Episode 3: Chad Fraga on Relationship Growth

Transcript:

Welcome to episode three of the James Christians podcast. That's me. I'm James, I'm here with my friend Chad Fraga. Say hi, Chad. Hey.

Hey. How we doing?

Uh, Chad and I are both therapists and we love to talk about, well, anything therapy related, but today we are talking about a relationship question we found on, uh, subreddit r slash marriage.

Um, and I'm just gonna kind of summarize this. Basically, uh, you have a. Husband and wife, they've been married for, um, several years and okay. They've been married for together for 13 years, married for five, and this man, uh, recently caught his wife exchanging flirty texts with an ex-girlfriend. So his wife used to have a lesbian relationship, you know, years ago.

And reconnected with this woman and then, uh, sent her kind of like a, a sexy, flirty picture. And so the husband's question here is just that he is having PTSD from this event. And so even though like after, you know, after confronting his wife, they talked about it, she blocked his person and hasn't had any contact, you know, with her and the husband has access to all of her social accounts and, and.

He says he's kind of like stalking this ex-girlfriend and just kind of making sure that there's no contact. So his concern isn't that there's ongoing contact. His concern is that he is just kind of obsessed with what happened and he feels deeply insecure and he says he's having nightly nightmares every night.

He has nightmares. Let's see about, no, not every night, about twice a month, I have actual nightmares of my wife and her ex-girlfriend having sex. I'll freeze up if I, if anyone mentions her name, I'll think about it at least half of the day. So, how do I get free of this? Am I overreacting? Am I justified? I can't stop thinking about this.

So, I mean, my heart goes out to this man because, uh, he's, he's truly actually suffering and I get the hint that he kind of realizes that, uh, there's something more going on than what seems to be going on. What do you think, Chad?

What do you mean by that? Like, you mean he, do you think he really thinks that deep down the relationship is still happening?

No, no. I think that he kind of knows on some level that his mind is reacting, uh, to this, you know, that, that he's saying it's PTSD. So I would say, you know, it's, uh, he says, am I overreacting? I think he knows that he's overreacting. Like this is not, um, it's, it's not. I mean, I don't. I feel uncomfortable using words like rational or sane.

But, but this is A-P-T-S-D reaction. I mean, the, the stereotypical example is you come back from combat and you hear a car back fire and you hit the ground, you know, in Iowa or wherever you are. And, and that's a typical P ts D reaction. But I think this kind of PTSD that comes up in relationships is much more common than combat PTSD where.

I think basically all of us in relationships have these kind of emotional flashbacks. That's what I would call this. This is an emotional flashback. Yep. And, um, he's experiencing so, so the way he's describing his relationship today is that things are improving, they're doing well, they handle the situation well.

Um, he says sex is getting better, the relationship is getting better, and yet he's having these intense emotional reactions to something. That isn't real. So, so his mind is reacting to basically an illusion. Yeah. Is that how you see it?

Yeah. I mean it's, um, it's our mind trying to protect ourselves from the worst and potentially his brain is really doing it to protect it from the worst ever happening.

And he goes, you know, so far into the future and he's, um, ruminating about it and obsessing about it. I mean, yeah, the first reaction I had was, I just feel bad for this guy because. He is obviously experiencing some emotional distress. Um, but the big thing is that I think he's questioning whether or not his reaction is normal.

Um, and I would, I would focus less on identifying if it's normal and really focus on validating himself that like the reality is, whether it's normal or not, you're having this really intense emotional reaction still. And the way to kind of soothe that is to validate yourself and say that it's okay.

Like it is pretty normal to be upset and scared and, um, have a lot of fear, um, after this type of experience. Um, mm-Hmm. How to go about doing that, I think is another question, but, and he's probably not doing all the right steps, but just on face value, like I, I, I think it's pretty normal that he's had this reaction.

I think this happens quite a bit in relationships. Um, in fact, I, I think this is a decent example of the thing that makes relationships so hard. Yeah. And so let's say this man walks into your therapy office tomorrow. Chad, what are you gonna do? How are you gonna help him?

I mean, first just providing like that, um, that mirror back to them Sometimes, like therapists, we say that like, we're like a mirror back as far as seeing and reflecting.

What we're hearing so that they can hear the sense of validation that like your experience is real. That like, I hear you, I see you, I see your pain, and I wanna talk about it. I mean, that's really, really the most important thing. For developing like a therapeutic relationship as far as like how to start working on it, I would love to work on it within the couple relationship, right?

Because this is naturally a relational issue. Um, so I would love to have the whole dynamic in the room, um, and then be able to teach them the skills that it takes to do trust recovery, you know, betrayal recovery, right? Mm-Hmm. There's, there's something that happens that betrayed his trust. Um, he didn't have this reaction before that incident.

Um, and so there's things that they both need to do in order to move along to that recovery journey. Um, that's gonna take quite some time.

What, what would, what would you think the first step is? Like? Like where would you start?

Yeah, as far as with the couple.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I, I think the one thing is that he needs to be more honest about how much he's getting triggered throughout the day with her. Um, I think he probably is not telling her about these issues.

Yeah. I

think you're probably right. He's probably, he's probably hiding this from her.

Yeah. And that's just, that's just further instilling the shame in himself saying, no, I shouldn't be thinking about this. It's fine. Our relationship's getting better. Right. But the reality is you're, you're, you're giving yourself a denial, right?

And, and if, if you wanna really build trust with her, again, you need to be honest and vulnerable and saying, Hey, when I saw you pick up your phone today, right? I remembered me picking up the phone and seeing that, that picture. And I'm wanting to talk about it just 'cause I can't believe I'm still, you know, this much long after this event has happened, still doing it.

