Mental Health conversation centered around 12 step recovery and related topics. We talk about spiritual living, living with addiction and growing in the 12 steps. Find us on our home at https://recoverysortof.com/. If you want to join the conversation, email us at RecoverySortOf@gmail.com, find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RecoverySortOf, Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/recovery_sort_of/, or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Recovery-Sort-Of-112376247161866/?view_public_for=112376247161866.
Hey Recovery (Sort Of) world. We needed a break. We are still figuring out what works for us in our lives and how to gracefully move forward. The format has shifted a bit, less topics, more how we are trying to cope with the struggles of life. Listen in as Billy, Caraline and Jason explore some of the current struggles they are having in their lives.
How to find us and join the conversation:
Website
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Email: RecoverySortOf@gmail.com
—
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/recoverysortof/message
Hey Recovery (Sort Of) world. We needed a break. We are still figuring out what works for us in our lives and how to gracefully move forward. The format has shifted a bit, less topics, more how we are trying to cope with the struggles of life. Listen in as Billy, Caraline and Jason explore some of the current struggles they are having in their lives.
How to find us and join the conversation:
Website
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
TikTok
Email: RecoverySortOf@gmail.com
Transcript:
recovery sort of is a podcast where we discuss recovery and addiction topics from the perspective of people living in long-term recovery this podcast does not intend to represent the views of any particular group organization or Fellowship the views expressed here are solely the opinion of its contributors be advised there may be strong language or topics of an adult
[Music]
nature welcome back it’s recovery sort of hi I’m Jason and I’m Billy I’m a person in long-term recovery I’m Caroline I’m also a person in long-term recovery and we’re almost as surprised to be recording this as you are to be hearing it we we weren’t sure what was going on um you know I think we needed a rest a break a recalibration we we got together we talked we talked about what we liked about the recovery sort of process what maybe didn’t feel so good for us um so here we are attempting to continue this shindig and keep it going and I think it’s going to be a little different I think we’re going to talk a little bit more about what’s going on in our lives and how we’re trying to handle that through the world of recovery or self-awareness or self-reflection or growth or whatever the [ ] you want to call it [ ] hasn’t changed that will still be here plenty um I don’t know so here we are and it’s [ ] October and hello hi hi Caroline and it’s funny this uh the way this podcast kind of came about is Jason and I used to meet before uh or after a meditation group and uh we joined and the meditation group kind of fell apart and then it ended up just being him and I meeting every week and hanging out and we would just talk about recovery stuff and like what was going on in our lives and we would bounce ideas off each other and share how we were dealing with that stuff and uh then we said hey we should record this and do a podcast cuz this is amazing [ ] life advice that would help other people and uh then it grew and we experimented and did a lot of different things and now we’re kind of I think circling back to I’m going to say what I kind of originally envisioned um which feels interesting and less like work yeah yeah absolutely it’s funny I just got another um email from the people that emailed us about uh Sony from from who and the Blowfish and they were like hey Sony’s re-releasing something he did I didn’t really read it all that thoroughly and and also I can give you him and Edwin McCain in the same interview and I was like oh I’m like but we’re not a music podcast but I I did look it up and apparently uh Edwin McCain is also one of us I did know that that’s interesting out there about that yeah so well at least they understand what we’re doing they do and I I thought it was interesting I I don’t know that I have a ton of interest in doing it but it was cool I was like oh I did love that song he had so now I’m I who said when s terrible I’m not know he sng he had a it was kind I mean I hate to say I should probably shouldn’t say one hit wonder yeah I’ll be oh okay I know that song song Crying Shoulder yeah it’s like the the wedding song of whatever year it came out I’m sure I sing it loud in my so Nobody’s around when I hear it so so here we are uh we’re talking about us we’re talking about what’s going on Billy I know we always end up getting into it a little before we turn the recorder on but um I mean do we want to start there do we want to go somewhere else instead uh no we can start there so for me luckily I usually haven’t had too much issue with talking about my personal [ ] I used to do it at meetings all the time like you know some people are very guarded and protective about stuff and me I’m like man I don’t give a [ ] I’ll say whatever and that can get me in trouble I got to be very careful what I say about my wife or family because I’ll put their [ ] out there too or say things that I’m like oh I hope someone doesn’t hear that uh so I’m gonna try to talk about some of this today and minimize other people’s roles things and keep it focused mostly on myself but uh yeah so most recently what’s been going on in my life probably the biggest part of what’s going on in my life has been uh my wife and I have been doing some marriage counseling for several months now um and it’s interesting because we met a guy you know this therapist and his therapy