I went into? Um no, unfortunately Well, I saw some of what you're working out, but I haven't. We're We're juggling some things back with the kids on our trip and re checked out of our hotel this morning. I told them I didn't manage to keep them in their new clothes without any ...

stains or spots. So feeling really accomplish? That is awesome. that is awesome. But no, I haven't been able to watch it. Okay, so basically, what we're talking about here is the fact we kicked off earlier talking about the the fact that the one of the worst things in the world is to be morphed into a transfer for our side is obsessed with Calvin and Hobbes, which you're gonna see. But to be more into somebody that all you're doing is being an administrator. And I think that we can attest to exactly what that feels like when your relationship becomes less about, you know, the passion and the romance and the love and the excitement and more about like All right, you get them, I'll get them. I'll meet you in three weeks on Tuesday for an hour if Suzie's exciting, but everything I've been doing sex, especially when you're seeing way, could be living in the same place and doing that. We're not even traveling. I almost think that when you're traveling away, there's a there's anticipation getting back together. But if you're seeing each other all day, but you're doing all that ominous trivia, it's just I think it's always worse. Well, yeah, because you see the person in that role. The holding. You see each other in that room when you see yourself through that person in that role, and it just becomes, I think, a lot less exciting, a lot less passion filled Onda harder to manage harder to swap over to the other rule. You want to be wary we lived it. Here's what Steve and I have discovered. I think in terms of our relationship is that we realize that probably the most common relationship issues Canada's boil down to this feeling unheard on the scene and un underappreciated. Does that resonate? Yeah, because of the fact that you become a service for Ryder, where you're just doing and doing and doing for others and you slowly become invisible. One of the most impactful books I read where first got Married, which kind of freaks you out a little bit and then later reread, was called Marriage Shock. Have you guys ever heard this book? It's called Marriage Shock on Bond, and the concept was basically that what we do in relationships is over time we slowly turn into who we think we're supposed to be in the role of wife or husband, both people dio And what that ends up meaning is you become somebody who sacrifices nearly everything to fit in this role. That's not you, and you become unseen and you become invisible. And why that's interesting is that while you're doing this thing where you're trying to do everything for everybody and it's not just women, men do that. I just know also, guys, while you're doing this thing that you think is selfless and four other people, you are slowly becoming somebody who is not who the other person fell in love with. When when you first fall in love, you're like flirting and joking and you're a cocktail party and you're looking good hair done and you put all the effort into, you know, and you and you read the interesting things and you go to movies and have a lot to talk to. And over time, This this book actually theorize is and I think is very, very true, and I see it everywhere is over time. You solely say, Well, you know that selfish. We talked a lot about the idea of self that selfish and instead of spending money to get my hair done. I'm gonna go out and get new outfits for the kids instead of going clothes shopping. That's let's get a car wash. Thank you mentioned being invisible to the other, but I think you end up being invisible to yourself. And that's at least for me. Was was. I was surprised by that, because you think you know yourself, you think you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, But then you realize, you know, when things get a little rougher, you can really realize what I really didn't take the time to see myself every day because I was too busy being this person that I thought I was supposed to be. So was doing all the right things, but it wasn't evolving and exploring myself, you know, and I think that's really super important. It's not only important for this kind of relationship, but it's important for every kind of relation inflation. But their kids, business partners, whomever but it can. It can really be difficult. I think when you are married to someone, if you lose that, because who you know. If you're losing yourself, how can you expect the other person to see and So then you feel unseen, heard and underappreciated, and you end up having this relationship where two people who have changed into what they thought was the best thing to do for their family and their kids and stuff are now in a relationship with each other, and neither one is connected to the other because that's not who they started this thing out with. And it's really interesting. And I read this right before I got married and I was like, I don't wanna get me Oh, I had not read it And I have the right clothes. That's true. That happened, and it became this big point of discussion. And but it's stuck with me because that the entirety of our marriage, I never wanted to backslide into becoming somebody that was unrecognizable to least of my own self. But that doesn't mean the business didn't crash over us a 1,000,000 times, and and one of things I referenced earlier was how you can feel like the waves keep coming and keep coming. You'll surface, and at some point we surfaced and didn't know what the other person was. A great great metaphor. I mean, I think that you. Interestingly, when you were in the one place where you can explore yourself is work that, you know you're not doing it because you're giving to your spouse. Agreement to your family is called the whole family picture. You can get way overwhelmed, and