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Oh man! You’re going to get a lot out of this one. Larry Shushansky (from https://www.independentenough.com/) has 40 years of experience as a psychotherapist. We dig into what conflict is, why it happens and how to deal with it. But also that it is GOOD for your marriage.

However, MOST couples do conflict WRONG—thus it’s BAD for theirs. Don’t let yours be in this category!

He has been featured on: Psychology Today, Fast Company, Chicago Tribune, The Huffington Post to name a few… and it shows!

Some things may SURPRISE you.

• How could conflict be good?
• How do you MAKE conflict good?
• What does it mean to be independent but also dependent in your marriage?
• Aren’t you supposed to be vulnerable with your spouse? So, why would you also be independent? Is there some kind of manipulation here?
• My hope is it will challenge you to think way differently about conflict and your connectedness with your spouse.

Oh, and Larry and I have a conflict about something. I think you’ll be really interested to hear! Neither of us backed down and he says we did it right.

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Also, I mentioned that I’d like to invite you and your spouse to attend my Live and Free webinar series:

New Year, ReNewed Connection: Deeper, Loving Relationship & TRUE Intimacy! Sign up here: www.delightyourmarriage.com/renew2020

This is for couples (or people to watch on their own) and a ending segment JUST for wives. If you’re looking for an easy segue-way to invite your wife to be interested in my work THIS IS IT.

Or if you have friends that need this work but you don’t know how to talk to them about DYM because you know… sex. I get it!

This is a easy to digest and hints of truths about intimacy but nothing as strong and explicit as I have on my podcast or other material. Its a super easy intro as well as extremely helpful relationship tools.

Looking forward to having you!

Love,

Belah

 

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transcript

0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. You’re joining me belah rose as I dive deep into the beauty, power and truth about intimacy, learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about. delight your marriage. All right, welcome, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me, this is belah rose. And today, I am super excited because we’re going to be talking about conflict. It was such perfect timing, because I feel like I wanted a framework for conflict, I wanted tools to kind of fall back on and I feel like Larry gives that to us in this call. So really exciting stuff. I’m, I’m so excited to present this material to you. I was talking to a client yesterday. And I, in my work, I always recommend books and different resources and this person and that person, this person, and she was kind of challenging me of like, what do you see good about this person? Or what do you think about that? And, you know, I had to clarify, I do not recommend anyone 100%. In fact, I don’t even recommend myself 100%. I mean, if you go back and listen to my podcasts, three years ago, or the way I used to think three years ago, or 12 years ago, or whatever, I hope that I’ve contradicted myself, I hope that I think differently than I used to, because that means I’m growing, that means I’m changing. I’m becoming better God’s teaching me. Hopefully, I’ve gotten more wisdom over the years, hopefully, God’s continuing to teach me I mean, that is my goal. So not only that, but my gosh, sometimes I make silly things. And I say silly things even yesterday, and I think about it that, you know, an hour later, and like, I wish I said it a little differently, or I think about it differently, or I I don’t agree with how I used to think so all of that to say that a lot of times, you know, I hope that you learned so much from my guests. But I’m not saying that every, you know, phrase that they say is accurate and correct. And I endorse, I say that there’s so much we can learn from others. And there’s always elements, and you know what the only person I completely endorse is Jesus, because He is the one you can walk with. And he’s the one that you can truly rely on for guidance in all areas of your life in your marriage. But He uses people to teach you, you’ve got to trust that God’s going to guide you into the elements that he wants you to understand and agree with and pursue. But it’s not going to be 100% One person, not even yourself. So anyway, this guy Larry’s got an awesome, awesome stuff to tell us about. Okay, before I go further, let me just tell you a problem I have had since the beginning of working in this work is that people will be so excited about the material that they found it some way some Google search, some podcast search, they found it. And they’re like, I wish I could send this to a friend of mine, but it’s about sex. And they’re like, they’re gonna think I’m, you know, all these negative things for listening to this kind of stuff. First of all, I want to send kudos to every single one of you that has ever shared my stuff. Because from day one, I have never paid any kind of advertising to market, the dy M podcast and by God’s grace, this podcast is heard around the world in 155 different countries. It’s incredible. We’re closing in on a million downloads. God is so good. It’s been awarded 19th at the top 30 relationship podcasts out there. So just so you know, you guys are brave, sharing this stuff. But here’s what I wanted to do is give you another resource give you something that’s easier to send to maybe someone that’s more conservative, whether it’s a wife, maybe it’s your wife, or a friend of yours, or a couple that’s going through hard times and you’re like if only they understood how pivotal some of these truths are about intimacy, about communication about

4:44
listening about understanding each other, serving each other, being generous in the bedroom, these kinds of things. Their life would look so different. So what I’ve decided to develop is an answer to that, I want to give you something that’s easy for you to forward on to a friend and say, Hey, I thought of you, I think this would be cool. And it’s not something that’s like in your face about sex. So what it is, is a live webinar series that I’m doing. But you can also have the replay, the live would be far better. So if you can, I would love for you to sign up, but go to www dot delight your marriage.com/renew 2020. So here’s the the webinar series, it’s it’s called New Year, renewed connection. And again, it’s all about deeper loving relationship and true intimacy. So you can go to www dot delight your marriage.com/renew 2020. And I would love to have you there. If you’ve been a listener, if you are curious about learning more understanding more or inviting your wife to this material, and you want something that’s easier for her to digest. That’s the focus of this. And really make it like an event like, get the babysitter get take off of work, like whatever you need to do to make sure you can be there live. I would so invite you to do that. That’s going to be at the end of January. So I would love for you to do that. All right. Well, God bless. Let’s dive into this content with Larry. I think it’s gonna be awesome. All right.

