Most Important Marriage Advice You'll Hear This Month

Looking for helpful marriage advice but not sure where to turn to or who to listen to. In this episode from the vault, I cover the most important marriage advice you'll hear this month. Send me an email to info@drwyattfisher.com and let me know what you think. 

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Transcript

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Do you want to have a happy relationship? Do you want to have a successful marriage? If so, you're gonna enjoy this episode as I cover the only piece of marriage advice you need. I'm couples therapist Dr. Wyatt. I've been in private practice since 2004 and I've helped over a thousand couples restore their relationship. If you have resentments in your relationship, you're feeling hopeless. You're at an impasse. Go through my ER Marriage Intensive. It's my most comprehensive resource. I take couples through to help them resolve their resentments and rekindle their love. Comment the word ER below and I'll send you the link and I'll also include it in the description. So let's get to the only piece of marriage advice you need. Number one, watch for emotional and physical rejection. When you first start out in a relationship, you're innocent, you're vulnerable, you have no walls, you're completely tuned into your partner, they're completely tuned into you. There's transparency, there's oneness, and it's beautiful. However, once you're together for a while, life takes over. Careers take off, you start having kids, you have chores, and all of a sudden everything else starts taking precedence in your relationship. And then you start making gestures emotionally or physically, and your partner does not respond well, and they reject your gestures. You try to talk to them, you try to open up and share something you're struggling with, and they shut you down, they give you advice, or they scoff at what you're concerned about, or you try to reach out for their hand, they pull their hand away because they're stressed and they don't want to be affectionate right now. You try to initiate intimacy and they give you the cold shoulder because they're not in the mood. These little micro rejections happen frequently, and the more they happen, the more they have an impact on us. Number two, watch for your self-talk. When you experience these rejections emotionally or physically, what do you tell yourself? It probably sounds something like this. Well, I guess I can't open up about that topic any longer. Well, I guess they don't like that type of affection. Well, I guess they don't like me initiating intimacy. We have a lot of self-talk. We tell ourselves things in reaction to these micro rejections in our relationship. Sometimes our self-talk is correct and sometimes it's exaggerated. But you want to grow your awareness on what happens when you experience a micro-rejection. What do you start telling yourself? Number three, watch out for your rules. This is the big one. When we experience micro-rejection in our relationship and we start telling ourselves what our partner likes and doesn't like, the next logical step is we create rules for ourselves. Rules such as, well, I'm not going to share X, Y, and Z anymore with them because they obviously don't like it. Or I'm not going to try to hold their hand anymore because obviously they don't like it. Or I'm not going to initiate intimacy anymore because whenever I do, they don't like it. We start creating rules. And when you start creating rules, you start shriveling up in the relationship. You start boxing yourself in because you feel like only certain behaviors are okay and certain behaviors are not okay. And you've learned that because of your attempts to connect with your partner and their micro rejections back to you. So what do we do to avoid those micro rejections? We create rules for ourselves on what's okay and what's not okay in our relationship. But by doing that, part of us starts to die because now we're not our true selves anymore. Now we're not being authentic anymore. Now we're not being genuine anymore because we've created all these rules of what's okay and what's not okay. An example from our relationship in the early part of our marriage, my wife brought a lot of trauma around intimacy to our relationship. And whenever I would initiate intimacy, it would trigger her trauma and she would become hostile toward me. She would not like it, she would shut it down. So I experienced that as rejection. The thing I told myself was she obviously does not like it at all when I initiate. And then the rule I made for myself was I can't ever initiate intimacy because she obviously does not like it when I do that. And that rule stayed in my mind for years and years in our relationship. And what it did to me is a part of me started to die. Because as the higher drive partner, being able to initiate is very important to me. But that was not allowed in our relationship, or so I thought. That was the rule I was telling myself that. And living under that rule for so many years changed me. It changed the way I showed up. It made me more withdrawn, it made me more closed off. It made me pull away physically and emotionally because I had created this rule for myself that that was not okay. It was not okay for me to take the first step to connect with my wife intimately. That rule was something that I was creating for myself. My wife never said out loud, you are not allowed to initiate intimacy. She never once said that. But her reaction made me create the rule, and then I lived under that rule. And that rule I created for myself took away from me really being