modality for marriage counseling is similar to a book her and I had read about six months before we actually went to therapy um the book is called getting the love you want and I can’t remember the author’s name but since then they’ve modeled you know like some therapy things and you can go on Retreats and all this stuff and uh there’s a lot of good information in that book and he models therapy off of that so it was interesting we had already read this book and we knew not what he was going to say but when he talks about some of these Concepts or practices it’s pretty uh stuff we’re aware of stuff we’ve heard of before in any case um one of the things he had pointed out to us is like my wife uh because of some of her issues has more an uh abandonment style in her relationship and me because of my childhood and upbring I have more engulfment issues in a relationship and so what that looks like go interesting cuz like the words I’m more familiar with would be more she’s got more of like a insecure anxious attachment style and you’ve got more insecure avoidant so it’s almost like some new terminology to throw in the mix but it feels like that same that same flavor I guess I think it is and see that’s I I looked into some of that like your attachment Styles and all that and I had a hard time figuring out exactly what I was or how I fit in there um and and that’s why this word just I think fit me a little bit better um the idea for me is with the uh my uh issues are uh the engulfment S I’m getting all twisted up now I’m thinking of avoidance and attachment Styles but with engulfment it’s uh like I worry about like losing my Identity or getting consumed within a relationship so when the relationship starts to get like too close or I feel like the person’s asking for too much intimate yeah too intimate I like push back and like no I’m going to go over here and do these things you need to find some of your own [ ] to do and like give me some space I tell you what I like about the engulfment word is that it feels like it addresses more of the fear rather than the behavior right right instead of just saying oh you avoid [ ] Billy it’s like no you have this really deep fear and intense relationship with the idea of being engulfed and that like feels less Shamy I guess yeah that’s kind of cool and for me like through most of my marriage like I wasn’t able to identify it as that like it felt like a healthy thing like no I want to keep like I have other interests and I have things I like to do and I you know we’re two different people like we can be together but I like to do these things over here and you know here’s a hint for humans we’re all putting the spin on it that makes ourselves look good always right and so it was easy to put a judgment on my wife and be like oh she’s too you know typical what you would say oh she’s too needy she’s too clingy you know what I mean like she’s she wants me to do everything and and to feel like she was the problem you know to to be able to look at her as the issue of me I’m healthy you know what I mean like I’m healthy I have us but then I have my stuff that I like to do and so I you know it still it caused issues in my life whether it was healthy or not doesn’t matter it caus issues in my marriage well I feel like and then we’ll take like our friendships and we’ll say look at all the other relationships I have and how healthy they are obviously you’re the problem wife or husband right but it’s like yeah they don’t have that vulnerable intimate connection that’s why they’re not stirring up your [ ] stuff right yeah right and that’s what you know we would get into those uh similar arguments at times things like you know oh well you know I have other friends that do this or that or they’re able to go on trips with their buddies or whatever and uh anyway none of that’s the issue whether you do those things or not it’s my emotional reaction to it is what the issue is um but with her in her uh abandonment issues it’s needing to um and I’m not as good at the abandonment stuff because that’s not me and it’s me I’ll talk on it okay me all day every day okay yeah I mean so for me it’s yeah it’s like that loss of connection is like paralyzing um not paralyzing I mean it makes me very reactive so so if I have that connection with someone and I feel that connection leaving that’s what triggers me whereas like it’s kind of the opposite with the you know kind of the engulfing so um yeah I mean that it and I can see that for me like this is exactly where I’ve been living for for months um with this relationship that I was in like I didn’t know about attachment Styles until um I kind of stumbled upon something in Instagram I think and um took a quiz and had you know my my boyfriend at the time take a quiz and he was like oh yeah that tracks and I was like oh yeah that tracks um I’ve literally been telling you about this for months and you found it on Instagram I mean we’re talking like we’re talking like the like early spring F I’m not picking you were you telling me about it before March since before him yeah kind of my wife would tell you the same thing she’s like I say [ ] to you all the time and it’s not okay until you read it on a [ ] website or you hear it on a podcast or Jason says it then it makes sense Kimberly my wife Kimberly says this about me with other people too so I get it right but I’m like like d yeah I thought I was kind of I was trying to say this stuff yeah I wasn’t hear reinfor I need reinforcement I got to hear it more than once so if you were the second or third person that said it I might hear it that’s funny cuz the people who tell you stuff like that it’s really hard for us to be vulnerable and we’re definitely like the I’ll chance it saying it once and then I’m not saying it again because I don’t want a badroom right well and if you don’t like for me like seeing the list of characteristics