Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction.

Today we have with us Dr. Lee Balcom, who has helped people around the world to find a path to a vibrant marriage.

He has written seven books and created a number of online resources for people caught in a marriage crisis.

Welcome.

Are you doing.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm excited.

I'm excited to be here.

Oh, you're very welcome.

I love just the conversation we had right before this, because I think, well, you were going to be talking about marriage today, which is totally different, but we were talking about thriving in general.

And I think even with the marriage part of it, that's.

We stopped doing that.

We stopped looking for that really blissful, joyful part, and we get stuck in the ick.

So talk about what you do and how did you get started into helping people with their marriages?

Yeah.

So that story starts back in college when I was like, what am I going to do with my life?

And my mom said, what do you find yourself naturally attracted to?

And I realized I wasn't the popular guy in high school, but I was the confidant for lots of people.

You know, they wanted to share what was going on with them, and that never stopped.

And so therapy seemed to be the route for that.

So I went to graduate school and focused on.

Well, first started as individual therapy, and then I went.

This marital thing interests me, too.

Now, the reason of that is because of watching my extended family as a child and watching some pretty horrid divorces happen in my extended family.

My parents are still happily married in their 80s, but I had an uncle who had multiple relationships, multiple marriages, two aunts, same thing, and their relationships ended badly.

And I could see the damage.

And so my thing was, first, what does it take to have a healthy marriage?

And second, what does it take to more healthily take it apart, if that's necessary, if we can't get that healthy thing.

As I was finishing up my PhD, I was reading about coaching, and I turned to my wife and I said, this is how I do counseling.

This is the mid-80s or mid-90s, before everybody was a coach.

And so I immediately launched into training for that and.

And switched over.

I, for years, was in the office as a therapist, but I worked as a coach.

And we can talk about kind of the.

Some of the distinguishing things, if that makes sense.

But eventually I went, okay, I've got to be honest about this.

I'm.

I'm coaching.

And so now I call myself a marriage coach, but you're Right.

I.

My big interest in thriving isn't separate from marriages.

I.

My goal is to have thriving relationships and people thriving in their lives.

As.

It's kind of my.

My dual piece.

And.

And really, I see them as.

As fitting together.

Makes sense.

What would.

Let me ask you.

You've been doing the marriage thing for how many years now?

So 30 some years.

30.

So you've been coaching slash therapy.

And.

And we can talk about the differences between coaching and therapy.

And.

And it is funny because I never did go back and get my therapy degree, but I'm the same way.

I had a coaching certificate back in the early 90s because I was like, well, this is interesting.

And this is what I feel like.

I. I always felt like that was my niche because I was the same way.

I was everybody's mentor, everybody's free therapist, basically.

So I like, maybe I should do something with this.

So.

But we.

Marriages are struggling right now.

I mean, so many people.

And I don't.

What do you think is the core problem, like, at the base of everything?

Yeah.

So my belief after watching all of these years is that there is something that happens at some point early on in the marriage that sets the path now.

So let's just kind of go back.

People find this interesting person that they want to get to know better both ways, and they start connecting and they build the connection, and there's a lot of energy into building that connection between them.

Right.

And at some point they go, you know what?

We want to do this for life.

And what's interesting to me about that is, I don't know.

I can't run into anyone and say, you know, what's the rate of divorce in the US and for them to go, I don't know.

I mean, everybody knows it, right?

So, you know, walking down the aisle that the just on percentage, you got a 52% chance of succeeding at this, and yet everybody is walking down that.

Not everybody, but lots of people are walking down the aisle without considering that because they think they've already beat it.

Right.

Their connection is real love.

And because of that, we often walk into marriage fairly unprepared, thinking the love will take us through.

In spite of the fact that many people come from very broken homes and they've seen very dysfunctional relationships, and there's not a lot of training that goes into getting married.

Some people have to go to premarital counseling.

They.

I was.

Did a lot of that.

Or they might have to go to a weekend event or something like that.

But.

But if you already Believe you've got it down.

That kind of bounces off the wall, right?

And so they're.

They're going.

Because they have to.

So then they get into marriage and they go, okay, we've got the relationship covered.