I'm still frustrated and I'm still angry that you hurt me, right? Like those kind of things need to be discussed and it's gonna happen multiple times a day for quite some time. Um, and then with her, you know, she needs to be able to sit there and hold unconditional positive regard. She needs to be able to show remorse and she needs to be able to, um, hold space for that.

Um, and say, you know, I, I'm, you know, I'm sorry that this happened. Like, I, I don't want to hurt you anymore. Like. I wanna do everything I can to make sure that we're, we're trying to rebuild the trust. Um, so getting to that point where each of them have those skill sets so that they can actually do trust recovery, because trust equals consistency over time.

Right? And so we're gonna need to be able to do this consistently over time. That's kind of how I,

a few thoughts. A few thoughts come up here. Yeah. Um. I, he, he's just, he's describing the situation where he has significant relationship distress. Like he's feeling like intense emotional distress, and in his mind that this distress is, uh, a function of his relationship, right?

So this thing happened, his relationship, and that's what's causing the distress. And I would call this an 80 20 scenario where I think that 80% of his distress is related to things that happened before he ever met his wife. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. So he, he's feeling, um, I mean, we call it betrayal trauma. I would call it a fear of abandonment and, yeah.

And, and the way I usually see these things, um, like I'm a person that I experienced, you know, for the first 20 my year, years of my marriage, I was just like in and out of a constant fear of abandonment. Um, like I just felt this intense fear of being, sense of being abandoned by my wife and fear of being abandoned by my wife.

It wasn't that she was cheating on me, it's just that she wasn't very present like she was, she's avoidant and she was avoiding me, and that triggered this intense fear of abandonment. But. I, I think that about 20% of that distress was really connected to her and her behavior. And about 80% of that distress was an emotional flashback to my own childhood, uh, when I was, you know, 10 times more vulnerable to being abandoned than I am as, as an adult.

So the thing is, as adults, I. I mean, can an adult really be abandoned? You know, to what extent is that true? Like, you know, if, if my wife goes and cheats on me tomorrow, like that really sucks and I will be okay Now, if I was four years old and my wife or my mom abandoned me for some other 4-year-old little boy, I'm screwed.

You know, like I do not have the skills or resources to survive in the world without a parent. And I, I guess that's the way I look at this, is that the emotional intensity that he's experiencing is real. And it's a flashback to childhood when he was 10 times more vulnerable than he is today. What do you think?

Yeah,

no, that's great. I mean, because you're really talking about the, the difference between like the content versus the process, right? I mean, the content of the story, I. Is really what's in our faces, right? Like obviously we read this and then, you know, the, the story is gonna be the presenting problem of what people they bring to therapy, but underneath all of that is, um, you're talking about attachment essentially, right?

And yeah, absolutely. Um, clearly the reason that this is emotionally affecting him so much is because of an attachment injury, right? And. I, I, maybe it is a sense of fear of abandonment. Maybe it's something else. I don't know what his language or flavor is gonna be. I, I think we all have our own little flavor of what, um, attachment injury looks like, but there's a reason why this particular instant is having such an emotional impact on him.

And then we need to figure that out. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. I really, I really like,

yeah. And I think this really does bubble up in relationships because. You know, the parts of our brain that handle adult relationships are the same parts of our brain that developed to help us deal with the reality of being a powerless, dependent child in a, a survival critical relationship with a parent who, you know, did the best they could, and that was often not quite good enough.

Yeah, and that's just kind of the reality that most children.

You know, so, so those parts of our brain, I mean, the way I picture the brain developing is just that the parts of my brain that developed when I was five years old are still there and, and then they've been added onto over the years. And so my brain has new functions and new abilities, but that five-year-old part of me is still kind of in there and, and for me to get my brain to be more healthy, really the process is of.

Balance and connection. So I want those five-year-old parts to be connected to the adult parts. And I want there to be a balance between that sense of, of abandonment and vulnerability that might be left over from my young childhood and in my current sense of power and capacity and agency. Because as, as an adult, I'm really quite good at taking care of myself, like at least on, I mean, food, clothing, shelter, you know, social.

There's so much I can do now that I couldn't do then. Um. And, and so I kind of think of this as. So this man walked into my office. Um, I would want to help him create some connections in his brain so that the part of his brain that, that feels this intense fear, like it's so intense that he's having nightmares, um, that part of his brain can connect with the part of him that is obviously very capable.

I mean, he writes very well. He has a job. He's talking about how he, you know, uh, he's a really good husband and he's a really good partner. So this is a man with skills and abilities. Who's capable of taking care of himself and, and yet his brain is responding to his wife's actions as if he were helpless.

Yeah.

I mean, and this is where the Yeah, he's totally not helpless and he is able to definitely take more ownership. I think, this is why I say that I would love to work with this couple relationship though, right? Mm-Hmm. Because who, who better or what better person to create that emotionally corrective experience with than the person who.

Hurt you.

Yeah. And I would also want to work with both of them and, and yes, I agree that there's an emotionally corrective relationship. I, I, I guess I kind of take, like, I have a difference with the predominant views in the, in the relationship therapy field here, where I think there's a real danger in this situation of.

What I don't want to do is I don't want to nudge him into a child-parent relationship with his wife. And so, and this is kind of what I was concerned about when you were giving your initial thing, is like, oh, I want her to provide this, you know, care and comfort and support. Um, and, and that raises alarm bells in my mind because I want him to get better at caring for his own vulnerability and dealing with his own vulnerability so that he can bring more love and compassion to his wife.