6:45
All right. Welcome back to let your marriage listener I’m so glad to have you. And I’m really excited to have Larry on welcome.

6:53
Hi. Nice to be here. Thanks for having me. I appreciate that a lot.

6:57
Absolutely. Absolutely. And we’ve got a really good show. Talking about vulnerability, openness, honesty, separateness boundaries, this is going to be a really good conversation. I think, Larry, you’re gonna just bring so much insight and advice, and it’s gonna be really good for the listeners. So yeah, so what I want to do, actually, Larry is kind of bring it over to your side. And if you can just kind of give an introduction of who you are your work. And yeah, what you’re bringing towards this conversation, if you don’t mind.

7:31
So I’ve been a psychotherapist for about 40 years in the field. I got drafted into the service. And during the Vietnam era, and when I got out of the service, I went back to school, and I wanted to volunteer in the community. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. And this radios spot came on for the rape crisis center. They were looking for volunteers. So I call, I went through a 12 week training. And I loved it. I just totally fell in love with it was hard work. It was really difficult work. I started doing the phones, manning the phones. Then I started to do going into hospital settings, and doing community outreach awarenesses, that kind of thing to schools and community clubs and organizations. And I just loved it. It was just something that I just wanted to do. I ended up going to graduate school. And when I was in graduate school, I I focused on family therapy and couples and relationships. And I just dived into it. And I’ve been doing it ever since. Shortly after graduate school, I tried to write fact I’ve tried to write this book for about 2530 years or so if not longer than that.

8:56
And what’s the book again?

8:58
independent enough? Yes, it’s a book just all about relationships, intimate relationships, relationships, about colleagues and work people and friendships and extended family and with yourself. And I just never got anything published and all that time. Then in 1991, I was diagnosed with hepatitis C, which came from my earlier drug years, which is why I got drafted in the service. I flunked out of school because of drug and alcohol abuse, and I decided in 1991 I was just going to clean my act up, get into some spirituality, get into decent eating and exercising and go perfectly clean, no alcohol, no drugs at all, until they found a cure. And in about three and a half years ago, they found a cure. I almost I every time I say that it just sort of touching for me that wow. I had been it was Fantastic. I’ve been in a couple of treatment protocols, it just about killed me with interview Robin there and they just horrible, horrible. And then this thing was just a pill I took over two weeks, and it was gone. And I felt like I had, I had no myself for the first time in my life, I could think clearer. I had energy. And within a year and a half, I had the book published, and I’m on my way, it really that’s huge. It’s incredible. He really has been. So that’s my story. Yes. How the book got where it’s at at this point?

10:36
Well, I love the title of, it’s just fantastic. I want to hear where the title came from curious.

10:43
So a lot of the work I’ve done early on in my career with relationships and families is that the family systems theory is that pathology or dysfunction comes from dependency, what you need to do is you need to break away from your family of origin and become independent. Since then, and in our culture, in American culture, independence is the thing, you know, I can be independent, and I need to be independent, I don’t need anybody’s help kind of thing. And over the over a decade or so I bought it. And then I started to realize that couples don’t work like that. There’s a lot of dependency in couples a lot of dependency, and it’s not a problem. Problem at all, like Honey, where’s the hammer, and my wife doesn’t mind giving me the hammer, she gives me a hammer and I’m off and running. It’s not a problem. The only the place it becomes a problem is when the dependency creates conflict. Or when it gets in the way of me trying to accomplish relationship goals. And so it’s not about being independent, it’s about being independent enough, that when we run into conflict or difficulties in our relationships, rather than the intimate relationships or friendships, or at work, or wherever it happens to be, when we run into that conflict, it’s about taking a step back, and being independent enough. And that’s where it comes from. to do some self reflection isn’t always about the other person out of our heads. Because that’s what we do all the time. We are constantly blaming other people taking inventory, analyzing him knowing that they’re the source of our unhappiness. But when we can take that step back and clear our head, and do some self reflection, and see who we are being in the context of that conflict in relationship. And it’s not judgmental, it’s not critical. It’s not like analyzing, like psychotherapy or anything, it’s just figuring out what we’re doing in relation to other people or the other person. Once we do that, let’s say I’m being too passive, then I can make some decisions that I’m going to try to be more assertive. So then I step back in the relationship, and I try to be more assertive, and I keep going back and forth like that. And that’s the independent enough piece it happens is that as I go and continue to do that back and forth, I grow as a person. Mm hmm. My issues that come up with my wife, or my boss, or my colleagues, or, or my kids or whoever it happens to be our issues I’ve carried with me my whole entire life. They just come up, the closer you are in relationship to people. And as they come up, that gives me an opportunity to grow. As I grow, the relationship grows. Awesome. And that’s how I’ve been able to establish a 35 year marriage that is, I think, is the love of my life. Anyway, I’m in love to anybody, so much as I love Germany at this point. And it hasn’t been easy. But it’s been that process of back and forth, and my own personal growth. Because as I grow, I read the relationship in the direction I want. And she has a choice, she can grow with me or she can decide not to grow with me.