Now we need to kind of do these other things.

And so they.

And this is.

This is the start of the problem.

They hit what I call the pause button.

They go, we'll get back to us.

You know, we.

We've got to do the parenting thing or the job thing or whatever.

There's something, you know, once the kids are at some point in life, and it's always the next stage out where they'll go, yeah, we'll get back to us.

And once I get to this point in my career, and it's always one point.

Point beyond where they are, we'll get back to us.

And so they put it in what they think is suspended animation.

And there's a problem with that, that you can't put a relationship into suspended animation.

It doesn't work.

It's either growing and expanding or it's shrinking and dying.

Right.

So when you pause that relationship, it's shrinking and dying.

And so they become functionally in the household together.

They cover the basics, things like that.

Thinking, we'll get back to that.

We've got that love.

It's.

It's.

But you start creating habits of disconnection.

And when you have habits of disconnection, as they grow, you go from disconnection.

I have a arc of disconnection that seven stops along the way to disdain.

And.

And that's why we see so many problems.

It's just coasting down to hit that bottom point.

So it's.

You black.

So you're saying it's really just not prioritizing the couple right from the beginning, letting everything else take take place and kind of come over, go over that.

So I know a lot of people and I've had a couple marriage people on just recently, and I get different answers.

That's why I.

It was.

I like that you asked that because I got, you know, money is the root of so many.

And.

And communication.

And I think communication, you know, yes, of course you have to communicate, but you're right.

You start very well communicating, and then that's.

I love that you gave a totally different answer than everybody else I've listened to.

So if you're disconnected, there are lots of symptoms that you will find.

And then you point to the symptom because you haven't recognized the connection piece.

We as humans are Deeply connecting creatures.

You watch that from infancy, right?

I mean, I don't think there is another creature on the planet that takes 18 plus years to launch.

And that's what happens with humans because we are built, our brains are built in connection, not in instinct as much.

Sure, we do have instincts, but it's not the same.

You don't.

You're not born ready to hunt, you know, not born ready to take care of yourself.

And, and because of that, it points to the fact that we are probably the most connecting creature on the planet.

And so when we are connecting thing, we know how to handle things.

When we are disconnected, we start to have these symptoms.

So you name money, right?

This is why I think money, the fights about money are never actually about money.

They're about whether you see it as our money or is it a division of yours and my money, right?

And so a connected relationship.

So there's a second piece that I think happens in a marriage, in a healthy marriage, is that you create a we.

We are in this together.

We are a team.

So when I, when I ever, I'm writing something we as capitalized, italicized, bolded, because I really want to make the message that it's about being a we.

Now, that doesn't mean you lose the two people.

So the team concept might help with that, right?

On a team this morning I was playing pickleball before this, and I had my partner and I were making sure we covered the court.

I could have been going, you keep messing up.

What is wrong with you?

Of course, I was making errors too.

But our job was to win, right?

So we're working as a team to win.

And so that's what I'm talking about.

Like, I'm going to play my best.

Whoever my partner is, I'm going to play my best.

They're going to play their best, I hope.

And we're going to do our best to win.

That's the we concept.

And it's a way that people can think about that.

So money ends up being a battleground.

Another one you talked about communication.

That is often where therapy has defaulted to.

I know because when sitting in my therapy office, I would have people constantly come in and say, help us with our communication.

And so I would just sit there and listen to them for 25, 30, 35 minutes and go, you know what's interesting?

I've understood every single word you've said, every sentence you've said, and you've understood each other.

It's not communication that's the issue.

It's what you're communicating.

That's the problem.

Communication is a delivery device and it's delivering connection or delivering disconnection.

So what's behind all of that is the connection that comes along.

And so as I hear people talk about these reasons they think a marriage is falling apart, I almost always.

Well, actually, unless they're saying it's connection, I'm always going, that's a symptom of the disconnection, right?

So connection is the key.

And you talk about, and I'm sure you probably talk about it in your books.

You have seven books, so that's pretty cool.

What are, what are the levels of connection?

There's got to be certain pivot.

You said it was like basically connection all the way.

Seven down to what did you say contempt?