And, and I, I'm gonna be really careful about having him turn to her for that kind of support because it's so easy. I honestly think it's especially easy for men to get stuck in a, a child to mother, well, especially heterosexual men. I don't know, I haven't worked with too many gay couples, but I do see this pattern frequently crop, crop up in, in heterosexual relationships where the man.

Has a tendency to get stuck in a pattern where he's approaching his wife as if she were his mother and saying, comfort me. Make me feel okay. Help me get rid of my nightmares. And, and I think that is deeply harmful. I don't think as adults, I just don't think we're capable. Like as an adult, I don't think I'm capable of being comforted in the way I was when I was a young boy.

I just don't think that that's ever going to work for me. I think the only solution is for me, like if I'm having nightmares, I want to, I want to strengthen my mental processes, strengthen my nervous system, increase my ability to self-soothe so that I can deal with the realities of life on my own. I mean, the fact is, you know, yes, you know, she, she gave up.

She blocked this person, all these things, there's a decent chance that something like this happens again in his life. Like I would say a very good chance, and I want him to be able to handle it better if it does happen again.

Yeah, I mean, I guess my gut reaction to that is, um, it feels very, um, in individualistic in nature.

Very western culture of like, you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of a thing. And maybe that's what I'm having a hard time with, with what you're describing because I, I view this as, um, you not just, you just need to kind of take care of yourself and build up the confidence and the abilities to take care of yourself, but this is naturally a relational problem.

Right, and if we can use the power of love and relationships to be able to create that emotionally corrective experience for the self, which that part, I agree with you, right? Like we're doing this for me, but I'm doing it through a relationship, through community, right? He's having these fears of. You know, people abandon me because I'm not worth it.

Let's pretend that that's his, that that's his saying, right? We need to be able to have, that's pretty likely. Yeah. We need to be able to have people in our lives tell us that that narrative is not true. That this, and that's,

I can think where we disagree is, is. As a child, yes, I did need people to, to provide that to me.

And as an adult, no. I need to learn to draw that from inside. And that's, that's the key difference. I, I don't think adults are capable of absorbing that kind of, uh, emotional support from other adults the way we were as children. Why not? And, and like, I, I do agree with, you know what you're saying. I just think that it's a later stage.

So I think there's, there's two stages here. The first stage is. He needs to, he needs to have more self to bring to the relationship. And so yes, I want them to have a stronger relationship. I don't see him as a person right now who's capable of bringing much into the relationship. And so he's, he's taking, taking, taking, and, and his point of view is like, I.

I have an emotional problem and she needs to solve it. And that's my concern with your approach is that I see you almost amplifying that. Oh yeah. And so I, I would like him to, I would like him to develop a stronger self, and once, you know, both of them are bringing more of a strong self to the relationship, that's when the relational step happens.

But I see the relational step as part two.

No, I don't want her to be responsible for his healing. That's, that's not what bringing her into the fold does. What bringing her into the fold does is that number one, he has to be this starter, right? So every it, it's his, it's his triggers, right? So the phone happens, he sees a message pop up.

He has a choice. Does he want to bring this up as this trigger of fear of abandonment to, to his partner that he wants to continue to love? Or does he want to just shadow in his, in his shame like he's been doing and continue to have the nightmares? Right. For me, the, the true transformational experience is actually going to the partner who's attached to you as an adult loving relationship and say.

This is still affecting me. This is still hurting me. Yeah.

And the danger there is, I, I think it's so critical to say, Hey, I'm going to reveal myself to you. Yes, this is still hurting me. And it's so critical for me to make it very clear that I do not consider this to be your responsibility. 'cause the default response is, is if he brings this to her, she's gonna feel like she has to fix it.

This is her fault. It's gonna trigger all this shame in her. Um. That is hers to get over. Right? It is just so easy to get sucked into this child parent thing where I'm, I'm a sad little boy. I have nightmares. I'm so scared and, and I really do see him approaching this as if it were, were her problem, not his.

Well, um, it's not his problem. It's not her problem. It's the couple's problem. It's the relationship.

I, I mean, this is, I mean, there's a, so, so like when I work with a couple in my office, uh, I only ever talk to one person at a time. And so this is, this is a thing that, I hear this a lot. Well, this is a couple, the client is the couple I'm gonna talk to the couple, um, right.

And I don't agree with that because there's just two people. The couple is whatever happens from the two people. So, so my goal is to help, you know. The husband improve his functioning and then to help the wife improve her functioning. And the question I'm always asking myself, you know, when a new couple comes into my office is between the two of you, who is most capable of taking the biggest step forward right now?

And that's who I'm gonna talk to. Um, and, and I'm, that question is always on my mind because if one of you can take a step forward and start functioning better, more courage, more love, more honesty. That's going to make the relationship better. And so I just think we kind of dodge this by pretending that I'm talking to the couple, I don't even know how to talk to a couple.

I don't even think that's a thing. I think, I think you can talk to a person. I don't think you can talk to, I mean, a couple is just a imaginary construct. It's not, you know, how, how would I talk to a couple? What am I gonna like look halfway between them and talk to the wall? And it doesn't even make any sense.

I mean, you, you talked to the couple by talking to. The space that they've created with each other. So you say, Hey, you know, um, when you, when you see your partner's phone light up, what happens to you internally and can you share that with your partner? It becomes the sharing experience that actually creates.

The emotional intimacy and the intensity of the relationship. I mean, we're, we're not two separate people in, in a couple relationship. We're, we're a unit. We become a unit. Um, so it

sounds like you kind of expect the, the wife to step up. So he shares this and you expect her to come in with love and comfort and support and, and I would guess that she's not going to,

and then we, we would have to understand why is she not going to.

