Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
Welcome to Robot Unicorn.
We are so glad that you are here.
As always, let's start the show with a question from Scott.
Well, this episode, maybe we should have planned this out a little better, should have been launched the week of
Valentine's Day, but we're talking about love this week.
And it's gonna launch like three or four weeks after Valentine's Day, but that's okay.
You can remember to love each other after Valentine's Day.
Love is not a trendy one day of the year thing.
It's not a consumer holiday, is that what you're saying to me?
That's probably why we forgot because neither of us actually celebrate Valentine's Day.
So we probably just weren't thinking about it
Yep.
Okay.
Well, talked about this for a while.
I feel like it's maybe going to be slightly controversial to some listeners.
I don't know.
We'll see.
But also over the past couple weeks I've been going back to my dad's house and looking at photos of things from my childhood and
One thing I remember vividly is hearing about how important the five love languages are.
And I used to always think like that doesn't make any sense to me that you every person just has five love languages and that's it
And I know it's very popular.
And anyways, I wanted to get into asking you questions about the five love languages because my assumption is that you also don't really agree with
Using them.
But the five love languages, I'll just give a brief history of what that is.
For anyone that doesn't know, it was developed by Dr.
Gary Chapman in 1992.
It's a long time ago.
He, I think, was a Baptist preacher.
And it's just based on his anecdotal counseling experiences.
He saw that according to him, people had these five distinct love languages that they felt most loved.
And those five primary ways are words of affirmation or like praising someone verbally, quality time, so focused attention on someone, spending time with them
Receiving gifts, so like a symbolic token of your love.
Acts of service, so doing things that are helpful and like in service to someone else.
and physical touch, which I think that's self explanatory.
And the whole point of I guess the book, is it it's a book or is it more than just that?
It's a book.
There's a children's book, same kind of thing, five love languages for kids.
And then I think there's workbooks and additional material type of stuff.
So the emphasis is on finding and responding to, let's say for you, I need to find what your love language is and then use that to show you that I love you
Yes.
Which on the surface sounds like a good idea and I would say that kind of makes sense.
The only problem I have is that it basically to me it sounds like you're
Boxing people into.
You're like one of these is your love language that you desperately need to feel loved.
Mm-hmm
And the reason why I was thinking about that, so going back to me looking at photos and things from when I was a kid, this was like the thing that we were supposed to do.
We were supposed to find our partner's love language
And obviously my parents are no longer together, so and it's not as though they didn't try doing these love languages or whatever.
Maybe it was one-sided, but I think the love language stuff, I think it's important to say it has deep roots in the
church communities.
Yeah.
And so a lot of people you probably have heard of this if you did grow up in like some type type of faith based community, if you're still in it.
It's still very widely used in in those communities.
And we'll get into the reasons why this might not be the most effective.
I mean we're never gonna say it's bad to hey spend the quality time with your partner, right?
But I think one of the main issues is that it's very surface level
And people like let's say your parents or even maybe people trying to use this on their kids
They might box you in to say, okay, well your love language is words of affirmation, right?
Without going any deeper.
So then if I'm saying to you all the time, Scott, my love language is words of affirmation.
But
In reality, maybe I'm a really anxious person who has deep social anxiety or deep anxiety and now I'm asking you to give me words of affirmation.
That's not Tell me I'm okay.
Tell me I'm okay.
Tell me I'm good.
Tell me all these things.
And I'm telling you that's my love language, but on the deeper level, there's so much more going on.
And I think this book and the reason why maybe we both feel passionate about this is because it was kind of used
in our lives as maybe like a gold standard of how to treat your partner.
And I think even when we like right before we got married, I think we had a bunch of people gift this book to us.
Yeah, didn't we have
We definitely had copies.
Yeah, we probably got rid of them by the same thing.
They've since been gotten rid of.
But we had copies of it and I think it's always well meaning, right?
Like find your partner's love language.
But what we see is if that's it
It's not going to necessarily save your marriage.
So that's kind of where we're coming from, I think.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
I guess I want to back up and the reason I'm skeptical of this is mostly because it's packaged.
like way too neatly.
And maybe I just see that with what we do and like some of the people that we compete with.
It's almost like the easier you make it seem to reach this ideal, the more money you can make.
Yes.
That's why we try not to do that.
It's so much easier for me to say, if you find my one love language and you just start doing that thing, our partnership is no longer gonna be in struggle.
So you find your child's love language
then you're ne no longer gonna have any uh behavior that you don't wanna see because your child is gonna feel so loved.
And I think the reason that you and I both have feelings towards this is we've both seen partnerships where they've had this book.
And not to just
only pick on this book, that's what this topic is, but like anything that's black and white, right?
And it's like, okay, well I've read the book and I've decided that my love language is gifts.
for example.
And now because I've decided that that's my love language, that's how I feel the most seen in my partnership, I'm now expecting my partner to get me gifts.
So now the partner's like, Okay, I guess I gotta get my partner flowers all the time or chocolate or little gifts and so then they try doing that and then the issue is still not being fixed and it's like, Well, I'm speaking your love language, I'm doing what you want me to do.
And I think the majority of the time our issues in relationships are so much more complex than just you have to start giving me gifts so I feel seen.
Yeah.
Now have you seen this play out in therapy sessions before?
Yes.
So prior to having kids or maybe kind of at the start of having kids.
I did a lot of work with different churches and people who were in in the church or maybe coming out of the church.
And I would say that this was brought up a lot.
Like this specific concept.
And again, I'm not saying it's all bad, like quality time.
Yeah, we all need to spend quality time with each other, right?
Like nothing in there is bad.
Acts of service
words of affirmation, like all of that makes sense and can be helpful maybe as a starting point.
So I want to be careful to just, you know, say everything is awful in there.