No, you didn't say contempt.

Disdain.

So disconnection all the way to disdain.

And every one of the seven is a dis, Right?

And because, I mean, in some ways you're dissing the relationship, but disrespect is in there.

Disdain, disregard.

There's a lot of those pieces.

But that's.

That says we're headed down the bottom lane.

And when you get to that bottom stain, you've got a problem.

And because now two people are really kind of done with each other at that point.

So let's go back to the connection, though.

You mentioned the levels.

What are they?

And I believe there are three levels to connection.

And these aren't stages like you go from level one to level two.

It's all three levels are functional in a relationship.

So let's talk about those just for a second.

The first one is physical connection.

When I say that, and I'm talking about marriage, every goes, oh, you mean sex.

No, but yes, that is a way of physical connection.

But loving touch.

And so just to point out this, all three of these levels of connection can be in other relationships.

They are not bound to just marriage.

But how they happen in marriage is the important piece, right?

So touch, touches or loving touch.

That's physical connection.

That's non verbal.

And we see that with creatures around us.

My dog is sleeping beside me.

Clementine is a big cuddler.

She understands physical touch, right?

She wants to come over and be beside me and she wants me to pet her and she'll paw me and all that.

But that's because she understands you're touching me, you love me, right?

And she's touching me, so.

So I know she cares for me.

Physical.

The second one is emotional.

Now, emotional is non verbal, but also verbal and so it's a cross point.

As we're sitting here talking and you're nodding your head in agreement with what I'm saying, that's non verbal going, I get what you're saying, right?

That's right.

So if somebody is sharing with their spouse and their spouse is, you know, shaking their head, non, whatever it is, that's in agreement, you go, okay, they are understanding what I'm saying.

And so there's a non verbal element.

And there are two pieces that I think are key to this.

And one is that you feel like somebody g gets you, that emotionally they understand you and that they support you and vice versa.

So when I, my wife is for whatever reason laughing at a joke, I say, you know, I go, oh, she gets me, right?

And she understands what motivates me.

And if she's going, hey, you're usually like this, what's going on?

She gets me, she understands me.

If I'm talking about a struggle and she's listening and giving feedback on that, I also feel supported and vice versa, I'm doing the same.

So that's, that's that emotional connection.

The third level is spiritual connection.

And when I say that, people go, oh, you mean religion?

No, but yes, that is a piece of it for people who are religious because they're such core values that are reflected in their religious beliefs.

And whether they're on the same page about that or at least understand each other's places of belief is an important part of that spiritual connection.

Spiritual connection is entirely verbal.

You're talking about your, your hopes, your dreams, your beliefs, your values, your fears, all of those pieces.

So when I was seeing premarital couples and I would see everybody who had to get married in seven of the bigger places of faith and are in that community, they had to come through my office for three visits.

And so they told me their story of how they fell in love.

And almost always there was this conversation they would kind of bright eyed go on.

The conversation point of it started somewhere late in the evening and went until like early in the morning where they talked about the family they came from, the values they grew up with, the values they now hold, what they're hoping for, what they dream and, and they contained each other's, they held each other's connection, right?

So I remember in my own, we'd gone out for soft serve yogurt, came back and we were just chatting and everybody else that had gone with us kind of drifted away.

And my at that time girlfriend and I started this talk probably at 9 or 10 at night.

And I think we wrapped it up at 4 in the morning with classes the next day.

So not a smart move, but it was that moment when I went, wow, we're on this parallel path.

I get this person and this person gets me on a deep level.

Those, that's that deepest level of connection.

So that if you notice that, like my dog, all about physical, that's it.

As far as I know, she doesn't care if I get her emotional state.

I mean that, that's not a part of the conversation.

Humans have these two other levels.

And when people hit that pause button, one, two or three of these levels start falling away.

In fact, for a lot of couples, that spiritual level of connection, they don't even notice it.

And so they had that conversation that caused them to fall in love and they forget to ever have it again.

And so they're down to the two.

And then as they have disconnected sometimes they're down to one or none.

And so they're, they're at a disconnected state.

And then they don't know where they are, nor do they have this need being met.