myself in our relationship. Have you done this? Have you experienced rejection from your partner emotionally or physically? And therefore, you've created rules for yourself, but now you're living under so many rules that you've kind of lost yourself and you're not really showing up genuinely like you did in the beginning because you're living in a box with a lot of rules, a lot of do's and don'ts just to keep the peace. That leads me to number four. Number four is you want to turn rejections into compromises. The next time your partner rejects an attempt you make to open up emotionally, to share something emotionally, to connect with them physically on any level, the next time you experience a micro rejection or macro, instead of creating rules for yourself, you need to address that with your partner and create compromises. Because yes, maybe there is something about what you're sharing that rubs in the wrong way. Maybe there is something about how you're trying to touch them that rubs them the wrong way. The solution is not for you to create rules and pull back. The solution is we need to talk through this dynamic. What just happened right now? I tried to connect and there was this pushback. What happened? And how can we compromise on this so that I can still be true to me emotionally and physically, but I can do it in a way that also works for you. That's the compromise. Because it can't be just about what your partner likes and dislikes, because now you're living in a box, and it also can't be all about what you want and don't want, because then your partner's gonna live in a box. That will allow you to stay alive. That will allow you to shed the rules, that will allow your partner to shed the rules, and that's how you become more compatible in your relationship as you learn how to work through these differences in ways that are gonna work for both of you. Number five, don't reject your partner's bids. If your partner makes a bid for connection emotionally or physically, first of all, you have to be aware they're making a bid. They're trying to connect with you. If it's emotional, maybe they're trying to connect with you through conversation. They're trying to open up, they're trying to share something important to them. If it's physical, they're trying to connect with you through tactile, through touch. And when your partner makes a bid, you have three options on how to respond, according to John Gottman. One response can be you turn away. That means you don't even notice the bid. You ignore the bid. You don't even know it happened. A second response is you turn against the bid. That's when you get angry, you get irritated at their bid. Stop talking about that drama at your work all the time. That's a turn against. Or stop trying to always cuddle on the couch. I need some space. That's turning against. That's the worst thing you can do when your partner makes a bid is turning against their bid. The third option is turning toward their bid. That means you recognize your partner is trying to connect with you emotionally or physically, and then you respond to that bid in a way that also works for you. For example, if your partner is making a bid to cuddle with you on the couch, instead of ignoring it and instead of rejecting it, but you need some space for yourself for a few moments, you can say, thank you for trying to cuddle. Right now I just need some alone time for a few minutes, and then I'd be happy to cuddle with you afterwards. Something where you're striking a compromise between what's going to work for you and what they're looking for. That's how you meet in the middle. Number six, you want to periodically analyze the rules in your relationship because what I just described happens almost subconsciously in relationships over time. Both partners make attempts to connect emotionally or physically. They often experience rejection, they pull away, they create rules, and now we have rules of the relationship. Unspoken rules, but we're both operating out of them. And so what you want to do periodically is hey, can we talk about the rules in our relationship? Can we talk about the unspoken rules I feel like I'm operating out of and the unspoken rules that you are operating out of? Let's talk about those. Should those rules be in place or have we overdone the rules? And further, how can we get rid of the rules or reduce the rules by striking compromises on all of these pressure points in a way that will work for both of us? So that's the marriage advice I highly recommend you following. Number one, watch out for rejection emotionally and physically. Number two, watch out for your self-talk and what you say to yourself when you experience that rejection. Number three, watch out for the rules that you create for yourself because of the rejection, because then you're gonna be living in a box and not be your authentic self. Number four, turn those rejections into compromises. Find ways that you can still be true to you in a way that also works for your partner. Number five, become more mindful of your partner's bids to you to connect and learn to turn toward those bids in a way that also works for you. And number six, analyze the rules in your relationship periodically and discuss together how you can shed those rules and create compromises that work for both of you. If you found this episode helpful, share it with one other person in your life, a family member, a colleague, a friend, because couples need hope. And remember, you are the only thing you can control in your relationship. So work on becoming a better partner and that can improve your marriage. Thanks for joining. I'll see you in the next one.