and you can make that sacrifice at work to do more and more. And then you think you're just gonna pop back up in October, November and everyone's gonna be happy. But like you said, if you look around and you can't you can't even see yourself anymore. That's a big problem. Yeah, And how many people? I don't know if you guys have got this spirits, but I talked to a lot of people who say, You know what, so and so travels ladders. He's gone for work, and honestly, it's better that way. When he comes home, everything gets messed up. You guys. Yeah. Yeah, when it's Oh, yeah, I got that micro. Yeah, My father was an airline pilot and air Force pilot. So for a lot of my upbringing, my dad was gone. And my mom always felt that way that, you know, she would get everything into routine and pattern and ready, and then he'd come home and we just I'll be like, Oh, yeah, Hi, Dad. And how long was he got? How many years most my youth so, like kind of kindergarten toe Great. It was when we got kindergarten to Grade eight, California in eighth grade. So nine years, And then when my dad retired, it was a big you know what to do, because it was exactly that. It was interesting. It was very like to be on the child side of watching that happen in a relationship was really interesting. Yeah, I know. I know a lot of people have relationships that have become something where it's easier to stay together, But they're certainly not the experience in the connection of staying together. And, you know, one of the reasons we're here is because I think there's a lot of thought out there about the perfect relationship, the perfect marriage, the perfect. I mean, nobody's living perfect. Nobody, and I think you can have the best of intentions. So I think we started realizing we were having a harder and harder times communicating and connecting. My intention was, I don't want to betray this fabulous man by talking about these issues with my friends, and I didn't tell anybody. And then everybody was kind of shocked, like you guys having problems? Yeah, and then when you end up doing is just getting alienated and kind of left alone because you didn't really let anybody in his Abbas experience with you, and then you're kind of in this painful, drifting kind of thing by yourself, and it's sex. It's It's pretty miserable, and your intentions were good. But people think, Oh, you're just trying present this perfect picture and it wasn't perfect. That actually wasn't your intention. Your intention was to be positive and and grateful for what you do have that that's a That's a really tricky word, I think, you know, grateful. I mean, we all want to be, so we should be satisfied with whatever we have and, you know, again not just in this kind of relationship, but all relationships. But I think that if you keep squelching desires that you have, you know, wants or differences that you want to experience, then you're really doing that to yourself as much as you are to your the your counterpart because you're not giving You're not exploring and give enough of your You don't have enough yourself to give because because you're not because you're not You're not giving to it. So it's a very and being grateful is really important in a big fan of being grateful and appreciating people on things and what you have. But I think that that is a trap for a lot of people because they only focus on that. And then they turn around and find themselves missing a lot. Yes. Yeah. You think I don't complain, But then you end up being somebody who can't communicate with anybody. Well, you know, Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things where you wish that everything you said right was heard with the assumption that you had the best possible intentions. But because you're afraid that you might be heard wrong or if you if you say anything that might sound that you're not grateful, then you're more likely to bite your tongue. And I know for us, as we went through, you know, a series of years where we did that. At least I know I did that a lot. I didn't even think about questioning your complaining any aspect of our relationship. But, you know, I realized that I was really filling a role that I didn't want to be feeling all the time and she didn't even see it. And she was feeling roles that she would want to be feeling all the time and was sure I wasn't seeing it really difficult. Yeah, like on the longest lines. One of the major tangible things is we realized this is not unusual. I think this happens for a lot of people. We realized that feel free to jump in here, but that we fit kind of the roles of female and male like what everybody does. He took out the trash recycling. I did the dishes and cooking. I had, you know, fairly 100% of the kid, things like a kidney, an appointment or a teachers meeting. All we need a baby sitter that that all like fell on me. In addition to this unbelievably full time job that I was trying to do around the kids schedule as best as possible. He was starting. We basically we started our own business Saxon time to three months apart. That's a whole other kind of added element. Eso he's digging in these trying t o make his missus. It's succeed. But, you know, we finally after enough friction sat down. I said, I want to show you a spreadsheet and I should have a spreadsheet where I was doing 80% of the house work house work, 100% of the kid maintenance stuff. I'm not saying, you know, he wasn't a fabulous father and very hands on father, because you are my son doesn't fit on the spreadsheet. It's intangible. You clearly, doctor, any actually said that? What about, like, support E? I don't remember that hand motion, but I'm sure I did something like that. But it becomes something more over time. You start feeling like this bedraggled, overwhelmed person and you know things start right. You know, you start, everyone smile, just like can you Can you just clear the table instead of stopping and having expectation and a really clean discussion about who