They.

Within the relationship.

So they start one, having arguments about these issues that you, you talked about.

And two, trying to find connection somewhere because we humans are desperate for it.

So it may be being overly involved with kids, it may be overly involved with friends or at work or with our career or even an affair.

And all of those are ways of trying to somehow get the connection need met in ways that are outside of the, the marriage.

Yeah, makes sense.

Makes total sense.

And you know, I'm just looking back to either like my parents or even my own first relationship.

And I kind of joke about it now, but I'm like, that first meeting was totally wrapped around alcohol and, and crazy.

Like we never ever discussed that thing.

I remember one comment he made to me, my first husband, and I remember thinking, okay, the chances of that happening are like null and void.

Like, he was like, oh, I'm 27 and I want to have three kids, but.

Or a child by my 30th birthday.

Like all of those.

But we never ever after that, now that I think about it, we never discussed what we wanted to do.

The only thing I ever said was I will never, I will if I'm not going to marry you, if I have to live in the Midwest.

That was the only conversation we.

Where does he live right now?

The Midwest.

But you were, you were stating this is something important to me.

Right.

And, and so there was a point of connection in that, that you could go, okay, well, we.

We're on that same path, or we're not on that same path.

Yeah, that is funny.

I mean, it's.

It's really sad.

I'm actually, to think about it, and I'm.

I'm thinking back about so many people that I know that, God, they.

Yeah.

That spiritual connection.

You just don't.

You do.

It's like the first couple months of dating and you have all these things and you talk.

I want to go to this and I want to do that.

And then, like, yeah, especially if kids come along, it's very easy to be like, okay, we'll put all that away, and we're not going to talk about that ever, until you're angry and you're resentful because it's 20 years later and you didn't do any of those things.

Well, never had the chance to bring them up again.

Wow, that's, like, pretty profound.

Yeah.

Yep.

And.

And so part of that disconnect, I do believe that we are.

We need meaning.

We're meaning makers.

As humans, we need meaning, a sense of purpose and a sense of direction.

And if you can't have that together, like, you can't navigate that together, you start struggling against each other.

So I talked about that.

We.

Right.

So a lot of couples think that what it really is is you and me.

Like, we.

We have this, you and me.

But if you have two people in that intimate a relationship and they are disconnected, it becomes you versus me.

It's an oppositional point.

And it's just the natural part because so years ago I was at a seminar, and it was so profound for me because they said, okay, we were in these stacked chairs, you know, and they said, turn around and put your hands if you can.

See, I've got my hand up with my elbow down on the table and my hand extended, and the other person put their elbow down, hand extended, we grabbed hands.

That looks to me like we're going to be doing some arm wrestling.

Right.

And so the directions were to touch your partner's back of their hand to the table as many times as you can in two minutes.

The woman in front of me was this fairly much older at that time.

I was a young guy then, much older guy, woman who looked frail.

And I was sitting there going, I gotta arm wrestle this person.

And.

And so I very gently, you know, did that.

And.

And at the end of it, I was like, I was proud of myself.

I hadn't been a bully, I hadn't hurt her, but I Didn't let her touch my hand to the table.

Right.

And so at the end, there were a few people in the room that I could hear them.

They're going.

And I was like, what is wrong with these people?

That was the, the assignment, though, to touch the partners back of their hand to the table.

So if you didn't put any resistance, you just flopped it back and forth, you did what they said.

But why is it that almost everybody in the room went oppositional, went into arm wrestling mode?

It's because two people link that way, we immediately go, okay, we're in opposition.

And that's what happens in a marriage.

Just naturally, if we're not going, hey, we're on the same team, we're going to win.

So you watch couples argue.

They're trying to win the argument, not ask, how do we win this for our relationship?

How can this conflict help our relationship?

And especially if people have grown up in dysfunctional atmospheres, conflict is usually very prevalent in those relationships of some sort, whether it's an aggressive, passive aggressive, or two aggressives or whatever it is.

So you're used to seeing that model and if you haven't switched it to, hey, we're on a team together, you tend to replicate that.

Yeah, 100%.