Yeah, what's going on? What is, so what I see happening here is you're first talking to him as an individual and saying, okay, why don't you bring this up in a healthy way to your wife? Right. And then if she, you know, and then, then you switch talking to her as an individual. And I don't see you ever talking to the couple.

I think what hap what, what I, what I'm referring to is the couple, and maybe, maybe I'm wrong with this, is I'm referring to the interaction that happens in the room. Right. I'm very like psychodynamic in nature. I'm not, I'm not worried about, okay, you do this, you do this, and then that's the couple great move forward and, and everything's all good.

It's, it's, it's happening in the room. It's the eye roll. It's the, it's the pushing on the couch. It's the, oh, here we go. I gotta validate him again. You know, that whole thing is what I want to, to speak to. Hey, why are you responding to this emotional, intimate moment that way? I mean, is she. Does she really not want to validate him?

Does she feel like she doesn't want to, um, do this? Does she not feel sorry? Does she not feel she did anything wrong? What are the reasons?

Well, I, I think she feels that this is not her responsibility, and I think she's right. I.

Oh, I, I think it's a hundred percent her responsibility because she's a part of the relationship.

You hurt somebody, you did something that was not okay.

What, what percentage of his distress do you think is a direct, you know, a direct, uh, impact of her actions? So he's, he's 10 out of 10 distress, let's say, and he's having a nightmare. What percentage of that nightmare is due to what she did?

Um, I, I don't know if actually we can ever quantify that specifically, but she does have a But you don't, you don't, you don't

think it's a hundred percent though.

That's, that's my point. No, no, no, no. So I kind of feel like you're, you're putting her, you know, you're giving her a hundred percent slice of this pie. I would give her a 20%, you know, I'd say, Hey, you know, you contributed to this. And his intense fear of abandonment, you know, goes back to when he was six years old.

Yeah. That 20%. And it, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense for an adult man. Um, I mean, it's so hard to say this. I

was gonna say, be careful with that one with me.

Well, well, and I'm the same. And I have, I've, I, you know, my, my whole, most of my marriage has been like this, where I've experienced this, these intense, I mean things like nightmares, stuff like that.

Like that was my reality. I just don't think that it had that much to do with my wife. I think it had honestly, a lot more to do with my mom than it did with my wife. Like, I, I really do think that. And so if I, and I did for 20 years try to put this on my wife's shoulders. I feel bad because of you. Like that was a story I told her for 20 years, and that story was never true.

And, and I as a therapist am never going to encourage a person to tell that false story. If I have an, you know, I'm an adult man in, in a safe country, you know, living in Northern California with all of the privileges in the world, and if I feel this intense vulnerability, that's an illusion. That illusion is, is what I want to work on, and if I try to deal with it, it's like, no, you are responding appropriately to your current situation.

Now, I as a therapist, am I'm making things worse, not better, because I need to just address the fact that I'm, you're living in a dream. Here is what's happening and there's reason you're living in a dream, but, but your sense of vulnerability is not correspond to, to your actual reality. You're dealing with an emotional flashback.

I think that your conceptualization is actually very similar to what I'm talking about, right? Your conceptualization of what the problem is, is actually spot on to what I believe as well. Okay. Your theory of change to going about doing it is actually completely different from what I would do.

Right. And you're hoping that she's going to play a much bigger role in fixing this?

Basically.

Yeah, because she loves him. That's why.

Yeah. I guess I've just never seen it play out that way with a real couple,

and I guess I would say that that is really sad.

Yeah. And in my experience with couples in therapy is, I just think, I mean, we, this goes back to our first episode, but my experience with couples is therapy is, um, they really don't want to be pushed into a parental position.

Like, like that is, that is just not a fun place to be. And, and he's responding to this in a childish manner. I understand. I've been there and, and, and if I ask her to respond to his childish, his childishness in this situation, that really, it really SVEs her into this maternal position. And she's gonna say no.

I don't want that. Like, I don't want a son, I want a lover. I want someone who can meet me halfway. I want someone to come sweep me off my feet, you know? And he's like, oh, I need you to make me not not have nightmares anymore. I'm just like, oh, that's just not gonna work, man.

That's not what I want him to say.

I want him to say, look, this fracture that happened in our relationship is really affecting me. I want to talk to you about it.

Yeah. Right. And

I want her to hold space. I want her to maybe even literally hold him. And, and I, I don't know. I'm getting this sense of like, it's like almost emasculating that you're feeling that like he's doing that and um, like, like, uh, like he shouldn't have her as a shoulder to cry on.

And it's like, that's,

well, well if I want to have, you know, let's say I wanna have a really solid sexual relationship with someone, I need to be careful how often I'm crying on that person's shoulder. I think that's really true. So, so there's the idea that you can have you No, I'm, I'm, I'm serious. There's, you know, you really do at some point have to choose between having a mother or a lover.

And it's not like, I mean, it can be part of your relationship, but, but if you are seeking for emotional comfort and emotional support is like the defining characteristic of what you're going to your wife for. Uh, I don't think that's going to get you the kind of relationship you want. And I, and I don't think the wife, like, I can't even imagine the wife signing up for that, especially if she has children already.

You know? I mean, she doesn't want another child.

Yeah. I think there's a difference between your partner crying on your shoulder as a child and your partner crying on her shoulder because they're really struggling.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It comes back to like, I mean, you seem to, you seem to think that his response, you know, to this is.

Is less about childhood and more about adulthood, whereas I think it's more about childhood.

No, I, I don't, I, like I said, the conceptualization of what you're saying, I agree with. Yeah. I think this is, this is fundamentally his emotional distress.