14:21
Yeah, so okay, really, really good insights here. I think some of the things I really love that you said so far, is that it’s not that you need to be independent completely. It’s that you need to be enough so that there’s a separateness that you have a space almost between the two of you where you can reflect and say, Who am I being in this conflict? Who am I? It what ownership do I need to take of this and how can I be different in a way that’s actually going to be productive and help us move forward? And that process, you said, grows us this back and forth of of becoming better

14:59
integrated? was the other person and we we don’t grow together, we grow like this in steps. I lead she leads I lead she leads. And that’s how it works least in in the relationships that I’ve seen that work really well. That and then given the book actually is when we first married, I’d go to sleep early and she’d stay up late. And I always felt rejected. You know, I felt like she loved me. I, you know, I said in a decent way, why couldn’t you just do what she wanted me to do? And I’d go to sleep and ruminate about why does she do this? I wish she would, she could just do this. It’s not a big deal. And she stay up late. And every time I’d bring it up to her, she’d feel criticized, as well as what I felt she felt criticized. So we argued about it. We talked about it, we cried about it. And at one point, I said to her, I said, Honey, we really need to figure this out about five or six years into our marriage. And I said, Look, I said, Why don’t we compromise? Right? Three days a week, I’ll go to sleep early. And you come to sleep with me three days a week, I’ll stay up late for you. And the seventh day is a Saturday night is not a problem whatsoever. She says great. So the very first night I go to sleep early, she stays up late. What are you about whose turn it was?

16:27
So it’s not about compromise. It’s about there and continuing to hash this out. When I was cured from the Hep C. I was lying in bed one night ruminating like I always say because she wasn’t coming asleep. And I said to myself, What is this about Larry? What? Why can’t? And then I realized why can’t I go to sleep? Why do I need a teddy bear next to me? What is the problem here? And I was acting like a little kid. And so I had to take the thumb out of my mouth. You got to start growing up here a little bit, Larry. Yeah, from there, I started to grow. And at this point, we don’t have the issue.

17:06
Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that amazing? I love that it really turns into this. You know, it goes from this focus on what she’s doing wrong to how can I be better? How can I be satisfied in this moment? How can I be a person that’s actually going to attract my wife and be like, I’m a great person to hang out with, because I’m so great all by myself. So

17:29
it actually really does work like that. Not that that’s my purpose. But that’s what happens. And and same, I see her grow, she becomes more attractive to me. I mean, if you think when you first meet your partner, generally speaking, or colleagues or friends, you look at them from afar. You know, you’re not offended at all, you’re looking at their quality, but boy, do I, I want to get to this woman. Yeah, me and she’s going boy, I’d really like to get to know this guy. But here at a time, you just get so enmeshed with each other, right? Trying to feed each other’s needs kind of thing. That you lose that distance that space that you talked about. Yeah, that space between the two of you. And it’s that space. We can really grow love. You can’t have love in your face. You can love with the space. Yes. I love that love. Yeah.

18:25
So So here’s an interesting piece here. Um, because I so I still hear that and this is something that I kind of philosophically have been turning in my head so I’m curious your thoughts? Right, there’s there’s a level of separateness, as well as. So here, okay, so I’ll start by saying it this way, I think, here’s the cliche, I hate. I was just being honest. I’m just honest. I, okay, you’re shaking your head to tell me what your thoughts are. Because clearly, we’re both on the same side here. It’s

19:05
all about being honest. And it’s not about being myself, you know, being in a relationship. I mean, if there’s no way she should accept me for who I am would be a huge mistake. Honesty is not about self reflection. Honesty is not it’s not about going deeper into yourself, to figure out what part you’re playing. I often tell us tell a couple. It’s not a 5050 proposition. It’s 100 100 proposition. So I’m going to my 100 and just by being honest, that’s not my you know, if my honesty creates problems or difficulties, then what is the purpose of honesty? You missed the boat, it’s about it’s about taking a step back and doing the self reflection and making those kind of growth decisions that really created That’s a great way the honesty piece that you brought up. That’s one of the many myths that people live by it just tanks relationship. Just being honest. Right? And it just, it just misses the boat. There’s so many different levels of communication and dynamics that go on between two people, you have to figure out yourself. It’s not Theodore Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt once said, that, it’s not about finding the right person, it’s about being the right person. And the honesty is being the right person, but maybe, honestly, is not being the right person. Maybe what your stick is, there’s a lot of books out there that tell us how to be in relationship. And I just think it misses the boat. Because every relationship that I’ve ever seen in the 40 years of doing this is different than the other relationships. I’ve never seen, like snowflakes, I guess, I’ve never seen two relationships the same. And I got into what works for one relationship just doesn’t work for other relationships. So you got to do this self reflection to figure that out. So honestly, it just, I just like you like cringe every time. It doesn’t work.

21:15
Yeah, so. So I I’m not I’m, I’m on board with you. It so much. And then there’s this other element, right? of vulnerability. And have this be aware of, of opening yourself up to intimacy in the emotional sense and physical sense. And it’s kind of like, did, I don’t know that there’s this, there’s this contrast, that’s like, well, in one way, you’re being the best you you can be for your spouse, with the self reflection with the growth piece with. And then another way is there’s this element of needing your spouse to help you be the best that you can be because you’re a weak human. And you know, you’ve got these problems and tell me your thoughts on are you seeing kind of a mismatch? Or how are you feeling about it,

22:14
there’s a, there’s a couple things you brought up. Let’s start with intimacy. I went to a workshop years ago, and this man, the presenter breaks up the word intimacy into me, I see. So intimacy between two people is looking at myself. It’s not particularly in conflict, or let’s say, I want more intimacy, or let’s say, I’m afraid of intimacy, or I’m afraid of being vulnerable. It’s not about asking my wife to help me get stronger. It’s about Larry, looking inside and figuring out what do I need to do to get stronger. So then I can hold her hand in public, so I can lie next to her and spoon so I can, I can have deep conversations with her, right so I can get conflict. So my stick is when I see conflict, I run the other way. whatsoever. So I had to learn how to be stronger. So I can stand in my own right, during our conflict, and that’s intimacy. But only after I look at myself, I can’t ask her to help me through that. Yes, I am weak as a human, no question about it. But the question is, what do I need to do to be stronger? Not perfect. Not the strongest in the world. Not always vulnerable and always do it right. But what I need to develop to get that strength so I can be more vulnerable. If I rely on her. It my tip, my experience is that if I rely on her, it increases the conflict.