should be doing what? So that you all are thriving, It becomes a lot of friction. Well, you know, and we still are, I should say, debate the spreadsheet a little bit, but in reality, There are some real things that you know when you we moved into from San Francisco to suburban environment and we are our kids. Our daughter is getting older. So these things, like baby sitters and and schools and doctor's appointments became more prevalent, but also that the overwhelming amount of support network for that kind of thing in the community comes from Mom's right. So moms know who are the baby sitters are. Moms know they talk about who the doctors are because most most cases, the dads or not, the people that have that that role index of who should I contact for doctors point now. At least that's what I was experiencing and pretty quickly and then I would say, like, really, you have no way of finding out. That's how I got. I've gotten a lot better at it. Just say that, you know. But I will say that there was there. There was definitely a support structure, I think in the community where if somebody needed to find out about a baby sitter, it was through another woman. It wasn't really through. I couldn't call my buddy down the street and say, Hey, we rode bikes the other day. Who do you have for? They don't know the number to their baby sitter. Normally, unless they've got in a situation that we have, where they had actually do themselves. So you know, meat. We were We talked about the fact that s o S o. It's a part of the intention we just jumped into this because we come to the time thing are the intention of this whole dialog is to discuss the not just like the art, a lifetime love, but the lines and what I mean by lines the lines that you you cross, that the other person doesn't even know that you put out there and how much more plentiful those lines become over time, as you again start disappearing from each other. You know, we were talking earlier about like this this doll fear you. But you know, it becomes something where there's this this little friction that's not a big deal. But then there's another one and there's another one. Don't hurt its feelings. You would be cool about it. It's fine. And then they all stuck stack up and then there's suddenly a lot of things. You're not talking about any more with the best of intentions keeping the peace and being grateful stuff. So when we went to Ecuador, toe bring home our youngest. You guys gonna meet? Soon? We came back. It was a crazy crazy about a stress which is crazy, crazy, your crazy, crazy, craziest. But you know, 10 years is a great metaphor. Basically all all that all those items are challenges you might have been dealing with that sort of coming out from under the waiver. We we were mixing metaphors. I am. But the short of it is imagine putting all the all the challenge you have in a Petri dish and put him in a microwave. And that's basically what we did by diving into when you adopt. Sometimes you find out very last minute that you can even go Teoh meet your child. And that's really what happened is we had a month. I think if that and and we all we both had all these things, all these work responsibilities, we do right before we went. So we literally finished the last anything had an event the day before that we produce and we got on a plane and went to meet her like that day and, you know, and brought her home that day when we were in a hotel room Mommy with? Yeah, right where we were in a hotel room with two kids and 1/3 who doesn't speak English. And we say things would look at her like a baby. So it was It was it was challenging, A safe, to say the least. And so, you know, we came back. It was very stressful. I think she sat on tamers life for two weeks straight. Wouldn't Wouldn't let her eat. I did. I lost £8 in two weeks. It was crazy, just literally because of helps that you get if I try to eat. But But she left me feed her now, so that's good. But But now it s all that together made it made it really, really something that we were not equipped to handle, like in terms of our emotional disconnect, because we were used to finding something, but with all the extra stuff going on, it became really difficult. You know, we got the point. We got back and I couldn't believe you're even talking about, but we were We were not seeing each other at all. There was. I think it was is if we both weren't seeing the other person as who we thought they were. And it probably started clearly started years before that on. So we got a hologram sitting help holograms all over the house. And then we got really hard work cut out. I were just talking about the scene. Thanks. But so we ended up having, you know, separating for several months and you know, to the point where you know for sure Thought we were gonna be divorced and, you know, lots of people that are and they found other other ways, you know, to find their happiness. And that's great. But for us, or at least our experience was after I got off over the shock of that even being a possibility, because being grateful and loyal and forever and all these things I did, you were very pretty. But you know, our but, uh, I'm in so much trouble, but But, you know, we went through that. And once you get past all those fears, you realize OK, well, you know what? I was my life really gonna be like. And I think the biggest things were getting past with shock and noise in your head and realizing that, you know, there's some really cool things that you can work on, and they both apply to yourself and your partner, and that has to trust and really, really defining what that means and understanding how. How that can play a role in making you have a great relationship and then also forgiveness of yourself and forgive us a. Whatever it is you might think you're being done anywhere you being long and and really also the idea of forever in the sense that on this was really hoping for me because, you know, I thought, you know not not that I