Right.
So it's almost like a conversation starter rather than the ultimate end goal of relationship.
Mm-hmm.
I think if you're looking at the book as like a conversation starter for hey, how can I maybe show I care about this person?
Maybe it's a nice starting point.
But I think what would often happen is that people would have these deeper complex struggles in their relationship, right?
So I'll give an example of like let's say their sexual relationship wasn't working
But then the partner goes, well, my love language is physical touch, so you know, I need you to have sex with me more often because that's my love language.
Well, now we have a partner who's having a very difficult time with their sexual relationship
And then the other partner's saying, Well, this is the only way I feel your love which that's a whole maybe other separate issue that the only way you feel the love is through sex and now we have a partner being pressured to have sex.
So I mean that is one true example, but many variations of that that I would see.
And then I think because as humans we love rules and we love structure.
And a lot of people were given this book to read, right, and as a way to resolve their marriage, then they get really stuck on it.
Or the partner, let's say one person
I was talking about this words of affirmation.
I saw this over and over.
Now if I say my love language is words of affirmation, and maybe there's a point in our marriage where I would have even said that.
as an anxious person.
I don't know.
Like maybe early, early on.
Yeah, maybe.
I feel like you have used it more as a joke.
Yeah.
I think
Early on I kind of saw through this, but I think when we first got the book, I was like, okay, I'll read it, you know, I'll check it out.
But again, the words of affirmation, like
Do you need words of affirmation or are you feeling not properly attached to your partner?
And is there some anxious attachment going on here, right?
Like what's the deeper struggle?
'Cause that we shouldn't need our partner to constantly say, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.
you're the best partner in the world over and over again, right?
That shows me that there's some anxious attachment.
So again, it's not deep enough.
And then we get stuck on trying to resolve deep marital issues on a surface level and it doesn't work.
And then they eventually come
see a therapist who wants to help them get to the deeper level or not.
Right.
Why do you think we as a society want these neat little boxes for things to th fit into?
I feel like we've talked about this on other episodes too, but even something like
loving a spouse or your child, why do we want it to fit into that box?
Is it just because life is so chaotic and we're trying to find the easiest means to an end?
I don't know.
Yeah, I feel like
It involves maybe less thinking and we have a lot often on our minds and so things that are easier for us, I feel like even maybe evolutionary like for our brains, it's just probably easier to latch on to something that's right there for you.
Then you don't have to do the deeper thinking
I think another reason, especially stuff like this and even when it comes to like tantrums like, you know, four scripts to save your child or whatever
A lot of us don't know how else to think about it.
Most of us aren't married to therapists that are like, hey, I'm reading this thing and it f it's feeling problematic for me based on the work that I'm doing every day with families or parents or couples
So let's talk about why I think this is problematic and why this probably won't work for our marriage.
I mean the majority of people, that's not their career.
And I yeah.
I mean you've changed my mind on a lot of things.
So I that's just because you have that educational like you have the understanding of it.
You spent your life trying to understand it.
Yeah.
So if that wasn't my life's work, I probably would read something like that and be like, Oh yeah, that makes sense enough.
And I think the other thing is, I mean, with everything this is
even with you know conspiracy theories and stuff.
If there's enough truth to something, it just seems like it makes sense.
Yeah.
I was gonna ask you about like are there any parallels between
something that's overly simplistic like the five love languages and actual research that's been done on relationships
I mean I would say yes.
It's not like I have all the research out in front of me right now.
I think you did some research, so you might have some that you can reference.
But I I think about let's say the quality time
that we've spent together, right?
So one thing that we know for sure that makes sense is that we need to spend quality time in relationship in order to have a thriving relationship.
as logical.
You know, you don't spend any time with someone, then you're not gonna have a deepened relationship.
But simply saying I need quality time with you
and deeply evaluating what it means to have quality time together are two very separate things.
I also think often we don't know ourselves as well as we think we do.
I don't know if that makes sense
Yeah.
Like someone might read that and be like, oh for sure my love language is gifts cause I love to receive gifts.
Which might be true on the surface
But that maybe isn't like a deep knowing of yourself and Yeah, why is it that you love receiving gifts so much?
Yeah, exactly.
Is it because you're receiving that attention when you're receiving the gifts?
Yeah, yeah, I understand.
Yeah, I think on the surface some of the things make sense.
But it's just so much deeper than that.
You know what I mean?
Like let's say for a gift, for example.
If I just give you a random gift, I'm at the store and I see flowers and I bring it home and I'm like, oh, I should get Scott some flowers today.
That would mean nothing to you
Right?
You'd be like, okay, cool, maybe Jess thought about me today.
You say that, but not necessarily, because if it's the spring and you know that I'm
about to start gardening and you bought me flowers.
Exactly.
That's where I was gonna go.
I was gonna say but for Scott, something that I know makes you feel seen and I think at the root of all of these things, the words of affirmation, quality, time
gifts, acts of service, and physical touch is as always what we talk about here, this deep need to be known and to be seen for who we truly are.
And we could do that through any of those things
And so for example, for a gift for you, it's not just about a gift like bringing you something random.
If I want to truly know you and see you, I'm gonna drive to your favorite roti shop.
I'm gonna get your favorite.
You know what's funny is you say that and immediately you say drive and I know that you're gonna say roti.
Yep.
And I do that for Scott.
I know exactly where he likes to get his roti from.
I know that he wants like the extra spicy shrimp roti.
Yep.
Curry shrimp with gravy on the side.
Because I know you deeply and I know that no matter what gift I get you, usually it's food.
You are gonna feel s seen.
Yeah, why is food not on this list?
Right, exactly.
Like there's so many ways we show love and like
Again, this is a neat box, but I truly don't believe that any one of us who are truly self-reflective fit only in one of those categories.