23:44
Hmm, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I do hear you. I am. Oh, tell me. Yeah, so I’m just curious because I know that there’s an element of, of emotionally disrobing, right of being free with yourself that allows you to have a joyful existence together, fully unified, fully connected. In a good sense, rather than an dependence sense, I guess. But um, so there’s an element of for example, I’ll just tell on myself, because I like to do that in this podcast. Um, so I have been an overeater, emotional eater for so much of my life and bulimia when I was in college and things like that, but luckily, I’ve got so much more freedom than I’ve ever had in my life, but even up two years ago, even up two months ago, maybe the last year or last year or whatever, I would over eat and emotionally and It wasn’t until I, like, you know, would get to a place where I’d be like, Honey, I just ate all the Cheetos again. And it’s vulnerable. It’s annoying, it’s annoying that he has to live with me and I’m a slob or whatever. Um, but a sharing connects me and actually helped me to him not judging me and making me feel less than or smaller all that actually gave me so much more power to get to a healthier place.

25:39
Right. So then you do your work at realizing the bag of Cheetos is not good for you. You do that independently from him? Right? And then you think I’d really like some support around this. So you become disrobed. And you use you put it out on the table for your husband. Your husband responds and caught, he doesn’t tell you what to do. He does, maybe rubs you back. Maybe he just listens, maybe shakes his hand like we’re shaking our head. Yeah. purposeful intent for him to listen, and to be there for you. Right? All’s well with the world that works. That works tremendously. The process you just described happens at times, though, is that if I eat that bag of Cheetos, and I go to hurt my wife for support, and she goes, God, how come you keep doing that? We’ve talked about this a million times. That’s oftentimes right. Yeah, I tried to solve it for you, then you’ve got that conflict. In that in in that you’ve shared a vulnerability, but you feel slighted or hurt by sharing that audibility. Now you’ve got to go back in yourself and figure out, alright, what do I do? What’s my next step here? Do I talk to him about how we communicated? And how it didn’t work to me? Do I realize that this is one area, I can’t rely on my husband and I need to develop a community around me, you know, I need to do if I don’t get what I need from him. So again, the scenario you just painted? Is the dependency that worked? Gotcha. Not an issue, not a problem. When you go to him, and it doesn’t work, then you’ve got the conflict. Is that deeper, and you need to do you figure out, you know, and you know, it’s not all about being vulnerable. There are times when we need to be vulnerable, entitled, do we not do not need to be vulnerable? I mean, you. Here’s a family therapist, her name was Olga Silverstein. And she said, sometimes you just got to know how to give the pointer finger. And she’s the pointer finger is That’s enough. Not about being vulnerable. So let’s say hypothetically, you want to cheat you eat Cheetos, you go to him and you say to him, honey, this is what I did. I feel really bad. I feel empty. I feel shamed. I feel guilty. And he goes, Well, how come and you go, that’s enough. I can’t go there. That’s not what I need. I need something else from you. See, so you’ve got all the ability to being somewhat slapped with that to a position of strength and you might have to like give it a day or so to really think about it and then approach it again. But it’s sometimes it’s important to put that that that pointer finger out go no, no, no, no. That’s not what this is built. That’s not what I want. Yeah, good. And

28:40
I yeah, I love it. I love it and and here’s what I’m couple pieces I wanted to pull out from that is you’re saying that it’s essentially you’re defining what’s working by like, did it work in the relationship? Well, that example it did it is working there’s that that was a safe place to be vulnerable. The dependency is working out we are growing separately. I did do some work on my own part. He did his own work on his own part. We grow together now I don’t over eat any Cheetos anyway, you know, there’s that right. Um, but the other thing I really liked that you said is there was a stark break between her vulnerability, his negative response and her saying, I that’s not what I need right now, then a break, maybe couple days right before going back to that that view

29:35
because that what that break does is the conflict, all conflict comes from dependency. But not all dependency creates conflict. So the dependency you just talked about it not create the conflict. But but if you go to the person and they don’t give what you need, you’re being dependent on them to give it to you. Right? And so you may need a day or so to take that step back to pull yourself together to get yourself whole not not to ruminate about him not to complain about him not to go to people and say, Oh, I can’t believe my husband, such distract me. Really get a distance. Right? So you can pull yourself together in a whole stance. So then you can go back to him and approach him in a way that stronger. Yeah. Around that vulnerability.

30:26
Yeah, I love it. Okay, so I’m curious, you mentioned this very important phrase, all conflict comes from dependency.

30:40
Absolutely.

30:42
Trying to think about that. I’m sure you’ve got a million examples. If I were to try to argue with you and say, No, I haven’t thought it through. But if I were to say no, what is your response?