like once I could see that on paper that’s when I was like oh yeah you know um just maybe hearing it in an abstract way is is hard to really but once you can actually see the those tangible here are the things that people with this attachment style struggle with then it’s it’s much easier to to be like oh okay like I understand now you know versus like an abstract Theory um but yeah I mean I I so him and I were just stuck in this like constant triggering of each other just constant um and it’s hard because it it’s it’s your nervous system and I know you’ve been talking to me about that for a long time um it when I get triggered when I feel like I’m losing that connection or I can feel that person that I that I love pulling back from me my reaction is to try to chase and try to like get that connection back and it and it it almost becomes like not even conscious thought like my it’s not conscious thought none of it is my shit’s not either like my logical brain will be like don’t do this but I can’t even listen to my logical brain cuz I’m just yeah which makes sense because I don’t need to be thinking about should I have peanut butter or jelly for lunch if there’s a goddamn lion running me down right like I need all resources to everything that saves me from The Lion however that is the problem is Us in 2023 and we don’t have the real lions and we can’t understand what’s happening in our body because it’s not actually happening in front of us and so we just [ ] criticize ourselves about it what’s wrong with you why do you keep doing this but we are not the same person that is calling the shots in those moments at all and those moments aren’t just moments this is like big portions of our day at times yeah and the way I sort of have come to understand you know the information in that book and then through therapy and stuff it’s like you know a lot of that our relationship style or whatever you want to call it comes from our upbringing and mine was because I had these kind of overbearing uh this overbearing mom who was had to be in control of everything and tell everybody what to do and how to feel and how to look and you know what I mean and she was overbearing like that and so you know when I start feeling that somebody doing that I want to pull away the problem is because I was raised in that environment that was my mom who was my model of love in my life that’s what I recognize as love so it isn’t a conscious Choice it’s almost like what’s your favorite flavor of ice cream you know what I mean like you don’t get to pick what your favorite flavor is you taste something you’re like oh this is wonderful I love it and it doesn’t matter even if it’s gross like pistachio like you don’t get to choose you just that’s what you like [ ] pistachio and so this is the yeah [ ] pistachio is gross but this is the same kind of thing it’s not like we choose like oh I’m going to pick a person that’s going to [ ] try to consume me all the time you know but I will cuz that’s what I’m attracted to and if I met another like avoidant person I wouldn’t be drawn or attracted to that person even though we probably have a ton of [ ] in common like we would be very similar you know I’m drawn to that person who’s got that abandonment stuff who’s going to really lean in and really want to be close and be like I need you with me all the time you know I want you to take off work and spend the day with me like that kind of stuff and I’m like what the [ ] like I got to get out of here like that’s weird and you know but but that’s what I recognize as love so and just for the sake of avoiding hopelessness for all the people hearing that right now that is not a static or biological State think of it more as like you were downloading software for the first seven years of your life and that software was whatever the hell was going on around you whetherly noticed it or not right and then when that software came online that’s the program in you have it can definitely be reprogrammed right we can definitely change this this isn’t something we’re stuck with so I just don’t want anybody to think that but [Music] like
what we’re talking about is the what I guess sometimes is called the attachment dance right yeah we all have sort of an attachment style but we flipflop right be the partner who’s avoiding your partner and doesn’t have nothing to say and then they don’t text for three days and then all of a sudden you’re the partner that’s chasing them right we we all flip back and forth a little um as different parts of us get reactive to different parts of what’s going on man but I I love how we’re talking about and and I think another specifically interesting piece that you’re pointing at is like so if if my father had a hard time believing me right I don’t go out in the world and try to find a person that’s just going to believe me cuz people who just believe everybody well that’s [ ] useless that doesn’t make me loveable I literally search for a person that has a hard time believing people because it’s got to fit that same comfortable situation so it’s like I’m choosing partners that are extremely difficult and and struggle giving the thing that I really need the most and it’s like it’s a bad setup for relationships I think where I struggle is like like I hear all of that and we’re attracted to kind of our our opposite or you know what we calls it your Imago it’s that’s fancy OPP I don’t know what that means it’s you’d have to read the book and tell you but but uh you know when I started that relationship I was in I wasn’t seeing any of that dismissive stuff in the beginning so it’s like I I don’t know if there was still some something that I was picking up on unconsciously but he was very he was showing up he was very present very engaged in the beginning um maybe even on the other side of the spectrum so it’s hard to and it’s scary right so I’m in the process right