ever took you for granted on purpose. But I think that I thought the idea forever was for sure. There was no opportunity to even ever and I say forever, meaning like in our marriage and and being so tired of that word, I realized it never gave tamarin the chance to really share her deepest concerns about our relationship because if they got anywhere near to well, maybe this isn't working out. Just my whole head would just shut down and realized afterwards how troublesome that ISS and I still love the idea forever. And but I think that the idea is that you have to keep cultivating it, not just on, you know, assuming it's there. And that's no realizing that's true with pretty much everything. Yeah, yeah, important. Exactly. In that vein, I think the, uh, when you said about the idea of like when any of the language got close to that, yeah, you shut off and that I think it's something that happens to a lot of us. If you start talking about something that threatens me in any way, I'm going to suddenly find a way to leave the conversation. So you're sitting there like, really, this was important. I kind of wanted to talk to you about it, and you're doing it because not that you don't care what the other person thinks, but it's just too scary to hear. And then so less and less is being said and what's no good? You, I think I think that ties back to what you're saying earlier about your friends or your neighbors. When you start, you bring up the idea of having trouble there, also fearful of that idea. It's not just people start talking to you. Yeah, they're talking to me. They don't know. They don't know what what? The conversation, how the competition should go. And there truly nervous about the idea of severing any relationship because they're probably figuring out their own, you know? So I think that spent now it's It's interesting because we talked people time and you know they way we sort of are. I don't know if anomaly in a lot of ways, but you know, our way. We're now ridiculous. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, we almost treated us to different relationships and take all the good things from the 1st 1 We don't throw it all out there, but But we really went through a Meyer Meyer almost forest and where we came out the other side and were able to still see each other. We have so many. Now Peter is in a race car forest in the water. Well, Ken and I were talking about this a little bit yesterday about how from talking about the idea of getting back together, and I was like, I just don't even see it that way. I see it is this brand new relationship with this guy that used to be here and that's not a negative thing, but it to me, the relationship is so crazy, different. And And I think a big part of that was the idea of when you're under a lot of stress and a lot of strain and you're feeling overwhelmed and you're being told that you have to work on one more thing. Okay, Work on your marriage. I don't wanna work on anything, you know, And what, Fascinatingly enough and not by any intention, but simply by some fortuitous default. We ended up doing stopping, working on our marriage, and we went off separate ways and worked on our own Selves and not with any grand intention other than like, I need to figure all this out. This is a whole new world. I don't know what this is. And that was the secret sauce. That was what you know, not to give McDonald sunny. But that was like the kind of the thing that actually got us to a place where, you know, going back to the marriage shock, who you end up slowly disappearing from the conversations that you don't have the fears that you have that block you from having the communication that you need to be able to figure out who you're with. We were able tohave those because the threats were off the table. The worst has already happened in many regards, and we were able to start kind of fresh. And I got to meet this new guy who was like during all the household work and, you know, and vice versa, you end up getting. But I don't really know what I had wrong. Oh, well, let me list it. There's a different spreadsheet with Yeah, but we both found a way to kind of started figuring out. I think to that point. I mean, I think there's a lot of people that don't I'm not going to speak for the whole all men or all women. I'm just going to say that there's people in every relationship. I think that often don't know that they have been paying attention to themselves, you know? So what you saw what I feel like we both saw on Guy was for us. It was. It was in September. It was, ironically, right when there's a lot of change in September, kids are back in school and other things happening. But we were both just open enough to, uh here and see the other person without any expectation. And that, I think was, has a beautiful thing right when you can have that with anybody, it's wonderful. So and it's not. It's not every day that you can do that, even with your kids. You know, you're like, You know what we're expecting to do something. They get their shoes on the right feet or whatever it is, But But when we were able to see the sea each other like that, it was after being through everything else. It is It was It was really interesting because, um, so much of everything else didn't matter anymore because you had spent so much more time becoming more confident about aware. Now I was confident aware of who you are, So whatever the other person said or did, it didn't really phase. You are you don't feel judged by them anymore because you've had a stand by yourself, and I think that is like I said earlier, when you can standard by yourself and not feel any judgment or feel any, um, the pain from a different person, like pointed at you. Then you can be so much more available to them that well, that's a concept of near the bigger, bigger here that high yourself. Yeah, way happen to both beer there at the same time. Crazy. Which was Which was which was really, really, uh, really fortunate for us.