30:55
I would like you to say that, okay, no, we don’t like to think that we’re dependent people. Nobody likes the word dependency. Just like they don’t like the word victim. You know, it couples. It’s the one word, there’s two words I never ever use, because I’ve learned that once you bring up dependency, they go knock me off, I’m strong, I get work, I make money, I can raise kids, I can do it all. Don’t tell me I’m dependent. So that whole idea of dependency really rubs people wrong. So they don’t see it in that light. They usually just see it. One, either the other person’s problem, or they criticize self. That’s the two options we mostly use. Slides husband for night given to me criticize myself that maybe I wasn’t asking, right, or maybe I need to be stronger, maybe this. So we go into this judgmental critical piece of other and self as opposed to seeing it for what it really is. I mean, look at politics. Look at the conflict around politics. The mean spirited means the anger, the the attacking, the criticisms, the biting, all that is dependency, I mean, right is dependent on what they’re dependent on the left is dependent on what they’re dependent on the middle is dependent on, everybody has a picture of the way we want it to be. And when it’s not like that, we just go. And we get in this huge conflict, as opposed to I was reading an article just the other day, by a man I can’t remember his name. 52 years old, he he was a seal in the Navy. And he just went back to Yale University to get a degree undergraduate 52 years old, wow, he talks about having been a very opinionated, political patriot. I mean, anybody said, an inch off of patriotism, he was on him, he was on him like you couldn’t even imagine. And so he goes into this liberal kind of setting. And he finds that people are kind to him, they’re decent, really appreciate his service. You know, they’re patriotic in their own way kind of thing. And he’s in his group at one point. And one of the women says, I really appreciate a safe space, a safe place. And he leaves and goes, and that’s just liberal hog manure, right safe place. But then as he drills down, he realized that what she meant a safe place is to have dialogue with differing opinions, viewpoints, personal perspectives, and building bridges between those that that’s being independent. The arguing viciousness, the attacking, we don’t see it, but that is at the root of that is actually dependency, you don’t see it my way, I need you to see it. Anytime we depend on somebody else to do something, or our well being either agree with us, or come our way or do whatever, that’s dependency. And so what he’s learned is that it’s not so much to be, it’s not so important to be dogmatic, or right, or being control. It’s more important to build bridges. And one of the things he says at the end, he says, I’m learning how to build brick by brick by brick. And this guy who’s so far out of the mainstream of what you would expect from Yale University freshmen and sophomores. But he understands that they’re not there to be right either the people he’s hanging with, they are there to bridge that gap. And that’s politics. But again, the the basis of that is the dependency we have.

34:47
Okay, so here’s what I’m hearing there is something along the lines of the dependent is my self worth is dependent on you agreeing with me or my emotions is dependent on the people liking me or theirs. That’s what it is. It’s something about me is depending on x y&z Right, is that right?

35:13
Right. And we don’t often look at it that we don’t often see that that’s what we’re doing. Because so culturally, we see it on the news. And we see it in our relationships, and you see it relationship books, and you see it in movies, and you just, and we just never take the time to go, Oh, my God, this is what I’m doing. Why am I so angry at her? Because she’s not giving me what I think I want or what I need? Uh huh. That’s dependency.

35:40
So it may beg the question at some point of, I’m sure you don’t think all conflict is wrong? Oh, no,

35:49
not at all. That’s what helps us grow. It’s the conflict, see when I do conflict with my wife, and I can take that step back, and do the self growth and then step back into the relationship I’ve grown. That’s a healthy conflict. I carry around resentment, and anger and withdrawal. I mean, you think about loneliness. I mean, there’s no place lonelier than being in a relationship with somebody. And the reason we’re lonely is because we don’t come up to the plate back away, we don’t, we get hopeless about it. And we usually get hopeless because we think the other person is not going to do what they need to do. I think that’s what that’s about. So yeah, I think conflicts Phantom, I hate it. I, I am so conflict averse, you cannot even believe it. My first reaction anytime my wife, and I keep a conflict. I didn’t want to run out the door, I swear it just it just my instinct. Because I came from a very abusive relationship. My dad beat me up, my mom used to scream and yell at me all the time. And so if anything happens, that comes close to conflict, I just want to run. But I know that if I hang in there, and do this process that we’ve talked about, I’m going to be better, she’s going to be better. And our relationship is going to be deeper, more intimate, more loving, and more companionship.

37:21
I love that. Well give us if you could think of some you know, if we can maybe say three top guidelines of healthy conflict, what would you say? What can you so maybe some top your most important rules to make sure your your conflict is healthy, it’s healthy. Mm hmm.

37:44
So in one rule, is to realize that in intimate relationships, you very seldom ever resolve anything.

