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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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If you are like most couples, you have had a fight even this week and during engagement, oftentimes the fighting seems to increase the closer you get to the wedding and isn't that interesting. So I suspect you were wondering like what is really going on when you fight and that is the name of this video that we're going to give you guys today. So my name is Tracy Johnson. I am a story work coach and supervisor.
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at Restory Counseling. And my name is Chris Bruno and I'm a licensed professional counselor and together with my wife, Beth, we post videos to help you understand the why behind the what. Because we believe the more you explore your story, the deeper your connection will be. And if you like what you're hearing here, we invite you to hit the subscribe button, turn on the notifications so you don't miss a beat in us being able to help your marriage thrive. So today we are talking about
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fights. Isn't that interesting, Tracy, that as the wedding gets closer, it seems like the conflict increases. It does. It does. And I think that as we get closer to the wedding and there's more stress and there's more pressure and there's more relatives and there's more things, there's just more of everything, it seems like the tension rises and we start fighting. So are we really fighting about
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What we're going to do with that candle and whether we're going to light it or not light it. Are we really fighting about whether your mother comes in first or my mother comes in first? Probably not. I think the reality that we recognize even as we say those things is that it's not about those things. And one of the things we often say.
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and thrive is the issue on the table is not actually the issue on the table. The thing that's presenting itself, the candle, the mother, you know, who's ushering like those kinds of things, that's not actually the issue. The deeper issue is something going on inside of you, and you just mentioned a moment ago, Tracy, the pressure that comes with getting the wedding right, but there's also the fears that we have, the fears of.
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Is this the right choice? Am I marrying the right person? My fears of what is my uncle going to think or how much money are we spending? Or like there's those kinds of fears that come up as well. The reality is that our fights actually started long before our relationship even did. And so it's really not about the what we're fighting about. It's about the how did we find ourselves in this.
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that we're in that has some level of disconnection to it, that seems like it's about whatever the thing is that we're not agreeing on. But in fact, what we're saying is that that disconnection and what you're feeling in that is surfacing some feelings of unsafety for you. And the reality is that all of us are trying to survive those feelings of unsafety. We've all learned.
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how to survive a world where we are generally kind of disconnected. We were designed to be connected and we find ourselves disconnected and then we have to survive being disconnected. And so all of a sudden the issue of the candle or the issue of the kind of plates that you're going to get as you're planning your wedding, that's not actually the issue. The issue is the feeling underneath that and trying to survive the feeling.
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What if he doesn't like this? What if she doesn't like this? And then the fear of being laughed, the fear of being disconnected again. And so underneath these things is that fear of disconnection and the more you can orient yourselves to the reality that your fights are about disconnection, more than they are about the issues that may present themselves, the kinder you will actually be towards one another, more aware you'll be towards one another in the issues that come up.
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Yeah, and as you say that, I think about whatever I've done, whatever I've done to survive that terrible feeling that I get when I sense that I'm losing connection or I'm starting to feel abandoned, that actually isn't helping me. That's actually like fueling the disconnection.
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And so part of what we want to say today is like that curiosity for yourself about what goes on when you start feeling disconnected from this person that you love that you're getting ready to spend the rest of your life with. What do you notice about, what do you do? What do you start to tell yourself? What's the story that starts to show up in your head and then what do you do next? And then to consider that what you do next isn't actually helping you reconnect with them.
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Well, can you unpack that a little bit more? What do you mean when you say, you know, what you're doing isn't actually helping you reconnect? So it makes me think about a lot, and for most couples, we've got somebody who, when they're feeling that sense of disconnection, their impulse is to work harder to try and get reconnected. And so you've got kind of this almost-
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clamoring energy is what we call it. It's like, I gotta get you back, I gotta get you back. And so you're sort of chasing after. And inevitably, the other spouse probably is more like, I need some space. Like, I just need a backup. I just need to figure out what's going on here and I need some space from you. And so in that scenario, every movement.
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that the clamoring person is making to try and reestablish connection is actually repelling their spouse who needs the space and we're off. The fight is off and going, right? And then there's certainly variations on that. But that would just be like one example, like if when I was a kid and there was disconnection, I felt like it was
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always my job. I had to be the one. I had to be the one to come back to my mom or back to my dad or back to my siblings. And I had to say like, I want us to be okay, we're okay, right? And nobody ever came looking for me. Nobody else ever did any of the work to try and reestablish connection. Then if I don't do that, I don't know what to do with myself.
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And that's very unnerving. And so to respect my spouse's need for a little bit of space just feels intolerable inside and I can't do that. Right. And so as the intimacy and the desire starts to grow for a lot of couples, the fear of loss of that intimacy and that desire also increases.
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And so they're, like you just said, that's when we get kind of off to the races, right? And one person starts a grammar and one person needs space. And then the person who needs space is making that that other person feel like they're being abandoned. And the person that's running after makes the other person feel consumed or suffocated in some ways. So the reality is, as I said at the beginning, that your fight started before your relationship did, is that it is how you were shaped, how you learned, how to survive.
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the feeling of disconnection that is actually fueling the conflicts and the fights that you're having now. And maybe they're about the wedding, maybe they're not about the wedding, maybe they're about other things, but the closer you get to making that final commitment to one another on that wedding day, it will inevitably start to turn, the heat will start to turn up there. And I hear a lot of couples too, especially, you know, engaged couples that...
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that will start to experience some of these things and they'll look back and they'll have enough wherewithal to think, okay, my parents fought, I saw my parents fight and how they did. Well, I must fight like they did. That the yelling that my dad, I'm yelling because that's what my dad did. And it kind of begins to, almost like an excuse, but in some ways kind of like, that's just the way that it is. And we were proposed actually,
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you fight because of your parents and how they shaped you and what you needed to survive in those earliest years of your life with disconnection with them. That's where the survival techniques come from. And maybe that is escalating, maybe that is disappearing, whatever that survival technique is for you. It's not just that, you know, he was this way or she was this way and therefore that was like the model that you now have. It's more the internal shaping of your soul.
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That is why, that is the why behind the what that we're trying to get out here today. Yes, for sure, for sure. So those are some thoughts from us about what's really going on when you fight. And if you want to explore this a little bit more, we have a recommendation for you. You can pop over to our playlist and look for our, how to improve your marriage communication. That would be a great tool
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resource to help you as you're navigating this space of connection and disconnection. So next we are going to be talking about this question. Did you marry your in-laws? How many times do we hear from engaged couples that they're afraid they're going to be marrying their in-laws? And we're going to answer that question in the next video. See you next time. If you like this, there's more where that came from.
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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 that we've 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.
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to the kind of connection you really want. So head over to Restory.life slash thrive dash dates, or just look in the show notes to subscribe to get those for free in your inbox for one year. 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.