Mm-Hmm.

That she can play. There's no better person in the world to play that role than her.

Like I'm as a therapist, not gonna teach him how to feel. Just better by himself. It needs to be healed through the couple relationship because that's where the fracture happened. And what better opportunity for her to tell him that it was not okay what she did, that I love you and I don't wanna hurt you anymore, and I'm really sorry that you're experiencing this, and I wanna do everything I can to make sure that this doesn't happen again, and that I help heal us.

When we don't, when we don't encourage couples to do that, and we say, you know, you need to be responsible for your emotional distress by yourself alone, what it does is maybe it, maybe it does, uh, limit the possibility of going into this parent-child relationship. But what it further does is says your emotional problems need to be solved on your own.

And that you can't count on your partner for being able to process these things. And it's also what you, what you're reinforcing when you do that is you're saying that your partner is not a safe space for you to be vulnerable about your inner darkest Dees fears. Because what you're saying, and

I think, I think that's a true statement in, in most relationships, like.

But that's the problem. I don't, I don't That's the problem. I understand that's a problem. But, but we have to deal with the reality first. And so, so I almost feel like, like you're, you're, you're asking him to address this issue as if he were in a different kind of relationship than he is. So, so like, if they have, like, it's almost like you're saying, Hey, let's imagine that your relationship is like 10 times more solid than it really is and now behave that way.

But, but I mean, my read of their relationship is act, it's actually really shaky. And, and if he brings this to this shaky relationship, it's just gonna make things shakier. So I would like to see him get 10 times more solid and then bring this much more solid self to the relationship. Do

you hear the fear of vulnerability in your description?

Just right there?

Um,

right. Like you, you, you're

saying I think it's more of an acknowledgement than a fear. I don't know. You're

in sense of the relationship shakiness. I should just back up, make sure I'm good, put the walls up, protect myself. Then maybe along the way then I'll go talk to my partner

that's gonna, well, no, it's not, it's not about protection.

It's like, no, I mean, I don't agree with that at all. Um, I'm not protecting myself. That's a hundred percent No.

You're telling someone to do, you're saying if you were to go and you're saying if you were to go and you, you, when you have an emotional problem, you don't be vulnerable with your partner because it's not safe.

You need to go solve it yourself. And, and, and you need to recognize that this potential relationship is no longer safe, then you're not really doing couples therapy. You might as well just go do individual therapy then.

Um, yeah, I mean, I disagree with a lot of that, so

I, I think that, you know, emotional safety in a relationship is so if I want to feel emotionally safe in my relationship. I think that's more on me than it is on my wife. Right? And, and I even have like this, the way we use the word vulnerable. I think that as an adult, I am fundamentally 10 times less vulnerable than I was as a child.

And so we, we say vulnerable, we mean open. Hey, I want you to be open with your partner. So I don't ever say, I want you to be vulnerable. I say, I want you to be open because I don't think, you know, me opening myself up to my wife and saying, Hey, this is what I feel, this is what I want. Um, I don't think that's being vulnerable.

I think it's being open. And so it feels vulnerable. Like if I say that I feel vulnerable, and I think that that sense of vulnerability is an illusion. I don't think I'm really vulnerable. In fact, I think the more open I am with my wife, the less vulnerable I am. And so I don't, I don't believe in putting up walls.

I mean, I'm constantly encouraging couples to open up more and to step into more conflict, to be more honest, more brave with each other. And so the opposite of putting up walls is just that. I'm just really skeptical of the idea of, um, saying you, you know, wife, husband are the solution to my emotional distress.

Um, we, we, I never, I've never seen that work. We are the No, I think you're dodging and, and like we is like, you know, it's either me or you. Right. You know, so we, I mean, like, I, I just think that in order for there to be a a, we, I have to be a lot more capable of showing up well in the relationship. Which means that, you know, I, I need to bring more love and more solemness and, and more sense of self into the relationship in the first place.

And, and just the fundamental idea that like, Hey, I'm gonna look, you know, I'm gonna look to you to change so that I can feel better. I don't think that works because my power is to change me. So, you know, if I'm talking to this husband, I'm only gonna talk to him about him. Say, Hey, I want you to, I want, this is what I see you doing.

Uh, this is what I would like to see you do differently. Because that's all of his power is about changing himself. He doesn't have any power to change, you know, his wife and, you know, if he is approaching her, you know, I can say, um, you know, do a roleplay and say, well, let's try approaching her this way.

And if he's trying to mask his mind from her, I say, why don't you open up a little bit and tell her what you really think. Um, what, I don't want to mislead. I don't want him to expect that. Like if he reveals these fears to her. You know, and hoping that she's just gonna validate him. I would say, uh, that's your, that's, that's probably an unrealistic expectation.

I don't see that happening right now in this relationship. No. And, and

that's what I say is the problem is that why is she not doing that? Right. We need to be able to uncover that.

But that's what she, yeah. So, so you see that as a problem on her side, and I see it as a, uh, a problem on his side. I see him.

Reaching out to her for, um, a type of validation that is not really a real thing in adult relationships. So, so it's like reaching for this fairy tale of like, Hey, I'm a kid again. You're gonna be my mom. You're gonna make me feel better. And I, I just don't think that works in the long run.

I mean, I think it's,

yeah, I, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm really sad, like truly, really, really sad. Um, that you don't think that that's capable of adult loving relationships?

Well, I think it can happen. I think the way of getting there is through, you know, self-improvement, not by trying to pull it from the other person. That's, that's where we disagree.