now of trying to heal this [ ] because um because I do believe well one I can look back over this relationship and say there are a lot of things I could have done better there are a lot of things that I don’t like the way I behaved because of that triggering and the reactiveness um so that’s one thing but then two I can look back over my past and say this has been a problem in every relationship it’s the reason why I’m 39 alone and childless right now like I can trace it right back to other relationships where I did these same behaviors um and uh wasted a lot of time quite honestly and uh three I feel like yes I’m going to just find this again so if I don’t solve me if I don’t fix me I’m going to just keep repeating the same patterns and so I’m like Desperately Seeking Solutions right now to to try to heal this attachment style um so it’s fun I mean it’s funny that that this came up because literally I probably spend 80% of my free time thinking about this researching it I’m in attachment groups on Facebook I’m watching YouTube videos I there’s pot I mean I’m just like consuming this stuff nonstop see that would be some of the issues with my wife and I and I mean we’ve been together 20 some years doing this like you called it the dance you know and she would say like that’s we would do that dance not re she would call it the power struggle like it’s a power struggle of like she would be kind of chasing me and be like hey I want your attention I want you to do this why do you not why are you not looking and I would you know just sort of keep slowly sort of pulling away and then as soon as she pulled away because she would be hurt at some points you know she would feel abandoned um she would feel rejected so she would close off because it was hurtful to her and then I would become the hey what’s going on why are you okay what’s go what can I do and you know then I would become attentive and I would become all those things that she was looking for but only when she wasn’t and then as soon as flip flop the other way right I would start my fear response would kick in like oh my God I’m going to be consumed and overwhelmed and so I would start to pull away and I didn’t recognize that’s what it was cuz she would say it’s like you’re playing this game and I’ll be like I don’t know what you’re talking about like to me when we’re going along everything seems okay and you’re needy and that’s fine but then you just stop for some reason like you can’t stop your part and uh not recognizing you know that I was actually literally pulling away um so yeah so we did that dance for a lot of times and we’ve been able to to you know look at it now through some therapy to start to heal some of that and get better at that stuff um for us it’s each of us taking ownership of Our Own Part you know and it’s not that I haven’t at times pulled away from her but it’s also that she can be a little over bearing at point you know what I mean like we both have a part there to play and so then we start looking at like our parts and what we do to get better at that um lately for me it’s been more just trying to be aware that she has emotional needs and that I should like make time to just check in like once a week or maybe more and be like hey how you doing what are you thinking what’s going on um but she would say things to me like oh my God I think about us and our problems like all the time like it’s over and I be like that sounds insane like that sounds like you have a problem you know obsessive because yeah because I go to work and I’m at work I’m not thinking about my relationship and my marriage and all that other stuff I’m working and uh but that’s also an avoidance you know what I mean that’s part of my avoidance and I’m not calling obsessive I’m speaking for myself I just yeah so yeah so there’s a whole therapy modality that’s been helping us and of course what you know immediately what we do is go back and look at our childhood upbringing look at the issues that we have and look at mine and try to take ownership all right you know this is how I was raised and this is the information that I have but it’s not serving me well you know what I mean it’s like almost like you talked about with the programming like looking at my programming you’d be going well there’s like a glitch here or there’s a piece that’s missing that needs some tweaking like let’s get in there with those pieces and try to make them better um because the reason we seek those relationships out is because that’s how we recognize love but then we want to change or correct that person so that that same person can fulfill all our needs it’s like we’re trying to redo what we wanted our parents to do but fix it right so we do want to change that person to be the person that will meet all our needs so it’s interesting I’m not sure where Imago therapy takes this and I hate this disclaimers so okay I want to say I’m more familiar with what’s called emotionally focused therapy for couples it’s EFT but I say I’m more familiar with it in the sense that like maybe I read a book one time or I took a one day six- hour training on it right like I am not a [ ] expert for sure but in their version I guess what they talk about as the form of healing once you can recognize that this dance is going on they explain that the purpose of it is connection right the idea is uh and and I’ll throw it out here just in a typical scenario it would be like you know maybe um a husband would be wanting attention from his wife and the wife wants to get away now she’s going to go out with her friends because she’s getting engulfed right but the point is what he’s looking for is connection and so he’s slowly escalates the the statements he’s making to get connection even if that’s anger right once I’ve angered my partner well now they love me again because they’re emotionally responsive to me and they’re connected to to what