Well, doesn't the book say you have one main love language, but it's not necessarily that's your only love language.
Right.
But still even one main love language.
I would say our main love language is to feel deeply seen and understood
And then the way that we do that, maybe it's one of those five, maybe it's totally different.
Maybe it's through food, like you said.
There's so many ways that we can show our love to each other.
And if I were to read that and say, okay, Scott, well my love language is acts of service and that's my number one thing.
And so then you go ahead and you do a whole bunch of stuff around the house for me.
But I actually don't care about any of those things and I would have rather you did the dishes.
Is that what you felt this weekend?
That you didn't care about the things that I did around the house?
No, actually.
You know what I was gonna bring up that something you did this weekend
stood out to me as a way that you cared for me.
And it wasn't act of service technically, but you know that I get very overstimulated by the lights in our house.
I feel like this is a something that's been going on for me for a long time, especially the older I get, the more
At like 8 o'clock PM I cannot handle certain lights like I gotta turn them all off.
And what you've been doing around the house is not only setting up smart lights
So I can kind of change the brightness as the day goes on.
But you knew that there is a certain lights in our kitchen that were just like hurting my eyes.
Yep.
And without me even asking, you went and just changed all the bulbs to a warmer light.
Yeah, a warmer
slightly dimmer light.
And like that's an act of service that only someone who truly knows me to my core would know that those lights would bother me without me having to say.
And so you could do a hundred acts of service for me that don't show me that you deeply know me, but changing the lights to a warmer color that shows me that you deeply know me.
Right.
And that's the deeper stuff that we're talking about.
So
Me taking apart the engine of our snowblower and fixing that did not feel like an act of service to you?
I mean, I feel like that was more of an act of service to yourself.
Yeah, honestly kinda was.
That is more of like
Okay, but let's talk about that.
I think the other piece that maybe this book misses is that in order to know how you need to be loved, you need to deeply know yourself
And I think a lot of people going into marriage or I mean we're we're saying marriage but really we mean any like long term any relationship committed relationship or any relationship even friendship this applies to.
The book just talks a lot about marriage, but like we're just talking about any relationship
To know how you want to be loved is to also to know yourself.
And I think like you said, like why can't people they just kind of understand this or do this on their own?
I think the majority of people out there don't deeply know themselves super well.
Right?
And they might say, Oh, I love gifts, but not necessarily have the ability to do the deeper reflection as to why gifts matter to them.
You know, or
I love acts of service.
But why?
You know, so I don't know.
I think there's just so much deeper that we can go on this topic.
Well, that is in engineering.
Like I've used that in a lot of circumstances.
The
Five whys, or like the root cause analysis.
So you try and understand the root cause of an issue that you're facing and you ask why five times.
And that five times often, not always, but often will bring you to the underlying root cause of an issue that's happening.
Can we do that for one of the ways that we feel loved?
Sure.
So why
Did you feel like me changing the light bulbs to warmer light was me loving you?
I think because
I've expressed so many times how overstimulated I get by the lights and how it just bothers me.
And so you thinking about it before me having to ask you to do it felt really meaningful.
Why
Because it it just took less work for me, so I didn't have to say, Scott, can you change those light bulbs?
And feel like I was putting that pressure on you, so I felt taken care of
And why is that important to you?
I feel like it's not as common these days because I'm a mother and I run a business and all these things.
It's not as common for me to feel taken care of.
Usually I'm taking care of others.
And why do you think it's important for you to feel taken care of?
I think
especially this weekend, our kids were a lot, especially our youngest.
She was like on me and I just feel like I was taking care of her the whole weekend and I kind of felt like I was a bit at a breaking point.
Like I hadn't
I was sleeping in her bed and I was with her all day and I just felt like I hadn't really had any time to take care of myself and then that makes it really hard to take care of the kids.
I mean I can ask in the fifth why, but I feel like we get the point of
what this is doing.
Mm-hmm.
I feel like a therapist there.
Oh my goodness.
Essentially that's what therapists do.
My therapist, who I love, barely says anything to me.
She just asks me
Pretty much that.
Her thing is always, and what was the hardest part of that?
And then I tell her the hardest part of that, oh and what was the hardest part of that?
And then we get to the roots.
Basically the same thing.
Yeah.
Root cause analysis.
So now I'm gonna write a book.
It's called The Five Why's
That probably already exists.
Oh, yeah, okay.
I'm just kidding.
That's not long.
You don't want to write a book called root cause analysis?
Yeah, or that that probably exists too.
Yeah, it definitely does.
Anyway, but that might be an interesting exercise.
So if you've done the five love languages and you're feeling like, okay, we're still a little stuck.
Like I I feel like
we're not actually resolving our marital issues or our relationship issues with this.
Maybe try and ask why.
Like why do you think
gifts are so important to you?
Why do you feel like you need to have that?
You know, get and try and get deeper because that might help you move towards
Something that might actually help you in a different way.
Yeah.
Okay, so in my review of all of the studies and articles and different things that have been done.
I found that there is very little empirical support for the five love languages.
So it kind of follows what you're saying.
There's essentially nothing that really exists that says this is legitimate
And any studies that I've done c almost kind of refute what the five love languages talks about?
I think the important thing to note is that the book was based on someone's experience anecdotally
Which is not a problem in itself.
It's just it has caused a lot of people to say this is the way to do it and this is the only way you can do it.
Can you remind me, have you been receiving a whole bunch of messages or something about this topic
Well, I've received some messages about it, specifically about let's say the kids' angle.
Yep.
'Cause I I think his framework is essentially that this should apply to, you know, friendships, kids, relationships.
Right.
And so some people are trying to apply the love languages to their children, right?