And especially if you've grown up in those dysfunctional homes and then you come out, you've never won anything in your life.

You're like, I'll be darned, like, I'm gonna take a little control.

I mean, some people need that.

Like, they need to feel that.

But yeah, you're right.

And looking back at the.

The assignment was to touch as many times as you could.

And it would have been easy.

Like, hey, let's just take turns.

Let's work together, let's do this.

But yeah, you're right.

Let's cooperate.

Let's cooperate.

And it's, it's not, it's.

I mean, at the end of the day, we don't like being wrong, we don't like being beat.

We don't.

So it is a us, it's a we thing.

When your pride is like that and your ego takes in and you don't look at it as a couple.

Wow.

So one of the things that all people often ask me if do I then therefore believe that couples shouldn't have any conflict?

And that's an impossibility, but I believe the conflict should serve the purposes of the relationship.

Instead of being my way of winning, it's our way of saying, hey, we're not on the same page.

On that that's okay.

That we're not on the same page.

That's just how humans are.

Yeah, but how can we talk through it so that our relationship is at a better place?

Can we identify miscommunication points, misunderstandings?

Can we identify places where we can come to a.

Another conclusion?

So I always think in third options, usually there's your opinion and my opinion, and there's almost always a third option that somehow brings those together and puts us to a better place.

If you're used to conflict, though, rarely do you think of third option.

You're thinking, I've got to win.

Yeah, yeah.

Because you, you want to be right and people want to win and dominate and that's just human nature.

Yeah, it really is.

Wow.

Where were you for all these people?

Like, why?

Where were you 20 years ago?

Where were you 25 years ago?

For me, well, 30 would have been 35 years ago.

That's funny.

That's funny.

But you, it is, it's.

And it's.

A lot of it is conditioning.

A lot of it.

You know, when I look at money things, I remember one of the biggest fights my parents ever had was my dad went on business trip, my mom went out, bought a house.

That didn't go over so well.

Yeah.

So money was something.

Decision.

Yeah, money was.

And my very first fight I had with my husband, he didn't ask me.

He went out, bought a thirty thousand dollar Harley and I thought, okay, this is, wow, deja vu.

Like, I can either get pissed off about this or I can have fun with this.

So I went out and bought myself a motorcycle.

Here you go.

I didn't even know how to ride one, but I'm like, we can play this together.

But you're right.

Like those decisions and second marriage, same thing.

I wanted to go to grad school.

I didn't know if he was going to like that.

So I went out and I signed up and I spent $58,000 going to grad school without telling them.

So yeah, you can.

And that's all from.

My parents fought about money all the time.

It was like our biggest source of contention besides the alcohol.

But money was a big issue.

The issue behind that is control.

There's a piece of that, that's control.

Like who gets to control the spending?

But behind all of that is how you view that money and what role it has.

So the money psychology, people talk about mental accounting.

Mental accounting is where you make divisions in your head where they are not actually there in reality.

So we carve out things you know, we do it all the time with.

With money.

Like, my parents may give me a gift every Christmas of some money, and they're like, you know, spend it on something fun.

I mean, how do I mark that money as the money I spent on this thing?

Right?

Because it just came into the pile of money and goes out the door.

So but in my mind, mental accounting, I get to do that little thing with that.

Couples do that all the time and they go, your money, my money.

And the actuality of it is there are resources coming into your house, and there are resources going out of your house.

That's all that matters.

So when you and your ex husband, right, that spent the.

Got the Harley's, right.

So that.

That meant that 60,000 went out of the household that was no longer available for whatever else it could have been available for as a joint decision.

And so that not being a joint decision, you're going, suddenly we.

I mean, the reality is there's $60,000 less in resources or whatever it ended up being.

Right.

And.

And so that process of not saying how do we want to handle our money?

Leads to, I get to choose my money.

It's not.

It's our resource.

Right?

And so then you get stuck in this power struggle.

And it's a typical one, especially when couples haven't adopted that our perspective or we perspective.

When I was doing those premarital sessions, I would listen to the formulas people were coming in with on how they were going to break up bills, and I'm like, this is higher math.

I mean, they came up with these calculations.