38:01
They’ll be three or four key issues like the money, power, being late going to sleep together sexuality, you know, this big topic, right. And what we do is we enter conflict as a way of solving that if I act a certain way, and she acts a certain way that will be good and done. And that’ll be the end. Right? So one rule is not to look at conflict as being resolvable. It’s looking at conflict as evolving the conflict. So I gave you an example of going to sleep together, right? Most of time, it’s not a problem. But there are days, right, where my wife may stay up for a week and a half, and I go to sleep. And I’m starting to feel it again. And I need to rise to the occasion again, but that the communication between the two of us doesn’t look now, what it looked like 10 years ago, what it looked like 20 years ago, what it looked like 35 years ago, we have evolved the conflict, which means we have evolved our relationship. And we have evolved that individually as well. And the intimacy between the two of us. So my first rule, forget it, you’re not all of it, but evolve it because I can tell you a quick story. My my mom and I used to art and my mom and dad used to argue a lot about the way he ate. I mean, he hardly we didn’t have a lot of money grew up but he she would buy sometimes Delmonico steak and back then down Monika steak was it right like once in a blue moon, and she gave it to him and he go into the refrigerator, and he dad and he get a bottle of ketchup and he douse it on and they’d be off and running. It’d be this like huge argument and eventually he had a heart attack. You know, she was really on top of him. So two days before he died. He’s in the hospital room. He has his had cancer and prostate cancer wasn’t treatable back then. So he’s about half his weight. He must have been 7080 pounds. I mean, he was just a skeleton of a man. And he’s lying there. And they have this hospital food, the dinner up on this tray that crosses the bed. And he’s eaten just about everything, except that there’s this pukey green bowl of jello that I wouldn’t have eaten. It just looks so horrible. It had specks in it all kinds of stuff. The woman comes into the dinner, and my mother picks up the jello. And she puts it on the table in front of them. And she in a really loving way. She says to him, hi. He can eat the jello. And he goes in a little stronger voice, she says, Hi, you’re going to eat the jello. And a little stronger voice my father goes, I’m not eating the jello. She takes the spoon, dipped it into the jello. And she says you’re eating the job. And with as much energy not see my father and musk. He pumps up in bed sits up because I’m not even a jar. Don’t leave me alone and his plot back. And I’m looking at this. I’m going, Oh my God, he’s dying. Leave him alone for God’s sake. I could not comprehend what’s happening between just income. So two days later, he got you guys the figures somewhere between five and seven o’clock in the morning. They wait until about nine or 10 o’clock before they call my mother. They call my mother She’s upset. She needs my nephew to come get her. So she says can you keep him in the room, so I can come see him. Right. So he’s in the room and she gets here about new. Now you can imagine my father looks like death. You can imagine pale faced, blood has just drained from his extremities and from his face, his eyes are probably in his cheekbones or out. And she says to me, she says Larry, I walked into your father’s room. And I looked at him. And he looked as handsome as the first day I met him when I went over, and I kissed him on the lips. And I said hi, I will never love another man like I love you. And she walked out the door. And she tells me the story for years. So I could not reconcile what I’ve seen two days before, and the love she had for him when he died. And that’s because they never solved the eating problem. But it was a conflict that only the two of them had, it was part of their intimacy. She didn’t give a shit what we ate.

42:51
We used to eat Oreos for breakfast before. But she was an argument that only the two of them had. And they make the commitment to continue that argument even to the death. So that’s one of the rules. You’re not going to solve certain things in a relationship. But you can evolve them over a period of time. And as you evolve them and haven’t had made the commitment to those those issues. That’s a part of the bond and the true love that you have between two people. If that makes any sense.

43:30
Oh, powerful. That’s That’s awesome. Absolutely. i That is awesome.

43:36
Yeah. Took me years to figure it out. But I got it. It is

43:40
awesome. That is so powerful. That’s, that is so wise. I think it’s really good. You’re doing this work.

43:53
This is awesome. That’s why I appreciate you having me on. Because I really want to get this word out. I you know, I just think that this is the way to go about relationships as opposed to buying a lot of the mistake that people buy. Yeah, the other piece of conflict I would give as a rule is never

44:10
Yes. Never compromise. Yeah, tell me more. That’s important. Let’s hear it.

44:15
Like my wife and I go into sleep compromises and legal thing, right? I give up something that I don’t want to give up. You give up something you don’t want to give up. That’s the seed for Miss trust. Because if I give it up, I’m gonna watch you to make sure you do in your part. And you got to watch me to make sure I’m doing my part. So it really doesn’t accomplish anything. Generally speaking, in most situations, particularly long term conflict issues, it’s not going to do that. You’re just you’re not conflict, to me, is a shortcut to doing the real work we need to do in relationship. You know, like when I when my wife and I three days early, three days late kind of thing. I didn’t Want to go to sleep late, and she didn’t want to come to sleep early. I mean, it’s like we didn’t want to do it. So we continue to hash it out over 35 years. And it becomes part of our intimacy and our deep love for one another. And that’s the second rule that I would say, you just don’t compromise. It’s, it’s an easy legal fix that doesn’t work in relationships, or in work relationships, or in friendships or extended family. It just doesn’t work, to have the ability to stand in your own self, and do the conflict in a decent way. I’m not talking about abusive or domineering, or controlling, but doing conflict in a decent way, like we’ve been talking about just murders everybody, as opposed to trying to compromise doesn’t further anybody. So that’s another one, I would say.

45:52
Okay, so Oh, this is so good. Okay, so let me just say it restated to make sure I’m catching it. Um, so never compromise. In a, you’re having the conversations in a respectful, decent, low tone, we’re not screaming, we’re not arguing and in giant emotional bouts, we’re taking breaks when we need to, to make sure that we’re respectful of each other. But, um, what that does, here’s the here’s the piece, I guess I want to say is that gives us if you’ve been doing the work, right, I guess, and you’ve been doing this conflict, well, when you’re not compromising, you’re doing your work, cell phone reflecting, recognizing you need to grow in your ways. And then you trust that she’s going to do she or he you know, your spouse is going to do their work. And so, you have so often here’s, here’s what I’m guessing you’re where you’re going with this? Is that the right? Kind of, you’re going to move in a good direction. So it’s not like you have to feel like somebody’s winning or losing because somebody is growing. Right? What is it? Tell me? Is that? Yeah, right.