Like, okay, my kids really benefits from words of affirmation, so I'm just gonna give them
words of affirmation if it's not necessarily working.
They're not seeing the behavior change that they want to see and they're not feeling connected with their kids.
So they're like, hey, is this thing is this actually like real, the five love languages, or, you know, what's your thoughts?
So that's the kind of thing.
And then I do
I'm not a couples therapist.
I think I know enough about attachment to understand the relationships, but that's not the clientele that I work with.
But I also get a lot of messages from parents who are trying to apply this with each other
especially in the chaos of parenting, which is already hard.
And they are feeling disconnected from their partners and wondering why.
I'm doing the love language thing and I'm still feeling disconnected.
So that's kind of where this stemmed from.
Also I just personally is intr was interested in this topic and wanted to talk about it with you.
Well, and I'm sure that's because you know how I don't believe in it.
Not necessarily that I don't believe in it, but I just think it's way too simplistic.
I think you and I have both seen this specific topic be hurtful to people in our lives.
Yep.
And that also makes us passionate to talk about you.
It's gonna fix everything.
Yeah.
Just read this book and then it'll all be better or go through this workbook.
Yeah.
But I do think like this in conjunction with
more evidence-based relationship practices is probably not a bad thing.
Yeah.
Again, like when I was talking about the sexual stuff, I feel like there's a way that I've seen it being used
in a way that makes someone feel unsafe in relationship.
Yep, I can see that.
Especially when it comes to the physical touch category and especially when it comes in the context
of let's say a marriage where you maybe feel like, okay, now I have to do this in order to keep my partner happy and to make them feel loved.
But there's reasons why the sexual pieces aren't working for you.
And simply just getting over that and pushing yourself to be more physical with your partner doesn't fix your greater issue and it can actually lead to a lot more separation.
Right.
Can I ask you a question?
Yep.
So you've talked a little bit about how you've seen the love languages not necessarily work out and how you have feelings towards not necessarily work out, but just definitely not work out.
Yep
And you have a lot of feelings personally towards the love languages.
I know, I mean, I talked about how we got the book and we've talked about it, right?
So where do you think your skepticisms or the reasons why you say the relationships that you've seen who've tried this have not worked out?
what went through your mind when I said I want to talk about this today.
Didn't I originally say I'm gonna get us cancelled because I feel so strongly about Yeah, but I want to hear your strong opinions.
I feel like you've just been asking me, but I'm I think people want to hear from you too.
Yeah.
I think
People have tried to fix relationships like of, let's say my parents, and maybe they were very well-meaning, but it has almost always come from a place of judgment and unhelpfulness.
And I just I don't know, I've found that most of the time rather than the person who's trying to help try and build a relationship and like try and f help guide someone like hey maybe see
like a therapist and talk about these things rather than do the five level I feel like it's easy to just buy a book.
Here, this will fix it for you.
Mm-hmm
Now I've helped.
Right.
Like in a lot of situations, me growing up, I feel like that was always the case.
Here, here's something that you can read, do for yourself.
Here's a little bit more work.
We know you're struggling.
this gonna fix it for you and then they feel better about themselves for having helped.
Meanwhile what they're providing you is clearly a bunch of bullshit that's made
in order for this person to make a boatload of money.
And there's no re Yeah.
Well that's exactly what it is.
It's people like the person who created it.
Maybe there great intentions at the beginning
But it clearly became their sole focus was just to make as much money as possible.
Mm-hmm.
And in the process hurting a lot of families who think now, well, this is
Especially I think in the Christian community where this is rooted in, if you have a Christian author who's writing this who says they're they're a pastor
You know, I I think You immediately just You trust it.
Yeah, they just trust that this person has the best intentions if there's too many.
I don't even know if I want to name drop the other person that everyone loves that I also think does the exact same thing.
Save that for another podcast.
We can do another podcast.
There's another big person that I know a lot of family members and people
that we know love and I think his only goal in life is to make as many millions of dollars as he possibly can off of people's trust of him.
So it's another person that
Yeah.
You can guess who it is.
You can let us know.
I'm sure people know who I'm talking about, but here here's the thing, and I think this is why we feel so passionate and we want to bring to light people or books or
when we talk about, you know, like four scripts to fit all for toddler tantrums, like I feel like you and I bring these topics up a lot because we're also in the business of sharing information and tools and stuff like that, right?
And I think we always have this ethical desire in the back of our heads of it would be so easy to say, here's five ways to solve your problem.
problem and that's all you need.
And if you just do these five things, everything will be better for you.
And we can see that you can make a lot of money doing that.
Right.
And and I think anyone who comes out confidently and just says, hey look, I've worked with lots of couples
Even though I don't think he had training as a couples therapist as far as everything I've read.
Might have to fact check me on that, but I was doing some reading as well and and that's what I was reading.
You know, so here's my work as a pastor with couples and here's five things and now if you go and do those things your relationship will be fixed.
I mean everybody's gonna wanna buy that 'cause everyone wants their relationship to be fixed.
And then when it doesn't work, you think I guess my relationship's not fixable
Well, relationships, whether it's with your partner or your child, are so much more complex than five things.
And I think that's the point I really wanted to bring across and to give people hope, right?
Like if you have done this this book or anything that's just like so simple and you think that this will fix my marriage, in a relationship you have two people with complex history, life experiences, attachment with their own parents
All of these things that bring you up to the point where now you're in a relationship with someone and your old wounds will likely come back out.
And they won't be resolved by having more physical touch or changing even changing the light bulbs, right?
Like these deeper wounds that we have in relationships
need a lot more work and tending to and it h it's hard and messy sometimes, but that's how you actually strengthen your relationship and come out of it on the other side.
Yeah.
You said before
That people want to feel seen.