I mean, I do think that, you know, a happy relationship, happy relationship, so much validation, so much love, so much concern, all these things, that's not what we disagree on. What we disagree on is the way of getting there. And, and I think the way you get there is by becoming a better partner, not by trying to pull the better partner from your, from your, the other person.

And, and that's what I, you saying is No, you're gonna go pull this from your partner. And I've just never seen that work.

You're gonna go do it with your partner, is what I'm trying to say. And you create the we and the relationship. And when you look at the research about what makes happy people live long, healthy, happy lives, the research is very, very, very, very, very clear.

Every single time. It's positive, intimate relationships. We know that. Sure.

Yeah. And, and I, I think most adults aren't really capable of that. And our job as therapists is to help people become more capable of that. And, and it comes back to, like I always tell couples, I'm like, Hey, when I'm talking to you husband, I'll only talk to you about you because, 'cause you can only change you, you can't change your wife.

And same on the wife's side. And so, you know, this idea of doing relation, I had a couple and he was a therapist and he kept asking me, he's like, James, when am I getting to the relational work? When don't you start the relational work? And I'm like. The issue is that, that you're not capable of relational work right now, and I'm, I'm doing, this is the preparatory stage.

Every time he approached his wife, he did it with condescension and, and hostility. And I'm like, and he's like, well, this is a relational problem. I'm like, yes. And, and every time you approach your wife, you make the relational problem worse and not better. And so when I'm talking to you, I'm talking about what you are doing, uh, because.

Like for you to get to a place where you are opening up to your wife and making things better, not worse. We're not there yet. And so that's like, it's like this preliminary step.

No, I, I agree with that. You need to be able to have the skills to be able to actually do the recovery work. And that's what couples therapy does, is you go in and you say, Hey, when you go and you call your wife, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you call her names, that's not helping the relationship.

We need to be able to tell you. Mm-Hmm. How do you show up better in your relationship so that when you want to do the healing work of this betrayal that you're able to actually get healed and not do it in an immature way? Absolutely. I understand what you're saying there, but the theory of change of.

Well, if you just do that, then you don't need to count on your wife to be able to be there for emotional security and support is literally the exact opposite of how you actually treat well.

If she's there, she's there, but, but I just, I just see a lot of therapists saying she's gonna be there when she's prob I mean, sometimes the, sometimes your partner's there, sometimes your partner's not, and there is this reality where, you know.

It. I just don't think it's realistic to count on your partner to always be there when you need a cold shoulder to cry on. I, I just. I just don't see that happening in, in, I see it happening in a very, very small portion of relationships and, and to build the relationship up to that point is a pretty significant challenge.

And so, like this relationship they're describing is definitely not there and they're not anywhere close. I. So I would not jump ahead to that second step. I was like, okay, yes. I want to get you to a place where you always have a shoulder decline. Absolutely. And we are like a long ways away from that point.

And so let's start getting closer. I need both of you to start becoming a lot stronger in your sense of self, um, to the point where you can become a shoulder to crime. Because right now when he does approach her, I think it's threatening to her. I mean, how could you not be threatened? Like the amount of anxiety he's bringing into this.

Like it's pretty like just reading it, I'm like, whoa, holy mackerel, dude. Like that's a lot. How is she not gonna be threatened? Of course she's gonna be threatened by that, right? And, and all the things that go on. And so this idea that she's going to be the solution to his distress right now, I think is.

It's just wrong.

That's a strong word. I mean that, that thread that she's feeling, we need to be able to parse that out and be like, is this shame that you're holding about the thing that you did, that you're not able to actually show up for the relationship right now? And why is that? Right? I want to be able to talk through when you see his, that's the level of differentiation that needs to happen.

His emotional distress doesn't need to mean something about you. You need to be able to put that ego part aside and show up for the relationship because your partner's coming to you and you're saying that this is what's happening and it's because of what happened between us. I want to help heal that.

And if your partner's like, Hmm, yeah, you need to go deal with it yourself. That's not, that's not doing any emotional healing, right? You're just, you're, you're, you're telling people that to be open, but only be open on the parts that are safe.

I'm saying the opposite. I'm saying, I'm saying do not turn to your partner for safety, because you're probably not going to get it if you want to have safety, emotional safety, physical safety, different thing, like if you have physical safety issues that you, you guys, I mean, you know this, like we don't, like, that's a whole different ballgame when we start talking to adults about emotional safety.

I'm really cautious about that because when I was a little boy, it was my parents' job to provide emotional safety for me as an adult. I do not think it's advisable to try to make that my wife's job. Um, I, I think as an adult, like emotional safety is about 95% my job and, and I really need to be taking really good care of myself so that I can feel emotionally safe and it's just something for me to do.

It's on my shoulders now and I'm just really hesitant. I just think it's so easy for us as therapists. To start putting our clients into a childish position saying, oh, it's someone else's job to make you feel safe. Um, I've never seen that work. In the long run for any adult, in any situation, if you want to feel safe, you need to learn how to take care of yourself so well, that you feel safe, and to deal with the emotional flashbacks from childhood that are making you feel less safe than you actually are, which is what's happening in this situation.

He's safe, like he's safe, and he does not feel safe, and, and, and his, his safety meter is poorly calibrated. And that's the first thing I would wanna work with is like, you know, how safe are you right now in this moment? How safe do you feel right now in this moment? You know, how safe are you when you, when your wife gets a text, how safe do you feel when your wife gets a text?

Right?

Let's talk about this mismatch and that, that's his work, not hers.

I, I see it as her being the most important person in the world to be able to help him with that work.

Hmm.

There's no other person in the world, maybe there's no other person in the world that will be able to help him get to that place. Yeah. Of getting his own emotional safety for himself than just speaking about it with her. The person that, the dichotomy of the person that he loves and the person that he was hurt from.

