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Helping couples discover the why behind the what in their marriage with Chris and Beth Bruno and Tracy Johnson of ReStory Counseling.
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Welcome to the Thrive Marriage Lab with Restory Counseling, where we help you explore the why behind the what. Because guess what? We believe that your marriage is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be explored and enjoyed. We believe that the more you explore and know your story, the deeper your marriage connection will be. This podcast is now the audio version of our new YouTube channel, Thrive Marriage Lab.
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where each week you can expect us to help you cultivate connection and belonging without the fixing and tips and common things you often hear in the marriage space. So find us on YouTube or listen in.
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So one of the warning signs that doesn't actually register as a warning sign for a lot of couples, but actually is a warning sign in their marriage is when they come in, or you know, run into them at church or in the grocery store or you know, whatever, even if they're coming in for counseling. And they'll say, we don't, we don't have any conflicts. We don't have any kind of fights or anything like that. We're so good. We just are always getting along and all that. You guys, that is actually a warning sign.
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of something happening in the marriage. And believe me, I would love for everybody to have the honeymoon phase of their marriage continue on throughout their entire lives. I would absolutely love for that to be the case. And if people are living in that kind of space for a long extended period of time where nothing is wrong, we're not having any fights, we're not having any conflict, I actually begin to wonder like, what are you denying? What is-
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what is not actually being addressed in your marriage relationship. Because as two different people, as two individuals, as two perspectives that are coming into the marriages, two different stories that are coming into the marriage relationship, if there's not some level of tension or conflict or issues at some point, then you're actually not being very honest. Welcome to the Thrive Marriage Lab. My name is Chris Bruno and I'm a licensed professional counselor and the founder of Restory Counseling.
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And together with my wife Beth and our colleague Tracy Johnson, we post videos to help you understand the why behind the what. Because we believe that the more you explore and learn your story, the deeper your marriage connection will be. So there is a really important concept in relationship that I think a lot of couples want to avoid because it involves having conflict. But this concept actually helps a marriage relationship.
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deepen and grow and become stronger. And this concept is what is called rupture and repair. Rupture and repair. And if you don't have rupture and repair in your relationship, in your marriage relationship, then like I said, you might actually be denying some realities, you're not being honest about what is hard for you, what is challenging for you. You might be brushing some things under the rug and there's some undercurrents of.
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bitterness or resentment that are coming up inside of you that you're not willing to admit just yet because you don't want to ruin the goodness of what is here and you don't want someone to feel bad or whatever. But if you don't have rupture and repair in your relationship, you're not actually attending to some of the very necessary things to grow the marriage in order to sustain a long-term relationship. So one of the things that I love is that rupture and repair actually comes from more of an engineering type mindset.
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You know, you might have a piece of metal or something like that that is broken. It is ruptured. What happens when you weld that back together, that same piece of metal has the welding, the welding piece actually ends up being stronger than the original piece of metal was in the beginning. So when there is rupture, the repair makes it even stronger. It makes it even stronger.
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It's the same thing in relationship, that when you can enter into, hey, this was hard or this hurt my feelings, or there's some aspect of what has happened in our relationship has not been well with me, how has it been with you? Oh, that's hurt you too. Like the more you can identify and recognize these places where rupture has been happening, the more opportunity you have for repair. I think, you know, you go into the ER and something's wrong.
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I just had a friend who had an emergency appendectomy and he started to feel something happening in his gut. It was like, ah, not quite feeling well, hurts a little bit. Then it started to go away. Then it hurts some more. He went in because he had searing pain in his side and the doctor was able to say, you have an infected appendix. We need to take that out. Immediately it was taken out. If you don't identify what is going on for the body.
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then you can't address what is going on for the body. And therefore, if you can't address it, it will actually lead to a life threatening kind of situation. If he had not addressed the pain that he was having, it could have actually killed him in the long run. But by addressing it, by stepping into recognizing what is going on here, he was able to address it and then fix the problem. And now just even one week later, he is feeling so, so much better.
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You guys in the sense of a marriage relationship, you have to identify the places where rupture is happening, where difficulty is happening, where challenges and conflict are happening, where you're starting to feel hurt or unheard or missed or unseen or you know, whatever the thing might be, you need to actually address what those places of rupture are so that you can then move towards the place of repair. Because when you can repair it,
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That is when, oh, wait a minute. If we can address this, well then maybe we can address that. If we can address that, well maybe we can address the next thing. And the repair process in a relationship actually helps a relationship navigate increasing challenges over time. Because I think we all know that the longer that we are married, the more challenging the relationship is going to become in, for whatever reason. Maybe it's because of the relationship, maybe it's just other things that are coming up.
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from the outside, you know, you have struggles with a child or, or there's an illness or there's an accident or the more you have that repair process in place, the stronger the relationship actually is, the more you can move forward in your relationship over time. So to address what is rupturing, address what is challenging is actually a hopeful process because you can then lead into, you can move into repair of those very things.
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and your relationship becomes stronger. Here's why I bring all of that up in the context of a therapeutic separation. If all you're gonna do is ignore your problems, then the problems are never gonna be fixed. If all you're gonna do is not offer opportunity for repair and just live in the place of rupture, then the relationship will actually rupture more. If you don't address the cracks in your foundation, the foundation will begin to crumble.
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And I think a therapeutic separation actually offers you a very direct, very structured, very time specific opportunity for you to address the ruptures. Personally, know what has gone on for you. Know where you've been hurt, know where you've been missed so that you can then bring that to your spouse. The spouse then can have an opportunity for repair with you and you can move forward rather than continuing to allow the foundation of your life, the foundation of your marriage to
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crumble from underneath you. So as part of a therapeutic separation, you actually need to name the things. You need to name the things that are ruptured, where you have been ruptured, where you've been hurt, and especially recognize where you have been hurtful to your spouse so that you can move to the place of repair. As a part of every therapeutic separation, there needs to be a plan for repair. There needs to be places.
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where the two of you are moving towards one another, where there's actual conversations, and maybe those are just happening between the two of you, maybe there is something where there is a therapist or a pastor sitting with you in the midst of that, that's fine, but making sure that there are repair conversations built into your therapeutic separation, because otherwise it's just finding all the rupture and having no opportunity for repair. If there's no opportunity for repair, then it is not actually a therapeutic separation, it's just,
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a regular separation. So those are some thoughts, two essential elements around having rupture and repair. Rupture first and repair both need to be in place in your therapeutic separation. Hey, stay tuned for the next video. We're going to keep talking about therapeutic separation and how you move forward.
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If you like this, there's more where that came from. Go to Thrive Marriage Lab on YouTube to check out all of the marriage resources we have for you. We are so committed to helping you develop a deeper and more connected relationship.
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that we have created 12 free curated date guides to walk you through one year of good dates that we believe take you beyond your average date night to the kind of connection you really want. So head over to restory.life/thrive-dates or just look in the show notes to subscribe to get those for free in your inbox for one year.
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And if you're curious about us, you can find us over at Restory.life, where we look forward to hearing about how your marriage continues to grow. See you same time, same place, next week.