And my simple question was, don't you just have expenses coming into the household and going out of the household?

I mean, how you divide the money into accounts doesn't really matter.

But how you think about it, that's what matters.

And do we think about things from an our perspective, like our parenting, our family, our money, our sexual relationship?

All of those pieces are important for couples to have an our mindset about so that you don't get stuck in the me you or me versus you breakdown that happens when it's.

I want to make my decision about something that is actually hours right now.

That makes total sense.

So what do you do for people that are way into it?

Like, I'm.

I'm thinking about one of my clients, and I'm just hypothetically, like, do.

Can all marriages be saved?

No.

No.

The fact is that you can disconnect a relationship to the point where there's nothing left to revive.

Um, at the same time, I say that the only way to determine whether a marriage can be saved is by trying to save it.

Right.

That's the only way.

I've had many people come to me and say, you know, I will do everything you tell me, follow all your course, do whatever you say.

If you can guarantee me that, I can say my marriage.

My response is, I can guarantee you what will happen if you do not take action.

Whether it's my action or not, I can guarantee you what happens if you don't, because you're already on that path.

Right.

But can you see a path to something better?

The only way is by actually taking action.

So, no, not every marriage can be saved.

You can only find out by trying.

And part of that trying is seeing a path to do that.

So one of my things is to help people see a reasonable path, a useful path to the marriage they want.

And that means that they find a way of pacing their response.

Because many times when people decide they want to save their marriage, they.

They'll say, I'm all in on this.

And they'll do these huge things that the relationship can't manage.

The disconnection is too great for that.

So date night, marriage intensives, romantic weekends, all of those things.

There's not enough there to hold it.

And so all you're doing is chasing your partner.

And when you chase they space, you gotta find a way of pacing yourself into the process to make sure that you're inviting them back into connection.

The.

The thing that most people don't recognize is because we are so deeply wired for connection, when we start getting connection, that feels really good, and we start opening up to more connections.

So you're building that connection.

You're trying to create a momentum.

That's.

That's the whole process.

Can I build up the momentum until we're getting back to where we want to be?

Right.

Makes total sense.

I hope everybody out there is listening this.

Didn't know this is a marriage channel, Right?

I've just had a couple.

Like I said, I've had a couple of these in the last few months.

I don't know why it just kind of all of a sudden they fall in my lap.

And I love it because I love different perspectives on things.

And this was so like, again, that's why we have coaches, therapists, mentors, whatever you want to call yourself.

It doesn't matter.

That's why we have people out there helping because you've been doing this.

You see the big picture and you see thousands of cases, and you've noticed it's all boiled down to one thing.

And it does make total sense too.

Like, okay, we're going to start working on this, jumping right in and pretending like, okay, we're back to ground one on that day where we were totally infatuated with other and could talk about our dreams and everything.

It's like, no, because there's a lot of things going on in between there.

There's a lot of dreams that have been squashed.

There's a lot, a lot of animosity, potentially.

I'm not saying always, but yeah, usually if you get to that point where you're almost ready to walk away, there's a lot, a lot of little pieces.

Can you give us some baby steps?

Yes.

Let me tie in on one little piece.

You said.

So the animosity you talked about.

What's behind animosity?

Animosity is another word for anger.

And what's behind anger?

Anger is.

Behind is the outward emotion of hurt, fear, or threat.

And so we're often hurt by what we're not getting from the spouse missing that they're hurt from what they're not getting from us.

Right.

So we have this joint hurt.

And so a piece of it is, is being able to say, I'm going to let go of that.

I'm not going to hold on to that.

We have.

We were doing what we knew to do, which for most people you're doing on the, on the job training, you know, in your marriage and the damage that comes with that.

And so we were doing what we could with the resources we had.

So now we find new resources.

And one of those resources is to recognize that since you go in unprepared, the hurt is going to be a part of what you have to say.

It's not worth it for me to hold on to that.

I'm not going to get stuck reacting to my spouse.

So reacting versus responding.

Reacting is when you are meeting their anger with your anger instead of recognizing that their anger is hurt, for instance, and being able to speak into that and work on.

So we, we labeled three levels of connection.