Being able to address that with her and her showing up is the theory of change that I'm describing. And what you're saying is No, he just needs to deal with it on his own and that's. That, that's fundamentally not a relational way of dealing with it.

Well, I do think that she plays a critical role in this, but I think her role is mostly in, um, in being the person who triggers her, his fear.

And so, you know, let's say she goes, you know, it sounds like she's been a pretty faithful wife for the last year. Like, that's the impression I get. Yeah. Yeah. So,

yeah, I guess, I don't know. I don't know what else to say. I mean, I'm actually glad that you presented, I'm glad you presented this point of view, because I think once again, you know, your point of view is much more popular than my point of view. Um, and, and you've, you know, explained it very eloquently as always.

But, sorry, what were you gonna say?

You, you say that you do agree that she does have a role to play. I mean, what I'm hearing you saying is that she doesn't, so what, what, what role do you, well, her

role, her role is in, uh, is in creating the crucible. So, so I'm, I'm trying to what's called Crucible Therapy and the Crucible is the relationship.

The Crucible is, you know, I want to be in a long-term, multi-decade relationship with you. I want you to love me, I want to love you, and I want to have a, an exciting sexual relationship with you. Um, all of those things are, they kind of lie on the frontier of what humans are capable of, and that's what the Crucible is, is saying, I want this thing that is really difficult to the point of.

Of being, I, I, it's just really difficult. Most couples don't ever get there. And so, you know, my job as therapist is you come into my office, you want this thing that, that most people want, and you are willing to do the work to get there. And my job is to help guide you. Uh, what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to heat up this crucible, uh, increase the pressure, increase the temperature.

To, to help reveal the impurities in the relationship, the parts, you know, the things that are coming up in this relationship that are not compatible with a strong, loving, compassionate, collaborative relationship. And this is one of them. His intense, childish fear of abandonment is not compatible. With a, a loving long-term relationship.

This, this is not going to work. And, and this, this affair has given him an opportunity, uh, to outgrow this. And it's good that it came up and it's good that he's going to Reddit and I hope he finds, you know, a competent professional to help him work through this. Mm-Hmm. Um, and she has equivalent weaknesses on her side, you know, which don't really come up in this, this vignette, but they're there.

And, um. The whole purpose of of marriage therapy is to heat up the crucible sufficiently that the impurities rise at the top and become visible, right? And, and then once we see them, now we can take responsibility for them and we can address them. But usually they just get so hidden and this is what's happening.

This vignette is. He's only just getting a peak of how much his, his childish fear of abandonment is impacting his ability to love his wife. And it is so, so if this person, you know, just imagine how he's approaching this marriage. She's so terrifying to him that he's, he's like, he says he's doing 90% of the housework.

There's probably a dozen things that he should be bringing up to her that he's not. 'cause he's so afraid of her reaction. Yep. And so. His fear is not the only childish way that he's approaching the relationship. There's a dozen more, and this is what happens to all of us. Like our brains, were designed to survive childhood.

Our brains were designed to manage the child, parent relationship. Our brains were not designed for marriage, but we all want to be married. We want to have this living relationship, and he does too. And he's faced with this reality of trying to have an adult relationship with a brain that's optimized for a child relationship.

And that's like the fundamental. The developmental challenge.

So where does the relationship heal then in this, in this theory,

the relationship heals when the people get stronger. As, as each individual? Yes. As each individual takes a step forward. So when I take a step forward, my marriage gets better every single time, no exceptions.

And when my wife takes a step forward, when she grows up, you know, she gets better. So my, my wife and I just got back from intensive marriage therapy. We just did 12 hours of therapy in one week and it was amazing. And like the leap forward was. Like off the charts, like it was incredible. Um, and part of that was me and part of it was her.

But even if it had been only one of us, the relationship would have improved. Because every time I step, you know, it's like if two people are doing a foxtrot and I want to do the tango, I start doing the tango. If my wife is still trying to do the fox drop, that starts to get really uncomfortable because it's a dance.

Right? And, and so, so when I take a step forward. It makes it so much easier for her to take a corresponding step forward and vice versa.

But how do you practice the tango? You practice it together. You don't go separately, practice the tango,

but, but that puts you in a bind because then you're always waiting for the other person to go first.

So someone has to start dancing the new step and it's so uncomfortable and that happens, but, but this idea that both people are going to advance in lockstep, I don't ever see that happen. I always see one person go first.

Sure, yeah. One person goes first and then guess what? The other partner's there to be there to see it.

Say, I'm proud of you. And that's amazing. I mean,

sometimes that's, that's not my experience, but yeah. That, that does sometimes happen. Again, that's happening in my marriage right now. But, but we are, I

mean, we've been in therapy for years now. It's almost like you're pessimistic of how people can actually show up for each other.

Um, I mean, I've worked with a lot of couples. I don't know if I would call it pessimistic. I, I think marriage is really hard. I mean, it's been really hard for me, but I don't think it's just me. Uh, I look around at the couples I know, and as far as I can tell, marriage is really hard for every single couple I know.

And so I don't think that's pessimistic. I just think that, I think that our brains are not optimized for creating a thriving marriage. I think it's possible, but, you know, I, I feel really good about my job security. Uh, I see couples only and I just don't see marriage getting easier anytime soon. And yet, it's the thing we want.

We want to have a lifelong love. We should want that. And I think marriage is the primary, it's the primary driver of human growth and development, and I love that about it. It's this elegant thing that says you want someone to love you for 50 years, let's figure that out. It does not come naturally. It takes so much growth and so much development.