They want to be deeply known by others.
And that's how they feel that love from each other.
And
think it's fair to say the same for kids, that's what they are looking for too.
And that is not necessarily going to stop a tantrum from happening.
But it's going to lead to that very
close relationship that will hopefully make them healthier in terms of their relationships with others in the future and
your relationship with your child in the future as you get older and they move out, they're gonna want to come see you still and want to talk to you and want to share about their whole life with you after this moment right now when they're little.
Yeah, exactly.
So if we only focus on for our kids, well here's the five things to say or something during a tantrum, but we're not focusing on the deeper issue, which is
developing a relationship where you're able to make your kid feel so deeply seen and known by you that they want to keep coming back to you, not only when they have tantrums they're melting down, but when they're tweens and they're having a hard time
teens all the way into adulthood because they know their parent is going to deeply see them and they can have this authentic relationship.
Right?
Like that's the deeper work that we want to do and that
Scott and I are trying to talk about throughout this podcast.
And I think it's the same thing in relationships, right?
Like you could tell me just
my love language is gifts and physical touch.
And I could give you all the gifts and physical touch that you wanted to.
But Yeah.
Well, I could, but I'm not going to.
But if you, Scott, never did the deeper work to reflect on
Why do you have trust issues?
You know?
Why do you like this is some of the stuff that you had to do, right?
So that we could have a deep and meaningful relationship.
Right.
It's like why do you struggle with trust sometimes?
Why do certain things trigger you?
I don't even know.
I'm trying to think of the deeper work that you've done.
Who do you want to be as a partner in comparison to what you grew up with
What do you really value in a relationship?
Like what matters to you?
How do you actually build trust when you grew up and you couldn't trust your parents?
How do you learn how to do that for the first time?
Mm-hmm.
And only after you are able to do some of those really hard and messy things.
could we have like a deep connected relationship, right?
Where let's say you never did that work.
You never did the work to be like, obviously I'm gonna struggle with trust because I couldn't trust the person who I was supposed to trust growing up
And other people that I tried to trust growing up had terrible things happen to them.
You know?
So if you never did that work to be like, why is it sometimes hard to trust
stress like when we started our relationship when we were dating.
And will I ever be able to actually trust someone and slowly letting your defenses down to let me in so that we could have an authentic relationship and talk about these things
in realizing that I'm human and I can make mistakes and that doesn't mean that you can't trust me.
It's just that sometimes I'm human and I make mistakes, but our foundation is
solid and it's there.
If you never did that work, we never had those deeper conversations, our marriage could have been falling apart and you could have been like, well, my love language is gifts.
It would have done nothing.
It doesn't matter.
We didn't have a foundation.
We didn't deeply know each other and trust each other.
Yeah.
I don't go on a rant.
No, that's okay.
I like it.
And I feel like the same for myself, right?
Like if there's certain things I had to think about or reflect on, who do I want to be in a relationship?
Who do I want to be married to?
How do I
feel deeply seen and appreciated and how can I communicate that to my partner in a way that makes you able to care for me in the ways I need to be cared about?
I could have told you and maybe I would have
some point in our relationship that I need words of affirmation because I was deeply anxious and I struggled with a lot of things.
But you could have given me words of affirmation all day long and that wouldn't have fixed the deeper anxieties that I had
And so actually I had to do work to understand my own anxiety and my own issues and do my own deeper work and not be codependent on you.
in order to fix that, right?
So I feel like sometimes even the love languages can lead to a codependence, right?
Like if I'm relying on my partner to give me words of affirmation so that I can make it through the day
That's not really fair expectation for you.
Right.
And can you explain why you don't necessarily want to be codependent on your significant other or someone else?
Because in itself, codependence doesn't sound like a terrible thing.
What I love is I think this is Dr.
Tracy, who we should definitely have on to talk about this.
She's a couples therapist and a friend of mine, and she talks about interdependence.
So it's not that we shouldn't be dependent on each other in marriage.
Of course I should be dependent on you and you should be dependent on me.
But I think the difference between interdependence and codependence is like codependence is I can't function without you telling me that
I'm okay and that you love me and and that if you don't tell me that you love me five times a day and text me that you love me, you know, on my lunch break, then I'm gonna immediately assume you don't love me
and I'm gonna spiral out of control, right?
Or I can't cope with any of my anxieties on my own and the only way I'm able to get through the day is if Scott applies
pressure on my back and this is something that I used to need a lot of when I was super anxious and tells me that a bear is not attacking me.
You know, there's a time and place of course to be
more dependent on the other person in marriage depending on what you're going through.
But codependence is when it's too enmeshed.
Yeah.
It's taken to an unhealthy level.
Yeah, it's taken to an unhealthy level and we don't have security in ourselves.
Like we're both our own people and of course we need to be inter
dependent on each other, but I shouldn't need you to validate my feelings all day long in order for me to make it through the day.
Yeah
That shows me that there's maybe an anxious attachment there or there's there's not security in the foundation of our relationship
Interesting.
Hey friends, so at pickup last week our daughter asked Scott a truly
kind of tricky question in front of her younger siblings.
Scott was telling me that when he heard a question like this, he used to panic, but this time he had a plan.
And he said to our daughter, thank you for asking.
Let's talk tonight when we've got privacy.
And that's a line that he learned straight from
our new body safety and consent course at Nurture First.
So this new body safety and consent course is taught by me, so Jess.
If you listen to this podcast, you know me.
I'm a child therapist and a mom of three and I have taught body safety and consent education for years.
This course takes all my years of experience teaching this education and gives you calm, age-appropriate language for body parts, consent, and boundaries.
You'll learn how to teach your kids that no means no, you'll learn how to teach them to read facial cues, you'll talk about safe and unsafe.
safe touch and you'll even teach them about their uh oh feeling.