47:25
Yeah. I don’t trust that my wife will do what I want her to do. What are her part of this? I can’t do that, because I got her too much in my head. Yep. Personal Growth is my personal growth and conflict. So I’ve got to stay pretty much centered and grounded in myself in order to do that. But I trust that if she doesn’t do which, what I want her to do, I will then be able to go back to myself, and figure out what else I need to do, and then step back in the relationship. And when she doesn’t, and I’ll continue to do that over and over and over again. Now, if the discrepancy gets too big, if if I have grown, let’s say we meet at on a look at it as a growth scale from zero to 100. Zero being we’re a little babies, and we’re totally dependent 100 being totally independent, which is impossible. But we meet people that on very similar scale as ourselves. We don’t believe it, but it’s true. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be with somebody, you know, I look at my wife, sometimes I go on much more mature than she is. Right? So what happens is that if I grow to a 60, or 70, and she stays at a 50, our relationships not going to work out. Just not going to work out. And I think there’s two ways that people leave relationships when they break off relationships, and when they grow out of relationships. In our 25th year of marriage, my wife and I separated for 15 months, it was brutal. It was it connected. We talked, we went to therapy, we did what we needed to do, but we were just so entrenched in our own stick, and we couldn’t get out of that. So we needed to separate for this 15 months. We got back together we had a better relationship than we’d ever had before. Because we needed that distance to do that individual work. One of us had grown to the point where the other wasn’t moving. I like to say it was me she liked her, regardless, was

49:30
that conflict has continued to evolve.

49:37
Iraq was we had we were growing apart, but we said we needed to be apart. But we continue to do the work we needed to do and we got back together. We’ve been together ever since. And

49:51
do you think people can do that work without physically separating?

49:56
Oh, absolutely. No question about it. Again, I’m calling Click the verse, you know, something is not working for a period of time and I get frustrated, I just want to leave. And that’s what I did. I won’t do it again, and it’s done the arts now, I learned what it’s like to hash it out to stay engaged to make the commitment, and to learn the value to myself, value to my relationship and the value to my wife as well. This is not about being selfish by any stretch of the imagination, you’re working out what you need to work out in relation to the other person. It’s a commitment to the other person, not being selfish. Selfish is not doing the work, you know, just take care of yourself is not necessarily what you need to do. It’s about the separate self reflection to what you need to do. So yeah, I’m a believer that people can work this out without separating. Absolutely correct. Absolutely. I just, I was too stupid not to. And I think part of it was I was still, I still was carrying around a virus. I mean, had viruses are pretty silently deadly. You know, it messed up my liver. It made me depressed, I was tired and needed a nap nap. So just, I was fuzzy. I wasn’t clear. I, I couldn’t have had this conversation 10 years ago, it just wow. So it was it was that kind of thing that I just needed to get distance from, I just didn’t have the ability to do it. But stepping back into it and being cured. I had clarity of mind, and I could do what I needed to do.

51:25
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So so one thing I wanted to ask you about is usually what happens after conflict or in conflict is we criticize the other person or we criticize ourselves. I want to ask you what, how do we instead of criticizing ourselves move into this analyzing ourselves? It seems like there’s you don’t want to be critical of yourself, but you want to observe yourself, right? independently? Or how do you how do you make sure you’re not self critical, and instead, you’re being productive in that space?

52:02
Well, I’ve had a lot of practice, so and I’ve been a therapist for 40 years.

52:08
So we have to do that in order to

52:15
a world of therapists so last thing I’d want to see. Good, okay. There’s a myriad ways of doing this. You can have close confidants that you trust, you can go into therapy, your yourself, your self help books, about how to grow yourself, self help books about critical illness and being judgmental. They’re spiritual pieces. And Christianity that Judaism is Buddhism, there’s, you know, there’s a lot of different ways that we can work the answer the answer, oddly enough, we already have. And but we have to get enough distance from ourselves to see it. Like I was sitting with a woman today. And we were talking about her relationship with her husband. And she went, ah, Aha, I got it. I just had an aha moment. She says, I want to end the session, I don’t want to go any further. that aha moment only came from our discourse. And I wasn’t telling her what to do. It was just this general conversation that was moving along, she was challenging me a little bit, I’ll challenging her, and she boom, it hit her. And it’s that kind of thing. It’s like one of the ways of doing this is that when you’re reading, even novels, but self help books, or whatever you reading, and you come across a word or sentence or a concept, and you must have happened happens to me all the time must have happened to you, where you go, Ah, yeah, that point you stop. Because that’s what you need to work on. That’s your brain telling you, ooh, this is worthwhile, me spending a few days on. And so what I do is, and David Brooks is a New York Times editor also says that what you do is that you, you, you practice, you keep something in your head for a period of time, and you practice it and you practice it and you practice it. And sometimes you slip and sometimes you’re better than other times, but it’s about making that commitment to self to practice what that ah, and usually that ah, is non judgmental, and not critical. I went to a talk once with Richard Bach, he wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull and the love story. This was this is back in my ear, like back in the 60s kind of thing. And one of the things he said he says when he has a problem, he poses the problem in his mind, and he goes to his library, and he picks up a book and he starts reading and within a half an hour, he’s got the answer. Just getting it out. But those kinds of answers that you get either from friends, and it’s not about a friend telling you what to do. Because trust me My buddy’s got opinions all over the place, right? Some of my closest buddies are the last people I’d ever go to. So for me, I’ve got a couple good buddies that I can go to. And I can say, hey, look, I’m jammed up, and I need some help. You got a Friday night or Saturday, I can meet you for lunch or something. And I’ll go to them, and we’ll talk about it. And that helps me tease it out. Critical Illness is harsh. It’s, it’s, it’s depressing. It’s anxiety producing. It’s, it’s it’s mean spirited to self. And once you do, once you make a commitment to this journey, so to speak, you can distinguish between what’s critical, and what’s insightful, but it takes work to do it.