And so I don't think it's pessimistic. I just think, I mean, how many couples do you know who are just like, who've been together for 10 years or more? And who are just really, really comfortable with each other. There are some, but it's definitely not the majority, like not even close. And those are the ones who haven't even divorced yet, you know?

And so it's just a hard thing and I just think it's important for us to face the reality that this does not come naturally to us. Um, and I think we as a society are just barely getting to crack the code. I think we're just in the first chapter of cracking the code of how to actually love someone for 50 years.

And I think most of us like. Look at my parents' generation, and usually the solution is we're gonna stay together, but we're mostly gonna avoid each other and we're never really gonna deal with, you know, the resentment and the anger and the hurt feelings. This is all just gonna be pushed under the rug and, and we're just gonna like, kind of, uh, muddle through and you know, I want better than that.

I know you want better than that, and I just think. We have to face the reality of how difficult this is, right? But better the way do that

is not to say go deal with it yourself. Go practice on your own. Like you need to create your own safety for yourself. Don't look to your relationship for emotional safety because you don't know if she's actually gonna be there when you land.

Like. That's like saying, go tell a soccer team to go practice individually and shoot individual goals by yourself. And on game day, let's just show up and make sure the magic happens. Like you have to be able to work together as a team. There's this cohesion, there's this thing that happens with flow in a relationship, right?

And when you say that your emotional safety should not be dependent on how your, your partner shows up for the relationship. Uh, that's not really a relationship. You're telling people to do something completely different.

Well, I think there's a good metaphor there. 'cause you're talking about basketball.

Well, let's say ba I was thinking basketball. Um, you go and throw me in an NBA game or even like any big game and they're not gonna pass me the ball. Like it's gonna take them out three minutes to figure out, don't pass to James 'cause he can't dribble. Sure. You know, and so this is. You know, I, I see a couple come into my office and, and the wife is like, well, I'm not gonna pass the husband the ball 'cause he drops it every time.

And I'm like, yes, you are correct right now I'm gonna talk to you about your basketball skills. I'm gonna talk to your husband about his basketball skills and we're gonna get better basketball. And that's the solution. And so, uh, I just, I think we just really get sucked into this mistake of thinking that people can dribble the ball when they can't dribble the ball.

I just think that we get married. You know, David Schnarch says, you know, no one's married, no one's ready for marriage. Marriage makes you married. Dude, I can't even talk. No one is ready for marriage. Marriage makes you ready for marriage. And I agree with that. I, I was definitely not ready for marriage, but if I'd waited another 10 years, 10 years to get married, maybe I would've been a little bit more ready for marriage.

But the only way to learn this is to jump into the deep end and start swimming. Um, and I wish I'd had a lot better resources when I did get married. But I didn't. And so like, I was dog paddling for 20 years, which sucks. But now I can do the backstroke and doing the backstroke I is awesome. You know, and I, and I'm learning the breaststroke and I'm learning.

I don't know if I'll ever do the butterfly. That one sucks. But, but it's nice to be able to feel like I can actually hold my own in, in the context of being married.

Um, we go back to the basketball scenario, dribbling

Yeah,

it's not. I don't think I play the most important role to help the partner dribble better.

I think the partner who knows how to dribble, who picked him as a teammate, remember, this is your choice. You picked him. You knew that he didn't know how to dribble beforehand. Okay, sure. You picked him to be your teammate for life. Wouldn't it be amazing if she goes over there and says, Hey. When you practice, I wanna practice with you.

This is what I do actually to help me figure out how to dribble better. And,

but what makes you think she knows how to dribble? Like I don't see any evidence of that. I like in this, in this vignette, I see no evidence that either of them can dribble at all. And that's just the normal state of relationships.

You know, it's, it's such a difficult skill to learn, like, where would I learn this? They don't, like, in my family that I grew up in, like these skills were definitely not taught. And you know, and I don't, I know very few families where these skills are taught. There's a few, but it's, it's a small percentage.

And so it's not like we're all growing up going to basketball camp all the time.

No. And then what you do is you say, Hey, guess what? Actually, we go to this marriage counselor and he's our coach, and we say, we realize that we both don't know how to dribble. Mm-hmm. Can you help us dribble better and pass with each other?

That's, that's the beauty, right? But I'm not gonna say, well, you need to each individually work on your dribbling skills before you actually play this game. Like, you're already married, you're already here. Let's, let's deal with it. Let's work together as a team. Um, and then, and, and to me that's also just way more powerful and, and, and sustainable because, um, what you're telling is that the health of the relationship lasts in their ability to work as a team, not for you to go develop your own individual skills somewhere else.

And I think we develop our skills in the relationship. Um. With each other. I don't know. I mean, yeah, it's, it's really interesting talking to you because like, it seems like we're saying the same thing and saying different things. It's, it's really interesting dancing around this with you. Yeah. Um, we agree about so much, and yet there are, there are things we disagree about.

Yeah. I mean, I, any last questions

or thoughts? No, I think that's, that's it for, again, I gotta wrap up too actually, so, yeah.

Oh yeah. Super fun talking to you.

Yeah.

All right. Um, let's do it again. Thanks for listening, everyone. Um, for those listening, if you could, uh, subscribe and comment, that would be awesome.

Uh, just because I'm launching the podcast, no one even knows it exists, and it's actually quite difficult to get a podcast off the ground. And so every single, um, subscription, especially the comments. The ratings. If you can give it a rating, that really, really helps. You know, apple and Spotify say this is a real show and not just like two guys talking on the internet.

So, yeah. Which the second is more accurate right now, but we would like, I would like to make this something real, so. All right, Chad. Pleasure as always. Thank you so much.