I just named bullseyes to aim for.

You know, how can you find a.

An acceptable level of touch, of emotional connection, of spiritual connection?

What.

What will your spouse allow?

And this is done invitationally.

For instance, there are a lot of people who like with a touch, like, oh, I guess we just need to have sex.

Well, your relationship may not be able to handle that with the disconnection, but can they handle a pat on the back as you go by a side Hug, a hand hold or a hand squeeze while you're watching TV or a pat on the leg, Something that will not put them into flight mode.

Right.

And so emotional connection.

Can you make them feel and make.

I'm being careful with that.

But can you set it up so that you are showing your.

Getting them, how you get them and understand them and ask them about their day.

And when they.

When you say, how was your day?

And they say, I had a couple meetings.

Oh, how'd the meetings go?

What was good about them?

What was bad about them?

And you do lightweight connecting, right?

This isn't the time to have the big relationship talk where you're going to convince them of anything that always backfires.

Right?

Spiritual connection, asking what they're hoping for down the road.

You know, what.

What excites you?

What's.

What do you hope for the next big thing?

Anything you.

You want to talk about so we can move to maybe a big vacation or maybe a new hobby or next stage of life or something that is a conversation starter.

So that gives you the three bullseyes of what they can accept.

But you have to make sure it's invitational, right?

So that's why saying, well, we're going to do date night doesn't work.

There's a lot of pressure on that.

But to say, hey, I'm going to go grab a sandwich.

Would you like to go with me?

I got that new place uptown that I like to try out.

Would you like to go with me?

They can say, no, but it still feels like you cared enough to want them along.

Which a lot of times people are surprised that their spouse that they've been feeling this animosity towards actually wants to do something with them.

So you're.

Even if they say, no, I'm good, you still have woven in a piece of connection.

Right?

I'm.

Hey, I'm gonna go for a walk.

Would you like to go with me?

I'm going to the bookstore.

Would you like to go with me?

I'm going for a cup of coffee.

I mean, it doesn't matter what that is, but if you set it up as an invitation that they can turn down and you still will do, then they understand that that was not a.

A trick, right?

That you can't make it.

And so if you go, I'm gonna go grab a cup of coffee.

Would you like to go with me?

And they go, no.

And you go, okay, well, I'm not either.

That's.

That is not what this is.

This is truly an invitation.

And you're gonna go do something.

Right.

So there are some other pieces to it.

I mean, I always think that.

So connection is one of my three Cs.

Connections.

Change.

To look at yourself and say, where do I need to grow and change and expand myself?

Is an important part, because I can be a better version of myself and then create.

And that's creating a new path for your relationship of seeing it for yourself as a we.

Those.

The two of those, you can do no matter what how your spouse is responding.

You can change yourself and grow and.

And be better at regulating yourself, for instance.

Be better at showing up, for instance.

You can also be thinking about our money, our resource, our kids, our whatever, internally.

And so then the.

The connection piece is just trying to rebuild the connection a little at a time until it can sustain more connection.

Nice.

That's.

That was helpful.

So that wasn't just one tip.

So I did ask for one.

So.

Wow, you nailed that.

Thank you.

One big long one.

One big long one.

Yeah.

Well, and it makes sense.

I mean, we.

We're in a world of.

First of all, I think we're in a world where it's too easy to get divorced.

Like, we don't have.

You know, I feel like there's just.

I don't know why it changed or how it changed, but you look at parents, couples that are kind of miserable, but they're like, oh, no, we would never get divorced.

And I kind of look at it the other way.

Like, I'm like, I think everybody deserves to be happy.

But I think that doesn't automatically.

Shouldn't automatically move to, I deserve to be happy, so I'm leaving you.

There's this.

There should be some kind of draw to, I deserve to be happy, and I chose you to live about my life and be happy with.

So let's figure this crap out.

You know, I mean, I.

You just named the third option, right?

I talked about there are two op.

And so I often have had people who like, okay, so you're telling me to stay married and be miserable, or I can leave and be happy.

And I'm like, what's the third?

Is it possible to stay married and be happy?

Can you find a different relationship?