55:46
Awesome. Well, here’s one thing I want to circle back. And I know we’re running on time, but I want to ask you real quick, this metaphor of how, I guess growth or something, people are, whether they’re at 50, or 70, or where they are. Um, I wonder if having that in your head as you’re doing conflict, and as you’re processing and growing and these kinds of things. I think that would give me kind of like this. Maybe concern that, you know, oh, my gosh, are we are we spreading too far apart? Maybe this means I should be getting divorced, or it’s that fear of this. Whereas if I was just like, I’m going to do my part, I’m going to do the best I can. And if he comes, he can come. But if he doesn’t, I’m going to just enjoy what he does give the jello he does eat.

56:45
Right? Tell me what

56:47
you think about that.

56:49
So the way growth works, in my experience is that the same were both of 50. And I decided to become to 55. That’s going to create conflict in and of itself, people read, particularly the closer you are to somebody, you can sense a change, you can sense a growth, you can sense a movement in the other person. A lot of times if one spouse goes in individual therapy, that will scare the heck out of the other spouse, because they know they’re going to be talking about him or they’re going to be changing. Or they can do this, that and the other thing, so it’s scary. And that creates conflict. I just lost you. But he’s still there. Yeah. Okay. So can we keep doing this? Yeah, yeah,

57:29
you’re good. Keep going. Yeah.

57:30
So. So what happens is, I grow to 55. And my wife stays at 50. And that creates a certain conflict. What happens at that point is and what happens a lot of people because of exactly what you’re saying, though, your of loss of relationship. That’s why most of us don’t do this. That’s why most of us won’t grow. That’s why most of us don’t do conflict, because we’re afraid the other person not going to like us in they will ultimately leave rather be in business or work or intimacy, intimate relationships, or family or whatever it happens to be. The bottom line is it’s a psychological death of the relationship that we’re scared of. And so as I moved to 55, and she has a problem with that, and creates conflict, sometimes I’ll go, Okay, forget it. I’ll come back to 50. Yeah, right. And we’re miserable. And I know couples like that who’ve been together 3040 years, and they’re absolutely miserable with each other. It just doesn’t work at all. Because they’ve got they’ve, they’ve maintained what we call homeo status, the same place and they’re not moving. The other thing that can happen is that one person moves to 55 and then do a 60. conflict happens. But the person at the 50 goes, well, I have a much choice here. I can leave or I can go with them. And I’m going to go with them. So that person grows. That’s the process. My wife and I have taken over 35 years. It is never that two people grow at the same time. It doesn’t happen. We lead relationships to health. We don’t join into health, if that makes Well, people’s growth. The third scenario, is that good was 6070 she stays at 50 and we grow apart.

59:17
So Larry, here’s what I think. I think you’re in my conflict here is just not going to be resolved. And I’m not going to be able to compromise so there we are.

59:30
I think I think that’s perfect cuz I feel close to you. I mean, I’ve been conversation forever. Oh, man.

59:40
I had a great time. Well tell us Larry, tell us where our friends and family on dy M can, can can find you your book, that kind of thing. Because I’m sure they’re gonna want to learn more.

59:53
I have a website. It’s independent enough calm, which is the name of the book independent enough and you can go there you can download the book for free, or you can go on Amazon. And you can download it there. Or you can buy it there both on audio and in paperback as well. So you can do that i There’s also, I write a weekly blog. And that’s accessible through the website as well. And if people want to notice, they can just fill in the contact sheet. And I said, after I write the blog, and it’s up for a day, I send out a notification all the people who want me who want to be notified of the blog, so they can follow it on a weekly basis. And it’s, it’s the personal stories that I’ve just told, and but yeah, learning at the same time, and I think people generally know they share a lot, they give it to other people, they tell me they really enjoy it. So that’s another way of being in touch. The other way is I give speaking, I do a lot of speaking and if somebody wants me to come speak, they there’s a, there’s a page for speaking, engagements that they can sign and we can have a conversation about that. So those are basically the ways for listening to podcasts like yours. Awesome website as well. There’s person houses, radio spots, there’s all kinds of stuff.

1:01:07
Awesome. Awesome. Well, Larry, thank you so much. This has been really fantastic. Really appreciate

1:01:12
it. Very welcome. And thank you, you are a tremendous host. You’re terrific. People, your your your way up. There really are. So the opportunity.

1:01:26
My pleasure, thank you. Awesome, thank you so much, Larry, that was so good. I hope that you the listener have really enjoyed the conversation and gotten a lot out of it. I know that I have and just thinking about it after the conversation has been really helpful. So okay, well, in terms of coming up at the end of January, I would love for you to join me live on a webinar series if you’ve never attended one before. It’s a real treat. And people have told me even years later that that was a catalytic webinar. It was a catalytic moment for their marriage to really change things and I really am hoping and praying that it is for you as well. So you can go to www dot delight your marriage.com/renew 2020 and again, the website. The webinar series is called New Year. Renewed connection, deeper loving relationship and true intimacy. All right, God bless you. Thank you again so much. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. We’ll talk soon. Bye