I’m saying right now that now what I say matters so it’s really once you know that that’s what you’re looking for okay what I’m really looking for here is to be more connected how can I go about this because this way this angry response isn’t getting connection can you explain that from the the other side though like if both partners are so I actually I just listened to a podcast with Sue Johnson on it like literally yesterday um and I was thinking that that she has a book um that I was thinking might be good for you and Jen I think it’s called like seven it’s called something seven connections for or seven conversations for hold me tight that’s what it is yeah yeah um and she yeah she seemed great but um and this concept of like both people are looking for connection so what does that look like from the other side from the dismissive side cuz that’s what I Can’t Rap I know I know I’m looking for connection I want it constantly right but like for the person who is pulling away avoiding you know just just pulling back within themselves how are they trying to seek connection through that behavior Billy how are you trying to seek connection through that avoidance of engulfment um what does that look like well I can’t speak to other people because I’m not an expert in that therapy by any stretch I only look at my part and what I know for me right now is what I want is uh in my I I have a personality that wants to avoid conflict that doesn’t like tension or any of that stuff because I carry a lot of anxiety so what I really want is just to like uh stability calmness uh what do you call it almost like r routine like I want to come home every night and have dinner and maybe watch some TV and then lay down and go to bed maybe make love and you know go to sleep and like that sort of calmness peace stability like even Keel level emotion all the time so when it gets way high or even way low whether it’s through fighting or whether it’s being like super close either one of those is like uncomfortable able you know I I think what maybe the answer to your question isn’t exactly the answer to your question but I think the problem is that both sides are seeking connection safely they’re seeking safe connection and the people on the avoidant side maybe don’t have any version of that and both sides are coming from a dysfunctional way of trying to seek it right so it’s it’s not so much that they don’t want connection for I think for the avoidant in my understanding it’s more that they don’t know of any safe connection so they’re trying to find this like half connected spot that feels comfortable enough and that’s just going to be it right well and they talk about they talk about with uh the avoidant attachment that there’s this attachment figure permanence so that when they do they can pull back and and distance cuz that’s how they feel safe but then in their mind they’re like that person will always be there because the attachment figure in childhood was always there you know they you know so I want when you said safety that like clicked for me I was like okay so that’s their safe connection is they know in the back of their mind that person’s there and the safest connection they got was getting the [ ] away from that person cuz they were really critical and needed a lot of [ ] from them like there was a lot of demand so their version of safe connection is I know they love me let me get the [ ] out of here right right before they like giving on as like I’m okay giving as long as it’s on my terms like I’m okay oh you want to go out and spend a Saturday afternoon going [ ] shopping or looking at flowers okay I can do that for like three hours but if you talk about me giving up my whole weekend well that’s too much yeah yeah so I have a level or a place where I’m safe giving on my terms but not if you’re asking for stuff then that’s like whoa yeah yeah my um my ex which it’s weird to even say that but my ex would freak out if I tried to get the whole day like if I was like will you spend the whole day with me it that was like so triggering for him and I’m like I just and yet we could go away to Puerto Rico for a week and spend literally every minute together and it was fine but if we’re home and I want to spend the whole day with you like but also fascinating that that’s the request like I would never think to ask somebody can I have your whole day like that would never be important to me I’d be like do you want to hang out for a while some portion of it 6 hours three whatever but you live with your partner and see them every day well I want to avoid putting too much of my wife stuff out there but I think it’s safe to say this um she would say things to me like you know will you just call off work six so that we can spend the day just lay in bed and Day wish together [ ] yeah I got call out no way what she’s told me a lot of times is it didn’t even really matter if I would actually do it if I would have said that would be so cool you know that would be awesome I would love to do that like it it wouldn’t like it she just wanted that reinforcement or that you know knowing that I would even consider it and for me it’s like my response is like oh I can’t do that that’s totally irresponsible yeah but but I think in that moment I’m sorry I’m I’m excited that part of us that steps up says um oh dear God they want something we can’t give right and now we got to be mad and defend ourselves for not being wrong right got make excuses for now I’m actually probably going to shame my partner into thinking their requests are [ ] bad because I know I can’t meet them and I don’t want to feel that shame so I’m unwilling to feel it you’re G to [ ] feel it that’s how we give it to our kids too by the way for your parents out there yeah um but yeah man yeah I know it’s so crazy once you realize that the answer that they want it was really something so simple and truly