Their response is usually, well, it's not work so far, because you haven't had a decent roadmap so far.

Right?

I mean, that's.

It's kind of like if you're out in the desert and you're like, well, there's no way out of this desert.

You don't have a map.

If you have a map you might be able to find your way through, but so far, you've been driving in circles just because you didn't know better.

And so part of the task is finding where there might be a decent map to get where you want to get to.

And for me, having seen the damage of divorce, no matter.

There are better ways of doing that, but divorces are damaging to family systems, no matter how we do it.

They just are because you're.

You're tearing apart something that you promise never to tear apart, and that has a psychological ramification to it.

So we've got that piece.

And so if we can have a roadmap to go, oh, well, let's make this good.

Yeah.

To me, that's a good option.

Yeah.

No, of course, it's always.

I. I'd like to think that everybody at least try before they just walk out, you know, And.

And also, it's different because who the person you were, I don't know, 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago, is not the person you are today.

It's you.

And if you've disconnected, you don't notice that growth.

Right.

So you start here, and you're like, oh, we're just on the same page.

And you keep thinking we're on the same page, but in reality, you're further and further apart, and you don't know it because you're not in that communication.

So, yes, we are going to be different people.

That is what growth is about.

But if we've checked in and we know how we're both kind of becoming different, that's okay.

That's.

You're just finding this new person beside you who is the old partner, too, and then you march down together on that.

It's.

That doesn't mean you are lockstep.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that you have to see everything just alike.

Not even in parenting.

No.

But to be able to have conversations about what's important to you and what's different for you is vital, because one day you turn around and go, who is the stranger?

I didn't know they thought that.

That's because you haven't checked in.

Right, Right.

Absolutely.

Wow.

Very, very enlighteningly.

I love it.

I love it.

So you have obviously a lot of experience doing this.

You have a very simple and nice way of explaining things.

So I'm sure people would love to check in with you.

How can they do that?

The best and simplest way.

Best and simplest way is to go to savethemarriage.com podcast here we are talking on a podcast, so savethemarriage.com podcast.

That page gives you access to three different tools.

One is the Save the Marriage system, which if you're in actual.

In a marriage crisis, like, you see it's in trouble, you gotta stabilize it.

So Save the Marriage is designed for stabilization.

The other one is my Unpause app, which is designed for people who go, man, we've hit the pause button.

We are.

We need to change that, right?

We're.

We're not where we need to be.

We're chronically unhappy.

And so we need to work on that.

So the Unpause app allows people to work on that in a very structured way.

The other things on the page is some people don't know what's going on, and there's an assessment tool that they can use to figure out which it is.

Green light, yellow light, red light.

Red light doesn't mean there's no hope.

It just means you really need to be cautious in your driving because there's some big issues there.

Yellow means be aware of this.

Right?

It's going to take some pushing to get there.

Green light.

I mean, I'll throw you a book and, and you, you and your spouse can fly along.

Right?

There's.

That's.

It's all.

You've got, the bases there.

That is really green light.

The Unpause app is perfect for red light.

That Save the Marriage.

Yellow could be either one, depending on what the outcome is.

And so all three of Those are@savethemarriage.com.

Podcast love it, love it, love it.

Okay, well, this has been super, super fun having you on.

I appreciate you so much.

And before you leave, if you could leave the listeners with one big picture.

Words of wisdom from Dr. Lee Balcom.

If you're in a marriage.

Yeah.

If you're in a marriage, be on the team.

I mean, that is, if you boil it down, be on the team and be the best player you can be on that team.

Well, that was very simple.

I try to be.

Yeah.

No, I love that.

As I said, I love.

You're just so profound.

What you say is so profound, but in such a.

Such a simplistic way that anybody can understand it.

So for everybody out there listening, you heard it.

Be on the team.

It's a we world.

It's not an I world.

There's no I in team.

How many times have we heard that?

Right?

No I in team.

No I.

And we.

So take his suggestions.

Listen to that.

Be the absolute best person you can be.

At all times because marriages are worth saving at the end of the day.

So you all have a blessed day.

Come back and see us.

And we hope to see you soon.

Bye.