There's guidance inside this course for the real life stuff like tickling that goes too far and even the difference between a secret and a surprise.
We made this course at Nurture First because research shows that body safety education helps kids speak
up sooner and we want that for our family, for Scott and I, but also for you.
So check the course out at nurturefirst.
com slash body safety and to save 10% use the code
Robot Unicorn.
And just full disclosure here, we are the creators of this course and we're so proud of it.
What would you say to person on YouTube watching?
Because we seem to get a certain type of comment from YouTube.
What would you say to the skeptic on YouTube who after listening to this whole episode says, Jess and Scott, you're overcomplicating things now.
So you're saying that
The five love languages is oversimplifying and now you're over-complicating because not everything has to be that deep.
Sometimes it can just be simp as simple as giving your spouse a gift.
Right, sure.
Give your spouse a gift, that's a great idea.
I still buy you rotis, right?
Because I know that that makes you feel the roti is also plural.
Oh sorry.
Roti.
'Cause that makes you feel deeply seen and known.
I think the the the foundation is the same, right?
We need to feel deeply seen and known and like we can trust our partner
That's the foundation.
And I think trust in this case is actually more important than love.
And I know that might be controversial and that's coming from me.
But you can have all the love in the world, but if you're not able to trust each other.
There's a difference.
Right.
Well, it maybe depends how you define love.
Yeah.
Right?
Like I feel like people will say, I love you, and then they'll do things that are not trustworthy, right?
Right.
relationships, especially ones that are really struggling, right?
So you might say, I love you so much.
Like you mean the world to me.
You're the most beautiful person in the whole wide world.
Like I would do anything for you.
And then meanwhile you're DMing random people online
Right?
That's not love and you don't have trust.
So I think in order to build like a really secure solid foundation in your relationship
you actually have to have trust.
And trust comes with repeated exposures to that person showing you that they're worthy of trust.
So it's repeated times where
you show up for me and help me with the thing I need help with or you comfort me or you make the decision that's in the best interest of our relationship versus in your own personal best interests, right?
Trust comes in those moments when I say, Hey Scott, I want to have coffee together and you say, Okay, let's let's go do it and l we sit together and have a chat.
So it comes in accepting what Gottman, who has
Great research like Dr.
John Gottman called bids for connection.
A bid for connection comes from any time when I try and connect with you, right?
And there's many different ways that you can try and connect
and you accept that bid and you come into relationship with me, right?
And repeated times of me trying to bid for your connection and you accepting that bid and coming back teaches me that I can trust you.
And it's the same with friends
Right.
And anything can be a bid for connection.
There's like direct and indirect bids for connection.
So direct would be like, hey Scott, I want to have a coffee with you.
Let's sit down and have a coffee together.
Indirect might be like, I'm gonna go have coffee in the living room
in the hopes that you're gonna come and and take that bid and yeah and come have coffee with me.
But that's how relationships are formed and trust ends up being formed and I think through trust you can continue to de develop your love.
Yeah
But if all you have is love and the love is without trust, we can't develop strong relationships.
This might be the first time that I've sat there and tried to
figure out it what the definition or differences are between trust and love.
Because it to me I feel like they are the same thing but Because for you and the defensiveness that you have I think inside because of your experiences in life.
Yep
I don't think you can love someone unless you trust them first.
Right.
I think that's how you operate, right?
Because you have high defenses in terms of love.
because of the hurt that you faced at a young age.
I don't think that you can open yourself up to such a vulnerable emotion as love until you've already built trust.
So I think let's say like with friends, like you've built friendships over time, right?
And
you're not necessarily opening up and burying your heart and soul to your friends until you've developed that trust.
And the trust is developed by bids for connection with your friends, right?
Like, hey, I'm gonna go out
for a beer here, you want to come?
And then they come and then or maybe you text them about something 3D printed related and then hey they actually responded and now you're in a conversation.
And over time, with all these bids being met, you know, you've developed trusting relationships with your friend.
And then
through that trust, you're able to kind of develop these feelings of love and care.
But I think for you, that comes next.
But that's not the case for everybody.
I think some people lead with love, and this might be more me
They lead with love and caring and empathy for another person, but the trust isn't necessarily there.
And that's how you're hurt.
I think that's happened to me lots of times in my life.
So we just have different styles, different ways to go about it.
But what I'm learning is you've got to have the trust there first in order to have that solid relationship.
So are you saying you've learned that from watching me?
That I have a healthy When I say that you have a healthy way?
You've developed a healthier way to deal with it.
Definitely.
You were totally codependent.
Uh-huh.
And that's why I I speak about this but also from a place of empathy, because I feel like if you look at our relationship when we started out, it was definitely unhealthy
Yeah.
Like there was codependence.
There was a lot of jealousy from you to me.
There was a lot of lack of trust in our relationship, which led to the jealousy and led to the codependence.
And there was also like this interregulation where
you had to try and regulate me so I would be anxious and I had to try and regulate you so that you could learn how to trust me.
Like I would not say we were the pinnacle of uh healthy relationship when we started.
Look at us growing.
Yeah
And that's what I'm trying to say.
If we never did that growing, we just read a book that said give each other gifts and have quality time together, but we never understood how that made us feel deeply connected and known and seen and figured out our own
attachment issues, you know, I don't think we'd be in this place today.
Mm-hmm.
If you could give parents and or couples that are gravitating towards something like the five love languages
What would that one piece of advice be?
Go to therapy.
No.
I have a hard time always narrowing it down to one piece of advice, you know.
It's kind of what we talk about.
I know.
I we're saying nothing's black and white.
It's can't be simplified, but
If you could give just one piece.
I think about my colleague and friend and Dr.