usually truthful it probably would have been really cool to you to feel like you could have took off and just spent the day hanging out with your wife you know what I mean like a lot of times it’s the thing I wanted to and but it’s like that shame of not being able to give my partner what they wanted leads me to [ ] shame them instead of just saying man I really wish we could do that it’s sad that we can’t yeah and one of the biggest pieces you know tools or whatever in the therapy that we’ve had they at the coup’s dialogue um and that would be something like you know if you have something you want to express like one person is the whatever the talker and the other person is the listener and you know if if she’s talking she’s going to just start saying whatever like uh let’s say I did something that week that was rejecting of her I blew off a commitment that we had you know it would be like hey you know you did this this week and uh you said you were going to go to to this thing with me and you didn’t go and you know it really uh that really pissed me off and then what I’m supposed to stay to that is oh really would you like to tell me more about that and then let her talk you know and and you know just let her talk and is there any more you want to say about that instead of getting defensive or making deciding whether she’s right or wrong or like you said deciding you know oh I’m going to make you feel guilty cuz your request is irrational that matters I’m just supposed to listen I’m supposed to kind of you know maybe mirror some of what she says oh it sounds like you know you’re upset that I wasn’t you know didn’t go to that thing with you that I said I was going to go to would you like to tell me more about that and then she’ll talk and then at you know a little bit in I got it like especially with my wife I don’t know about anybody else but sometimes I got to slow her down because I’m not as good at emotional stuff as she is and if I’m trying to follow along like I get into this trying to logic out [ ] in my head and then I’m not listening anymore while she’s still talking so I got to slow her down and make sure I understand do you hear that memes you might need to slow me down you’re allowed to it’s fine and uh then I will say oh well that sounds like you’re feeling whatever you know rejected hurt abandoned um you know and then at some point that would flipflop you know like the rolls would switch and then you know she’d say and then but I’m supposed to keep saying oh would you like to tell me any more about that or is there anything else you want to say about that until she’s done like not cut off or decide it’s my turn to talk but just let her talk all the way through it and hear it without trying to be judgmental the way he said it is like without owning it even if she’s saying I’m doing all this stuff it’s not it’s not me I don’t even have to agree with it that’s not the point the point is to just let her talk let her be heard help her to feel understood try to you know help her get through that stuff and then we can switch and I can say some things I want to say and then she’s supposed to listen the opposite way I love it love it little reflective listening a little yeah no I think that’s the piece man it’s it’s really been at least in my understanding for my relationship and yes I like to think that everyone else is like me so I’m assuming everyone else in the world is struggling with this um but it’s this piece of I can’t take the feeling of the idea that I did something bad that was harmful to somebody else and in that unwillingness to hold that I just immediately defend myself there’s no space for me to say oh it sucks that you feel that way I don’t know if I did something right or wrong or not it doesn’t even matter like I did this thing and it hurt you I could have been doing the right thing I could have picked going out back to play with my daughter over sitting here on the couch with you that was the [ ] right thing for me in that moment but it still might have hurt you and can I own that right can I just say hey okay I could see where that would hurt you you got picked over right it would hurt me too yeah and I mean we had a we had a similar thing last night you know her and I my wife and I were talking and she just made a comment about and it even hurts me now to say it like she said you know I wish you would be like more romantic like you’re just not very romantic and and I immediately like these defenses kick up and I’m like well I want to say well wait a minute what about you know we just went out to dinner two weeks ago that Big Sur trip that was pretty romantic bro that was pretty romantic he but I immediately want to go to all these defensive places and and to be like but I am romantic you’re missing all these things that I do that are romantic and we’ve been in that dance before and uh last night you know I tried to sit with that because she’ll say sometimes she’ll be like well I want you to be like I’ll be talking to you and you’re not engaging much and for me a lot of I say well I have to kind of calm that my nervous system is like wants to get defensive wants to not listen anymore wants to go into all my rationalizations and I got to calm that [ ] down like in order to like think for a minute you know before I just get reactive um and be able to sit and say yeah that’s like it hurts me to think that I’m not romantic in my marriage like I feel like I am um but if you’re asking for that then I must not be doing it enough or right or in ways that you know meet that need for you but that’s a lot harder than to just say well look at all these five other things I did in the last month or whatever it’s it’s kind of a little bit along the line of those Love Languages even though that’s some stuff but yeah they mix in there too like that all matters
too
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