Deborah McNamara and a piece of advice that she gave to me one time.
I'm gonna butcher how she said it.
So she'll say it way better than me.
We'll ask her if she comes on the podcast.
But she said something once about a relationship was is there still love there on both sides?
Right.
And this wasn't necessarily like a marital relationship.
And the person's like, yeah, there's still love there.
You know, there's still love to give.
And the trust was broken.
And this was in a the relationship between an adult child and a parent
And this adult child wanted to rebuild this relationship with their parent.
And I think the parent wanted to rebuild the relationship with the adult child.
And there was still love there on both ends.
And the rupture wasn't so big that the love was gone, but the trust was gone.
And so she said, Okay, so then we have to figure out how to rebuild the trust And rebuilding the trust has to come, like true trust.
comes from being authentic and being yourself.
And that is so hard often in relationships.
It's to both have our guards down so far that we can be the most authentic version of ourselves.
But I do think that's where true trust and relationship building actually happens.
And I'm not saying you just let your guard down and let your partner into all your inner world if that's not safe for you.
But I think
that the answer to a lot of our marital struggles is seeing how we can rebuild that trust with each other and rebuild that safe
foundation and I'm trying to think of how we can start that.
Like therapy is a great way.
I wasn't joking about that.
Sometimes you have to go to therapy in order to learn
why the trust issues are there and how they were formed.
One thing you can do, and this is based on the research of Dr.
John Gottman, is
if there is a bid for connection from your partner, maybe see how you can respond to that bid for connection, right?
So if your partner is asking you to have coffee with them, like maybe you can sit and have coffee.
And maybe in return you can have a bid for connection
back to them and s start to slowly have those bids and whether that's in a friendship or a parent-child relationship or a relationship between partners, maybe you can start to
have that kind of uh give and take of bids back and forth and even having that conversation of being like, hey, we want to rebuild the trust and and how does that start?
in doing so in an authentic way.
And maybe the bid for connection comes from the place that you feel deeply seen and known.
And so maybe you have to teach that to someone.
Yep.
Right.
So if you feel we'll go back to your roti scenario, before I knew that that would be a way that you felt loved by me, it's if I went out of my way, let's say
on a Saturday, I go out of my way to pick up this rote from the special shop that's thirty minutes from our house and I know you love it and I bring it home.
But before I knew that about you, maybe you would have just said, Hey Jess, you wanna go on a drive?
I love this place for ro tea.
I think you did.
Yep.
And eventually over time I learn that that's a way I can love you and then I do that on my own without you asking and you feel deeply seen and known.
So if you want to invite someone to deeply see you and know you, maybe you have to start to have your own bids for connection and take them along.
Like help them see the truest, most authentic side of you.
Right.
And from there you can build that trust.
That's great
I feel like that's a good place to end this episode too, because that answers my final question about what are some practical ways we can I think we should both share two or three ways that we feel deeply seen and known before we end.
Because we've both given one example, the roti and the the lights, but maybe we have a couple just so people can have a few more examples of how to go off of.
Okay, you go first.
The biggest one?
It's always food.
Mm-hmm.
I have a lot of favorite restaurants and things and you will specifically go out of your way, especially on a day off or the weekend or whatever, and you're you go with one of the girls somewhere.
You'll go pick up
One of my favorite food items.
Scott's easy because he has so many favorite foods, so but they're all out of my way.
So it is definitely an active uh Yeah, I have a lot of favorite foods, but they're quite specific.
It's a roti.
I mean that's probably my ultimate.
Caribbean roti is mmm.
Like go for one.
Can you pick one up later for for me this week?
No.
Yeah no.
Another one is giving me time to 3D print or do some work around the house.
that's been uh falling behind.
Mm-hmm.
I feel like you did that for me this weekend, which was very nice.
Thank you.
Yeah, no problem.
They spent lots of time doing that.
It was nice.
Are you saying that in a sarcastic way or not saying that in a sarcastic way, I'm saying that in a way that I was happy to give you that time.
Yeah, we got a bunch of stuff around the house fixed, which was nice.
And then I would say the last one is a little more broad, but
Actually listening but not over validating.
Yeah.
I find that
type of thing like validation to be incredibly annoying.
I don't think you find validation to be annoying.
I think you find over validation.
Yeah over validation or like
When it seems to be a bit much.
Like, do you really agree with me here?
Are you just saying it so that I'll stop talking about it?
Yeah.
That's what
But I think if I actually validate you, like, oh, it makes sense that you feel like that.
Yeah.
That doesn't bother you.
Like help me understand like why is that bothering you?
That doesn't bother you.
No.
But if I'm like, Scott, that's so hard you know, you're like K Jess.
Yeah.
Pull together.
I joked about the food, but that's probably the biggest one.
I'd say the other biggest one is For me?
Yep.
Okay.
Showing interest in the things that you're interested about.
You think?
Yeah.
Like for example
Scott loves a lot of things.
That's the thing.
When do you do this?
Rarely.
That's why Explain that to me.
It's very calculated.
I only do it one no, I'm just kidding.
Sounds healthy.
You have a lot of interest.
So I mean it's impossible for me to show interest in all of them all the time because that would be inauthentic to me.
Because you have a lot of interest of things I'm not necessarily super interested in.
But let's say Formula One
I know that's something that you really like and really enjoy and you have for years.
So I started trying to follow all the players on Instagram and trying to get to know who they were so that when you're talking about them I would understand what you're talking about.
And I started sitting and watching some games with you.
Is this all wrong?
Players, games.
Drivers and races.
Drivers.
At least I didn't say characters, that's where we started.
Yeah, that is well, that's because the way I got you interested was finally Drive to Survive came out.
Yeah.
And I was like, here Jess.
watch this yeah and it might give you like it might make you a bit more interested in the dynamics.
Not that it's necessarily
Real and that is what you started calling them characters after you started watching that.
Yeah, well they were kind of characters on the show.
Anyway, but like actually sitting with you and watching uh
race together.
I think that helps you feel loved and seen.
And it's also quality time together.
Yep.
Did you watch races with me last year?
I watched a few.
Not the whole thing.
I feel like you would sit for a minute and then leave.
Yeah.
But you did tell me
this weekend that you were actually interested by probably a couple weeks after this ep episode airs it'd be the first race in Australia.
And
We'll see if you sit through an entire race with me.
Mm-hmm.
I told Scott I'd watch them at night with him if he would save them till after the kids go to bed.
So we'll try it.
It's tricky for me, but okay.
Okay, here's how I feel deeply seen by you.
I think when you can kind of like the lights, but
identify something that might be bothering me in the house or like annoying me and without me having to ask or say anything about it, you just take care of it.
So the lights are one example, but
Like let's say the dishes, you know, you make breakfast for the kids and you know it drives me nuts when I have to clean the dishes for a breakfast that I can't eat.
'cause I have celiac and sometimes they'll make like pancakes or something.
The girls get flour everywhere.
The girls get flour everywhere.
It's something that I want them to have the experience of having pancakes.
with gluten in them, but it's hard for me 'cause I have celiac so I can't really participate in that.
And so when you go ahead and make that for them and then clean the whole kitchen after
that helps me feel really seen because I'm like I don't have to I know I don't have to worry about that and that's all taken care of and my girls are happy.
So that I think helps me feel really seen.
I think when you notice things like that I haven't been caring for myself in the best way, like, you know, in different seasons when I've been burnt out.
And you kinda step in and you say, Okay, Jess, you know, I'm gonna help you out with this and this and why why don't you go get your nails done and
And you see, again, I feel like a lot of it comes down to like seeing my needs before I have to ask for it.
And I think you're really good at doing that.
And you're quite good at
if I say I need this, like I need to go take a shower and I need no one to bother me or whatever.
Yep.
I think you're pretty good at doing that.
I do my best corralling the girls, but Yes, sometimes they still find a way to say that.
They'll try and break in.
So I think that's a way.
I think another thing, it's just like a really subtle way that I feel seen and known is if I I write something and I know it might not necessarily be super of interest to you, but I'm like, Scott, I wanna read you this thing I just wrote
just for fun.
Yeah.
And you like actually sit and listen to the thing that I wrote, whether it's like a poem or a little story or something.
And I do a lot of writing for fun.
And you listen to it whether or not you're interested in what I'm saying.
And then
show me that you actually heard what I said.
I feel like that helps me feel really seen.
It's like, oh okay, I can talk to you about this.
And do you appreciate the fact that
I usually don't give you too much feedback.
Mm-hmm.
That's something I think you've learned over time.
Mm-hmm.
I think you know Scott's a skeptic and so I think for a time there
It's like I would try and tell you something that was like on my heart or read you something, then you just immediately have like a skeptical feedback to it.
Yep.
And that really messed with my head and made me
feel like I didn't want to share everything with you because I'm like I don't necessarily want feedback.
I just want you to hear what I'd have done.
Well and at the time I think I saw it because there were others that were doing the same thing to you and it was making things worse for you
And I think just understanding I think the last year specifically, you've really come to understand me and I've come to understand myself in a new way of like what I can handle
where my strengths are and what they're not.
But like you never shame me for that.
And I feel like that helps me feel really known too
Mm-hmm.
You never like just you should be better at this.
You know, and maybe you used to be like that.
Like you should be m more organized or you shouldn't you should
XYZ, but I think the last year I felt very seen by you because you're like, oh, maybe we don't have the same strengths.
Maybe you're more
on this end of things, like you need to be more creative and have time to write and think and process and be with the kids and that's how you do best and maybe the way you you do best is different than me.
And and I think you've really, really come to just
respect who I am and how I operate and what I need.
Yep.
And I feel like I've have felt more seen by you in the last like year and a half than I felt by seen by your whole marriage.
But I think the last year and a half we've really come to understand ourselves, which has really helped.
strengthen our relationship too.
Yep, for sure.
So I I feel yeah.
So hopefully Can you tell me something nice?
Words of affirmation?
Tell me that I'm good.
Well everyone always thinks Scott's needs a lot of words of affirmation.
Everyone always thinks what are you talking about?
There's one comment once.
But I always keep that in the back of my mind.
If you're listening to this episode, can you please tell me that I'm doing a good job?
Yeah, give Scott a word of affirmation.
I really need it
According to this one person.
So we are definitely curious to get people's feedback, I think, on this episode.
And again, we're not trying to say the love languages are all bad, you know, there's obviously
You could all do all those things for your kids and your partner and they're all great.
Well, I mean some of the things that we were talking about were would fit under those buckets.
Well we're just trying to encourage you to think a little deeper about it.
And hey, if it's not working for your relationship, maybe there's a different approach that might get you to that deeper level that you need in order to build that.
Regardless, it's probably a good idea to get to that deeper level with
your spouse or your child or whoever you're in relationship with.
Yeah, even friends.
Yep.
Beautiful.
Well, let us know what you thought of this episode.
And let us know if there's like another topic like this that you'd like us to cover.
This is really interesting for us and we would love to have more conversations like this.
We'll talk to you again next week.
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode.
We are glad that you are here.
If you enjoyed today's episode and found it interesting, we'd really appreciate it if you'd leave a rating and a review.
Scott and I actually sit down together and read them all.
A five-star rating helps us share our podcast and get these important messages out there.
Thank you so much for listening and we can't wait to talk to you again next time.